December 30, 2014

Well Christmas was good.  We ate a lot of food!   AND I was able to talk to my family!

Being this close to the end of my mission I really don’t know what else to talk about but I'll find something.

So it finally started to snow.  We did have a white Christmas and it is still very snowy, and it’s also very icy... I've only fallen a couple times...

Kameron is still looking good for her baptism on Saturday.  So we're all excited for that.  We are still struggling at the whole finding new investigators thing, it’s a little frustrating...

Christmas was good, but I ate too much...  we also got to sleep in!!  So happy, I needed that so much, it was great. I hope that everyone was able to take a second and think about the true meaning of Christmas sometime during the day.  I know I  did and I am thankful for being able to celebrate the birth of my Savior.

On Saturday I went on exchange with Elder Lyon who is the District Leader.  He is so funny.  He has a mini ping pong table so we played that for the whole night it was a lot of fun.

My week was a little boring, but the work goes on!!    

Elder Park
The White African.... in Utah

They built a fire in a fire pit with the sticks, he said it was fun

December 24, 2014

So it will be a short letter today, sorry! 

We went to Temple Square on Thursday with Kameron and Blake.  It was really good, we focused on how families can be together forever and did the little section there that was amazing.  It was really good, both of them want to be with their families forever and want to go in the Temple. AWESOME!!!  we also stayed long enough to see the lights!  It was really fun to see them.  It was my first time being there with the lights on and I loved it!!   They also both came to church on Sunday.

Elder Farnsworth and I taught their Sunday School class. It was great it was all about out missionary work and their normal teacher asked to so we said of course.  It was really good. By far one of the best Sunday School lessons I've taught.  

Tuesday we had a mission Conference. It was fun.  We had a not so talented talent show.  There was some good laughs there. 

This morning we had Elder L Whitney Clayton of the Seventy came to speak to us. It was really good.  He is an awesome guy and a great teacher.  I learned a lot about the Star that appeared at the birth of the Savior.  I wish I was as smart as him.  It was great.

Have a wonderful Christmas!!!!

Elder Park

The White African.... in Utah

He was spotted at Walmart!

Collin is below the "M" and "I" in "Mission" on the back row.

December 16. 2014

Well not much happened this week besides the fact that I moved to an new apartment to finish my mission in.  Elder Farnsworth has been here for about 2 transfers so this is his 3rd transfer here and 3rd in the mission field.  He's from St Louis.  He's pretty great.

Last night we re-did our room!  We had just normal beds but we wanted bunk beds to have more room, so we found one!  It was great we had so much fun putting it up, and now we have more room to do stuff in the room.  Our apartment was a one room plus a bathroom, so we needed some extra room.  We haven’t really told any of the mission leaders, so I we don’t know how that’s gonna go down, but we do have the old bed frames just in case!  It’s fun!

Last Tuesday I went and saw the Hezeltines!!  I was so happy that they were home!  It was fun to talk to them and catch up a little bit.   Yes we did do the LIB handshake!!  I love it and miss it too.  I teach it to almost all my new companions.

My new area is very small!!  I really don’t see the need for a bike.  It’s so small.  I cover the Whitewood Ward, Stonewood Ward and the Bennion Heights Ward in the Bennion West Stake. There are no apartments here either... so life is a little tough.

I hope all of you have seen the new Video that the church has put out! "He's the Gift"!!!

Have a great week!!!

Elder Park
The White African.... In Utah

I see the photographer in the bathroom mirror   :)

A little like home?!

December 9, 2014

The week was good!

We had a small miracle happen on Friday!  It was fantastic!  So, Chris Goeckeritz is a very busy man and very hard to get in touch with, he also lives really far away.  So, we knew that he got off work roughly around 4pm, so we planned to get there at 4:30.  Our plans before that fell through, so we went there early at 4.  He wasn’t there, as we thought, so we sat on a bench because we didn’t want to miss him coming home.  I had a reeses in my pocket, (thank you office couple!)  I didn’t even have time to eat it and he came around the corner!  Holy smokes!  We caught him at home for the only 5 minutes he was going to be there.  It was amazing because he was going to be baptized the next day.

