Slow and steady wins the race

This week has been good. We put 2 people on date and one is getting baptized Saturday. The other one is a super golden investigator. Every time she sees us she is just excited to learn more. She said "I feel like the Holy Ghost is usually quiet and tells me things to do but this time it's seems to be screaming at me to join this church". When we about ready to leave she said "tell me more about baptism". We told her we would explain everything she wanted to know on our next visit. The one getting baptized this weekend we had been teaching just to help her she is 8 and her 9th birthday is the day of her baptism. It's also really cool because here hasn't been a convert baptism in this Ward in over a year. Everyone is pretty excited. This area slowly seems to be working out. I feel like we have a lot of member trust in our wards just not very many members giving us referrals and doing their part. We have been trying to help them by giving them specific assignments like talking to their neighbor this week instead of just find someone for us to teach. Elder Watts and I are doing good. We are soon gonna figure something out to help out this area. It's just taking some time. Slow but steady wins the race haha. Love you all

A picture text!!

I got this picture text from a member tonight "Thank you for sending your son a mission,  It was wonderful to have him in our home tonight.  What a great missionary"

Thanks for the Birthday wishes!!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! My birthday was great and I wouldn't have wanted to spend it anywhere else! I love my mission and helping people change their lives. I love this gospel and all it has to offer. I love the Lord and want to serve him the rest of my life no matter how hard the calling may be! As far our area is going. I think it's picking up quite a bit. Members are actually wanting to talk to their neighbors and strangers. We got a new Ward missionary in one of wards also. He is a super good missionary and loves to go out with us. Our stake conference was really good and one of our investigators came to it. She said it was exactly what she needed to hear and it was! I felt like every talk in one of the sessions was for her. And one more thing is we talked to one of our bishops about a girl being baptized on the 30th. He said it was her birthday and she is turning nine. Which means she is a convert baptism and we have to take over and get her interviewed. She really wants to be baptized on her birthday but we aren't quite sure she is ready. We have been teaching her off and on. But this week we figured out that the bishop wants us to take over and we are meeting with her Tuesday. We are going to go over the baptismal questions and see where she is at spiritually and see if she could get interviewed this Saturday or if she needs more teaching. If she's good to go Saturday then that would be awesome! We are going to try and work with her a lot this week. I love you all! Have a great week and stay on the straight and narrow. It makes life way easier. 

A turtle I bought on the REZ 

Down in the Valley for MLC meeting

Elder Lange's first birthday in the mission field!

Elder Lange's companion had a "surprise dinner" for him at a members house.  The sweet lady made a fun spaghetti and meatball cake!  

(This is an excerpt from a letter he sent me [mom] explaining his birthday surprise)

 "Yeah I had a good birthday! The Lords family and Elder Watts are pretty awesome. So our dinner canceled in the middle of the week but Elder Watts didn't tell me. He secretly set up a dinner with the Lords. Long story short. We got out of a lesson. He had the Lords call him and pretend to be our dinner canceling. I said well we could try and go to the Lords to eat. Elder Watts was like alright we will go there. So we show up to the Lords and the husband answers and is surprised to see us. He invited us in and said what's up? We told him our dinner canceled and we were wondering if we could get something to eat there. He was like yeah, I think she has something cooking up. They are all out back feed he animals though. Usually it only takes one person to feed the animals so I was thinking that they had a lot of things to do and asked if they needed help. I turned around to see if Elder Watts was following me and the whole family was right behind me and threw a bunch of balloons at me. It was super crazy. I wasn't expecting it at all. Anyways they cooked me pasta because I like pasta and made me a pretty sweet cake that was really good. Before all of that it didn't really feel any different than a normal day. We spent the day weekly planning which takes like 3-5 hours. Anyways, pretty crazy. I did get my package. And loved the watch. Good choice."

Life is Good!

Life is good! We had a baptism this week. I feel like our work is somewhat picking up. It has been pretty slow lately. We had one investigator that was doing really good and want to join the church but is just afraid of "getting hurt." Her last church just kind of abandoned her and told her she wasnt welcome anymore so she doesnt want that to happen again. She has felt like she needed to join this church for a long time but her family also doesnt support her in it. Anyways she was just doing super good with the lessons and getting to know the members in our church but her husband and her got divorced which meant she needed to move. It was pretty sad to see her move to a new area. She recently has spent about to weeks moving and decided that she was too far away from her kids. She loved our ward and how people treated her so she is finding a house to rent in our area. She is best friends with the Relief Society president. Our RSP goes over to her house and talks with her about a lot of things. She took her to the General Womens Session and takes her to all her classes each week. This week was super cool though. She said she was coming to church, which she hadnt been in two weeks. She showed up late so she sat in the foyer. After sacrament though she came up to the RSP and I and just said like its so good to see you guys! Are you ready to go to class? It touched my heart that day I as I sat in class next to her that she wanted to learn so bad. She was asking us to go to class instead of the other way around. There is a strong love that she has for our ward and a love that our ward has for her. I just felt a super small part of Heavenly Fathers love that he has for each of us. It was so obvious to me at that moment that our Heavenly Father has a huge love for each of us. We are going to try and get her ready to be baptized for April 30!

