Elder Lange is headed to the mountains of Payson!

This week has been super crazy. We found a new investigator.  A member gave us a referral. Saturday we went and saw her to set something up. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her if she gets around to it you can read it but we will explain it a lot more in our first lesson. Well she ended up coming to church the next day. We saw her on Tuesday and had a lesson with her. She had already read the Title page, the Introduction, all the witnesses and part of first Nephi. She couldn't see the words on the copy we gave her so she downloaded it on her computer and figured out how to use it on that. She is on fire! We had a lesson with her put her on date. She is so awesome. We also had a really good lesson on Thursday with her. She's gonna get baptized soon! 

Well in between our awesome lessons with her we had a temple trip! It was super awesome! The temple is the best. It's been a really long time since we have been too so it was good. We went with our zone. It was pretty stinkin good. Well the next day we had a ZTM. We talked a lot about faith and the love for our Savior. It was the best ZTM I've had so far on my mission. 

We also got transfer news this week. I'm being transferred back up to the mountains. It super sad leaving these comps. I really loved them and we worked super hard and our work is finally starting to pay off. We got like 10 referrals this week and like 4 people on date. This is arguably one of the hardest areas in the mission so it's hard to just see all the work gone. I'm going to Payson to train. It should be pretty good but I'm not going to be a zone leader anymore. I'm just a normal missionary. It's kinda hard. I feel like I did something wrong to not be a zone leader anymore but I'm sure this is where the Lord needs me. 

Having this week has made me think a lot. It been super crazy with spiritual highs and spiritual lows. Along with everything in between. But I've thought a lot about it and all I can think about it gratitude for everything I've been given and everything I have. So many times in life we can go through these spiritual high and spiritual lows and it just depends on which way we turn when the lows come. If we turn to Christ everything will work out, but way too often people try to do the right thing and their life isn't going "according to plan". I've heard way too many times on my mission "why should I try to live the gospel when it's so hard and when I start living it everything seems to go wrong". I've thought a lot about that this week. Why try and be a good missionary and try to stay exactly obedient and work hard when it doesn't go my way anyways. My heart and mind are brought back to the Savior every time. I know the Lord has a plan for me and I don't want to mess it up. The Lord has literally given us everything we have and all he asks is that we love him. Showing our love is hard sometimes but always worth it in the end. I know the love of my Savior and it's what keeps me afloat. Just keep going. The Lord is there to pick you up even when everything seems to be going wrong. If you're trying your hardest to follow Christ, you are headed in the right direction.

We are here to grow and become better!!

It was a super good week this week. We picked up 2 new solid investigators. One was being taught by some other missionaries and they wanted to come to our Ward so they handed her over to us. She is a little 9 year old. She's super awesome. Her name is Vanity and she has an 8 year old brother named Leon. They were both at church and both had the biggest smiles on their faces. They were super happy to be there and it was awesome. The other is super nice. She is in her 60s. She is the sister of a member in one of our wards. She already feels like a member. You know those people that just feel like members and just have a good personality, well that's her. She is awesome and she also came to church. 

Well we had a General Authority come to our mission this week too. Elder Zaballos. He and his wife are super cool. One story that he told was when he was living in Chile. He lived near the coast and there was a hill in the back of his our. One of his kids really wanted to climb the hill and would ask his dad every day. But much like Arizona the sun was hot and not worth climbing in the day. He told his son if he really wanted to climb it he would have to wake up early so they could hike it before it got too hot. Well sure enough his son woke up bright and early and they climbed this hill in the morning. When they got to the top of the hill, to their surprise they found another larger and taller hill beyond the one they just climbed. They were not able to see this bigger hill from their home because of the view and angle they were looking from. His son wanted to climb the next one and he told him they would do it a different day. Well they got back home and he asked them what they had learned from the hike. One of his sons said that he learned they found another hill behind the other one. He explained that this was a good lesson to learn. Sometimes we have to do hard things in our lives to get to the next level and find a high altitude. He applied it to life and finding new view that we can strive to achieve. Sometimes we have to climb a hill to find the next one that's even higher. We are only here to grow and become better so do it! Love you all and strive to achieve new altitudes in your life. 

Daring to eat a scorpian

Family Photo:  I trained Elder Shaw (bottom right).  He trained Elder Guebler (bottom left). Now Elder Shaw is training again, elder Hales (top right) and elder Guebler is training 2 missionaries. (Top left and middle). Elder Pendleton and Elder England.  I'm a great Granddad now. Super cool! 

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