Rush Week

What's up everybody?

This week was pretty great here in IC. We were pretty busy all week which is always a good thing. We did a ton of knocking and street contacting this week, just trying to get people interested and find some new investigators. We worked really hard each day and stopped by every person we had met this week. 

Knocking helped a ton we found 10 new investigators this week, which is way fruitful for this area. Some are a lot more solid than others, but that's life. We found some cool new people this week that should progress though. 

Our most promising guy is a man from the Congo named Osborne! He's dope, he just moved here a year ago from Africa, he's friend is a cool Recent convert from the congo. He came to the Ward BBQ on Saturday and we met him and gave him a tour of the church and invited him to be baptized. He's a really cool guy and we should be teaching him in a members home this week!

We had interviews with President and Sister Badger it was great as usual. I love being with President Badger, he's such a cool guy. 

A sad thing happened a few days ago we had a sad thing happen in our zone. Our senior couple lost one of their sons in a car accident so they've been gone to be back with their family for a time. Last night we drove an hour Belle Plaine, IA so we could decorate there door and put notes on it. They got home today so hopefully it helped them.

This week was great though. Just grinding every day trying to get people to come recognize the blessings of church. 

Things are looking up!

What's up all?

This week here in IC has been pretty good. We are slowly pulling a teaching pool together and finding some people with a lot of solid potential. We found a cool family, a single mom named Alisha and her kids Nehimiah, Amaya, and Rashad. They are a really cool family that is genuinely  interested, we are working hard to get them to church and out to the Ward BBQ this weekend. We are also working with a girl named Karia that we found this week, she's 15 but I thought she was like 22 when she answered the door lol. She's really cool and has been reading in the Book of Mormon so that's good stuff. 

We have a few other people that are intrested as well. Things are getting better though, we basically started from ground zero out here, literally had 1 person in the teaching pool my first day here and we dropped her my first day. So things are picking up a little. If I've learned anything on a mission it's a testimony of hard work, pretty much every area I've served in had nothing going on in the beginning and we didn't start seeing blessings until we labored as hard as we could. So that's the gameplan, hopefully some of these new people are prepared to progress. 

So on a funny note, school started at the University of Iowa today. Here are some fun facts about the U of I

-There's about 25,000 Kids

-The acceptance rate is 84% 

-It's the 2nd Ranked Party School in the Nation according to Forbes

So it's safe to say we meet some entertaining people when we are out and about. 

There's also a ton of girls here, Elder Zinn and I always joke that God sent us here to slowly acclimate us back to seeing pretty girls because we've seen more attractive girls here in the past 3 days then we've seen in the last 20 months lol. 

So with that we've been trying to talk to as many of them as possible, about the gospel of course. So we are approaching this one group of girls and I'm thinking "Alright, just be normal, talk about the gospel, you've done this before, don't be weird." 

First thing that comes out of my mouth "Hey how are you SISTERS doi..ah freak. " 

Good thing I'm not called as a YSA elder cause I have no Missionary-game. 

This week should be good though, we should have some people at church and get them working towards baptismal dates. 

Love you all, Hope you have a good week.

Shout out to my boy Elder Langford finishing strong and returning to the motherland 

Poison Ivy

Hello friends and family!

This week was an adventure and we had some funny things happen. The main thing that happened this week is that my beloved comp Elder Zinn has been suffering from some insane poison ivy hahaha. Like it's bad though, it started out as a stripe on his leg and it's spread to both legs and all the way up his stomach to his chest. So we got to research some ways to try and get rid of it. Zinn was taking like 8 benadril a day at one point but we realized that probably wasn't healthy. Eventually we went to the urgent care and they gave him some steroids and told him to take an oatmeal bath (you best believe I have documentation of that). 

Other than my companion almost dying from a rash, it's been kind of a boring week. We knocked a lot of doors and are trying to build up the teaching pool here and get people to church. Things are looking up, slowly. We'll get it though. 

School starts here pretty soon so we are excited to kick it with the YSA elders and teach a lot of college students. Should be pretty lit when they all move in. One thing that was surprising here is how many Asians we teach. It's insane! Everyone is from China and Taiwan and they are here for school, so we teach a lot of people that have no background in God or Jesus Christ. It's a different feeling for sure, but it's way cool. We're trying to learn how to OYM people in Chinese but it's way hard, mad props to all the people that speak Asian languages. 

We'll that's all I got for this week, hopefully we will have more exciting news next week. Pray for Elder Zinn's rash, also pray that I don't get it! 

Love you all!

Elder Zinn convinced our whole zone to take Pre Workout before Pday, lol:

This thing is called a cicada killer. they are like a giant wasp. if you have ever seen a cicada, these things kill those... yeah:

A member gave us a whole pizza but we had to walk home so Zinn carried this pizza for like 5 miles:

Iowa City; Where The Grass is Green and The Girls Are Pretty

Greetings.

