The Life of Jon

7 February 2012

2012-02-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

Hello family!

I hope you've had a good week! We've had an okay week here.

Beth "passed" her baptism interview and will be baptized this Saturday at 2pm! We are very excited for the baptism. We've been waiting a long time for this. The ward is excited and very supportive. We are expecting a lot of people at the service. Brother Findlay will baptize her and Elder Graham will confirm her on Sunday. It will be his first confirmation! I'll try to send pictures next week.

We had zone conference on Wednesday in Cardiff. We emphasized heavily using the Book of Mormon in teaching people, and even reading it with people if time permits when we talk to them on the street. We talked extensively of the doctrine around the Book of Mormon and what the Lord thinks of it. It is a sure testament of Jesus Christ. In the Book of Mormon it has 104 different names for Jesus Christ. We came up with about 40 off the top of our heads, and then were given a list of all the others. It mentions Jesus Christ every 1.7 verses in the Book of Mormon. We are currently reading the Book of Mormon as a mission between Christmas and Easter, and underlining all the references to Christ, His words, and any teachings of the Gospel. It's amazing how much the Lord is involved in the Book of Mormon.

After zone conference, we got a chance to meet someone on the street when we returned to Carlsbad, and read with him some verses of the Book of Mormon, the introduction, and part of the Plan of Salvation pamphlet. We felt bad because he was taking attention off his work of changes the gas price sign, but he was interested in what we were saying so we kept talking to him! He lives in Vista, so we sent the referral off to the Vista elders, which should be in the zone leaders ward.

31 January 2012

2012-02-01T12:20:00.000-08:00

Hello family! I hope you are all doing well!

Random sidenote--today is my half birthday! Elder Graham said "well almost congratulations" this morning.

We've been very blessed the past couple weeks. It'd been really tough to find new investigators but God is blessing us a lot right now. I've come to realize even more now than before the fact that finding investigators has little to do with how skilled we are, but rather how much God sees fit to bless us. We do have to work hard and do things right, but as always, He blesses us when it's time for us to be blessed. We found 3 new investigators last week. Unfortunately we've had to "drop" a couple because they were no longer interested. Bryan [edit] was one of those. We had a long conversation on his porch but he isn't willing to try to exercise any faith and try anything. It was really sad when we left, because he was so close to finding something that will help his life significantly. That's when the greatest sadness comes for us missionaries--when someone is so close to accepting the Gospel and changing their lives, then they reject it. It's never any easier to deal with! But I am sure he'll find the Gospel later in his life.

I've been on a lot of exchanges for 10 the past 11 days. Exchanges are when Elder Graham and I exchange companions for 24 hours with another set of elders in the district. I have to exchange with and evaluate every elder in the district every 6 weeks, as well as going with one of the zone leaders for them to evaluate me. It's been fun and lots has been learned, but it's worn me out! Luckily we're done with them for the next few weeks at least. One of the cool things about exchanges though, is it seems a miracle happens every time we go on one, in one form or another. Elder Graham and Elder Hunt (zone leader) picked up a new investigator--Vanessa [edit] (her husband Will is a semi-active member). Vanessa accepted to be baptized, but Elder Graham (and for some reason Elder Hunt) was too shell-shocked to set a date for the baptism! I've never even met her because we've had so many exchanges. The next day I stayed in our area with Elder Hensley and we taught another new investigator--Todd [edit] (his wife Tiffiney is an inactive member). Miracles keep happening! Beth [edit] is still on track. She will be interviewed this week and baptized next Saturday the 11th after the worldwide leadership broadcast. She set a huge goal during finals testing week to read from 2nd Nephi 3-29, and she accomplished it! Her mother Jackie and little brother Logan came to church this week (neither have been to church in C-Bad) and the ward did a great job at fellowshipping them.

Also, Joanne and Chris [edit] both came to church today. Chris hasn't been to even a portion of sacrament meeting since October. He has decided to start working to become a priest before he goes to college. His dad Al recieved notice to enter his 4-month rehab this morning down in San Diego. I don't know if I even told y'all about that. He has been addicted to lots of drugs for decades. Now he is going to try to get rid of the last ones once and for all. It's been a huge struggle for the Phillips family, but hopefully this will take that away. He has promised us he will read the Book of Mormon while he is there (when Al makes commitments, he keeps them). I will be out of Carlsbad before we see him again, so hopefully I will have some news about that in a few months. Meanwhile, Joanne and Chris are going to be working on their relationship and work on getting active in the church again.

Tony [edit] finally came to church this week and had a really good time. He came to all 3 hours and the priests quorum and Bishop Ferrell did a great job in putting their arm around him. I hope he goes consistently now. He knows he needs to be there.

We can't get a hold of Tatsiana again. She's been slipping away recently and we're trying really hard to help her. Members are trying to get a hold of her but so far not a lot has worked.

That's about it for now as far as our teaching pool goes. This morning we got to go to the temple again. It still never gets old going there and seeing the beauty in and out of it. It was Elder Graham's first time going there. It feels so great to be in there and feel the Spirit so strong. I wish I would have done baptisms for the dead more frequently when I was home. I plan to attend the temple regularly when I come back. It's a wonderful place.

Yesterday Elder Graham and Elder Soderberg managed to clog the toilet again and made a mess! I came back after exchanges and the place smelled like bleach! I soon learned they had bleached almost everything within 10 feet of the toilet to clean it up, but it was still backed up. I had the privilege of unstopping the toilet. Not sure why I told y'all that!

We have zone conference tomorrow again in Cardiff (or some of you may know it as Cardiff-by-the-Sea). Yesterday the zone leaders called and asked if our district could sing a musical number and me play the piano. I hope we do okay! It's a little known fact that I don't actually play the piano well. I feel like a fraud! Looks like I get to fake my way through another song!

I hope you all have a great week! Stay warm

Elder La Follette

December

2012-01-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

This video was sent to me (Camille) from Mike L. His coworker had forwarded this to him. His co-worker's brother is the father of the kids in this video. Small world!!!

24 January 2012

2012-01-25T08:13:00.001-08:00

Hello family!

I hope you are all doing well. It's been a great week this week!

On Wednesday we met a new kid, Jose, who is friends with Tony, an inactive kid we're teaching. We went over to see Tony and his mom Yamilda, and Jose came down to join us. He had a bunch of typical questions about our missions and what we do, etc. We answered all of his questions and ended up teaching the first lesson. The Spirit was so strong, especially when Elder Graham told the First Vision. He butchered the words to it, but the Spirit was still really strong. We introduced the Book of Mormon to him, and read the verses about praying to know it's true. He said "but I felt it already. I already know it's true! I know whatever you say about it is true!" He accepted to be baptized on Feb 25. We left and came back about 10 min later to give him a DVD and they were still talking about the lesson. He accepted the DVD and said he'd watch it the next day. We asked for his address and we found out he lives in Fallbrook, a city about 10 miles north of Vista, in the next zone over. A little deflated, we explained that other missionaries would come by and teach him everything else before his baptism. He understood, and the next day we sent off a referral. Someone just got a "golden referral!" It was a great lesson either way. But now Tony is opening up more. Yesterday we went over in the morning and knocked on his door, half-expecting him to be gone because he always is. But he opened the door and let us in for a lesson. We were going to teach him about repentence and prayer, and were going to read in Enos and 2nd Nephi. But after small talk, I felt very quietly to change the lesson. We instead read 1 Ne 8, about the vision of the tree of life. After reading it, he said it was pretty crazy that we decided to read that, and that he really enjoyed it. We hadn't told him we had changed the lesson. Later at night, we went by again to say hi and give him the Book of Mormon that we forgot to bring earlier. He and his mom were in the living room reading her Book of Mormon (highly unusual!) and he was telling about the lesson we gave earlier. To our surprise, he let us in for the 2nd time that day and we read in Moroni 10:1-5, about knowing the truth of the Book of Mormon. At the end of that, he said "Can I ask a question?" "Sure!" "I had a cool dream last night. That lesson you gave this morning wasn't what you planned, was it?" "Actually, no, it wasn't. I felt to change it as we begun talking. We were going to read something else." "I had a dream last night that kinda had a tree in it. It wasn't quite what we read today, but it totally made sense after we read that. I felt the Spirit really strong. It's time for me to go to church, I think." He promised us he will come to church this week. His mom is very happy we are making such big progress with him!

Again last night, we were driving around late, just before it was time to go in. We had tried a few doors with nobody answering. People usually don't like us coming after 8, so we were hesitant to try these ones. It was 8:55, and we drove by one more house. It was a long driveway and a really big dark house. We were considering not going in because it was dark, but just like you hear in all the mission stories, we tried anyway. He didn't come to the door right away, but about a minute later the door opened and we got in to teach Ivars [edit], an old man originally from Latvia who loves God very much. It will probably take a few lessons to make progress with him, but he is a very kind man with lots of love.

Unfortunately that's all the time I have but we also had a stake conference broadcast this week from SLC, with Elder Perry speaking.

Out of time!

Love you all

Elder La FOllette

16 January 2012

2012-01-17T13:16:00.000-08:00

Hello family! I hope you are having a great day

We've been picking up our work little by little lately, and it's been really nice. We are even more grateful than usual to have new people to teach, since it's been really hard to find people lately. Finally we are getting some new investigators. I think I told you about Bryan, the fan of Mitt Romney. He didn't make it to church this week, but he did ask us to help him move his furniture and things from his place to the downstairs unit, where he will stay for several months. He is opening up to us more and more, and he is going through major struggles in his family right now. He is a good man, and I think this is a great time in his life for the Gospel. After we helped him move, he had us help him make dinner for all of us--steak, grilled peppers and onions, hot dogs, and some things like that. I learned that I'm not as good of a cook as I thought! But it all worked out. We found out later though, that while we were there, we missed our usual meeting with Brother Waddell, and this time his son was in town for two days and wanted us to meet him. His son is usually in Peru as an area Seventy for the Church. We are pretty bummed about that, but hopefully I'll get to meet him later!

