"Til the End"

Well Folks, here it is. In the words of my favorite poet Logic; "What's done is done." 

I seriously cannot believe my time in the Iowa Des Moines Mission is over, but I'm so grateful for the experiences I've had, the lessons I've learned, and the memories I'v made. The Lord has a plan for all of us, and I know for a fact that this Mission was part of that plan for me. I'm grateful for all of the amazing people I've met out here, and above all I'm grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ. I know that without him, these two years would never have been possible. 

So I talked to the Fam on Monday and I'll see a lot of you in the next few days so I'm goona keep this one short. 

Highlight of the week, Christmas? Wrong. We had a baptism and those are a lot cooler, at least for us as missionaries. Steven was baptized on Saturday and it was awesome, I some how got that big guy in dunked and the Spirit was so strong holy cow. He was confirmed the next day on Christmas Eve, what an awesome way to celebrate the Birth of our Savior. 

Christmas was great though. Great to see the fam and my bros, and great celebrating our Savior. Christmas has taken on such a different meaning to me over the last two years, and I'm so grateful for that. 

We had a lot of stuff happen since the last email. But I'm just goona send a million pictures instead, you're welcome Kerry ;)

I love you all. I can't wait to see you guys on Friday and in the upcoming weeks. 

Merry Christmas

Jake

pictures: Getting all the missionaries presents for zone conf, Zone conf, steve's baptism, State Capitol, tool pics in front of some art wall, and lots of goodbyes,

Faith and Weed

What's up everybody?

Crazy that this is my last full week as a Missionary. Time is flying by and it's starting to finally feel real. 

This week was pretty nuts, we had MLC and Interviews this past week which take up the whole day so we had two days taken out of our week already. We also had a ton of work to do in our area so it was pretty busy. 

We have had a ton of miracles happen this week happen too. We didn't have a ton of time to go finding this week because of all of our meetings and teaching appointments so we had to do it in pretty small amounts of time. But the time we did get to go out and pound the pavement we found a ton of new investigators and five of them are really solid! We found a new lady named Irene, she's straight outta Liberia, and she has five sons that are all super cool and hopefully will be investigators this coming week. 

Quick update on my guy Steve! Steve is a stud holy cow, this man has read the BOM, D&C, and the Pearl of Great Price! He's a stud and doing really well. He's getting interviewed tonight and his baptism will be on Saturday! I'm so excited to baptize him on my last weekend as a full-time Missionary. It's going to be a great day.

We had some other investigators come to church this week and they are all doing awesome as well!

Okay so time for the latest experience from the Des Moines Ward Elders Quorum 

So one of the African members was teaching, about faith. So he starts telling this story about how he used to live in Liberia, and his parents sold "Grass" (Weed)  to make a living. So he proceeds to tell this story about how he once had to put his faith in God so he could smuggle weed through an African Airport and not get caught by the cops. I was dying, it was the funniest thing ever. Our African investigators were laughing so hard, and all the american members where just shaking their heads trying not to laugh. Such a typical Des Moines Ward moment lol.

Well this is it folks, probably the last email I'll put effort into on my Mission! I just want to let you all know how grateful I am for the support and love you have all shown me over the past two years. My Mission has meant the world to me and has changed me in so many ways. I testify that this is Christ's Church and we are all his beloved Children. I'm so grateful for the State of Iowa, and Illinois (kind of, I'm not a huge fan of that area lol). I'll miss this place so much, especially all of my African families, and crazy ghetto investigators. 

I love all of you and cannot wait to see you all in person. 

Jake 

I took a lot of photos last week but forgot my camera....so here's the only one I have with me. 

3 Chainz

What's up loved ones? 

We had some new changes this week. So I'll be heading home here in about 3 weeks so we got a third companion this week who will be replacing me when I head home. His name is Elder Hadfield, he's from Elmo, Utah lol. It's been a hectic couple of days trying to get everything organized and train him on what he's supposed to do but he'll be great! 

This week has been crazy to be honest. It's just a whirlwind all the time here in DSM and we are always rushing from one thing to the next. Right now we are in a trio and have an elder who has to head home early with us right now. Four elders on P-day is very frustrating lol. 

The work is going great right now, we are still working with Francis and Bajar our solid Africans. But our main man Steven is doing amazing! He already finished the Book of Mormon and is 90 sections deep in D&C! He's such a stud, love that guy! He's still set for his Baptism on the 23rd, can't wait to get in the water and dunk this 6'4 250 lb man. Goona be so great haha!! 