I'm emailing from my new home and hopefully my last area, the BEAUTIFUL Iowa City!! Yes the dream came true and Elder Zinn and I got our shot at serving together in a college town, yes! I'm super pumped to be here in IC it feels like I'm back in civilization after spending 6 months out on the frontier in Nauvoo. One of the things President Badger said while telling me I was going there was "Elder Milligan, I believe they have a Huhott in IC, I knew you'd be excited for that." He knows me to well.

So Iowa City is lit. There's college kids everywhere and school is about to start up, so everyone is moving in. Sometimes when Elder Zinn and I are sick of knocking we will just walk by the dorms and offer to help move people in and invite them to institute and Church lol. 

My New comp is Elder Zinn, we came out together and he was in our district in Nauvoo so I know him well, he's one of my good friends in the mission so we were stoked when we found out. Our zone is a party and we've had a lot of fun so far. He is super creative and abstract so it's funny being his comp. 

So I just got here and our teaching pool is kind of trash right now lol. So I don't really have anyone to talk about but that will change by next week cause we are goona build this place up right quick. Sunday was cool though, we cover the 2nd ward here which is all the famalies that moved here for residency at the med, dental, and law schools. So a lot of young families and doctors so I love talking to them. Our ward is diverse to there's families from Africa, China, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Scotland and more, it's sick. 

That's all I really have for this week, I'll send a lot of pics I took saying goodbye to the families I loved in B-town and some final pics from Nauvoo. I love ya'll have a good week. 

Hol' Up Fill The Font'

What's up Everybody?

I hope you all had a great week! Not goona lie though, it probably wasn't as good as ours here in Nauvoo. ;)

This week was the GOAT cause we baptized Kraig and Kraig is the GOAT. Look at his stats. 

-Has Read BOM completely twice.

-Has read all of D&C

-Has read all of the Pearl of Great Price

-Studied for Over 4 months

-Been inside the Nauvoo Temple (lol, whoops)

-Confounded a Basher

Kraig is basically the Micheal Jordan of Investigators. He's as solid as a rock. He's a man of few words, but his testimony speaks for it's self. I love this guy. I was honored that he asked me to Baptize and Confirm him. Such a sweet moment to share with a guy as cool and humble as my man Kraig. 

So the Baptism was definitely a highlight of the week. We had a lot of other awesome things happen as well. 

Monday- We had P-day in Nauvoo and played ball. 

Tuesday- We had another good day, we taught our investigator Jazmine with a member and it was one of the best lessons I've ever had. The spirit was so strong.

We also had Stake Coordination with President Badger and President Church the Nauvoo Stake President. We discussed the Missionary work in our Zones and in the Stake. IT was a great meeting. Those two men are spiritual giants!

Wednesday- We had our last District Meetings of the Transfer. We had testimony meetings to end both meetings and there were some powerful experiences share and testimonies born. That night a member took us on exchanges to the Nauvoo hotel, probably the best buffet in the world. After that we interviewed Elder Esplin's investigator for baptism it was awesome! Then we went to pageant after with our investigator!

Thursday- We were on the grind all day finding new investigators and getting people ready to come to Church. We met with Kraig and got him ready for his baptism as well. 

Friday- We cleaned the font and worked hard throughout the day to get people at church and invited all of our investigators to the baptism. That night we went to the British pageant again with our Recent convert alex and his mom. It was awesome, the British pageant is so spiritual and teaches a ton of doctrine. It's awesome. 

Saturday- BAPTISM LES GOOOO!

Sunday- Our investigator Jazmine came to Church and brought her 3 kids as well. The ward did a great job of welcoming her and fellowshipping her. One family even invited her over for dinner, it was awesome. The Burlington ward is lit. 

Jazmine is now on date for Sept. 9th so I'm pumped. Pray for her she's the bomb! 

On a sad note this will be my last time emailing from the Nauvoo Zone. It's been a party here and I've loved every second of it. The last 6 months have been the best of my life, NOTHING beats serving here in Nauvoo. 

We find out where I'm transferring to tomorrow morning. But there's a rumor that a return to a certain city could be on the cards ;) we'll see next week.

Love you all!

Pageants and Protestors

Hey, what's up, hello?

How's it going fans? Hope you all had a great week, this week was pretty awesome. We got a lot of work done and had tons of fun along the way and that's always a bonus. We did a lot of cool things this week so I'm just going to make a list for you to peruse as you skip to the pictures and exit out of this email and move on to the next! 

-Monday we had another dope P-day down here in Nauvoo, kind of sick of all these tourists trying to use my gym. But that's a rant for another day. 

