Love the Lord!

Hey everyone! Surprise! We had a p day on Wednesday because of transfers and new missionaries coming in. This will be every six weeks. I am still here in Snowflake and don't have a new companion either. So everything is going great for me. The thing i wanted to focus on this week is loving the Lord. I'm super new to this and really had no idea what to expect but Elder Meza was assigned to me and didn't care.

I'm here now and the best time to plant a tree is of course 20 years ago but the second best time to plant a tree is today. Thats what I'm doing now and I'm working with what I have. Elder Meza has been working us so hard and it has definitely been paying off but its super hard. Everyday I come home super tired and I'm just exhausted. Studies in the morning have  been really hard too, to have the desire. It was always me, me, me. I'm tired can't we not walk so fast or visit so many people. Then Elder Meza turned to me and said who do you love more, yourself or the Lord. Hit me super hard and I've been thinking about it a lot. Of course we are going to be tired but you don't think the Lord knows that? He watches out for you in everything you are doing and all I was worrying about was me. I wasn't thinking about the people I could bless or the families I could be helping. I came out here for a reason and I learned a lot this week that is wasn't for me. It wasn't for my family. It wasn't my ward. It was for the Lord and help bring everyone back to him. He sent me to this very place for a reason to do the best I could do. I thought I came out because I loved the Lord and wanted to do this for him but I've noticed how much I think about myself and the natural man takes over. My love for the Lord has grown so much in just this last week and I'm striving to be the best I can and serve him. I look back and think of all the things he has blessed me with. Any time anyone complains in our zone with other missionaries, everyone will just say I'm grateful. Holy cow that puts thinks into perspective. He has blessed us so much and there is really nothing we should be complaining about. We should be grateful for everything and don't stop to the look at the things we don't have or the things we "need". I love the Lord and I'm starting now to try my hardest to serve him in everything I do. I encourage all of you to do things for the Lord. Serve others, Mosiah 2:17. Do something everyday to serve the Lord and then pray to him in your nightly prayers and thank him for the opportunity to do so. You will see a change in your life and blessings will follow. I hope all of you take this commitment and just know that as much as I love you, the Lord loves you more! Love you all!!! Have a good week full of serving the Lord.

Love Elder Lange

What a day!

Well I guess here is a story for the week. We were driving out east to see an investigator that built his own house. He lives in a little shed thing that has tarps for the roof and is way ghetto. He is about 50 has huge eyes that kinda pop out of his head. He shaved his head in a mow-hawk/mullet thing. Hes kinda fat because his belly fills up with water and has a hernia so he has this huge lump on him too, it looks like an alien is living in him. The point is he look pretty scary and lives in a ghetto house but he is one of the funniest and coolest guys. He is supposed to get baptized on September 29th but just got surgery so we don't know if he will make that date. Anyway, its hard to get to his house anyway, but then its started rain. It gets super muddy so we were trying to get to his house as fast as we could. When it rains down here too you better watch out because everything turns into rivers. We got to his house and I knock and I heard him say something but you couldn't hear it but at the end i heard him say come in so I hopped in and shut the door behind me so I wouldn't get soaked. I turned around and saw him standing there naked. I was like oh I'm sorry and he was just like go back out to the truck. So I ran out there and told my companion because he stayed in the truck and was gonna come when the door was open. After about 10 minutes we went back in his house and started to teach a lesson. I told him I was sorry and he was like you should knock or something before you come in. About 5 minutes into the lesson his house pretty much started flooding and he doesn't have any towel so we were trying to use his clothes and then I knocked over his big pot of water that he was using for bath water. I looked back at him right when this happened and he put his head in his hands and said why is this happening to me. I felt soooo bad. First of all I saw him naked and now I'm flooding his "house". After we cleaned it up we went out side and tried to patch up some holes with some plastic he had. The rain drops were so big they were hurting so we stayed out as long as we could and then told him we were late for a lesson so we left after making a huge mess. We got in our truck and the road was about a foot deep river but that didn't stop us. We were determined to get to our next lesson, but we ran into a problem. We got to a part of the road that was about 3 feet deep. We started boon docking in the hills and sage brush but finally got back to a road we could drive on. We started speeding down the road going about 50 and we started fish tailing. After doing a couple fish tales we started spinning. I was waiting for us to hit something and crash but we some how stayed right in the middle of the road. We had a pretty bad trip up to Jay Westovers house but we are here and not hurt or stuck so I take it as a blessing in my life. Ill get a pic of his house and hopefully a pic of Jay and I will send it to you guys. I hope at least some of you laughed at this because even though it was rough the whole day we laughed about it for a super long time after we got home and we had a sleep over so I told every one in our area and they all loved it. It makes a pretty good story. Love all you guys! Try to spread the good word and be the best person you can be!

