Beggars Night

What's up family? The week here in Ankeny/North Des Moines has been pretty fun. We had a lot of stupid things happen this week but we've just been finding the humor in them. For example on Tuesday we had to take our car in because it was being stupid (classic Chevy) and the car dealer ship was way out of our area and literally in the middle of nowhere. So we got stuck at the random Chevy dealership for like 4 hours with nothing to do. It was super frustrating, but what can you do I guess. 

The work was still really good this week. We found 5 new investigators that are looking pretty solid. So that's way exciting. We had a big bummer this week though, Madi's mom officially closed the door on baptism in the foreseeable future. Her mom came to Church this Sunday and Madi even bore her testimony and it was soooo spiritual! I don't know what else we gotta do to get through to this woman!!

So that whole situation is frustrating, I don't think I've ever wanted to get someone baptized as I do with Madi. We've been pulling out all the stops too, like I've never tried so many different things to soften someone's heart! But anyways Madi is great she will be getting baptized, it's just a matter of when. 

On the positive, my African babes are doing GREAT! They are so awesome, the twins got up and bore a tag-team testimony on Sunday and it made me soooo happy. I literally love those girls so much they are the BEST. They're doing so good we moved their baptism up to November 12th! So we should be baptizing all three of the girls in a few weeks! So awesome. I'm pumped. Most exciting thing that happened this week was... my investigator in CR Jasmine got Baptized!!!! I was bummed I couldn't go back for it. But I'm so excited for her, she is the best. I can't wait to see her again.

Nothing too funny happened this week, Yesterday was beggars night. So everyone trick or treats for two hours from 6-8 the night before Halloween that way on Halloween all the parents can go get wasted and not have to worry about spending time with their children. Iowa :)

Love you Guys, Miss you all!

Jake

Welcome to Des Moines (it's been waitin' for ya!)

What's up everyone! Hopefully someone gets the T-Swift reference I slipped in the subject line lol.

 

So this week was awesome, like really really good. This area was Dead at the beginning of the week. Our only investigator on Date was our girl Madi. But outside of that we had no one. But that's all changed now! This week we found two awesome African families,they are so cool! One of the families came to church and we have a date to baptize their three daughters; Laverta, Larvetta (12 year old African twins, brutal.) and their little 8 year old girl Faith. They are the cutest little African kids I've ever seen. I literally can't wait to adopt black children. They are going to be baptized on November 19th!

Our investigator Madi is doing pretty well. Her mom is still being a hindrance in the whole baptism process but we have a lot of faith that she can be baptized on the 12th of November. Please pray for Madi, she's so awesome and wants nothing more than to be able to be baptized!

A lot of funny things happened this week and it was really easy to find happiness in the work this week. One of my favorite things that happened this week was that our African family came to Church! Yesterday was the primary program which is always fun to watch, but it was even better this time because the Primary President came up to the younger african kids and invited them to come up and participate in the program! They gave them parts to read and everything! I was blown away at how well this ward does at fellowshipping new comers. I love the ward here it's like an actual fun, loving, real Ward that you'd find back in the West. I feel really at home here it's great actually having fun at Church and at member dinners lol. 

My new Comp Elder McCain is really funny, he's like a female version of Hermana Annie Johnson, totally granola, tree hugger, kind of Liberal. But really chill and funny. We also just found out that two girls we kissed at College are roommates now so that's building our comp unity as wel. Lol.

Hope everyone has a great week! Love you guys!

Jake

Ankeny

What's up friends and fam, I'm writing to you from my new home, Ankeny, Iowa! (Every time I try and type it, auto correct tries to change it to Kenya.. yeah not that cool.) But it Ankeny is a great place. It's basically the "Eagle" of Iowa it's a really wealthy suburb of Des Monies. I was kind of sad when I found out cause I thought Ankeny was like only rich neighborhoods and all that jazz. But luckily our area actually has a ton of North Des Monies in it so it's super ghetto there. So I'm way happy ;)

My new comp is Elder McCain, he came out with my son Elder Esplin so I'm "Breaking" him. He's a stud! He's a really solid missionary and he loves the work. I'm really excited work with him. It's funny he's like 6'5 so when we show up at all the tiny African doors they are always like "Ohhh Mormons, always so tall! Like giants!" it's hilarious. 

So I don't have a ton of stuff to write about because I've only been in this area a few days but I'll just make a list of some cool stuff that's happened. 

- We set a date with our Investigator Madi! She's awesome she's 15 and wants to be baptized soooo bad! I've only met her once but I just love her to death, she's so brave. Her mom does not want her to get baptized at all but we are working with members in the ward to help fellowship the mom. We had a super intense lesson with her after Church when we extended her baptismal date and I was so drained afterward, it was arguably one of the most spiritual lessons I've had on my Mission so far. 

- My investigator in CR Jasmine is all set to be baptized on Oct. 29th! So I should be able to go back and be there to baptize her I'm way pumped!!

