Gratitude.

This week has been pretty good. Not too much of a different week. We had a few good experiences this week like always. The one I want to talk about was the Thanksgiving dinner we had with a less active. Well this less active lady called us out of the blue and said she had a friend she wanted us to meet and help get Jesus in her life. Well we went over and met the less active and her son. They are super awesome and live in a little humble trailer. We met the friend and tried to share an uplifting message that would touch her. But what touched me more than anything was the type of lives these few people were living. They had holes in the ground that they had to cover with boards so they wouldn't step in them. The turkey we had came from a food bank and we had some potatoes and gravy that came in a microwave dinner. Then they had some beans to go along with it. It was pretty different after coming from a dinner with 4 tables of food. With the little they had they were still super happy and glad to be together. The only things they wanted was a little bit of food and friends and family surrounding them. I was amazed at how humble of a dinner it was and how happy they were. Later on that night after leaving and thinking about it I was filled with gratitude for everything that I have. But most of all I'd like to express my gratitude for our Savior. Definitely the best thing I've learned on my mission is the relationship I have with my Savior. It so hard to even begin to comprehend how much he loves each of us personally. He literally took every sin I have ever committed and every sin I'm ever going to commit upon him self. He took the blame for all my wrongs. I know no matter how many times I mess up he will forgive me every time. Even if I make the same mistake over and over again. There is no limit to his love and his atonement. But the most comforting thing is that he descended below them all. He didn't just meet the requirement and go out with as little as He could get away with, but he went below them all. And I know that even if I was the one that made him suffer the most and take upon the most sins, He would love me enough to go below me and pay for everything I did. I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ and everything He has done for me but beyond all I'm grateful for the closeness of the relationship I've gained with him. 

The gift of having a family!

This week was pretty good. At the beginning of the week we got a add on to our area. Young! It's about an hour and a half away and the hour of it is on a dirt road. The area is a super small town. Lots of people who ranch and raise cows and just kind of keep to themselves. We went down this week and met our Branch President. He took us around town and we met with a few different branch members. The only thing they have down there is one gas station and everything else they have come out to Payson for. I'm pretty excited though. It's should be pretty good getting in the and starting things up. 

We had a pretty good lesson with one of our investigators this week. His name is Terry. We met him a little bit ago tracting and he said he would be interested in having us come over again. Well this Sunday we went over and had a lesson with him. It went pretty well. It's started off kind of weird because he didn't know what we do so he thought we were just coming over to talk instead of teach a lesson. We asked if we could come in and maybe talk little bit more about The Book of Mormon and then started the lesson from there. We got about half of the lesson in because he kept talking about how he has seen God in his life the the role God played in his life. His only set back is coming to church. He said he used to go to a church and stopped going because he didn't see he importance of it and doesn't see the importance of coming to church now. I guess he just needs a lesson on the Sabbath day. He is a really good guy though and has some potential. If he just feels the Spirit I think he will want to change

I hope all of you have a really good week this week and eat lots of turkey. Spend time with your family and appreciate them and the gift of having a family. No family is perfect and no family is meant to be perfect. But we are met to learn and grow with them. I love the talk President Uchtdorf gave in April 2016. He talks about the importance of saving our relationships with our families and cherishing them. Families are a huge blessing and never take them for granted, Heavenly Father put you in your family for a reason! Love yours while I'm out here for a short while helping others bring theirs together :)

Celebrating Elder Hamptoms Birthday!  

Good ol Payson

This week has been a pretty good week. We found this investigator that had come to church on Sunday and said she just got in her car and was led by the Spirit to the church and felt like she needed to go in. Well she really liked it and wanted to meet with us. Her name is Laurie. We met with her twice this week. The first lesson was really good and we invited her to baptism. She said she was willing to do anything that we told her she needed to do. Well our next lesson she had read from the Book of Mormon and had already prayed to know if it was true. Both the lessons went pretty well and she was making some good progress. Well later that week we were walking around the park and saw her and decided to talk to her. She has struggled with drugs in the past and wasn't living in the best house. She ask to see if we could find a place for her to move into and so we had been looking that week trying to find things. Come to find out while talking to her at the park she found a place and is moving out of our area. A pretty solid investigator just picked up and left. But the good thing is that she had a friend that was with her. While we were talking to her we set up a lesson to see her on Tuesday. Before we left we asked if he wanted to join us too. He was pretty excited to come. He said that he needs to find a church to go to. He hasn't been to church since he was a little kid and was excited to come to ours. So hopefully he turns out just as good. He lives in our area and his name is Brian. He has a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ and "wouldn't be anywhere close to where he is today without them". Other than that just slowly trying to pick up our number out here in good ol Payson.

Knockin on doors!

Well this week has been so good. So awhile back at the beginning of the transfer we made a goal as a district to try and talk to 5 new people a day. We don't have very many people in Payson so we decided to do 5. There was a General Authority that gave a promise that if you talk to 10 new people a day and try and teach them the gospel, our numbers will quadruple. Well elder Hampton and I have been trying to get 5 a day and this week we just hit the ground running. We were going to try and talk to everyone we see. We got 70 TTIs this week (teach, testify, invite). We had so many miracles doing this. We stayed out till we got at least 10 a day. We passed out over 12 Book of Mormons throughout the week and picked up about 5 pretty solid people that are interested in learning more. It was so awesome to see the miracle that happened this week. Some of the missionaries in the valley think its hard to get 60 TTIs in a week and there are people everywhere down there. 