Other than that Life is good. Just out here grinding in downtown Diggity Moines (shout out to Bro. Chandler haha!) so lit. 

Also shoutout to the OG Homies of the Eagle 5th Ward for sending me the Christmas notes. I'll always be an Eagle kid at heart, even though my family abandoned the best city on Earth ;)

Sorry these letters have been kind of short and scattered lately. I'm always level 10 tired and by the end of the week I can't remember what has happened anyways.

I love you guys! Thanks to everyone that has sent me christmas stuff. You are all Loyal. 

Love ya!

Temple Trippy

What's up family and friends?

This past week was pretty awesome. We had a lot of good things happen this week and had a lot of fun along the way. So this week started off pretty crazy we had p-day, and played some ball. Then on Tuesday I went on the Departing Temple Trip to Nauvoo with all the guys I came out with and the Badgers. It was way trippy going on the Departing temple trip, I can't believe that my mission is closing up here soon. I was doing pretty good the whole day but when President and Sis Badger hugged me in the temple I about lost it. I'm going to miss the Badgers so much, they are so sick holy cow. But yeah that was sick, we left Des Moines around 7:00 and didn't get back till like 10:00. 

The rest of the week we just worked really hard to get people to Church and find some more people to teach. We found a lot of cool people that I'm excited about. My guy Steven called us this week and asked me to Baptize him on the 23rd so it'll be awesome to baptize Steve on my last Saturday on the Mission. So that will be awesome, it'll be so cool to end my Mission on that note. 

My guy Bajar is doing good, found out that he was actually in a gang back in Ethiopia so that's pretty sick. 

Funny Story: So I've mentioned kicking possums in my emails a few times. It's kind of a mission fad that Elder Obray and I started. But Elder Obray had yet to join the elite group. So Elder Obray and I were doing miles the other night and I look out the window and see the same possum I kicked the other day. So Obray gets out and chases this thing and he gets out to kick this thing and he's chasing it and he literally close-lines himself on this metal rail. It was so funny, the best thing was that some Drake girl was watching us from across the street and it was so funny. We were both laughing so hard.  But he eventually got it, kicked it with his bare feet, what a stud.

Alright that's all I got this week. I love you all. Time is going by so quick I can't believe it. I love this work, it's been the best decision I've ever made.

I love you guys.

Jake

pics: Super bad quality, but it's the pics of all of us dying missionaries at temple trip with Prez and Sis. Badger

Toil in the Soil of Gratitude

This week was sweet. Thanksgiving was a good time and we had a lot of awesome things happen in our area this week. We really worked our butts off this week and the blessings started coming in phat on Sunday which is the best. 

The start of this week was pretty tough tbh Elder Obray and I got pretty sick. I got the flu at the start of the week and threw up some B-dubs so that was tight. Then Elder Obray got a sinus infection so we were walking zombies for a few days, but we still got out and worked really hard. We found some pretty sick people this week as well so that's a huge bonus. 

I'm super tired this week so I'm just going make a list of what happened this week. 

Monday- We had P-day and it was the usual routine.

Tuesday-  We worked hard, and did a lot of knocking. We went to Bdubs and I threw up in the middle of the night after after that so that was pretty cool. 

Wednesday- We had a good District Meeting and found a bunch of new investigators after that. 

Thursday- Thanksgiving was pretty sweet, we went on a run as a zone through downtown Des Moines and we finished running up the steps of the Capitol Building which is huge. It was pretty fun. Then we went and saw a member named Curtis, he's in one of the wards and he is a little disabled to we go and see him sometimes. He's a funny guy. For Thanksgiving we ate with the Senior Office Missionaries for lunch and they made us a bomb thanksgiving dinner. Then we had another dinner with the Meteer Family in the ward, I knew them back when I was in Ankeny so they are pretty sweet. Then we went to the mall and checked out the deals. 

Friday- Had another District Meeting, which was good. Then we found some more investigators.

Saturday- We found a ton of new Investigators. Had some funny experiences.

Sunday- We had 3 awesome investigators come to Church and Elder Obray and I spoke. I spoke on Humility and threw in a funny story about how I dropped my date rock climbing one time. President and Sister Badger were there to watch us speak so I think they enjoyed that one.