I'm out of time, but I have more to say. Next week!

Love you all

Elder La Follette

I got a couple more minutes it looks like, so I'll just highlight a few more things that happened this week.

Tatsiana came to church yesterday, which is the first time we've heard from her in several weeks. She is still interested but may be staying in Encinitas, or may move to another place out of our stake, so she probably won't get baptized in our ward, but will get baptized soon I think. We will hopefully teach her in the next couple days again.

We found another new investigator this week, a really Bible-smart guy that likes talking to all types of religious people. His name is Adrian [edit]. He is smart enough we can use phrases like Levitical Priesthood or Atonement and he knows just what we're talking about. It's pretty nice that we can talk straight to him! He has some interesting views, but is willing to learn about our view. Hopefully he can come to church soon. He has a really good heart.

We also finally found an inactive couple that we've bene trying to get a hold of for a month. They are Ben and Melissa [edit], about 28 yrs old each. Ben is a returned missionary, and neither have been to church for 4-5 years. They just got married and moved in last July. They told us they want to be sealed this year and want to come back to church. We are going to have another lesson and dinner with them tonight. They are awesome. Ben is also a huge surfer and has about 12 surf boards in their front room alone. Apparently the size of the waves will influence your board choice!

We picked up another new investigator last night named Rian [edit]. He just married an inactive member, Misty [edit]. He is interested in learning but doesn't want to be pressured into baptism. We assured him we wouldn't drag him to the font and drown him, but we'll wait to talk about that until he feels he is ready to make that choice. They will probably have a hard time getting to church because their jobs depend on them working on Sunday, but we'll try to work that out soon.

We have a new district now, since transfers were last week. Elder Wheeler and Elder Findley are gone, and now we have Elder Hensley from St. George and Elder Soderburg from Kaysville, UT. They makes 6 out of 8 in our district from UT. One is from Wyo, and one from Samoa. Go Utah!

Well that's all the time I have. Have a great week!

Elder La Follette

10 January 2012

2012-01-10T13:21:00.000-08:00

Hello family!

I hope you're all doing well. Things have been good here. We found another new investigator this week! We were walking at night past a grocery store near our apartment to go to a BBQ, and a guy got out of his car behind us in the parking lot and called to us and wanted to talk about Mitt Romney. He is and has been involved in Romney's campaigns and really admires him. Of course, the conversation turned to the Church itself, and the Book of Mormon. He thought he'd read the Book of Mormon before, but after we talked about what the Book says, he figured he hasn't read it before. He had lots and lots of questions and is really curious. He is going through a hard divorce right now and has two little boys. He lives by himself in a rented vacation home by the beach. After our conversation, he invited us to his house the following night to a BBQ he was having with some friends. We went, and one of the friends answered the door. She said "Oh.. we're having a party right now." "Yeah, we know! Bryan wanted us to come by!" "Uh.. really?" "Yep! We talked to him yesterday." "Let me go get him.." Bryan came to the door and was excited to see us and waved us in. The faces on some of the people in the house were priceless. But within 30 seconds they were very friendly and treated us as Mormons would treat someone on their first day at church. One by one throughout the next couple hours that we were there, almost everyone at the party had come sit by us and asked us about our missions and the church. Later, we went to talk to another guy, who then pulled out his 12 string guitar and played some old rock songs for us. We ended up becoming good friends with a lot of people in there. It was a really neat experience!

As for our other investigators, Tatsiana is still not responding to us. It's been about a month since we last talked to her. Yamilda Evans in our ward said she is coming to the gym every day, so she is not out of town. We're trying very hard to see what has happened. Her friends in our ward have been trying to talk to her. Nothing yet!

We taught Beth again on Sunday. She went on our ward's youth trip up to Big Bear last week (a nearby mountain/ski resort, kind of like Sundance) and had a great time. She got up in the testimony meeting they had and bore a great testimony! We taught her Sunday at the Rosells, and finished up all the pre-baptism lessons. She is very ready and very excited. The baptism is still a month away because her grandparents from Long Beach can't make it until then. I guess they're the busiest grandparents in the world! But we will work with what we have! While Beth was at Big Bear, we met her mom, Jacqueline, and her little brother Logan at the church and gave them a tour. It was Sister Bloch's first time inside a church building in years, and Logan's first time in anything other than a Jewish synagogue. Logan is excited to come to church. He didn't come two days ago, but will come next week. Brother Rosell realized a couple days ago that he used to home teach the Bloch family 14 years ago, before he was a bishop or stake president. They never answered the door for him. It's amazing the work God does!

I've had a cold for about a month now that just won't go away. Brother Waddell gave me some Robatussin for it. That stuff is awful! But it's starting to work a little bit. Hopefully it will go away soon. We hope that I just have a cold, and not a fungus or something (not sure what the symptoms would be). About the time I got sick, we discovered a bag of very old and very rotten potatoes in a cupboard in our kitchen, with about 150 maggots around and a horrific smell. We're assuming some missionaries got those late last summer. Hopefully I didn't get sick from dealing with that!

Also, I wanted to mention that California road construction is a lot more efficient than Utah road construction. On Saturday they put out some signs on our street that said (handwritten) "no parking Monday-Friday 7am-5pm" and said we'll be towed if we park there. Monday morning there was a full construction crew out working, and they were gone by 1pm. They finished the job and didn't come back! In Utah they probably would have taken 2 weeks for the same job! We thought that was impressive and funny at the same time.

Well I hope you are all doing well. Things are going well here. Transfers are today, and I'm staying in Carlsbad with Elder Graham for another 6 weeks at least. We get along well and he is learning a lot. We work together really well, and fill in each other's weak points. There are two elders from our district getting transferred out.

I hope you all have a great week.

Love,
Elder La Follette

3 January 2012

2012-01-03T12:17:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year family! It's now 2012, the year the world will end...

Tara had a baby this week! That's so wonderful! I wish I could have been there, but I will see him before too long I guess!

I hope you all had a good New Year! We did here. We went into our apartment at 6 (we're supposed to for Halloween and New Years) and did our weekly planning, cleaned up the apartment, and went to bed early. It was great. Got some extra sleep for once!

We finally have one new investigator! His name is Shane [edit]. He is in his early 40s, and his wife is an inactive member. They have two kids, Ozzie and Aurora, both are under 10. We've known him for a while, but haven't been able to teach them until last week. We knocked on his door about 7:30 at night, and he came outside to talk to us. He said they were having a Bible study with a couple guys from their church in Oceanside. One of the guys then came out to talk to us, a Marine about 24ish. He asked a couple questions, then Shane's wife came out and invited us in for hot chocolate. We came in, and they had us sit down at the table. We knew we were going to be grilled, because that's what happens, but this time was a little different. The two Bible study guys asked lots of questions--regular ones from those who "bash" with us, but these didn't have the regular combative feel. We answered every question and challenge he had, most with a Bible verse to back it up, and eventually he ran out of questions. During this time, we taught the first lesson about the Restoration and part of the Plan of Salvation. Ian, the Marine, was sitting on the fence of being interested and trying to challenge and question us. He accepted to try reading the Book of Mormon, and Shane said he would read it with his wife and pray about it. The other Bible study guy had left 20 min earlier because he had to go. But that was okay because he was more combative. Shane invited us for dinner Wednesday, and Ian will probably come too. He will be deployed in a few days, so we'll probably bring him a mini Book of Mormon and a good luck card or something. So things are starting to turn around a little bit for us. We also have 3 appointments this week with some other new people!

We taught a less active family last night that we just found last week. There is a grandma, Elsa [edit], in her 60s, and her son and daughter Eric and Crystal, in their 20s, and Crystal's two kids Alex and Brianna, both under 10. None of them have been to church in a long time but they all said they'd come to church this week. They were very friendly to us and said we can come to see them anytime we'd like. I hope they can get active again!

Tatsiana and Beth have been out of town, but we will resume teaching them in a few days. Still don't know where/when Tatsiana will move!

Oh, I almost forgot, we talked to another kid on the street. His name is Malcolm, and he knows a couple of member kids. He is about 15. During our conversation he said "I've been thinking about joining the Mormons. What do I have to do to get baptized?" We told him he'd need to meet with us and come to church, and he readily agreed. Hopefully we can start teaching him within the next day or two! We are very excited.

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

Elder La Follette

27 December 2011

2011-12-27T17:10:00.001-08:00

Hello family! I hope you all had a great Christmas. It was good to talk to you (the ones that I was able to)!! Dad I just realized I might have been sending my emails to the wrong email address. If so, I apologize! I didn't mean to.

I had a good Christmas. In the morning we opened the presents we had, a box of jelly beans and a couple envelopes. We are still waiting on our packages, both of us! We heard the USPS is really backed up and busy though, so maybe that's the reason.

After church (which was a really good music program--we got to sing in the choir too) we went to the Barnetts to skype, have dinner, and opened presents. They even got some presents for us, so that was nice! They had a lot of kids and grandkids over, so it was almost like being at home at Grandparents La Follette for Christmas Eve. We each got a tie, some candy, a pocket knife, and some black socks. We ended up getting most of the leftover dessert too, which could be a problem! I'm going to let Elder Graham take most of that!

Yesterday we were extra concerned about not having new investigators, so we went through our area book and found all the non-members we could that we have any record for, and made a list. Yesterday and for the next few days, we'll be seeing as many as we can. Last night we tried about 10, and 3 have invited us back--one of them tonight. Hopefully our drought of new investigators will end soon!

This morning we again played Settlers of Catan at the Jacksons and had a good breakfast. I almost won Settlers (it was a really close game) and I won Ticket to Ride pretty soundly.

Other than that, there is not a lot new to report. I'm doing well. I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year! I love you all lots.

Elder La Follette

PS-- GO UTES!!!! Bowl game Saturday!