Love Elder Lange

Elder Lange in pictures...woohoo!!

(Alec's mom speaking) Well I didn't get a group email this week to put on the blog, but I did get some pictures, it looks like the perfect place for him.  I loved every picture except the last one!  You can scroll down to see why!  

 Fitting right in with his Arizona "attire" bolo tie and all.  

The Elders bedroom (it's pretty clean...whoa) 

Finding a replacement for Sadie, I won't let her see this! 

Their home

His new boots (I'm pretty sure he's more than excited about these) 

Elder Meza and Elder Lange!

(Elder Lange speaking) I did get punched by some drunk guy once but I didn't want to really tell anyone because I do love it. He just said he didn't like us and punched me so we left haha

***UPDATE*** (from Elder Lange the jokester)

I'm just kidding I just wanted to sound cool. I was weed eating
because we do a lot of service here and a piece on something went in
my eye and then I swelled up. I just wanted to have a cool story but
it's not really that cool haha

Best decision of my life.

This is one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Actually it is the best decision! The people around here are so great and there is so much work. A lot of the time we cant have our full personal and companionship study because there is so much work! But on our way we have a family of 5, a couple, 2 kids and single adult on date to get baptized. The thing I wanted to focus on this week was priorities and decisions. This week there was a huge festival and a rodeo and stuff. The plan was to either go contacting and try to find new people to teach at the rodeo or go out and teach people that we have already taught. The choice was really hard because I wanted to go to the rodeo so bad and watch it and talk to people along the way of course, but we went a taught a investigator instead. All the other missionaries were at the rodeo and when we went to see our investigator I was so sad we didn't get to go. But later on I realized what I had done and how much it helped the person. Most of the people at the rodeo we would have talked to probably wouldn't have been from our area and of course we probably would of just watched the rodeo. It wasn't the choice between bad or good but good and better. The choice for me was so hard to make. It wouldn't have been bad to go to the rodeo, our president even said we could go. The decision of going a teaching that night was hard but I've thought a lot about it and I'm so glad that I went and taught them. Choices come in our life and we think taking a good path over the harder but better one, will make our lives so much easier. The choices will always come but what we need to focus on, is who we want to become. I realized that I used my time to the best of my ability that night and things this week have been so much better. People don't fall through on their lessons and everything is just working so much better. My dad helped me a lot more than he thinks he did and he once told me after I made a choice he said "well at least it was better than doing that". He said well there is always something worse you can do. Everyone turns the choice of agency into something bad. They make a mistake and say well I have my agency, its my choice. No one ever really thinks how agency can be applied in a good way. Agency should always be applied in a positive way. I had the choice to go to church instead of thinking I had to go to church. Anyways what I was getting to is you always have a choice, they aren't all going to be good or bad and some are going to be hard but its so much worth it to make the best choices we can make in life.

Love Elder Lange 

I never want to leave!

