"You ever read the BOM?"-ME "Ahh yah, that book is LIT"- Black Guy

What's up everyone? 

This week was so busy, it seriously flew by. We had a ton of things to do and we were just slammed all week. We moved apartments this week and that was a total chore. We didn't have a truck so we ended up taking out the seats of the our Big Girl Heather and loading up stuff in the back of the van. It took us like twenty trips I swear it was so annoying. We also had to clean out the Hermana's old apartment that got whitewashed so some how that responsibility got put on us to clean it out for them. So that took a few days and many trash bags. 

On Tuesday we had MLC which was awesome as usual. We learned a lot of good things and Elder Obray and I got to drive our van packed with 12 other Elders for 3 hours it was pretty fun. I got to revisit my old area in IC it was bitter sweet. 

We had a lot of great lessons this week, our main Guy Edward is getting baptized on October 7th! I'm pumped for him to get baptized he's so funny. He's by far my favorite Mexican. His baptism was announced at Church and everything so it's official! We had a few of our other investigators at Church as well and they are progressing nicely. It's a lot of fun having a ton of people to work with here in DM. 

Our new Apartment we moved into is a student housing apartment complex for Drake University. Drake is a pretty sick university, it is one of the oldest in Iowa and it's a really pretty campus, there's a ton of preppy kids running around cause it's a private school so it's fun to talk to them haha. I also met one of our neighbors who is from Boise, I saw his 1A license plate and started freaking out and chased him down lol.

Another crazy thing that happened this week is that the Bishopric in the DM ward changed out, and a member I knew from the Ankeny ward is now the Bishop here! Also they announced  that the ward boundaries changed and part of the Ankeny 2nd ward is now in our ward! So a huge chunk of the area I worked in last fall is now in our area I'm stoked, a ton of my recent converts from Ankeny will now go to Church in the DM ward I'm stoked to see them! :)

Well that's all for this week, me and E. Obray are just out here grinding, DM is lit, life is good. 

Love ya'll

Emergency Transferred

Hey everyone! This is a little awkward. I'm writiting from my new home in the East Des Moines area! Some stuff went down in Iowa City and long story short I got sent out here to after the transfer was over. Pretty crazy stuff but I'm just glad it's over.

Just kidding!!! Shame on any of you who thought I would ever get ET'd lol. I did get transferred though, I'm out here in the Des Moines ward now! It's lit! I love being back in Des Moines this place is poppin. I've only been here since Thursday but we've already been seeing a ton of blessings in the work. My new companion is Elder Obray! He's a STUDDD. He's from Layton, Ut and is a total baller, plays piano, and guitar, basically the full package. 

Des Moines is a blast though, there is so much work to be done and it's so diverse here it's insane! The Ward has a ton of people from Africa and Burma! I love it, the atmosphere at Church is very unique because of it. 

Right now we are working with a ton of people it's awesome! We had 7 people at Church on Sunday and have 9 on date for baptism in the coming weeks. Our main Guy right now is named Edward, he's so dope. He is really chill and super laid back, his family is from Mexico and they are all super nice. He's been learning for like 4 months and he's pumped to get baptized on Oct. 7. He's super solid. 

We are also teaching a guy named Junior, he's a really cool guy as well. He is working through a lot of stuff right now. But he's doing great, he came to a baptism on Saturday and really enjoyed it. 

There's also a family that we are teaching from Liberia we are working mostly with them Even and her son Abraham. They are really cool and fun to work with. They have a crazy life story and are kind of famous in the IDMM. They should be getting baptized Oct. 21st. 

Last guy I'll talk about right now is named Usufu, he's cool guy. Super solid, after our lesson he asked us if he can come out and teach with us after he is baptized, he's from Liberia and is super fired up about the Gospel. He was torchin it up in Gospel Principles, just spitting fire about stuff he learned from reading the BOM. The whole time I just kept looking at Obray like man is this guy for real??

the work is awesome here! Please pray for our 9 investigators that they will keep progressing and be able to get baptized. 

One of my favorite things about serving in Des Moines is that we get to drive "Heather". For those of you who are uniformed, "Heather" is 2017 Ford 15 Passenger Van. She's beautiful and I love her. It's pretty fun navigating the streets in down town Des Moines that were built for Mopeds I'm pretty sure, but she's a beast. If people didn't think we are weird already they probably do now seeing us roll up in this Silver machine. 

Well that's about it for this week. Still getting used to the new area, I'm pumped to be in Des Moines though, it should be a party these last 3 months! Let's Go!!!

Love you all.

Jake.