Christmas Skype Call 2011

2011-12-26T19:56:00.001-08:00

20 December 2011

2011-12-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

Hello family! I hope you are all doing well. I'll try to include a little more about last week, as well as this week's stuff.

Also, I'll probably Skype mid-afternoon, about 2pm PT. I will probably have Sister Rosell call Mom and make sure that's all good, since we're all spread out around the country and I don't want to miss anyone, if at all possible.

I've been practicing the trombone lately to get ready to play for our mission Christmas conference. I have lost a lot of upper and lower range, but my tone is still good, thank goodness! It feels really good to play again, it's been a long time. I have lost articulation skills too (playing fast notes). I'll see if I can get pictures or even a video of me playing on Saturday.

Tatsiana went out of town for the holidays. Her baptism has again been postponed until probably January 28. Maybe Jan 14 if we're lucky. We have stake conference in between there so we couldn't do a confirmation. We haven't taught her in a while, so there's not much to report there.

Her fellowshipper, Yamilda [edit], had her husband come home this week from Afghanistan. He is not in the military, but is a scientist doing something out there. He is a returned missionary, but now is not a member of the church. A few years ago he asked his records to be removed from the church. He will be home for 3 weeks, and Sis Evans wants us to talk to him and see what we can do to help bring him back. I hope it goes well!

Last week I did a baptism interview for a young Marine named Jay [edit]. He was very prepared. He knew some members growing up and admired the Church. I have done several baptism interviews, but I bring him up because he had a cool testimony. The last question is something to the effect of "you're about to make a covenant with God to follow Jesus Christ and take His name upon you. Are you willing to do this?" He responded "How can I not? I know it's true. I could keep doing what I was doing and waste my life away, or I could join the Church and do what I know is right. I can't wait any longer for this."

Last Wednesday we had a district meeting that I probably won't forget. The day before we'd had a district activity at the church, and one of the elders invited some high school kids to come join after school and play basketball. We had decided to play volleyball as a district. When the kids came, he asked us to move volleyball to just one side of the court so they could play basketball with him. I tried to talk him out of it, letting him know that wasn't the best idea, but he was very persistent. Eventually we went over, and another elder went to join them as well. The 6 missionaries playing volleyball were very upset and there was a schism in the district, and a sour taste in everyone's mouth when we left. The next day in district meeting, there was some discussion about it. I decided to abandon the training I was going to present, and instead we discussed the issue all the way. There were a lot of apologies but it still didn't feel right in the room. We decided to all kneel down together as a district and I offered a prayer, asking for the gift of charity and forgiveness to come to everyone, and immediately the contention was gone, and the Spirit flooded the room. The sun even came out and shined really brightly in the window. It was a really nice demonstration of how the Holy Ghost can change hearts and attitudes.

This week at the lemonade stand I've been holding our sign that says "Free Lemonade". I've gotten really good at the sign spinning and flipping thing! There's no way I would do that for a job though!

On Friday we had our ward Christmas party at the church. It was very well attended and there was a lot of really neat decorations! We helped decorate between appointments. There were over 230 people that came. Bishop Ferrell said that about half of all the members there brought friends to the party. We were very busy meeting a lot of people! It was a really good event. The best part of the program were the young men. The audience sang the 12 days of Christmas while 4 guys ran around and tripped over each other and tried to hold up props for each of the items that were sung about. It was awesome. The prop for 3 french hens was a KFC bucket. Dessert was a pie contest. Lots of the ladies in the ward brought their best pies, and we had a feast! Dinner was make your own burritos. The tortillas were enormous. They were more than the length from your elbow to the tips of your fingers in diameter. I guess they call that a cubit!

We had a lesson with Beth on Sunday about following the prophet and the law of tithing. She has transitioned to our ward very nicely and will be just fine. We met in a member's home in our ward. She is still set for baptism on the 13th of Jan. We are all very excited!!

Also wanted to mention last week we had dinner at the Beers' house. Bro Beer's nickname that he goes by is Speedy. His email address is cervesarob@ (whateveritwas).com. Translation is beer rob! We thought that was funny.

Anyway, things are going well here. I am excited to talk to y'all on Sunday. Have a Merry Christmas week! I hope Tara's baby comes smoothly! Have a good week

Elder Jon La Follette

13 December 2011

2011-12-13T19:21:00.000-08:00

Hello family! I hope you are all doing well. I am short on time today, but I'll try to type as much as I can in the time i have.

Things are well here. Tatsiana's baptism has been postponed a couple more days, because we couldn't meet with her last week.

She is doing very well. We are concerned she is not reading the Book of Mormon as much as she is saying she is, so we will address that tonight in our lesson. She is doing great, though.

Elder Graham and I are getting along well. He is finally letting me play some Christmas music without getting mad. I figure we're ten days out from Christmas, it's probably appropriate!

Beth is also doing well. She is set for Jan 13, and that baptism should happen as scheduled. She is getting along with the YW very well.

I'm sorry I'm out of time this week. I will try to write more about it next week.

I love you all

Merry Christmas!

Elder Jon La Follette1

29 November 2011

2011-11-29T21:07:00.000-08:00

Hello family!

I hope you are all well. It's been a good week here.

First off, today is transfers again. Yes, it's already been six weeks since I got to Carlsbad. Elder Herald is getting transferred, and I have received an assignment to train again. We had a meeting last week in Vista for the upcoming trainers. This time I knew all 7 trainers! President Cook has accomplished his goal of bringing it to the point that all of the training elders are former district leaders, zone leaders, or assistants, or current district leaders. I hope I can measure up to the assignment I have been given. Transfers are at 4pm today.

We had two lessons with Tatsiana the past couple days. Her baptism is now scheduled for December 17. We taught her the Word of Wisdom and keeping the Sabbath day holy. She had stuff to work on to keep both of those commandments, but she is more than willing to. She is awesome. We found a place in the 4th ward just to our south that is very affordable for her. She doesn't want to go to the 4th ward though, so we'll see if we can get permission to baptize her in our ward. In between lessons, we helped Sister Evans (Tatsiana's gym buddy in our ward) jump her Lotus. That is a really cool car but way too small for me. Getting back in our Corolla afterwards felt like a lot of leg room!
Several weeks ago Elder Herald got pooped on by a bird--I think I told you all that. This week I got pooped on in two spots--one on each shoulder. I guess that's what I get for laughing at Elder Herald about him getting pooped on!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We didn't have much to do on Thansksgiving so we ended up street contacting and tracting most of the day. We ran into a lot of football fans--some were sad, some were glad. We ate dinner at the Swan family's home. They had their daughter's family over for dinner, who are not members of the Church, who live in Oceanside. They were a very nice family, and we enjoyed our time over there. In the evening we walked the dark and quiet streets of Carlsbad without much luck! The missionary handbook says to proselyte as much as possible on holidays, but they seem to be our least productive days! That's okay though.

I can't think of much else to say this week. I'll tell you about my new companion next week. The rest of the district is staying here, except one other sister who is going back home to Arizona tomorrow.

I hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Elder La Follette

22 November 2011

2011-11-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

Hello family!

I hope all is well with y'all. It's been a good week here. We've been teaching a lot of lessons this week to members. Our bishop is pushing us to have a certain number of lessons every week, and we can't fill all of those with our own teaching pool, so we have to teach members. It's fun to be able to get to know members though. A lot of members have asked us to go by and visit their friends.

This morning we played Settlers of Catan with the Jackson family (one of the Utah fan families). We had a great time! I didn't win, because the number 8 kept being rolled, which never helped me. We're planning on a rematch during the kids' Christmas break in December. They will probably be the family whose house I Skype from for Christmas.

We had a great lesson with Tatsiana last night at Sister Evans house. Tatsiana might have to move into the 4th ward though, instead of ours. Sister Wightman prayed and decided to not lower her rent price for Tatsiana. Hopefully we won't have to pass her off. She has read clear through Mosiah 3 in the Book of Mormon. We taught her about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. AFter we told her the First Vision, she said she felt very happy, and believed it was true. She came herself to church this week even though she was sick (rare for investigators!). She said she feels the Book of Mormon is true, and is very excited to be baptized. The baptism will probably take place December 16, just before our ward Christmas party. Hopefully she can stay in our ward!!!

Last Thursday we had a really good lesson with the [edit family]. Al didn't sit in for the lesson, but his wife and son did. I don't know if I mentioned before, but their son Ian died this January, and that is one of the things that is slowly bringing them to church. Sister [edit] and Chris wanted us to teach the plan of salvation, but rushed us as we taught it! They kept saying "okay, got it! Let's hear about the spirit world!" They had a lot of questions about where Ian was, and they feel a lot more at peace than they used to be. Chris is slowly progressing. I think he will start going to church again in a couple months. Al and Joann go every week. Hopefully we can set a baptism date with Al this week!

I hope all of you are well. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving! We will have a good one. I will probably be very full! The family we are eating with is famous for making a LOT of food!

Love

Elder La Follette

15 November 2011

2011-11-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

Hi family!

First off, I'd like to make a "public" Happy Birthday wish to Mom for tomorrow!!

It's been a good week this week. This morning for P-Day we went to the Music of Making Music, next to Legoland and the Flower Fields of Carlsbad (Mom, you'd like it here!). It was so fun there! We walked in, and there were probably a couple hundred instruments in there, old and some new. There were all sorts of guitars (I took pictures) and several trombones! There were a few spots you could play some instruments, so I played two electric drumsets, a slide guitar, a bass guitar, a weird noise thing I didn't even know what it was, a banjo, and a synthesizer. It was so fun! Elder Herald and I played some songs together. Unfortunately they didn't allow people to play wind instruments, but that makes sense.. At the end they have a gift shop, and I got a post card. It cost 54 cents, but the cash register glitched and said I paid over 7 billion dollars for it. It was pretty funny! I wish I had that much! Some people here probably do.

It seemed like we didn't have much time for proselyting in the daytime this week, because of zone conference, P-Day, Elder Herald getting sick from McDonalds that a member got us, weekly planning, and me getting my back pain to flare up again (it's gone now, don't worry).