Saturday was a good day for us. Chris Lord and Chris Goeckeritz were baptized on Saturday.  They are both in the Cottonwood ward so we had a double baptismal service for them.  It was fantastic, the Spirit was amazing. Chris Goeckeirtz gave us a scary thought.  We called him at 6:15, the service was starting at 6:30, he said he was on his way.  So, at 6:25 he still wasn’t there.  So we started to worry.  We kept calling him, but no answer.  At about 6:45 our Ward Mission Leader said 'let us pray.'  About 10 minutes passed after that and we were on the verge of going to his house to see what was going on, but at 7 he finally got there. He had worked late and had a hard time getting there.   I was so happy he finally made it.  He was so sorry that he was late, but he is glad that he made it.  The confirmations for both of them were done very smoothly. Chris Goeckeritz affirmed to us he was on his way to the church at 8:30 on Sunday morning.

So, we got our transfer news last night, unfortunately I’m moving... I’m not very happy about it.  I’m moving to the Bennion West Stake.  I really don’t know anything about the area but I’m going to be with Elder Farnsworth.  I don’t much about him so I can’t say anymore!

We got some fish ties for a Recent Convert in our area. It was pretty funny!

I hope everyone has seen the 'He is the Gift' video!

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-00-1460-he-is-the-gift?lang=eng

Elder Park
The White African... in Utah

Baptism day with Chris G

Baptism day with Chris L

Elder Elliott's last day on mission.  

He was one of the three that came to serve in SLC from Liberia.

With Elder Franca from Brazil

With Elder Brogan

With Elder Paau

With Sister Blaisure

With Sister Taupau

Basketball on Pday, December 9, 2014

December 2, 2014

 Wow it’s already December...

 Well we thought we were going to have a little better week than we did, but it was still fantastic!!! We had to say good bye to Dakota on Monday, she went back to Elko, NV and she has met with the missionaries so that makes me happy! Last week we didn’t get much of a Pday because we had to talk to an investigator that lives about 30 minutes away on a bike. Best part was, it was mostly uphill..... but, we had success! He was there!

 On Saturday it was pay day! We have been working with Antonio for about 2 months and Saturday he was baptized. I was so happy. I never really have been this excited for someone to get baptized. That probably sounds a little bad, but it’s true. I guess it’s because I worked for so long with him and answered so many questions. I loved working with him. He was really excited too. He got in contact with the missionaries by calling the number on the back of a pass along card and talked to a sister at Temple Square. The sister he talked to kept in contact with him ever since then and was able to come down for his baptism. It was really cool! Also, the sisters that took us on our Temple Square tour came! So that was really cool!!! It was just a fantastic day.

 Also, on that Saturday Chris Goeckritz and Chris Lord were interviewed and passed. It was a great day to be a missionary. So, this coming Saturday we have two baptisms. It’s gonna be another great day!

 At Antonio's baptism a set of sisters that are in our district brought a family that they are working with and we shared a message about our relationship with our Father in Heaven while he was getting changed and it really helped them from what the sisters told us. I am so thankful for how the Spirit works. They told us they wanted us to say something about our relationship with heavenly Father, which was completely different than what we were going to say, so we were totally winging it! On Sunday Antonio was confirmed. The Spirit was super strong.

 Also, a set of sisters asked if we had a sacrament meeting that started at 2:50, which we did. They said great we're coming! I was a little confused, but they brought two new investigators with them for us!! Fiston and John are from the Congo! They are so cool! We taught them that night and Elder Dahkle said I started to talk a little funny, my LIB english is coming back!!!

 Thanksgiving was great! We went to the Gibbs home, Rebecca Gibb is the lady in charge of the mingles for one of our wards. So, she volunteered to have us over for Thanksgiving. Man, it was fantastic! We had a little deep fried turkey, WOW delicious!! home made stuffing, soft serve ice cream that I ate way too much of. It was a good turkey day!

 I hope everyone had a great week and took a moment on thanksgiving to find out what you were thankful for, and said a quick prayer saying 'thank you'.

 Elder Park
The White African... in Utah

 the photo from last Thursdays "Beat The President" Fun Run.