The baptism

Playing a little disc golf

This is when we ate some rabbit stew...haha

Your Why

Well this week was good! Our numbers haven't been too good so we were trying to talk it over. We talked a lot about why our numbers are low and why we can't find any people. I just kept asking a bunch of whys. I emailed my mission president and he said I need to deepen my why. We had Elder Lynn G Robins come to our mission a while back. He talked about getting and deepening our why. Why are we out on a mission and what makes us do the things we do. He compared it to being in a boat out in the middle of the sea. We have to find an island if we want to go anywhere. We have to have a reason to paddle. We lose a desire if there is no island to paddle to. It's like having a why on you mission. There has to be a purpose to our mission. If we don't have a good enough why either it's like losing sight of our island. I lost sight of my island while I've been out. I have a clear good why at the beginning of my mission but lost it along the way. It was good to just get a wake up call and get a sight of my island again. But what makes us do anything in life? Why do we stay in the gospel? Why do we follow the prophet? Why do we pray and read out scriptures. We need to find a reason to do anything in life. Why paddle at all if we have nothing to paddle to. I know I follow the gospel and do the things I do in my life because it brings me the most joy and I love my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ. Of course we are going to hit waves and lose sight of our island sometimes but trying to keep our island in sight helps keeps us focused on why we do the things we do. The gospel works! I have no doubt about it. The principles I live by aren't just made up by a bunch of old men. They aren't restricters that keep me from having fun. They are guidelines my Heavenly Father put out for me to keep me safe. Our Heavenly Father loves us beyond measure and so does Jesus Christ. It's crazy to take a step back and look at the things Jesus Christ did for us. He literally died and took our sins upon himself so when we don't quite make it to where we are supposed to be. When we run out of energy to keep paddling he can be there for us. He'll help us in times of sorrow and in times of joy. The biggest reason why I'm out on my mission is because I feel huge urge to try and repay him the best I can. To live by his commandments and to help his children. Are you stuck in the middle of he ocean paddling because it's the only thing you know how to do? Or do you have sight of an island? Do you know what your purpose is and why you need the gospel in your life? I love this gospel and couldn't be in a more happy place. I love all of you guys! Just remember there is a purpose for this gospel in our lives. Just find out what it is for you. Heavenly Father cares about each of you and loves you more 

Elder Langes apartment in Clay Springs Arizona

Keep Your Eye On The Ball

We had a pretty good week. I was thinking a lot lately about my whole mission. There are some good lessons you can learn just looking back and figuring things out. But probably the biggest thing that I noticed was that I wasn't really trying my hardest any more. I became less diligent, only worked out for 20 minutes in the morning instead of 30, didn't take studies as seriously or just got distracted in studies reading something that wouldn't help our area. They were all pretty small things but definitely make the biggest difference. So I've taken a hard look at myself and decided some things need to change. Small, simple, and easy changes but ones that can improve everything so much. I guess I just looked at it as a life lesson too. I'm super scared of getting home from my mission and loving the gospel for a while then just kind of slowing loosing sight of what matters most. I think it happens to the best of us. We just get distracted with friends, school, family, career, etc. The trick is catching ourselves when these times come around. The world really does distract us from what really matters, and that's the gospel. Sometimes it gets pretty hard to hang on the the iron rod. Sometimes we even have to hang on upside down but as long as we keep a grip on what matters most, our lives will work out. But just finding out and realizing our lives aren't in order doesn't do much if we don't do something to change it. The first and pretty important part is catching yourself when you aren't headed down the right path best the second and most important is doing something about it. We can't just expect everything to just work out if we ask Heavenly Father to change it. We need to put in the effort needed. It's something I need to do a lot more of. I took a hard look at everything I was doing and have been trying to change a lot of it for the better this week. It take constant effort but it something I really need. So I'm trying to become a better more consecrated missionary by look at myself every day and deciding what I need to work on and if what I was doing was the most important in my life. This gospel and my mission are the most important things right now. I love this gospel and what it does for me. I love my mission  and what it has done and is going to do for me.