Yesterday we had our usual lemonade stand, except 30 minutes before Carlsbad High got out (by the way, I don't know if I mentioned, but Tony Hawk and Shawn White both went there!) it got really cold, so we decided to make our chilled lemonade hot. Some people loved it, some spat it out pretty quick. Most people weren't expecting it. We modified our "free lemonade" sign to "free hot lemonade" but most people didn't see I guess. We'll probably just stick to hot chocolate on cold days! Most of the non-LDS kids at the school call it Mormonade. It's a pretty big deal here! We didn't have the stand last Monday because of zone conference, and we got a lot of complaints from member kids at seminary!

We weren't able to meet with Tatsiana this week because she was working late and was too sick to come to church. We will have to move her baptism date back, probably to the 10th of Dec. We finally have a lesson with her tonight, and we are excited for that! It's been almost 2 weeks since our last lesson with her.

Still no other new investigators, but we met with Chris and Joann [edit] last night. Chris had a really bad asthma attack the night before and apparently almost died because of it. To counter that, they put him on some steroids, and one of the side-effects is that he will have a REALLY short temper. So it was. We got to the door, and his mom had to be persistent in have him stop playing his new Call of Duty (? out of the loop) game to meet with us. Eventually he threw his controller on the ground and stomped to a chair and sat down. It was a rough start to the lesson but eventually it worked out okay. Chris is struggling a lot keeping some commandments, but he is a good kid. Hopefully he can change his life around and notice how happy he can be.

Yesterday we got 3 phone calls during a lesson with Brother Waddell (an older high priest in the ward. Interesting note, his son is Elder Chris Waddell in the Quorum of the Seventy). Brother Vigil called us (a good friend of Bro Waddell) and Brother W told me to answer. Brother Vigil sounded a little irritated and said "I'm down here at the village pie shoppe waiting for you to come to dinner! You have 15 minutes to be here or I'm leaving." We had not previously set up this dinner, so we were caught off guard. We told Brother Waddell and he laughed and told us to go. We zoomed downtown to the pie shoppe and there was Brother Vigil waiting for us. He smiled and said "I woke up and I was hungry, so I came here and wanted to feed you guys. Well what are you waiting for? Let's eat!" We love Brother Vigil!

Last Wednesday the U of U Marching band sent me another letter! This time I didn't recognize about half of the signatures. There were several people that said "I can't wait to meet you!" One guy said "Jon I miss your sweet trombone and tuba magic!" I wasn't aware that I had played any tuba in college, but it's good to be remembered! They have sent me 3 letters so far. It's really good to know they haven't forgotten me!

This week I have again learned how much God loves His children. With my new responsibility, I have the charge of helping all the missionaries in the district learn and grow, and be better. There are very diverse backgrounds and personalities, and everyone has different challenges. There are a couple missionaries that sometimes make me want to strangle them for making some very dumb decisions. I always pray before I talk to fellow missionaries when there is a situation to help them. Every time when I am upset for a dumb decision they made, the Lord tells me to love them. Be patient, and love them. It amazes me how much He loves His children. It's a wonder how patient He is with me, no matter how much I can make mistakes. The work is great, and with God's help we can do everything.

I hope you all are having a great week! I hope you stay warm, those of you up north. It's pretty brutal weather here, too. The sun is only out about 2/3 of the day, and the thermometer is almost bottomed out at 65 degrees. The occasional sprinkle of rain makes the roads treacherous. Only the bravest venture out into the elements.

Have a good week!

Elder Jon La Follette

8 November 2011

2011-11-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

Hello family!

I hope you all had a good week.

That is sad news about Sherm. I hope the family is doing well with the passing. I will miss him.

Yesterday there was a baptism for the Carlsbad 1st ward for a man I got to interview. His name is Craig [edit]. His children were all baptized a few weeks ago, and now the family is complete! His son is the starting QB at Carlsbad High School, and got to baptize Craig. I can't wait until we can baptize a family here. So far we haven't found many new investigators. The work here has been slow for a while. The missionaries have been teaching members a lot and depending on referrals that we don't get, and haven't been using our own efforts to find people. We've been trying to focus on that a lot lately.

Tatsiana came to church again this week and had a great time. We taught the Gospel Essentials class about baptism. Our ward mission leader had to take a 2nd job that requires training and working indefinitely in Sundays, so he's going to be limited in what he can do. The lesson went really well, and Tatsiana is excited for baptism. We had one lesson with her this week, but I couldn't be there because I was interviewing Craig. Elder Herald and Brother Rosell taught her the Plan of Salvation. This week we're hoping to teach her the Restoration and probably the Word of Wisdom. She shouldn't have any trouble with the Word of Wisdom, but we'll see. She is still looking for a place to live. We talked to a lady in the ward that has a room available, but she said she is charging $650 a month for a room, and Tatsiana is looking for $500. But, Sister Wightman (the renter lady) called us back yesterday and said she's been praying and fasting about having Tatsiana stay, and might be willing to take her anyway. She wants to pray about it further, so we're hoping that she will allow Tatsiana to stay with her.

We went to the temple again this morning. It was my 7th time going to the San Diego Temple, but I still love driving up to it and looking at it. The inside is just as beautiful, and the Spirit is so powerful there. I always learn a lot of new things whenever I go in. Sister Sheila Wanlass from my Escondido ward (Kaytlyn and Mara Monsivais's aunt) attended the same session as us, so it was good to see her again! I don't know if I mentioned that a couple weeks ago we got to see Christine [edit]'s endownment session. She was a recent convert we were teaching in Escondido. We were invited to see her get her endowment, so I got to see her, as well as a bunch of members from Esco. It was a lot of fun!

Friday it was raining a lot. We usually do a free lemonade stand for the Carlsbad High School kids after school on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. This Friday we did hot chocolate because it was "cold". The hot chocolate was very popular! We're going to do it whenever it's cold.

We had zone conference yesterday in Cardiff (couple towns to the south, full name Cardiff-by-the-Sea). The church building there is weird. It is built in a square with a fairly large outdoor courtyard in the middle. One of the gym's walls is made of mostly glass windows, which opens to the courtyard. I was again asked to play piano at zone conference. Sometimes I feel like a fraud playing piano. I'm not as good as a lot of people think I am! I really like playing at meetings, but I have to spend some time learning the songs days before the meeting starts. It's forcing me to be better at playing though! President Cook usually trains for a considerable amount of time on something we can improve on as a mission (which is normal to do) but yesterday he didn't talk very much, but spent his 45 minutes of time on showing us scriptural blessings for those who labor to share the gospel, and then told us how proud he is of us for going out working hard, even with so much opposition. He teared up a lot as he was telling us how proud he was, and that Heavenly Father is taking good care of us. The rest of the time before President Cook (about 5 hours) the APs trained on how to make lesson plans in companion study. We came to the realization that the mission (including APs) have been doing lesson plans and training on how to do lesson plans wrong all along. They then trained on how to make lesson plans just as Preach My Gospel tells us to. I felt pretty stupid because I learned in the MTC to do it the right way but never applied it in the mission field. My trainer didn't do it like that so I assumed he was right!

By the way, it would be cool if all y'all could read Preach My Gospel. It's really good. Chapters 3,4,5, and 6 are all very applicable to everyone.

I hope you all have a great week. I love you all. Have a great week

Elder Jon La Follette

PS-does anybody have questions? I don't know what you like to hear about

25 October 2011

2011-10-29T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hello family!

I hope you are all doing well.

I have been transferred to the city of Carlsbad, Carlsbad 3rd ward. Now I can actually say I served in Carlsbad in the Carlsbad mission! My new ward has great members who are very good missionaries, and we live a ten-minute jog from the ocean. We jog or bike there almost every morning for exercise (don't worry, we don't go on the sand or in the water). My ward also has Legoland in it. A member is getting us free passes to Legoland, so that will be fun!

My companion is Elder Herald, from Allen, TX. He just got finished being trained by Elder Bailey (yes, I just replaced one of my former companions!). It's been nice, because Elder Herald tells ward members that I trained Elder Bailey, so I am instantly trusted. Elder Herald was also Elder Bowen's (my last companion) MTC companion. So, that's a fun net of connections there. On Thursday morning, we had just left our apartment for the day, and Elder Herald got bombed by a bird right on his head. It was hilarious! We went back and he took a good long shower!

As I said last week, I'm the new district leader here too. In the district are: Elder Herald-Allen TX, me, Elder Wheeler-Grauss, ID, Elder Nash-Sandy UT, Elder Stubbs-Kemmerer, WY, Elder Findlay-Snowflake AZ, Sister Ellis-I forgot where, Sister Hermanson- St. George, UT, Sister Gilmore-North Salt Lake, UT. Elder Gale is one of the zone leaders too. It's a fun district!

We have a lot of members and part-member families in the teaching pool. We have the [edit] family, who are less-active members with a non-member husband. Their names are Al, Joanne, and their son Chris and his girlfriend Ambria. They recently lost of their sons, Ian, and that is what is driving them to come back to church. They are a really good family. Also we have Scott [edit], a less-active 28-year old guy who is trying to come back to church. He doesn't want to go to the YSA ward, so we're meeting with him. You can tell by his speech that he's from California. Commonly uses words like "totally, sweet, solid, etc." I'm pleased to say I can speak fluent Californian! Also we have Ric and Anya [edit], who are recent converts. Ric is almost done with his USMC career, and is very excited for that. He's a fun guy and loves telling stories. Anya was a champion tennis player back in Ukraine. Her name may or may not be on ESPN.com somewhere. She retired from professional tennis, but is still teaching tennis lessons as a full-time job.