There is so much work to be done here and I never want to leave! The people I meet are amazing and I love to hear their stories but the best thing about this week was meeting a family from the valley (Scottsdale) and they had this huge business but were prompted to leave and come up here. They were never members and had never even been to a church. They met with us and knew it was the right thing. They packed up everything and just moved with no house in mind so they live in a little trailer with no power or anything. Getting to know this family and the whole story about how everything just worked out for them even when everyone they knew started to leave them because they thought they were crazy. But they have just listened to the spirit and everything has worked out so far. Its amazing to see what people will give up to come into this church. We are having our first lesson with them on Wednesday and they already know they need to be baptized even though they know nothing about the church. They just know its the right thing to do. We gave each of them a Book of Mormon and their faces lit up like it was Christmas. It was amazing to see! Anyways I want to challenge all of you to read and pray every night. These people I'm teaching that know nothing about it are doing it and you've all been life long members and don't do it. I know that I didnt I'm just saying this because I know how much it can help you in your life and the guidance it can give you. The church is true and I love all of you!!!!

Love Elder Lange  (and Elder Meza)

Surprise Gift!

(Alec's mom)  I was laying in bed last night answering some messages on my phone and this picture popped up.  It was like a little gift being sent from heaven!  I thanked whomever sent and told them I really appreciated it.  He said he was the bishop of one of the wards Alec is serving in.  He said he had the chance to teach with Alec that night to some members and said Alec was a great young man and shared a great message.  I told him Alec was quite shy so I was happy to hear he was talking and sharing his message.  The bishop told me the first day he met Alec, he didn't said more than two words, but things have changed and Alec bore his testimony on Sunday and is looking like he is feeling at ease.  Such a great surprise for me to get this little gift!  

Quench your spiritual thirst

Elder Meza is a really cool guy and he works really hard. He knows the scriptures like the back of his hand and knows the whole Preach My Gospel too. He thinks I'm a really good kid and thinks that I'm really smart and understand things it took him like 3 months to learn. He helps me out a lot and understands the need to help me and even though he knows the stupid questions I'm asking, he still takes the time to learn about me and why I'm asking the questions. He isn't one of those guys that looks at you ask says did you really just ask that and I love that about him! He helps me sooo much. I think most of the companions I'm getting are just to keep me in line haha. But he has a really bad sense of direction so I just help him around town and he helps me with all of the others stuff. He is really patient with me. The town is really small and takes like 5 minutes to drive from one end to the other but they love missionaries here. They try to do anything they can to help us and we get fed every night sometimes even twice a night so if you are ever thinking you don't have food just turn your papers in and go on a mission they take care of you haha. People pay for your food at lunch. Give you a place to stay. Cut your hair for free and just love being around you. Even the grocery stores give us 10% off of everything. This is all in town though. We cover the 2 wards out of town and 1 in town. The 2 out of town take about 20 minutes on a dirt road to get to the houses and everyone lives like 10 minutes away from each other. Its really hard to get to know every one in a ward let alone 3 wards, but going to church definitely help put some faces to the names. I went to church yesterday for about 6 hours trying to go to all the wards and classes and then we had to visit people after that. There is like no down time at all and everything you do is just trying to help others come unto Christ. Its weird to see some of the people that go to church that are covered in tattoos and look like they haven't taken a shower in a week but something about it makes me happy. Everyone tries talking to them and the only thing they want is to be a part of this wonderful church and everyone down here can see it. What a blessing it has been for me to of grown up in this church and I get more and more converted every day! One thing we have to try to remember is not just keeping the commandments and living them but why we do it. There is a difference between going to church and wanting to be there. We just have to all remember why we choose the right and not just do them because its the right thing to do. One thing we have to kind of think about and this hit me after I left Utah is that we have to try and quench our spiritual thirst just like we need to with our physical thirst. A lot of times we just pick out someone and think that because you are doing better than them you are doing good but you're not actually doing everything thing you can to do the best YOU can. I'm one of those people and thought that just because i was doing the right things it made me a good person but a little bit before i left and a lot well I'm out here makes me realize that's wrong. We all need to strive to be the best we can be and not just better than the other guy. So every time you take a drink of water, read a scripture or sing a hymn or something. Its not weird, you live in Utah haha. Anyways i hope all of you try to remember to quench your spiritual thirst as well as try to be the best person you can be. Love Elder Lange 🌵❤