Don't be a TURKEY!

This week was super good. Conference was super awesome! There was a lot of good stuff talked about. I think my favorite was President Uchtdorf in the priesthood session and President Eyrings about Joy. Both were really good. Well now that we listened to conference we need to not be like turkeys. We talked about turkeys this week in conference. So let me tell ya a little story. There was this group of turkeys and one knew how to fly. His name we will just call Fred. Now Fred wanted everyone to learn how to fly so he started teaching all the other turkeys. The turkeys worked really hard and tried to fly for hours. Finally they learned how to fly. After learning to fly they flew everywhere. They soared to new heights, and went to places they have never experienced before, new views and loved what they had just learned. Well in the end they thanked Fred, had a closing prayer and walked home. Don't be a turkey. There was a lot of good stuff talked about this conference. Do something with that knowledge. It wasn't meant to just up lift us for the day or even the week but actually change our lives. Take what you learned and change your life. Become closer to Christ. Love you all!  

Elder Lange

Power In The Book

So we had an awesome experience this week. We were driving by a house that we have been trying to get into for a while. I saw some one out side and told Elder Mangus to hurry and pull over so we can go talk to him. We got out and walked over there and he wasn't outside anymore but we knocked on the door to see if he would answer. They answered and we went in. It was him and his girl friend who are both less active. We talked about their life and where they were at with religion. They were both pretty set with where they were at. We talked about the Book of Mormon and testified of the truthfulness of it. We left one with them just in case they wanted to read it. And left our number in it. We could tell they needed some peace in their life and promised them that if they wanted peace in their life they could find it through the Book of Mormon. Like it says in the introduction. They both said they probably wouldn't read it but we left it anyways. Well after dinner we got a call from her saying we needed to come back. She was in a rough part in her life and needed our help. Well we went back and she opened up more. She asked for a blessing and it was super good. It was cool to see the power of the Book of Mormon. Even just testifying of it, they can feel the power. The Book of Mormon is true and all 3 of us have a strong testimony of it.

Skinny Tie Gang

Burden Baskets...Leave your burdens at the door

Hey everyone. The mission is super good. This week was super busy. We only had 3 days of proselyting. The rest was a bunch of meetings. We have a bunch more meetings coming up too. We have zone conference this Thursday. A mission tour from a General Authority and a temple trip coming up. But anyways we had stake conference yesterday. Our Stake President talked about Native American burden baskets. So Natives used to carry around baskets to pick berries and fruit and things and then bring them home but they never brought the baskets inside their homes. They wanted to leave the burdens of the world outside the door. Well he told us that we need to leave our burdens at the door. Any burdens that are making our basket heavy, that we have been carrying around for a while. Or any burden that needs to be taken care of. Even if you've been carrying it for years. Let the atonement take care of your burdens. The atonement is very real and can fix everything. We all have burdens we need to leave with Christ. Whether it be jealously, anger, unrepentant sins, etc. I have a very strong testimony of the atonement. Not just being forgiven of our sins but the enabling power of the atonement too. Christ can help us and give us the strength to get through anything. So choose today to leave your burdens at he door. Love you all and always turn towards Christ. 

Elder Lange

Workin as a trio!

Well everyone this week has been super good. We have had so many lessons! It's so nice have a trio. We have a lesson scheduled with someone so we drop them off with a member and have them be their comp and then the other two go out knockin doors or trying to visit I've probably had more lessons this week than any other week in my mission. Well we also put someone on date this week too. She just had her son die so she has been having a hard time lately but we went back over and she said "My family isn't going to be happy with my decision but I don't care. I want to be Mormon because I know it's true" now it's just a matter of teaching her and getting her ready for baptism. She has two grandsons that live with her and they haven't sat in on the lessons yet but both of them came to church all dressed up in whites we dropped them off. They stayed all three hours but we couldn't be there because my comp has pink eye and didnt want to give it to everyone. It's been a super good week though. Hopefully we can just keep up the pace. Miracles happen when you you believe that it can happen. 

Elder Shaw is training again so the 2 on the left are my grand sons. The one in middle left is training and get his comps today. So I became a great grand dad today! 

(In mission terms. Order of training)

Frontier of Faith!

Wow it's been a crazy two weeks! Sorry I missed writing everyone last week. So I'll just tell ya about some of the major things that happened. We had MLC. That's was super crazy. It was like a personal General Conference. We had a general authority come down and talk to us. Elder Pearson. He talked a lot about faith and getting to the next level as a missionary. He explained it as a graph. On the x axis is effort/diligence and on the y axis is attitude/attributes. Some times as missionaries we have a good attitude towards the work and want to do good just have no effort behind it. Or we might have a lot of effort and then it hits 110+ and all of out diligence goes away. Then on the same graph, just a little bit out is what he called the frontier of faith. Beyond the frontier of faith is where all the miracles lie. Too often as missionaries we stop ourselves before we can get beyond the frontier of faith. So he talked about get to the next level as a missionary and getting passed the frontier of faith. So that was super good. Then we had to have a ZTM and train our zone on it. That was super hard. We had to try and make a meeting as good as a general authority. Just doesn't quite measure up, but it was super good. We gave a 30 minute training and an hour training. That is probably my least favorite part about being a missionary is giving training's and I have to give an hour long one at least every month and then some in between for district meetings and things. Well later this week we put 3 people on date! It was super awesome. Especially since we haven't had a person on date in about 7 weeks! But later that week we got transfer news. The mission is changing a lot. Lots of weird stuff happening and tons of people training. I also got transferred! Super lame! I was kind of mad. I'm going back to my last area with Elder Mangus and we are going to be training. It should be a pretty good transfer though. 

We have been eating in and out so much they gave us hats. People just take us out all the time and give us gift cards to go there 

Training our zone

Elder Lange eating with a familiar face

Deven Grange was down in Phoenix this week for work and he and Alec finally connected and he was able to take Elder Lange and his companion out to dinner.

This is a snapchat I (Alec's mom) got from Deven 

Elder Lange, Deven Grange, Elder Carlsen

Stand Ye In Holy Places

Well this week was pretty good! We are have another MLC Friday,tbecause we are having an area Seventy come down. It should be pretty good. Well he highlight of my week was Friday night. We went over to a less active family house. Well we had dinner with them and just talked about the gospel. It's the mom, a son and a daughter. Well at the end we shared a message and talked about doing the simple things in life like church, prayer, read can really go a long way. Well pretty soon they started opening up and they started telling us why they didn't want to go to church and why life was so hard. They felt like God had kind of abandoned them. Well my companion had the prompting to ask if they wanted blessing. They all wanted some. So we gave them blessing a it was just super powerful. They were all crying by the end and thanked us so much. Well after all the blessings were given we gathered in the living room and kneeled in humble prayer. It was one of my best experiences in the mission field. It makes me grateful that I could be called upon by the Lord to act in his name. I wasn't expecting to do that and would of felt so bad if I wasn't worthy to act. Always stand worthy to act when the Lord calls. It says in Alma 8:18. Now it came to pass that after Alma had received his message from the angel of the Lord he returned speedily to the land of Ammonihah. And he entered the city by another way, yea, by the way which is on the south of the city of Ammonihah. I love how it talks about acting speedily. The Lord told him to act and he did. No second thought, no delay, no hesitation just doing the will of the Lord. Always be ready and worthy to be called upon and act in his name!