There are a lot of U of U fans in the ward. One or two of the men here played football at the U. The bishop is a very missionary-minded bishop and is really great to work with. We are good friends with the Rosell family. Bro Rosell is a former stake president and is currently the favorite seminary teacher. He is hilarious. Sister Rosell cuts the missionaries' hair and feeds us a ton. Their next-door neighbor is Brother Waddell. He is Elder W Christopher Waddell (first quorum of Seventy)'s father, and also the father of another Brother Waddell that was in my ward in MIra Mesa. I'm bound to meet Elder Waddell at some point, since I've already met two in his family!

Everything is going well in Carlsbad. I hope you all have a great week.

Love

Elder Jon La Follette

PS- late April-early Oct pictures soon!

18 October 2011

2011-10-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

Hello Family!

I only have a couple minutes, but there isn't a lot to say, really. I've been through my last week in Vista. I am being transferred today. I will let you know where I go next week. I do not want to leave, but I feel that it is time. It's been very hard to say goodbyes to everyone, members and investigators. Brother and Sister Voigtlander (ward mission leader and wife) even cried when we said goodbye. I will miss this place and the people here very much.

President Cook has also assigned me to be a district leader. I received some training, but I feel a little nervous! I'm sure it will be okay though.

West got my first letter in Afghanistan. I have decided to write him all the missionary lessons, because he wants to be baptized essentially in a 1 week window in February. He's going to need to know the stuff! He will be fine.

I hope you all have a great week. I will let you know how everything goes next week.

Love you all

Elder Jon La Follette

11 October 2011

2011-10-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

Hello family!

It rained last Wednesday pretty hard all day. We had to pull out our raincoats (I've only done that 6 or 7 times on my mission) and ended up changing our pants 3 times because we got so drenched! Needless to say, the streets were completely empty. People hate rain here! I will admit, for the first time on my entire mission, I crashed on my bike that day. It was before it was pouring, so we were out riding, without raincoats or anything. We were riding down a long steep hill, and I got a feeling at the top "You're going to crash at the bottom, just so you know." I thought "nah.. I'll go slow and I'll be fine." I did go slow, but at the bottom, we turned onto another street, which required going over a section of slick wet concrete, and my bike slipped out from under me and I did a full body plant on the ground. Luckily my bike was almost perfectly fine. The only thing that broke was my little bell (yeah, it's cute) but I can fix that easily. I didn't feel the least bit of pain, which was interesting. The only damage was a very dirty shirt, no pride left, and a good-sized hole in my brand new slacks Mom just sent. We'll see if that can be fixed! There was a car with people that saw the whole thing. They stared for a minute, then drove on. California! My companion didn't see it, thank goodness! He was well behind me because he's scared to ever go fast.

I only have 5 minutes left so the rest of this will be short.

We had a lesson with Mary [edit] last week. She is still concerned about having to be baptized again, because she thought her Baptist preacher had authority. But, the good news is that she knows that all she has to do is read the Book of Mormon and ask with a sincere heart and real intent if it's true. I know for sure that she'll get an answer, and she will be fine.

Last week we went to the library to make mormon.org profiles, as President Cook directed. While there, a kid sitting next to Elder Bowen asked him to tell him about the Church. Elder Bowen started to, and the lady next to me told them to be quiet and do it somewhere else. So, Elder Bowen started to get his info and do it later. A few minutes later, the lady stood up and started to walk away. She turned back and pointed at the kid and said "You better find out the TRUTH!!" "What is the truth?" "ONLY GOD KNOWS THAT ANSWER!!! YOU BETTER FIND OUT!!!" and stormed out. Everyone within 40 feet was staring at the situation. It was really awkward. Then after the lady left, the kid turned to us and said "is that the anti-Christ?"

I am out of time, unfortunately. I had a couple more things to say. We had Stake Conference this weekend, with Elder Maynes of the sSeventy. It was remarkable. They are crazy with stake conference here. Ushers and everything

Love you

Eldre La Follette

4 October 2011

2011-10-04T12:35:00.001-07:00

Hello Family!

I hope you all enjoyed conference this weekend. The Provo Tabernacle is being rebuilt into Provo's 2nd temple. How 'bout that? That is great news! Also Wyoming is getting their first temple! At least something in Wyoming will be on the map! Just kidding

I really liked the emphasis put on young men going on missions. The number of full-time missionaries has decreased pretty steadily the past several years. Missions are becoming more of a menu choice than a duty. I hope young men can see what they need to do, and do what they can to serve missions. We need a lot of help out here! Also, Elder Callister's talk on the Book of Mormon was wonderful. Really, all of the talks were great. This conference went by very quickly for me; I was enjoying every minute of it. Watching general conference at a church building makes a huge difference (we're required to watch them there).

Ceyda and Lavena both watched a good portion of conference and loved it. They learned so much. Their testimonies are growing and growing and they just want more and more knowledge. That's a true sign of someone becoming converted: you want all the knowledge you possibly can. We went over the night before to show them how to get on LDS.org to watch it, and also led them to the pictures of the temples, which they were fascinated with, and then to mormon.org. They were glued to the computer looking at all that, so we left to let them inhale it all! We found out that West will be back February 12-26. They have two weeks to have a nice wedding (They are married but never had a nice wedding, so they're going to do that), go on a cruise, and get baptized. I have felt that I should write West several letters and teach him the missionary lessons from afar, since there won't be enough time to learn everything the first time when he gets back here. I likely won't be here for the baptism. I hope it works out! I will probably only be in Vista for two more weeks. Transfers are on Oct 18. Hopefully I can stay longer.

Last week we picked a family as investigators--a rare opportunity here. They are a Catholic family from Baghdad. It's been really interesting teaching someone from Iraq! They can speak English pretty well. All we have to do is speak simply and they understand well. They don't read English very well though, so we got two Arabic Book of Mormons for them. There's no chance in the world of me reading those squiggles and jumble, but we handed the books to them, and they said "ah! The Book of Mormon!" They looked inside and read some things "Peter Whitmer, Sidney Rigdon" and so on. It was amazing!

On Sunday we had a sad lesson with Jeff Merkel, a less-active man that we've been helping come back to church. He has been very doubtful of the truth of the church, and religion in general, based on "science". The whole time I've been in Vista, we've met with him once a week, trying to help him accept the Gospel into his heart. He's been to church several times and likes it there. He "believes the church metaphorically, but can't believe it to be literally true." We've talked to him about faith, repentance, prayer, the Holy Ghost, church, sacrament, Jesus Christ, he's read in the Book of Mormon up to 2nd Nephi, and we even had one lesson on why the church is scientifically true, because that's what he's been asking for. For 6 months he has been very slow to accept anything we say, despite going to church and praying. He has rejected any evidence, scientific or spiritual, that we've given him, and this Sunday, asked us not to come back next week. It was really sad, but I feel we've done all we can for him.

To make that better, 8 of our investigators had to be dropped this week. Christian and his family moved to San Marcos, TJ, Janet, and Grace had to suddenly up and leave to LA, and Julian moved, and last night his phone number was no longer in service, and we couldn't get his new address in time, and with him goes his brother and their two girlfriends. It's been rough, but it'll be okay. There's always a reason for everything.

I hope you all have had a great week. Thanks again for your support and prayers. Love you all

Elder Jon La Follette

PS- someone send my SD card!

27 September 2011

2011-09-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

Hello family! I hope all is going well for you.

We had a good week here for the most part. Janet and Grace didn't show up to church this week. They were on their way to church when Janet's grandson stole Janet's phone, threw it out the window while the car was driving, and destroyed the phone, so they pulled over to pick it up and continue to church. After they picked it up, they got back in the car, and the car wouldn't start up again. Bad luck! They will for sure watch general conference this weekend, they said. TJ (Janet's fiance) delayed our lesson this week twice, then ended up just cancelling it, and didn't try to go to church. We're going to have a throw-down lesson on Wednesday to try to get him to shape up. As interested as he is in finding the truth, he isn't making a very big effort to learn!

We finally got a hold of Julian, Leon, Amanda, and Tony this week, and had a lesson set up at the Davis's house (no we're not related). They didn't show up, and we found out later than Leon has two abrasions in his eye and had to go to the hospital. Hopefully he heals up soon. We're trying still to get another lesson in. They moved this week to a new complex outside our boundary, but still nearby. They want to stay with us and our ward, but we'll have to see how committed they are before we talk to President Cook about that. Hopefully we won't have to pass off 4 more baptisms to another ward. We've already given away 5 since I've been in Vista.

Ceyda and Lavena are doing very well. We finally had a lesson with them on Wednesday, and we were able to catch up Lavena some more on the lessons by teaching the Restoration. She is just as intelligent as Ceyda regarding the scriptures. They are learning a lot and are progressing very well. We're going to teach the Word of Wisdom on Wednesday. They drink green tea, but there shouldn't be any other issues. Pray that goes well! Lavena (I don't know if I mentioned--she's West's mom, Ceyda's mother-in-law, that lives with them) made some REALLY good gravy and gave it to us. Lots of meat and flavor, etc. Elder Bowen ended up eating most of it while I was in the shower and writing things down, but I got some of it.

Christian, Josh, and Joselyne are moving on Saturday to San Marcos (next city southeast of Vista, between Vista and Escondido), and won't be able to meet with us anymore. They will go to a new ward down there. We and the Spanish elders helped them move a bunch of stuff to storage on Saturday, took lots of pictures, and they bought us pizza. We'll probably see them once or twice more before they move.

Sister Poe is also doing well. On Friday, she was still concerned that she had to get baptized again, seeing that she'd been baptized twice already. We explained authority once again, which she understands. We had a good talk about it, and concluded that she would need to continue to read the Book of Mormon and pray sincerely about it. She is not pulling away at all; she will be fine. She didn't make it to church this week, and will be gone this weekend too, visiting her granddaughter in juvy in San Diego. Hopefully she can be baptized before I leave Vista, but I don't know if that will happen.

