4th of July

Salutations.

As you're all aware, it was the 4th of July. I'm sure every missionary email you'll read today will go into great detail about all the fabulous things they did to celebrate our country and all the fun they had. And it will have approximately 13 pictures of them being super patriotic and extra-American. 

So I'll save you the extra reading and just let you know that we had a great 4th and blew a lot of things up with some cool members. I also took a bottle rocket to the chest but it's okay cause I have like 30 white shirts. We ate at least 6 pounds of barbecued meat as well so that was definitely a highlight. 

This week was great though, our investigators are all progressing very well Kraig has not smoked since we started the workshop with him! So if he stays strong he will be all set to go for July 29th, please pray for this guy, he's the best. Our other investigator Calvin is doing great, we took him to sunset on the Mississippi and he liked it, it's a funny show so he was entertained. We are hoping to get him down to the pageant soon so he can get more of the spiritual stuff in this time. He has a ton of great questions. 

We have 3 new promising investigators as well; Jasmine, Jazmine (shoutout to black culture for giving us 50 different ways to spell names so we don't get people confused), and Lakendra. They are all interested and have a sincere desire. So we have high hopes for them as well. 

Nauvoo Pageant is starting up tomorrow so things finna get busy real quick down here. But I'm excited to watch the town population explode it should be fun. 

Other than that not too much to write about this week. Just grinding every day trying to help bring people closer to the Savior.

I love all of you! 

Hope you have  a great week! 

Grill Out

What's up worldddd

This week was stellar. That is; for being in the middle of nowhere on the border of Iowa and Illinois and Missouri and surrounded by people who hate you for believing in the restored gospel. But we never let that stop us! Our week was awesome! We found 11 new investigators and we have a few more that will for sure become investigators this week. We also had our investigators Kraig and Calvin at Church on Sunday. Kraig is still a stud, we moved his date a few weeks back so that he can be completely smoke-free as he prepares for his baptism. He has now offically read the Book of Mormon twice, and he's also read all of the Doctrine and Covenants and all of the Pearl of Great Price! Now he wants to read Jesus the Christ, this guy is straight fire. Please pray for him as he tries to officially quit smoking this week! 

Our other awesome investigator is Calvin! This guy is tight, he came to church with a wool blazer and turtle neck with some dope glasses. He straight up looked like Samuel L. Jackson. He's the man. I feel cool just talking to him, kind of like I've been accepted into the cool black people gang. He's the Father of a member in the Ward here in B-town, he's really interested and has some great deeper-level questions (like about Zion, and Baptisms for the Dead) it's great teaching people that think at a deeper level and have actual interest. This week we're taking him to one the the plays in Nauvoo about the Mormon Battalion, cause he is a veteran and likes Military stuff. It should bumpin. 

Me and my new Comp E. Butterfield are just havin a party out here in Burlington. It's pretty funny we are complete opposites (he's pretty quiet and just super calm/chill) but we get a long great. We have been making it a goal to find the joy and have a blast everyday, while still working hard and setting the example for our zone. We have had some pretty crazy experiences already, so we'll have some good stories for ya'll by the end of this transfer. Also I've already found out tons of ways to refer to him since his name has the word butter in it. ex: Butters, Butter,Buttfield, B-field, and my personal favorite. ButtHurtField. We also found out that we both love Barbeque sauce, and that we both had Cars named Claire back home. 

One funny thing that happened this week was Butter and I were out knocking and I heard someone yell "Elders!!" and I saw this big black lady sitting on her porch having a Grill Out and with her family down the road in this apartment complex. As soon as I saw they were grilling I was like "Their goona feed us Butter, lets go!"  So we went over to talk to her, and turns out she's a member that just moved from Arizona and has a huge family living with her. (we made one of her family members a new investigator!) But the most exciting part was they gave us a TON of food, like 3 brawts and some ribs and some pork steak and mac and cheese. It was amazing. (especially since it was fast sunday and our dinner wasn't unitl 7!) 

Well that's all I got for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July, we will spend our entire day eating, so please pray for us and our future wives so we don't get too fat our here.

Love you guys!

Jake

Here's a pic of me and Butter. People tell us we look like we belong in One Direction... Iowa doesn't know they broke up yet..

Greetings world.

So this week was pretty nuts, I finally killed off my marshalese brother Elder Anitok. It was super sad to see him go, but he was a stud and he did his job. Hopefully I'll make it out to Hawaii soon so he can set me up with one of his Island Lady friends lol. 

So we had transfers and my wish came true. I'll get to stay another 6 weeks here and Nauvoo will be my first and last 6 month area lol. I'll get to be here for Pageant though and I'm PUMPED. We already have 4 investigators lined up to come watch pageant on different days. We also are going to be assigned to work down at the Pageant doing various jobs several nights a week this summer. It's going to be LIT. Everyone in our mission is always trying to get here during Paegent season so I feel pretty lucky to get one more transfer here!