-Tuesday, okay so this was a sick day. So we worked really hard on Tuesday and had a lot of miracles happen, we taught a lot of our investigators that we found last week and tried to get people to church. It was a good day full of hard work. Then that night we were able to finally see the Nauvoo Pageant! We took our recent convert Alex, and his mom. Man that Pageant folks, it's something else. I'd encourage everyone to see it at least once. It's amazing, at the end of the show the whole cast sings "The Spirit of God" and they turn off all the lights and in the Background the only light shining  is The temple up on the hill. I think that might have been one of the most spiritual things I've been apart of on my mission. 

-Wednesday was a total grind day, we found 4 new Investigators and just tried to tear things up while we were in our area. It was a good time.

-Thursday was a lot of fun, I got to go on exchanges with my son, Elder Esplin. It was great being back with him, it felt just like Old times. We found a lot of new investigators together and argued with a few people as well, just like the good ole days ;) Then that night we went up to Iowa City again to stay the night before Zone Conference with my homies Elder Zinn and Elder Cook. We ate at T_road that night so that was probably the highlight haha. 

-Friday we had Zone Conference in Iowa City! It was really good, we talked a lot about getting people to Church. It was awesome. I got to see my homie/ former comp, Elder Gundersen before he goes home in a week. I'll miss that gentle giant.

- Saturday. Saturday was the bomb. (Even though we were outside all day and it was 101 degrees and 109 with the humidity and heat index)  It was Elder Butterfield's birthday and we spent the whole day in Nauvoo! We went down at 8:00 to go through the temple with some recent converts! Then after we had lunch and went and saw some of the sights. Then that night we got to see the Nauvoo Pageant again! It was funny, So there was a ton of us missionaries going to watch the pageant and we were walking across the streets to the Pageant grounds and all the protesters just went crazy. All just yelling and swearing and telling us we were going to hell and jesus hates us. It was pretty humorous. As I was walking by I saw one of them holding a "quote" from Jesus. It was funny cause later on in that quote the Savior says, "Blessed are those they which are persecuted righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I just thought that was some good food for thought.

-Sunday we had a good day at Church. We planned for Kriag's Baptism next Saturday, and he asked me to preform his Baptism. I'm so excited for this guy! I love him!

I love you guys have a great week here's some pics:

1: I'm a pretty big deal here in Nauvoo, as you can tell by the sticky note, reserving my seat. 

2.  About to March through them Bashers.

3. Exchanges with the hamilton Elders.

4. Saying goodbye to grandma and grandpa Beyer

5.Nauvoo Pageant

6. Temple after the Pageant.

7. Eagle Homies reppin in Nauvoo

8. Goodbye Gundy :/

Ain't No Rest For The Righteous

This week was hot and sweaty. But it was awesome. We had some real cool things happen this week and got a ton of good work done. Elder Butterfield and I were driving all over the place this week. We were down in Nauvoo for P-Day, it was pretty good we got to play some Marshallese kids in Basketball that were visiting with their Ward from North Carolina. Then Tuesday we had a whole day to work in our area, so we went out and pounded the pavement and found 5 new investigators and tried to get people ready for Church on Sunday. We found some people with a lot of potential so hopefully we'll be able to help them. 

Tuesday night we drove up to Iowa City with the Quincy ZL's and stayed the night with the Iowa City ZL's before MLC. The YSA Elders were there as well so we had 8 Elders in the Apartment with no air conditioning and 100% Humidity. But it was still a party. MLC the next day was amazing, we had two guy from the Mission Department in Salt Lake come and give some training. They had a lot of awesome feedback and suggestions for us. Their main focus was teaching us how to help our Missionaries, find people to teach, and get investigators to Church. We had a really good practice of teaching a lesson solely on Church attendance and helping investigators feel more comfortable so they can focus on the spirit at Church. MLC was good overall, after we got to eat dinner at the Iowa City mall, it was nice being back in civilization for a little bit lol.

Thursday, we had two District Meetings to attend and gave a small training on what we learned on MLC. It was good, both meetings were solid. After the second meeting we had a short exchange with the Hamilton Elders, I went with Elder Perez, he's a stud. Pretty quite guy but he's a great teacher and missionary. 

Friday we had exchanges with the Macomb Elders, we got a lot of work done and found 8 more investigators. We spent the whole day knocking, which was great. I've grown to love knocking doors, especially in Burlington, you're guaranteed and least one crazy story every street haha. 

Saturday, we went back up to Iowa City for an investigator that Elder Butterfield got to Baptize. It was way cool, tons of people came for it so it was great. I love Iowa City, I'm pushing pretty hard to go there next transfer for my last area haha.

Also, here's some news. So since my departing transfer falls on the week of winter semester. President Badger is actually sending my group home 2 weeks before the transfer day. So I'll be arriving home Dec. 29th. Crazy Stuff.

Alright that's all I got. I love you guys, have a great week!

Jake 

PIC: 

More Goodbyes at MLC, all the Mission Legends are dying off.