Yesterday we had interviews with President Cook (as well as flu shots, so don't worry Mom!). He told me my task in training Elder Bowen he knew was a challenging one, but felt from the beginning I was the right person to do it. He had spoken with his stake president from Idaho a few days ago, and learned a lot of things about Elder Bowen's background, especially family, that made him the way he is. Elder Bowen has told me much of his background, so I understood. I won't say most of it because it's private and sensitive, but President Cook told me he appreciates the things I'm teaching him and is happy with the progress we are making, and to keep hanging in there. President also hinted that I may stay in Vista longer. We'll see. This is my 4th transfer in Vista (the same length of time I was in Esco), but hopefully I can be here 5 or 6.

Whoever has my SD card that I sent late April, send it back! I'm almost out of room on the one I have. There are over 500 pictures waiting for y'all to see them! I'll send it as soon as I get my other one back.

I hope you all have a great week. Thanks again for your support. There are a lot of prayers in my behalf, and I see that in my work out here. I love you all very much. Have a great week!

Elder Jon La Follette

GO UTES!

Maybe the Angels can pick it up next year.

20 September 2011

2011-09-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

Hey family, I hope you all had a good week

My week was okay. We didn't teach very many lessons, but it was still a good week. We had a couple more people at church this week. Janet and her daughter Grace (aka Angel) came to church. Janet's fiance TJ (aka Carter) didn't show up, even though he promised he would. Janet was heavily thinking of joining the Jehovah's Witnesses church, but wanted to come to ours. She/they had a great time at church and the ward just jumped on them as soon as sacrament meeting was over. Some people are overwhelmed by that, but it was really good for Janet and Grace. We couldn't even talk to them for several minutes because there was literally a line of people waiting to meet them. Maybe it was because they don't see black people in church very much. We have a bunch of black investigators right now (TJ Janet and Grace, Julian, Leon, and Tony, and Mary Poe) so maybe we can get some more black members! They are doing very well, and we will meet with them again on Friday.

Ceyda and Lavena came to church again and loved it as usual. They are also getting a lot of friends in the ward. Tonight they're going to a Relief Society function, and hopefully they can go on Saturday to the RS broadcast.

We picked up another couple of guys last week as investigators, Joel and his friend Rudy. They are devout JWs and wanted to meet with us to talk about our religions. They are different than most JWs we run into, being that they are very civil and non-combative. I don't know how far we'll get to go with them, but at least they listen to us and our message. They did say no to a prayer after the lesson though.

That's about all for investigators updates right now. Everyone is doing well for the most part. If you have questions about anyone, let me know. I'm not sure what you might want to know about them.

Last Tuesday we had a district activity in our church building. The activities have been always the same-- basketball with the elders, and when the sisters arrive, we play a game called "signs". This week, one of the elders taught us all how to play rugby (he played rugby in SLC before his mission. Wants to play for the U of U). We are all really bad at it, but it was so fun. We did a scrum, which is the part where everyone interlinks arms, bends down, and fights for the ball. I don't have any pictures of it, but it was really, really fun.

Last Wednesday we were walking down a street at night next to a place called Boomers, which is similar to Trafalga. We walked towards the place, and we heard a bunch of girls singing Called to Serve as we got closer. As we walked up, they sang really loud and cheered. It was a young womens group from San Marcos that was doing their Mutual activity, and they were happy to see elders walking by.

On Friday Elder Bowen and I had Christmas, just for fun. I have a Glade Cinnamon spray (to combat Elder Bowen) so it smelled really good in our apartment, and then we made gingerbread cookies while we were doing our weekly planning, listened to Christmas music, and wore green and red ties. To make it better, it was overcast and very cool outside. I was hoping Santa would even come, but he didn't.

Sunday mornings I always play the organ in the chapel long before sacrament meeting starts, and one of the bishopric heard me play and now is trying to get us missionaries to do a musical number in sacrament meeting. I'm not sure if I want to! I'm not very very good, and the other elders sing...ahem..very well. I'll let you know if that happens.

Last night we had dinner at the Guymons house, with several other families in the ward joining us. Elder Barlow (one of the elders in our ward) was dared for $1 to eat a Jabanero (spelling?) pepper. He did it, and for the next 30 minutes had pink eyes, a snotty nose, and tears constantly rolling down his face. One of the kids was assigned to bring him soda and cornbread to counter the heat. He got his dollar!

I was told the good news about the Utes!!! GO UTES!!!!! There's a family in our ward, the McKeons, that have a son at U of U, and are now all Utah fans. Sister McKeon wore a Utah polo shirt to church even. They always update me on college football scores. Wish I could have seen the game! But it's okay, it'll happen next year too. I figured that Utah might have won (before I found out the score) because no one was wearing their blue BYU ties to church. Hehe

General Conference is coming up. I strongly encourage you (BoM terms--exhort!) all to think of someone you can invite to watch Conference with you, maybe just 1 session. It's really a great opportunity to hear the Apostles and prophet speak. Even those not of our faith know very quickly that they are men of God. I hope you will all invite someone to hear conference. Let me know how it goes!

Well that's all for this week. I hope you are all doing well. Have a great week!

Love

Elder La Follette

13 September 2011

2011-09-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

We had some computer trouble here so my time is really short. I had a lot to say, but my time is really short.

It's been a good week. Ceyda's mother in law went to church and had a great time. They fed us BBQ on Saturday and Lavena (Ceyda's M-in-L) made some really yummy apple cinnamon pie and sent us home with the leftovers. Ceyda's been doing a lot of missionary work--and will bring one of her co-workers to church next week probably. It's interesting how much true conversion will make someone want to share the Gospel as much as they can. It makes me think if members of the church are truly converted, and do we have a "lasting conversion"?

You may or may not have heard of the blackout that happened in So Cal, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Tijuana. We had our power go out Thursday afternoon until early Friday morning. It was nothing new for me, since power goes oout in Utah all the time, but the Californians had a really rough time. They are still talking about it! There was a ton of traffic on the highway and throughout the city--large and small streets, more than I've ever seen in my life! That was fun. We had neighbors below us take out a candle and roast marshmallows over it.

That's all the time I have, sorry. I hope you all have a great week. I love you all so much! The Church is true

Elder La Follette

6 September 2011

2011-09-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

Hi family!

It's been a really productive week this week. We picked up 5 new investigators (a family of 3, a spouse of another, and West's mother that lives with Ceyda.) It's been nice to be busy! We never really had time for tracting or contacting because we were either in a lesson or on our way to one most of each day. It was really good to be busy. Julian, his brother Leon, and Julian's girlfriend Tony all accepted to be baptized on October 8th! They seem really solid, and we had a great dinner/lesson on the Restoration at a new ward family's house. Tony reminds me very, very much of Daniell, it's really funny! Unfortunately, Julian and Leon will be moving soon to another place in Oceanside, so we will probably have to pass them off to other missionaries. Should have expected it though! Since I've been in Vista, we have passed off 5 people that either got baptized, or will be baptized in coming weeks, all because of boundary rules.

Today is transfers in the mission, but Elder Bowen and I will be staying here in the Vista 3rd Ward. I will probably be here 6 more weeks, and then will be transferred. But, you never know!

Also, Josh and Amanda Adkins-Setty moved back to Oceanside today. We helped them move this morning. You don't know them, but they are good friends of mine (the other 3 missionaries in the ward don't know them at all or as well), the same ones whose computers I skyped on for Mothers Day.

We had rain yesterday for the first time in several months, it was really nice! Today is very hot and very humid. We are now entering the hottest part of the year for San Diego area (I don't know about other parts of Southern Cal).

Well that's really all for this week!

I hope you are all well.

Love, Elder La Follette

GO UTES!!!

30 August 2011

2011-08-30T12:29:00.001-07:00

Hi family!
The day after tomorrow is September. Man the year is going by quick!
I hope all of you in Northern Utah are alive after that storm! Sounds like it was another 4th of July. We've been getting a lot of hot and humid down here.
It hasn't been very eventful the past few days, since Thursday. Saturday my back was better in the morning. We helped a lady in her yard, and afterwards came back for a shower. Shortly after my shower I bent down and up wrong and my back popped again. So, I was laying on the ground all day with severe back pain. Sister Cook told me to lay on the ground for a few hours with ice under my back and taking medicine. Bro Voigtlander (ward mission leader) brought some ibuprofen for me since I was out of it, and it helped a lot! My back is doing better today. It has healed a lot.
Friday night we had a really good movie night. We only had about 25 people show up, but it was good. One of our invesgators, Andy [edit], and his family showed up.
Sunday, Mary [edit] came to church and had a great time. She said while she was talking to the members, she'd never had such a warm feeling and welcoming feeling in her life. It was really good for her. She participated a lot in class too. We will teach her tonight and hopefully she will accept a baptism date.
We met with Paul on Sunday with Bro Coleman. He has a baptism date for Oct 1, but we are probably going to drop him this week. He won't do anything but more importantly, he can never remember anything we teach him. On Sunday we taught him a lesson about the Restoration for a good while. At the end, the only thing he remembered learning was "I remember a.. uh.. uh a pillar? Pillar of light! But I like to think of the blue sky." and goes off talking about how animals should be treated better. Yeah... It's been like that, so we probably won't continue to teach him much longer.
We have another new investigator, his name is Julian. He is 22 from Florida and got recruited to play football for several universities (including UF). Instead, he joined the Marines. A few months ago he finished his 4 years in the Marines and now wants to get closer to God.
Well that's all the time I have and really all i wanted to say anyway. I hope you are all doing well!
Have a good week
Elder Jon La Follette