Investigator update:

Steven is doing great, for sure getting baptized on Dec. 23rd. My last Saturday as a missionary, super stoked for it. Bajar, is a cool guy from Ethiopia. We found him saturday night, got him to church on sunday morning. He's so solid. We also had an African member bring her non-member sister to church. During Gospel principles she raised her hand and said "Excuse me, I would like to be baptized into the Church, where can I put in an application". Me and Elder obray just smiled and raised our hands. ;) God is good.

Okay so the title of my Email is from Prez. Badger's most recent training. He gave a fire training on a lot of different subjects, but one was being humble and thankful. He told us that pride and sin can never grow in the soil of gratitude. I thought that went nicely with the holiday week. I love you guys! See you soon! :)

Des Moines Crazies

This week was pretty busy and hectic, we had a ton of meetings and did a ton of finding so we can start rebuilding the teaching pool after our recent baptisms. With a lot of finding of course comes a ton of stories of the interesting people we come into contact with here in Des Moines. I don't know what it is but there are so many just straight up crazy people here, it's really entertaining. We knocked this one apartment complex where every single person was literally just off the rocker. It's funny the first few times but after a while it gets kind of worrisome lol. 

So this week after P-day we did a ton of knocking, we found 2 really cool investigators and they are looking pretty solid. We've gone back the same complex throughout the week and have found 9 new investigators over there so it's a pretty fruitful place. Anyways, after P-day we also had to set up for Zone Conference the next day. So Elder Obray and I set up all the chairs and the tables and everything which took a while. So the next day during Zone Conference we break after 3 hours for lunch and we go to the gym and turns out, all the ladies in the DM stake that were supposed to prepare the lunch for 70 missionaries didn't show up. So Sister Badger was kind of freaking out and we had a quick talk with her and she told us to order like 25 pizzas and to go get them. So we have one of the STL's call Dominos to get the pizzas ordered. So we drive like 10 minutes to the pick up the pizzas and figure out that the Sister Ordered from the wrong pizza place...women. So we had to drive some more to find the right place and pick up the pizza to feed a bunch of hungry missionaries. 

A highlight of this week has been teaching our investigator Steve. He's the wife of a Less Active lady that me and Elder Glenn knocked into on exchanges, he has already read to Mosiah 13 in the Book of Mormon and it's only been a few weeks since we met him. He's on fire, he came to Stake Conference this week and is on Date for December 23rd. Pretty awesome guy, it's goona be awesome to see him get baptized my last weekend in the mission! It's pretty we're starting to find new people and set dates with them after I get home, which is weird to think about. 

Other than that we've just been knocking a ton of doors and trying to help our zone find people to teach as well, we have 6 missionaries that have been out less than 4 months so we have been doing a ton of exchanges and stuff trying to help them out.

It's kind of becoming real that my mission is coming to the end, on Saturday we dropped an Elder off at the airport with President and Sister Badger, in the Airport Sister Badger looked at me and made a comment about how I'm almost done with my mission. It's a crazy thought, a mission goes by so fast and I've always had the mindset that I'll be on one forever. Now I'm going on the departing temple trip next week and all of that stuff. This week has definitely made me want to make the most out of these last 6 weeks of my mission. 

Love ya'll I hope you guys had a good thanksgiving! 

Jake 

Photos: Pretty much all from zone conference 

Mary Magdalene

This week was really good, we worked hard and found a ton of new investigators. We spent a lot of time finding and teaching our investigator Cynthia as well. We also met a lot of crazy people haha. It was pretty entertaining, we had some interesting encounters with Des Moines finest. 

I'm struggling super hard to remember all the things we did this week so I'm just going to make a list of all the stuff that happened. 

-We have had a ton of meetings this week we had 2 district meetings and we had Stake Coordination meeting with President Badger and President Call the DM Stake President. So we spent a lot of time preparing for meetings and putting stats together. 

-We went on exchanges this week with the some of the Spanish Elders in our zone. I went with Elder McConnell one of our DL's and he is really funny. It was interesting cause about a year ago I went on exchanges with him when he was fresh out of the MTC and I was his DL. We were basically working in the same area and even knocked some of the same apartments that we knocked a year ago. 

-On exchanges we taught Cynthia the Stop Smoking Workshop. She is really excited to stop smoking which is awesome and we should be able to help her quit. Smoking is her only hold back now she  bore her testimony in Church last Sunday about how she knew the Church was true and how she loved all the members. It was awesome. 