One miracle that was super awesome was a 16 year old kid named Doug. We were out knocking doors in an apartment complex and we hit most of the doors and there wasn't a lot of success that happened so we were walking to our truck to drive to the new area we were going to go tracting. Well before we hopped in we both decided to hit 4 more doors. Well we got to our last door and we had knocked 3 times and was about to leave when Doug came walking around the corner. I was like "Hey whats up? Do you live here?" He said yes and we started to explain what we were doing and what missionaries are. We asked if he would be interested in learning more about what we talked about. To our surprise he said he had some time so we taught the Restoration on his door step and he was super interested. He accepted a Book of Mormon and said he would pray to know if what we had taught him was true. It was so crazy to think that if we didn't decide to knock on just 4 more doors we would of missed the opportunity to bless this kids life forever. 

There are people waiting to hear the message we have to share they just don't know where to find it and if we dont listen to the spirit on where to find them they are going to miss the opportunity of a life time D&C 123: 12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it-

Love Elder Lange

Effort is Required! (Halloween in Payson Arizona)

Well this week has been super good. So lately we have been working super hard to try and find people so we have been doing everything we can. We have been kinda chasing people down the street seeing if we could talk to them. We have just been knocking on a ton of doors and things. So far it hasnt been really that successful. Its was just hard going out with out seeing any results. We kept going out with faith though trying to have a spiritual experience every day and take away something that was good about everyday. We knew that if we kept going out in faith it would pay off. We have been having around 3 or 4 lessons a week and only 2 investigators to work with. Well one night we were driving around trying to think of what to do and we decided to try and go by this lady even though we had texted her and called her multiple times. Well we stopped by and she let us in. We had a lesson on the restoration of the church. It was a really good lesson and the spirit was super strong. Well during the middle of the lesson she went to grab her Book of Mormon and I told Elder Hampton to invite her to be baptized on Dec 17th. I just hurried and look at my calendar and the day looked pretty good. Well at the end of the lesson he invited her to be baptized and the spirit just came flooding into the room! It was so awesome, her eyes watered up and she was excited to accept the date. It was a super good lesson. Its also good to know that hard work pays off. In Ether 12:6 its says "ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith". It was so good to come to know the truth of this scripture. We have been working really hard and doing everything we can and stretching our faith. Then we finally saw the witness of our faith. "Effort is required, but it is effort you will never, ever regret." -Thomas S Monson

Thumbs up for the wiener dog! 

(Elder Lange's mom talking) I received this text from a member, they were feeding the missionaries on Halloween in Payson.  She said "Truly our pleasure having these missionaries in our home."

Elder Mangus, Elder Bell and Elder Lange making pumpkin pancakes and buttermilk syrup on their last night together in Phoenix

When you get hot at night in Phoenix, you do what ya gotta do! 

Elder Bell getting transferred to the mountains. 

The small cowboy town of Payson!

Hey everyone! Payson is pretty good. It's a pretty small cowboy town. I serve in the Ponderosa Ward and Christopher Creek Branch. We had to speak in the branch on Sunday. I wrote a 6 minute talk and couldn't think of anything else to write so I went in with that. Branches are crazy! They are so small and there are just a bunch of chairs in the chapel. Well I ended up having the Spirit take over and I spoke for around 15 minutes so that was pretty good. My comp is awesome. Elder Hampton. He is from Layton Utah. We also live with 2 other companionships. The work here is pretty slow. We had the highest numbers this week and we had 4 lessons. Pretty rough. We do a lot of service though. 

So recently we started to focus on more investigators and just pretty much drop all of the less actives we were teaching. We are called to teach repentance and baptize converts, not be good home teachers. A General Authority came and told us that so we have been tracting and finding a lot instead of just using our time teaching less actives. We have seen some pretty cool miracles from it though. One miracle at we saw this week was a guy named Dylan. So one thing we have been trying to do is called lightning visits. We show up to a members house for about 10-15 minutes, share a message and ask if they know anyone who could use that message. Well we chose a name on our list and the guy was less active. He had lived there for 5 years and no one had come by to visit him in the 5 years. That in it's self was a miracle that we just happened to stop by. Well it was late so he said to come back another time. Before we left we asked if he knew anyone. He said to go to his neighbor a couple houses down. Well when we were driving to Brother Lutz house I was looking out the window and saw a house full of people and thought we should stop by and knock just to see what happens. We saw a guy outside and decided to go see if this guy needed a message. As we were walking over he had his truck open blaring rap and he was smoking and drinking. He had earrings and a bunch of tattoos. It was a pretty scary looking guy but I just kept walking toward him for some reason. Well we said hi and the conversation just got going. We asked if he wanted a uplifting message and he said he was going through some hard things and could really use a message. He said he had been through some things and really admired us for coming up to him and sharing what had helped us in our lives. He said we didn't know if he was a gangster and was gonna shoot us or not but was glad we walked up. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he wants to meet up later to discuss more about it. He also wants us to send him a text of a scripture everyday so he can have a good uplifting day everyday. It was a super cool experience! Experiences like those are why I came on my mission. I felt the spirit so strong and love sharing the gospel with others. 

Love, 

Elder Lange

The beautiful town of Payson

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.