General Conference and Babies

This week was awesome! General conference is always a breath of fresh air on the Mission. It's also 5 different opportunities to get someone to Church and feel the spirit so we are all about that haha. We had a lot of good things happen this week, we have been working hard and teaching a ton of people which always feels good when your work yields a lot of results. 

This week we have been teaching Edward a lot, getting him ready for his baptism this Saturday! He's a stud and he's doing really good. His interview is tonight and he should be all good to go. Edward is such a funny guy, the other day during our lesson he told us he had a question but he wouldn't come out and ask it. So we were trying to get it out of him and finally he says "So my buddies want to go to the Strip club this weekend, and I'm always the designated driver. How do I tell my friends I can't go to the strip club anymore cause I'm Mormon now?" haha it was so funny. I love Edward, he is the most chill guy ever. 

This week we had exchanges with one of the DL companionship's in the zone. I went with Elder Lovin, he is a stud missionary. I remember when he first came out, he has grown a ton and is a great DL. I learn a ton from going on Exchanges with younger missionaries. It always helps me stay focus and realize how much I can improve on. We were able to teach our investigator Cynthia, she kind of dropped off the planet when I first got here so I've never met her and neither has E. Lovin so we went in there kind of blind but it turned out great. She had some concerns that we overcame with here and she is back on track for baptism which is awesome. 

We watched the Saturday afternoon session in mission home with the Badgers, it was kind of trippy. I felt like I was back home watching it. We watched the Sunday afternoon session with our African investigators Even and Romeo! We found out romeo turns 8 this month and he asked to get Baptized for his birthday! Isn't that precious haha? But it sounds like we are goona baptize him and his aunt for his b-day ;)

Other than that we've just been finding a lot and trying to get more people at Church. The work is awesome here I love DM.

I gotta end this email by giving a shoutout to my Sister Kristen and her Husband Eric! Congrats on the Baby! My nephew Hank looks like an absolute Baller! If you see my sister give her a hug for me!

Love you all!

Heck Week

Yoooooo!

What's up everybody? 

This week has been really good here in Ankeny. We have been meeting with all the awesome people we met last week and setting baptismal dates with them. Everyone we've been working with have been progressing super well. We're still trying to get them to Church but so far they've all been reading and praying so that's progress.

Also exciting news is that we should be having another awesome baptism this coming Saturday! Tracy and Margaret are doing amazing. They are both reading and learning more and more and have been coming to church consistently. They have been taught everything and are ready to be baptized this weekend. We are still working with their mother Hawa. But she has been harder to meet with so it's going to take a little longer to get her where she needs to be. We're hoping she'll follow her daughters example though! 

Other than that we've been working hard to find more people to teach. Every day is an adventure in Ankney/ Des Moines there's so many interesting and diverse people around here. I never thought I could go from teaching corn farmers to African refugees in less than a 30 Minute drive through our area. 

Okay once again gotta say thanks to every one that emailed me after I got off for my birthday! You guys are awesome! I love ya'll. I got pretty spoiled on my birthday we got a cake from the Sisters in the zone, a member family and our african investigators made me cup cakes! Birthdays in the Mission are the best, I've never felt more fulfilled than spending fun times like that with people that are trying to find their way back to God! 

I love you guys!

Have a good week! Pray for Tracy and Margaret!

My birthday cake(s):

Sisters in our Zone made a cake for my Birthday 

Our African Investigators/Member Family bought me some nice cupcakes as well haha

The Johnson Family we stopped by and played games with them and taught their cousins (Margret and Tracy) for My "Birthday Party"

 

All I Want for my Birthday is a Big African Family

What's up everybody?!

Ok first thing is first. Big Shout out to everyone who emailed or sent me stuff for my birthday. You guys are all true homies ("You Loyal"-DJ Khaled Voice) haha but yeah thanks guys I have the best friends and family out there!

So this week was great. Like really good, especially for Ankeny, Iowa. We saw a ton of blessings from our hard work this week. Most of those blessings came in the form of tons of new people to teach and an one, big, awesome African family that is super awesome and prepared!

So we have basically been working our butts off the first half of the transfer looking for new people to teach and help come closer to Christ. The first weeks were DRY but we kept grinding and Heavenly Father came in clutch as usual. This week we were led to 6 really awesome individuals who are all ready to progress in the gospel. 

So the first people I'll talk about are our investigators

Hawa, Margret, and Tracey: They are an awesome family from Sierra Leon, Hawa is the sister of an African member in the ward that we were told to go stop by a member. Hawa and her daughters Margret and Tracey are all awesome and super prepared to be baptized. We set a baptismal date with them for February 11th! Awesome stuff. They shouldn't have any problems, super great family.  

Eladia: Eladia is a really nice lady, she's living with the son of the Hawa's sister. Kind of a complicated story. But we went and gave her son a blessing for his seizures and she loved it. We taught her the restoration and she accepted a baptismal invite. I'm excited to teach her.

Jamie: Jamie is still doing great, working with her on stopping her smoking. But she's coming to church this week and she is super focused on her date for Feb. 25th.

We found a lot more awesome people this week as well. Tons of blessings. 

Another crazy thing that happened this week was the Mission Department came out and changed our whole key indicator system. It's tons different now but it's exciting and way more effective. 

They also made our P-days longer. So the first super P-day is my B-day ;) Thanks Elder Oaks ;)

Alright I love you guys! Thanks again for all the birthday wishes! You're all awesome!

Jake, the 20 year old lol...yikes.

 Me and my homie Chris:

Ice Storm

What's up everybody? 

This past week has been pretty good for us here in Ankeny. We have been working hard to find people to teach after our recent string of baptisms. We have been finding a ton, but it's always fun and good for stories. We do have a few promising investigators that are progressing pretty well. 

I'll just talk a little about each of them real quick. 

Jamie- Jamie is a really nice lady that we found using our area book. She used to be an investigator about a year ago but her husband kind of pushed the missionaries away. We stopped by to try and see if we could get in and teach her, we were able to catch her home and we started teaching her again. She's a heavy smoker but we will be teaching her the stop smoking workshop tomorrow and that thing is straight fire. It works every time! She's super humble and has a date for February 18th. so we will be working hard with her to make sure she can quit smoking before then. 

Osheana- Osheana is a cool young mom, she has the cutest little daughter ever named Brealya. We have been working with her my whole time her in Ankeny. She's got a lot of commandment issues but we are working to help her get through them. Her date is for Feb. 11th :)

Malinda- Malinda is a really nice lady! She is actually our mail woman! We've interacted with her quite a few times and we always know right when she is going to come through our complex. She's super funny, she always teases us when we get letters and knows about what we do as missionaries. She always talks about how cold she gets so we thought we'd leave her a suprise in our mail box to help her get through the day. I noticed we have approximately 37 thermoses in our kitchen so we made her some hot chocolate and left it in there with a note. Later that week we talked to her and she thanked us and we set up a time to teach her. She's now an investigator, I've got really high hopes for her! :)

Some other stuff that happened this week was that we got a crazy big ice storm. It was pretty intense a lot of trees and power lines got taken out cause of all the ice. Our car had like 2 inches of ice all over it that we had to thaw and scrape off. I'll send videos of it haha. But other than the crazy weather not much else has happened. I hit my Year Mark last Friday, can't believe missions go by so fast! Also quick late shout out to everyone who sent me gifts for Christmas! I really appreciated it! You're all the best! 

I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

Last Day With my homie Elder Anitok (Spent the last 4 days of the Transfer on exchanges with him haha)

The final pic of the P-Day Dream Team

My favorite little African boy, Pooki.

Our Liberian squad of recent converts:

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