-Something awesome that happened this week was that I got a call from Kraig, one of my recent converts from Burlington. He said he was in DM for the night and wanted to take us out to dinner. So we got to go to Joe's Crab Shack with him. It was awesome to hangout with him and his daughter Maya who has started going to Church with him as well. Kraig is one of the most awesome and solid people ever. I love that guy!

-So one funny story about a crazy person we met this week. (I usually have like 5 of these encounters a week, people here are crazy) but it happened on exchanges with McConnell.

We were knocking some apartments and this lady opens the door and she is acting super strange. She like hugged us right as she opened the door so we had like zero time to react. Then she ran her hand through my hair and like squeezed my cheek. So this lady is just acting super crazy the whole time and she tells us that her name is "Mary Magdalene" and that she is married to Jesus Christ and all this stuff. Then she tried to read our auras and told us we both had an Orange Aura. Then to top things off she noticed that Elder McConnell was wearing a scarf and I wasn't so she grabs one of her scarfs and starts wrapping it around my neck and tells me I need to take it. Then she gave us a program from her dads funeral. This was like a pretty tame version of the story to be honest but yeah. We've met like 30 people like this sense I've been here. 

Well that's all I got this week. I forgot to take pics this week, so I'll try to send some next week.

Love you guys!

Elder Milligan and Elder Obray vs The City of Des Moines

This week was really great we found a lot of cool people this week and took on a lot more work. So this week we found out that Elder Obray and I would be the YSA Elders in the new YSA branch for the Des Moines, Mt. Pisgah, and Ames Stakes! So we are going to be pretty busy covering the Des Moines Ward and the Branch which covers 3 different stakes and is like a 3.5 hour drive from one end to the other. I'm excited though, we will probably only be working in the branch until next transfer. But I'm pumped to teach a lot of young people, and the Branch meets in Ankeny so I'll get to go up there quite often and see a lot of members from the Ankeny 2nd ward. So it'll be really fun and we should be able to get a lot of work done. 

This week we went on exchanges with one of the DL companionship's, Elder Kelly and Elder Glenn. I got to go with Elder Glenn and he's a stud. If you could imagine the surfer dude from fast times at Ridgemont High, he's basically that guy. He's always saying "Broooo" and "This man..." it's pretty funny. We found some new investigators together and taught some good lessons. Also taught one crazy person that is convinced she is being stalked by a gang of devil worshipers.

Monday was Beggars Night here in DM so we couldn't be out past 6:00. So we just chilled at the apartment and went to the Drake Diner for dinner it was pretty lit. Then the next day we had interviews on Halloween from like 11:00 to 5:50. Then after we had dinner with our WML and then partied at Davids with the whole Elders squad until 10:00.

We had MLC the day after Halloween so we had to wake up bright and early and shuttle all the Elders over to Iowa City. MLC was good, crazy that I only have one more left on my mission. Time is flying by, crazy.

On a fun note Elder Obray hit two dogs at the same time with our giant van. But they both survived, so we are all good. Also I kicked a possum in the face on Sunday night when it tried to come at me outside our apartment.

I miss you all. Can't wait to see you guys, love ya'll.

Jake

Pics:

Our most promising Investigator Phillip. He's Goona get baptized no doubt.

Some Classy Des Moines Graffiti 

Me and The son, maybe one of the Last times I'll get to see Baby Esplin :/

The "Evenic" Covenant

This week was really awesome!

We witnessed yet another awesome baptism here in the Des Moines Ward. Even Gbaba and her nephew/adopted son Romeo Yarlee were both Baptized on Saturday and it was awesome to be a part of. 

Even and Romeo both have an awesome story. Even used to live in Rhode Island after she came over from Liberia, but one day she felt prompted that she should move to Des Moines to help her sister Agnes with all of her young kids. A month after she moved here, Agnes was shot and killed by her fianance and all of her kids were left without a mother. So Even has stepped up and basically adopted all 5 of those kids and taken them into her home to raise them. She works at Hyvee and supports a family of 12 off of one small income. She's awesome and I'm so happy she found the Church. 

Romeo is awesome as well, he is a super bright and happy 8 year old boy. You would have no idea he saw his mother get murdered, but he has such a happy spirit. He is one of my favorite people I've taught, just a happy 8 year old boy that loves primary and learning about Jesus. 