25 August 2011

2011-08-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

Hi family! I'm low on time so I'll share the best stuff from this week.
Elder Bowen finally got a bike last Saturday from a lady we've been doing yard work for. It was a piece of junk but I fixed it up for him. He claimed he knows how to fix stuff really well but we eager to sit back and watch me do it. It's all good. I finally got his brakes fixed yesterday so we started riding bikes for the first time since he's been in the mission. I was really excited because I'm tired of walking all the time. We got about 10 min into the day, then I hit a bump and my bike tire went flat in about 3 seconds. We walked our bikes back to the apartment. En route, we talked to a lady that was walking by. We asked how her day was, and she said it was good, and asked how our day was. I said we were doing well, until my bike tire went flat and I showed her. She looked at it and said "Oh my. Well I hope it stays that way!" and walked off. It was a great start to the day!
On Tuesday Elder Gibbons of the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy came to our mission. We had 3 zones meet in Carlsbad for the conference I went to. I was asked to play piano by the APs a few days before. They had two songs picked out, one of which I could play. I asked if we could play a different one, and they asked if I could just learn it. I said I could, and they were happy. They also mentioned that President wanted it to be "General Authority perfect!" No pressure! I got it learned though, and it went okay.
The computer just asked me if I wanted 30 more minutes of time! Yay! I won't use it all though.
Elder Gibbons talked a lot about member missionary work with us, and how it is done. He first started with the doctrine of it and why members do missionary work. The First Presidency said that missionary work is centered in the ward, not in the missions. The bishop and stake presidents hold the priesthood keys to find investigators. The mission president holds the keys to teaching and baptizing investigators, and the missionaries primarily do the teaching. The missionaries will have their own efforts finding investigators, but the primary responsibility lies with the members of the Church. As a missionary, I have noticed how much more effective "member referrals" are than us tracting and talking to people on the street. In our mission, 63% of baptisms in the last year came from member referrals or part-member families. Only 11% came from tracting and 15% from street contacts. So "logically", missionaries will see results like this, and then spend most of their time knocking on doors and talking to people on the street. Really, missionary work should be focused more on the members of the Church. In our mission and other missions in the world, we are trying to start a major change and instead of focusing on finding people on our own, and then asking for a referral from members here and there (and 99% of the time, no one has a referral), we will focus on helping members in their missionary efforts. Elder Gibbons asked us to not ask for referrals at dinner anymore, but rather to focus our conversation on helping the members in their efforts. We'll see how this goes! President Cook and really all of us feel really strongly that this is the right thing to do. President Hinckley said something to the effect of "many look at missionary work as simply tracting. Those who are familiar with this work know that there is a much better way, and that way is through the members of the Church." If we are to do the Lord's work, we need to join together the Missionary Church and the Member Church and make it the Church of Jesus Christ. Elder Gibbons said that members need to realize that 1- Missionary work is NOT hard 2- Missionary work is NOT complicated and 3- You will NOT lose your friends in inviting them. It was a really good zone conference. I wish I had time to tell you all I learned from Elder and Sister Gibbons and President and Sister Cook, but I don't have time. But that was the biggest thing he talked about.
We had a really powerful lesson with Ceyda on Tuesday night. She had an experience where she clearly heard the voice of the Holy Ghost telling her something she needed to know. She said for sure she wants to be baptized into the Church. When she talked to West, she asked him if it was really important to him that they get baptized together. Otherwise, she'd go for it right now. West said it was definitely important to him and that they should wait. He said "I was the one who got you into it in the first place!" It was pretty funny. West and Ceyda are looking at February for baptism, since he'll have a 2- week leave from his deployment. I hope I will be in a place that I can go to it. They are probably my favorite investigators of my whole mission, maybe combined with Patrick from Mira Mesa. I've felt a really strong connection with both of them. They have grown so much since I first went over with Elder Farley. Ceyda told us that every time they go to church on Sunday (Saturday for West in Afghanistan) they will talk to each other for a good length of time about the things they each learned in church. They are so cool!
Sister Poe wasn't able to make it to church this week. Her daughter from Chula Vista (about two hours south of Vista) was going to pick her up to take her to see her grandaughter in Juvy, and that was during church. Sister Poe's daughter never showed up, so she called her later and was mad at her for not showing up, and that she had to miss church for nothing. She is planning to go this Sunday.
There is a young couple in the ward we're working with, Amanda and Mario [edit]. They have been working with their neighbors Jerica and Junior, and next week we should begin to teach them. We had a BBQ at the [edit] on Sunday that they went to and had a great time! Junior is a BUFF Tongan. He laughed when I called him Junior Seau. He used to play linebacker. I would NOT want to get hit by him.
About a month ago I had an idea of having a movie night with the ward at the church. The ward liked the idea, and tomorrow night we're having the Missionary Movie Night. The ward is excited, and a lot of people are bringing their friends, and some of our investigators are going to come. We're going to play Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. It's the really good Joseph Smith movie that played at Legacy Theater in Salt Lake for a long time. Elder Child gave me a copy of it last November so we're going to watch it. We're going to have popcorn and pink lemonade, and people are going to come in PJs and bring blankets and beanbags and such. Pretty much like the Timpview Pillow Concert but for a movie. It's going to be awesome!
Well I've ended up taking a lot longer than I thought! Good thing I got extra time today. Sounds like football season is going to start soon. Go UTES!!! It won't be a big distraction here, because no one cares about college football in San Diego, since San Diego State hasn't been good for a while and they're in a dumb conference now. Sunday nights are always funny because the streets are lined house after house with a bunch of guys in every garage sitting on a couch watching the Chargers games together and holding beers. We've learned that generally guys aren't interested when the Chargers are on. I wouldn't be either though, if my team was playing!
I hope you all have a great week! I love you all
Elder Jon La Follette

16 August 2011

2011-08-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

Hello family!

It's been a good week this week. Things are looking up. We finally found a new investigator on Sunday, and then another one last night. Sunday was a man named TJ. Older black gentleman from Rochester, NY (ha!). He has spent much of his adult life (now in his 60s) trying to find a church that fits what he reads in the Bible. So far he has found that the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and 7th Day Adventists are the closest. He said the Mormons are probably the religion that follows the Bible most closely, including building temples and "the order of Melchizedek." He is very religiously smart and so far is fascinated with the LDS Church, especially the principle of the pre-mortal world. He will be a very interesting person to teach!
Last Saturday I was on an exchange with Elder Davis, one of the zone leaders (not related, as far as we can tell). Among all the people we talked to was an older black lady in her 70s, name Mary Poe. She grew up Lutheran and Baptist and loves the Lord. We taught her last night for the first time and got to know her better and gave her a Book of Mormon. We arranged to get her a ride to church on Sunday and she is very excited. She told us that last week, she was on her knees praying in her room that somehow she could go back to church, since she hadn't been in the 5 years she's lived here. Her back hurts too much to walk to the church down the road. Just a few days later we found her on the street and she was happy to let us come by. She was very happy to accept the invitation to come to church with us.
Fonzie Vavao got baptized this last Wednesday! I didn't tell y'all because he called me after I was done emailing and asked me to come to the baptism and baptize him. I was definitely happy to, and the baptism was held last Wednesday. It was in the 10th ward, the ward to our east. Other than their ward mission leader, and a counselor in the bishopric, there was only one family that came to the baptism (beside Fonzie's). The Riddles decided to come, so I got a chance to see them for the first time since last spring when I came to Vista! Karisa, her brother Joe, and their dad (Uncle Craig) were there and after the baptism I got a bunch of time to talk to them. It was good to see them again! Their good friends in the 3rd ward, the Isas, feed us sometimes, so they said the next time we eat at the Isas, they would come too. I'm so happy for Fonzie! It was really cool too see him and his family again, and be able to be there for his baptism. He will be a solid member of the church.
We had a meeting last Thursday for all the trainers and their companions that were in their first 6 weeks, so we went. There is a new program introduced by the Church that sets up a curriculum for trainers to teach their new companions by the time their first 12 weeks are over in the mission. In the packets we got, it said the goal is to prepare our companions so well, that by the end of their first 12 weeks in the field, they will be ready to successfully train a new missionary! Elder Bowen is making some good strides and learning a lot about the work. He has a good drive when we're out working and loves the work. He still smells but he's a nice kid.
Next Tuesday we have another General Authority coming to our mission. Elder Gibbons of the 2nd quorum of the Seventy is coming to visit and teach us. Because he's coming to our area of the mission on Tuesday, our PDay will be on Thursday next week instead of Tuesday. The next week it'll go back to normal.
I hope you are all doing well! I appreciate your love and support. Have a great week everyone

Elder Jon La Follette

9 August 2011

2011-08-09T20:02:00.001-07:00

Hello family!

It's been a good week. 1-year mark has come and gone, and I don't feel much different. Time sure does go quick though. I've grown a lot in the past year. I have learned so many lessons so rapidly. I've learned to love people I've never met. I've learned further the effect that God has on people, and the effect the Gospel has on people. I've learned further God's love for every single person, and for me. I have felt His presence in my life so much more than at any other time in my life. My testimony has grown significantly. The Church is true. The Priesthood is real. The Book of Mormon is true. Everything that goes along with that is true. If you have found yourself struggling in a testimony, I would encourage you to go and and hunt for one. Getting and keeping a testimony is not a cheap experience, and neither is being a disciple of Christ. But nothing else brings true happiness. We have been blessed with so much. I hope we all can recognize that.

This week has been good for me. It's been a week of frustrations, a lot of patience testing, a lot of hard work, and a lot of learning lessons. We have been able to teach Ceyda and Christian some more. They are both doing well, except that Christian has been struggling to come to church the past month. Ceyda is growing in the gospel really quickly. The church is becoming a part of her life.

We had our quarterly temple trip this morning. It was good to go there and be soaked in the Spirit. I was able to listen to the Spirit and learn what God wants me to do in the near future. I learned many things. The temple is a beautiful place, physically as well as spiritually.

I can't remember any stories from this week, sorry.

Not a lot of interesting things happened.

I hope you are all well. Love you all, have a great week

Elder La Follette

2 August 2011

2011-08-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hello family!

I don't have much time today, so this will be a little short.

First of all, thank you for all the birthday wishes! I had a good birthday on Sunday. Somehow all the youth in our ward found out as well as some adults and a lot of people wished me a happy birthday at church! I can't believe I'm 20 already, but I don't feel much older than I did a couple days ago! My 1 year mark is this week as well. Man life goes fast!