My new Companion is the one and only Elder Butterfield! He's a cool kid, he was a DL in our zone and just got called to be ZL up here in Nauvoo with me. I'm excited he's a really cool kid and super hard worker. He's been out a year this Thursday! It's pretty weird, I feel like just yesterday I was getting trained, now I'm the oldest Person in the zone. Missions fly by! 

The work is going pretty well right now. We have a lot of solid people in the beginning stages. Kraig is doing good as well! He is almost done with the Book of Mormon for the second time! His only hold back right now is he is struggling with smoking still. We are working with him on that right now. He's goona overcome it though, he's got too much faith not to. I love that guy!

Not a whole lot to report on this week. Said a lot of Goodbyes to the studs that died this week. The mission and our MLC is going through some fat changes right now so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. 

Cool news though with transfers, my boy Elder Esplin is in our Zone now as one of our DL's so I'll get to exchange with him. I'm pumped! He hit's his year mark this week, I can't believe it's been a year since I got him. He's a stud!

One of the Highlights of the week, my favorite family the Thompsons. Took us out to dinner on Anitok's last night. They took us to the nicest restaurant in Burlington, they are so cash. They do a ton for us I love this family! 

That's it for this week. Hope you all have a killer week. I love you guys. The gospel is true, go share it's blessings with someone!

Love,

Jake

Pics From our Photo Shoot in Nauvoo, Lot's of goodbyes, and The thompson family dinner

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#CRA$HBROTHER$: THE FINAL CHAPTER

Well today marks a sad moment. Elder Anitok is writing his final emails as he prepares to die this coming Thursday. It's officially the end of our 9 month Party. Crazy that we've been serving around each other/as companions for a complete gestation period. He will be missed. 

Lol on a happy note though. We had a really fun week here in the Nauvoo Zone. We were busy all day every day it was awesome. We also got to spend 3 days in a row in Nauvoo which is always cause for celebration. I flippin love Nauvoo man. 

We had a lot of cool things goin on so I'm just going to make a list and ya'll can just skip to the pictures like I know you do you ;)

-Elder Anitok had his departing temple trip on Tuesday. So I got to trio with Elder Zinn and Elder Perez. Elder Zinn and I came out together and we are pretty tight. We had a photoshoot in the woods during our exchange. The bridge we are on is actually the Bridge Emma and Joseph kiss under during the restoration movie for all you Church media fans. 

-We took my man Kraig on a church history tour through Carthage and Nauvoo. It was sick!! Having the sites down there is such a useful resource to teach people it's awesome. He loved it all too, he said his favorite part of the whole tour was the love that people show to each other in the church. Even if they are random strangers he felt like he was a part of the family and loved. It was so cool to hear. 

-On Thrusday we had a member of the 70 come to our zone conference and we had 11 hours of meetings. I couldn't even feel my face by the end I was so done. It was all great stuff though. The MLC portion was really cool. Elder Keech is a cool guy. 

-Saturday we did a triple blitz in the Mt.Pleasent area and tried to get some stuff goin up there. Interesting folks up there. 

-Sunday, Kraig came to Church and asked if he could move his baptism up to next weeked! I wish we could lol, he's so ready. He read the whole BOM in like 2 weeks. But he has to come to church again before his baptism. He's ready though, I'm stoked out of my mind for Kraig. 

That's all i got for this week. Last thing! Happy Fathers Day to all the Dad's and Future Dads out there! I love my Dad so much! He's the hardest working guy and best example out there, I'm so grateful for him! Love you Dad!!

Love you guys!

Hide your kids, hide your wife, we baptizing everyone out here

This week was littttttttttttttttttttt!

For real though it was pretty great. We had another awesome baptism, our boy Alex entered into the waters of Baptism on Saturday and it was awesome to witness! The service was awesome as well, Alex is such a smart kid it's awesome. He has the plan of salvation down just from memory and he can teach you the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson better than I can haha. I love this guy he's a little stud. I'm so grateful that we were able to be led to him. His mom gave the closing prayer at the Baptism and it was one of the most spiritual and sincere prayers I've ever heard. I can't wait to see this family continue to progress as they come back to Church. 

Another fun thing that happened this week was that we went to Des Moines for exchanges with the AP's! I got to go with my homie Elder Higley, it was just like ole times it was dope. Elder Higley is a stud! We taught a lot of Africans so that was awesome I miss africans! We also got to eat at my favorite place in the world HuHott! 

Speaking of Africans, we were a little early for exchanges so we stopped in Des Moines and got to see some of my african family! I got to see the Zoeduah/Sando family it was amazing! I felt like I was seeing family again. I love those people!! 

Another cool thing that just happened was I got to see the MOSS family!! It was awesome seeing my old Trek Parents haha! They are the best! Shout out to them for coming to visit me out here in Illinois! 

I don't have a ton of time to write today. But here's some good pics we took this week!