PS: Big news here, I am a Great-Grandpa. My Grandson began training this transfer. I'm stoked I got to see my lineage continue for another Generation! 

PICS: 

1. Pic with my Grandson and Great Grandson

2-Infinite. Lots and Lots of goodbye this transfer.  

The Plague

​How's it going everyone? 

So we are emailing really late again this time it's cause my companion Elder Zinn is pretty much a walking zombie. He threw up 11 times last night, he's got nasty food poisoning or something it's bad. I don't know how he got food poisoning and I didn't since we ate the exact same food but lucky in love I guess. 

But literally the whole zone has been so sick this week. Everyone has had a cold or the flu in the last few days. I had a cold the whole week and have been coughing up crap all week. But we've been out trying to sweat it out and we got a lot of work done as well.

The Kurosawa's are doing good still, they are so funny. No English at all, communication is just smiling and nodding with a few basic words like yes, no, hello etc. They are doing good though, they came to Church again and we got them some Japanese pamphlets and they were able to read about the sacrament and prayer during the meeting. I think that helped a lot. We got another meeting set up with our Japanese speaking member so I'm stoked for that. 

We have been doing a lot of service lately, like more then I have done in the past year but it's alright. I like being outside now that it's not a billion degrees and you don't feel like you're taking a shower every time you go outside. The other day we dug a huge hole out for a member so they could put a drain in for their pool. 

Okay so that Iowa vs Iowa State game tho, lets goo Hawkeyes! We just happened to be eating lunch while the game was on, imagine that timing. 

Something else funny that happened this week was that a member gave us facials it was pretty funny. Got some good pics of it. 

This week just kind of flew by so I don't have a ton to talk about. But it was good stuff.

Love ya'll

Let's Go

Greetings Loved Ones.

This week was amazing. Literally all of the work we have been putting in this whole transfer is finally amounting to something and it feels real good. We had a ton of miracles happen and we saw a ton of blessings come from it.  It's 7:00 pm and I've been in the car for 6 hours and I just ate like 4 pounds of roast and sweet potatoes, so if none of this makes sense I apologize. Just know that E. Zinn and I are goin hard out here in Iowa City. 

I'm just going to make a list of things that happened this week:

-So I'm not sure if I've even mentioned this before, but for the entire month of August our zone has been in a competition to hand out the most BOMs. It was the IC stake vs the Nauvoo Stake. So throughout the month we have been keeping track of how many BOMs our zone has handed out and really been emphasizing giving a BOM to everyone we talk to. Our zone ended up handing out 628 BOMs in the month! Which was ton compared to usual, and we won the competition ;) 

-Last Friday we had Zone Conference it was pretty sweet. Lots of good things were learned. 

-THE KUROSAWA'S!!!!! Okay this is actually pretty sick, we got a whole family to church! It was awesome, we have been working so freakin hard to get people at Church this transfer and nothing has been working. So I've been getting really frustrated, during studies one morning I was kind of just fed up and in my prayer I just put it all out there and asked Heavenly Father to help us get people to Church, cause obviously whatever we were trying was not working. Honestly probably the hardest I've ever prayed for anything in my whole life, but anyways. We were out knocking, nothing going through, all our investigators being shady, all our potentials peepholing us,etc. So we get back in the car and I was about to lose it and all of a sudden we get a text from the referral system. The referral was for the Kurosawa family, they moved to IC a week ago from Japan! They were taught a little by the missionaries there and we went straight to their house and met them. They speak like 0.005% English, but they are the nicest people ever. We got there and they were freaking out to see us at the door and they gave us a ton of Japanese candy. Then Sunday they came to church and it was lit, I was on cloud 9. A member from Japan and a member who served in Japan translated for them and helped them at Church. We haven an appointment to teach them Wednesday Night! Pray for them, my favorite family of 5 Japanese people ever!

-Other Miracle this week, KRAIG went to the temple! Yeah boiii! We got to go do baptisms with him this morning at the temple! (hence why I'm emailing in the dark.) It was so cool to be there with him and my former comps Butterfield and Hansen! I got to dunk Jess like 10 times it was way cool ;) We took some pretty lit photos on Kit's phone so I'll send some of those. 

So this week was just blessings on blessings on blessings. I have a real testimony of hard work, I feel like God has been stretching me this whole transfer. My whole mission things always kind of seemed to fall into place perfectly, but this transfer has just been a battle. But I think sometimes God does that too us to let us prove that we are willing and worthy to work for the blessings he wants to give us. 

All in all it was a good week! I love you all! Have a good week!