The Baptism was awesome, we had a ton of people there and the Ward trunk or treat was right after so it was like a big party to celebrate their baptism. 

It was pretty funny after the baptism Even grabbed me and Elder Obray and Said she loved us and blessed us to each have 30 kids and lots of money. We were joking that it sounds kind of like the Abrahamic covenant so we called it the "Evenic Covenant."

That was the big news from this week. We are working hard to find more people to teach and get to Church. Hopefully we will have some solid people to talk about next week. We did find our long lost golden man Usufu this week. So he should be coming back to Church on Sunday!

Alright this is getting long. I love ya'll. 

Have a great week.

Two Men and a Van

What's up everybody? 

This week Elder Obray and I have started thinking about starting our own moving company after all the manual labor we've been preforming. We got called to move people like 4 separate times this week, which was a big time suck but it happens. 

One of these moves we had to do was ridiculous / life threatening. This member from Utah asked us to help his great uncle with dementia move a bunch of stuff out of his basement. Turns out this 'stuff" was 2700 lb Leathe and a 1800 lb rifle barrel machine. It was insane, we had to take apart this leathe and the head with the drill in it alone weighed 200 lbs. Then we took the bench off and it weighed 600 lbs. So we put these things on a dolly (this is all in a nasty basement by the way) and we ratchet strap this bad boy down and we get a rope and tie it around me and Elder obray grabs the dolly and some elders push from the bottom and I was just running into this semi trailer while Obray was pulling the dolly up the stairs. Then Obray well and the dolly almost broke his leg. It was pretty lit. 

We also helped another non-member move which was good, and we had to give the Hermanas in our zone new beds. So we are pretty much everybody's slave labor right now. 

The work here is going good though. We have two baptisms coming up this Saturday which will be awesome! Even and Romeo are getting baptized at 10:00 on Saturday right before the trunk or treat ward party so hollah. It will be awesome, they are ready for baptism. They've been waiting forever and I'm really excited for them to finally enter in this awesome promise with our Savior. 

We also have a few more people that are in the beginning stages that are doing pretty well. We are trying to build up the teaching pool because we've been working with Even and Romeo for a while so we are goona have a lot more time to teach and find other people after their baptized. 

That's all for this week though. I love you all. Today marks the start of my Last Full transfer as a Missionary so mixed feelings about that. But I'm very excited to make the most out of these last weeks. 

Love ya'll

Flu Shots and Dog Bites

What's up world?

This week was pretty good and we worked really hard to help our investigators progress and make their baptismal dates. We had a lot of cool things happen and we saw some cool blessings come our way which is always dope.

So I'm way tired right now so I'm goona make a list of things that happened this week.

-So on Tuesday we had Zone Conference on Tuesday and it was pretty fire. Elder Obray and I gave a training on overcoming investigators concerns. It was pretty lit not goona lie. We made our training into an equation and trained on how we can follow certain steps to overcome any concern an investigator may have. So a funny thing that happened during ZC was that Sister Badger texted us the night before and told us that we needed to tell all the missionaries that the Red Cross would be there to give free flu shots. So we had to get flu shots and then the next day I got super sick. So shout out to the Red Cross. 

-This week we also taught the Yarlee/Gababba family (Even & Romeo). They are doing good, Even is really awesome. She's this old African lady that basically adopted 4 of her nieces and nephews after their mother was murdered by their father. So she has a lot on her plate, but she's a super humble lady and wants to follow Christ really bad.

-So my dog curse was reignited this past Saturday. So we were trying by this referral and this dog comes out goin like mach 4 and it's running at Elder Obray and I'm like man this ratchet dog is goona run right by him and bite me. That's exactly what happened too, this dog bit me on both legs lol. It got be on the thigh and the calf. Probably the worst one's I've gotten wrecked my pants and got me pretty good haha. 

-Church was good, the Des Moines Ward is good for at least one fallacy/false doctrine taught every Sunday. But this time we were going good nothing bad had been said yet. Then we get to Elders quorm and we were talking about missionary work. Then some how the topic got changed to cannibalism in the Book of Mormon and they went of on a 10 minute tangent and it was pretty wack.

Well other than that we had a pretty mellow week. We are building up the teaching pool cause we have a lot of baptisms coming up so it's goona get depleted pretty quick. But we'll find some more here. Well I love ya'll. I hope you guys have a great week!

Jake

Pic: Modeling for the Ford Calendar