- We taught this crazy drunk guy who was in the Military and the night before, he had to clowns try and break in his house and he shot one of them in the arm! Iowa is insane.

- Back in CR Esplin and I met a less active who wanted us too help him move (classic.) and he showed us his Machete he keeps by his bed and his loaded pistols he keeps under his pillow. "It's all just for protection though don't worry!"

Well that's all I got guys. I hope you all have a great week. PLEASE PRAY FOR MADI'S MOM TO SOFTEN HER HEART! 

I love you guys! 

Jake

#ClownSpotted

This past week was pretty solid, kind of slow but it picked up towards the end. The week before transfers always seems to drag on way long especially if you pretty much know you're leaving. But Elder Esplin and I have been staying pretty motivated and we got a lot of good work done this week. We have been working with Jasmine and her Aunt Arielle and Arielle's three kids. They are looking real good to be baptized on October 29, they have been trying really hard to come to Church but their car is broken down and they don't have a ton of money. All of that combined with the fact we aren't allowed to ask members to give people rides to Church, makes it tough to get them to Sacrament meeting. But they should be coming this weekend. I'll probably have to find a way to come back for their baptism though because transfers are Thursday! My boy Elder Eslpin is all done training and it's time for him to leave the nest! (technically it's more like me leaving him in the nest) but I'm going to miss my son and this awesome area if I do end up getting the boot. 

This past weekend was Stake Conference which was pretty awesome. All the Elders from our zone needed a place to stay cause the ones up north live like 3 hours away and they had to be at both sessions so we had 11 Elders in our house for a night... It was a party. I'll just leave it at that. 

President and Sister Badger came and spoke at our Stake Conference and it was awesome! They spoke a lot about member Missionary work which was really awesome. Then the Stake Prez got up and spoke about Parenting and Marriage and all that stuff. I'm glad I'm a missionary. 

So this past week we have been teaching all of our "Chicago Refugees" and they keep telling us to be careful about the "Clowns" and we've been like "What the heck, why is everyone talking about clowns?" Turns out, (I don't know if this is going on in the west at all, I guess it started in Chicago) there are people dressing up as clowns and going out and attacking people at night and there's been people getting attacked in Cedar Rapids as well. So our AP's texted us and told us to be careful and if we see any clowns we are supposed to text them #ClownSpotted it's pretty funny. It's kind of messed up I know, but I just get a kick out of how crazy people around here are. 

Alright well as all of our investigators would say "I'm finna dip out now".

Love you guys

My Chain is too Loose, My Pants are too Tight....

What's up fam, this week has kind of been all over the place (fifteen miles between Cedar Rapids and Ely to be exact) but it's been really good. I feel like last Monday was forever ago, we started this week out living in Ely cause of the mini Armageddon happening in Cedar Rapids, but now we are back in our house safe and sound. So the flood ended up not being quite as bad as predicted the city built a ton of dykes and sand barriers to try and keep the water back and it worked pretty well actually. It was a pretty well done project for being run and funded by the Government... anyways the dykes kept the water away from our street but a few of them broke and a lot of people got flooded on both sides of the river which was sad. We'll probably spend a ton of time doing service the next few week helping get rid of sand bags and muck out peoples house. But luckily our house wasn't even touched #blessings. 

So we spent the first half of the week living with the Checketts family out in Ely, Iowa. Ely is kind of like the Eagle of Cedar Rapids. Except imagine Eagle is a 25 minute drive from Boise and you can only get there via freeway or dirt back roads that are underwater. But it's super nice, the Checketts are from Nampa and turns out my sister knows their son, the Church is such a small world. But we lived there till Thursday, then we got the okay to move back in to our house. It was fun while it lasted though, it was nice living in a first world neighborhood for a bit. But Missionary work isn't so hot there ;)

So we actually got to do Missionary stuff this week which was fun, we didn't have the truck so we broke out the bikes for the first time in my mission lol. I never realized how big of a lie the whole "Iowa is flat" thing is until we had to ride our crappy bikes up the massive hills in CR. But it was fun, I felt like I finally go the full missionary experience of having to ride a bike in the rain. My "Hipster missionary" pants as Prez. Badger calls them got pretty wrecked though lol. We had a great week, we have been teaching this household of ladies that are all related in different ways. One of them is Jasmine (the one who lost her leg) we started teaching her aunt Arielle and Arielle's 5 kids 3 of which are above the age of 8! :) We also had our new Investigator Deloras come and watch GC at the Church on Sunday morning it was sick, we set a date with her and she's excited to learn more. Also Bro. Dawson is getting interviewed by President Badger this weekend FINALLY. But yeah it twas a good week I suppose. 

Oh and GC don't  even get me started on GC that stuff was BOMB. Dallin H. Oaks is the man, Member Missionary work lets go fam! Get Pumped! 

I really loved every talk so I'm just goona leave it at that, I liked GC a lot.

Alright love you guys!