My new companion is Elder James Bowen, from Grace, Idaho. Ever heard of it? Me neither. Town of 900 people, graduating class of 23. He's a convert to the church; he was baptized at 9 years old. His family growing up was extremely anti-LDS and his family did not support him at all joining the church, but he did anyway. A couple years later his brother was also baptized. Now his whole family are temple-worthy and very proud of him for coming on a mission. It's really nice to meet people and have my companion able to say he hasn't been in the church his whole life. People are a little more willing to listen to converts. He smells like he's from Idaho but it's all good. He reminds me of Brad and Dwain with his humor (very much so), speech, mannerisms, etc. He too is losing his hair, but not as fast as me. He's 20 years old. That's about all. He's doing very well so far and has a great love for missionary work and is teaching me a lot of things. It's always good to be around a new missionary, with the fire they bring being fresh from the MTC.

West is deployed now, as of Thursday. He texted me Wednesday night a really nice message, basically saying he was very grateful for all we have done and he'd never forget the impact we and the Church has had on him in such a short time. He wants to be baptized when he gets back. Ceyda has met with us once, went to church, and went to FHE with the Geeves family and us last night. She is progressing really well. She and West want to be baptized when he gets back from deployment. We will have a lesson on the blessings of baptism tomorrow, and then let her and West decide if she still wants to wait. He has Skype out there and can talk to her every few days. West took his scriptures we gave him and Ceyda said he had a goal of reading the whole Book of Mormon, then the New Testament by the time he gets home.

Couple fun stories from the week--

We tracted into a Presbyterian minister and he was really nice. He explained very thoroughly the doctrine of the trinity for about 40 minutes. I understood all the things he was saying, but the trinity doesn't make much more sense now than it ever has. There's a way to know it's not true! Besides, who would want to worship an unknowable God with multiple personalities who talks to Himself? I'm sure glad we have the truth! He also told us in the nicest way he could that if we didn't accept the trinity and reject our false belief then we were surely going to hell. Man I love California!

Also later that day we street contacted an old lady about to go to her car. We started talking and she interrupted and said "No thank you, no thank you! I have my own church already! Thank you for calling, bye bye." and got in her car.

That's really all for this week. It's warming up and staying just as humid so it's gonna be a fun month! Thank you everyone for your lov and support. I hope you have a great week.

Love Elder Jon La Follette

26 July 2011

2011-07-26T16:46:00.001-07:00

Hello family!

It's been a little bit of a slow week, but that's okay. We've just had a hard time getting a hold of people to teach them, but it happens sometimes.

Pioneer Day was this week! Since it's not a holiday in California, the Vista Stake had its own celebration in the stake center parking lot, the same building we go to church in. They had lots of booths that you could do things in, like making ropes, candles, drinking homemade rootbeer, eating all kinds of berry and peach cobbler, churning butter, pulling little kids in handcarts, a couple guitar bands singing old music, a doll-making booth, and even a 1/3-size replica of the Nauvoo Temple that the Spanish ward made. It was really neat! Our mission president and his wife came as well. We had a couple of investigators go.

We had to say goodbye to West last night. He is getting deployed on Thursday, a little sooner than we thought. It was hard for all of us, since we've all become good friends. We gave him a military-sized pack of all the scriptures, which he was very thankful for. He plans to read them a lot. It's a shame we ran out of time to baptize him before he left, but I am sure he will join the Church when he gets back in a year. We will continue meeting with Ceyda. By the way, she is a really, really good cook. They fed us dinner last night. We took pictures and exchanged emails and such. Hopefully I'll get to talk to him again sometime.

Speaking of farewells, Elder Fackrell is getting transferred today. He came in with me and we've only been here for 3 months. President Cook asked me to train again, so I will get a greenie at transfers tonight. This will be my 3rd time training. There will now be 2 greenies in our ward! Hopefully he can break the streak and have a last name that's easy to say the first time. I have been praying a lot, asking for help as I train again. It's a big task and there is a lot of trust being placed in me, so I will need to do a good job! I'm sure it will be great again.

My birthday is on Sunday. I'll be 20 years old. That's pretty crazy. Hump day is next week. Boy, life is speeding up quick. I don't have a long time left on my mission so I'm trying to make the best of it. It's still a year, but seeing how fast this past year went by, I don't want to waste a minute. It's been really great so far being out here. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I miss family, friends, hobbies and whatnot, but the compensation of preaching the Gospel and helping people change their lives is pretty neat. I hope all of you are being missionaries in your own capacities. Sure we won't baptize all of our friends or even bring them to church every week, but just living the commandments and being an example goes a long, long way. This work is definitely real, and the Church is definitely true, and it's the best news in the world.

I hope all of you have a great week. I love you all very much.

Elder Jon La Follette

19 July 2011

2011-07-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

Hello Family!

It's been a really short week, without a lot of action. I was out Wednesday afternoon, then Thursday afternoon through Sunday night down with being sick. It was probably strep throat or tonsilitis. I had super super super sore throat the whole time (it's still quite sore) with a bunch of white dots in the back of my throat. I had waves of fevers, usually around 102, lots of dizziness, barfing, toileting, and headaching. Needless to say, it was a pretty dumb week. I got sick of laying down so we went out and working yesterday. It was tough, but a lot better than laying inside! Dinner appointments were embarrassing because I couldn't eat more than about half a fist-size amount of food, plus some water. Then I would proceed to cough the rest of the dinner hour. Those were the nights we didn't cancel dinner. Being sick as a missionary isn't as fun as being sick at home! Joe's probably making fun of me now because I'm sickly!

West and Ceyda did get back from their vacation finally! They were too late for church, but it was almost a good thing because the Gospel Essentials lesson was on exaltation, and there was deep doctrine mixed with false doctrine for an hour. If they'd heard it, they probably wouldn't have come back to church, so it was probably a good thing they missed! West told us they had missed church a lot and couldn't wait to come next week. I forgot how cool he is!

We had more talk with the Assistants this week and discovered that Fonzie is actually in the 10th ward (Which is the APs ward. We're in the 3rd ward). So we're going to have to pass him back to the 10th ward elders again. We did this once already, so Fonzie has had one lesson from them and has been to their ward once. We told Fonzie we'd have to do it again, and he told me he and Ruby really, really did not like that ward. He said if they had to go to that ward, they would just not go to church at all. He also told us he didn't like those missionaries either, and they were really pushy. This is going to be an interesting time telling the APs all of this!

That's really all for this week. I hope you are all doing well. Love you all

Elder Jon La Follette

12 January 2011

2011-07-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hello family!

It's finally been a better week. We've had several weeks of frustration, lots of opposition and rejection, and lots of fatigue. We had a break this week, thankfully. We have 2 new investigators, one of which has a baptism date.

The one with a baptism date is Fonzi. Fonzi was taught all the missionary lessons in Del Mar Stake but he had to move up here for work. We're going through all the lessons again (he's a little rusty) and he has a baptism date for Aug 6. His girlfriend's name (she's a member) is Punefuolemotu [edit]. Thankfully, she goes by Ruby. They have 2 kids, Isaiah (1) and Roman (3). Isaiah is the loudest one-year-old I've ever heard, which is saying a lot. They're a lot of fun though.

We also picked up Ottilia as an investigator. She is a hispanic lady in her 50s. She grew up Catholic, but later left the church because she got divorced from her husband (a no-no in the Catholic church), who was really cruel to her. She was remarried to another man, and they loved each other very much, but he passed away from cancer a year ago. She has been going through a hard time, especially sorting through all of his things, but she really enjoys our visits and is eager to learn about the church so far.

West and Ceyda get back from vacation this Saturday. We're going to do all we can to squeeze a baptism in before he deploys. The MREs they gave us are really yummy.

We were walking around a small part of our area last night, past a place called Boomers (it's like Trafalga in Utah), and there was a guy eating a sandwich sitting on a power box. We said hello, and then we got in a good conversation. He had some cousins that were LDS and he really liked the Church and wanted to come on Sunday and learn more. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he was very excited to read it. His name is Daniel [edit]. We will try to see him again on Friday.

That's about all for this week. It's cooled down a little bit, which is always nice. Sunscreen is nice because it prevents sunburns, but it makes us sweat a LOT more in this high humidity. I've never sweat so much in my life. Good grief!

I hope you all had a great week.

Love you all

Elder Jon La Follette

Videos!

2011-07-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

These are pretty late, sorry.....

Christmas Skype Call with Family 2010

5 July 2011

2011-07-05T12:03:00.001-07:00

Hi family!

I hope you're all doing really well.

It's been a really long, really tough, and really frustrating week, so there's not a lot to write about.

Almost every appointment we had this week cancelled, so we spent the vast majority of our days walkin' talkin' and knockin'. It happens, so I'm not worried about, but it's just not as fun as having lots of teaching in a week.

Last Tuesday night West and Ceyda gave us a giant handful of MREs. They are really cool, and pretty yummy. Some people don't like them, but I think they're pretty good. They also let us borrow their tennis stuff so we could play in the morning while they're gone to Washington and Florida.

In church on Sunday, there were a lot of people bearing testimony about how our country is the greatest in the history of the world and that our military has God behind them, and how our leaders are inspired. Almost no one mentioned Christ until one of the stake presidency members got up and told people to bear their testimonies about Christ and the Gospel. Then one of the people who came up later mentioned in their testimony that Americans eat more hot dogs on the 4th of July than any other day of the year. Then Elder Barlow and Elder Snedaker got up and finished the meeting off with some real testimonies. In the closing prayer was mentioned "..and please help the political leaders of our nation make better decisions...". It took all Elder Fackrell and myself could to not burst out laughing in the middle of the prayer. Needless to say, it was an interesting sacrament meeting.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love you all

Elder La Follette

28 June 2011

2011-06-29T18:54:00.001-07:00

Hi family!

It's been a good week. Lots and lots of dropped appointments, so not of lot of new stuff, but at least there are things to talk about.

Last Wednesday we helped Bro. Hartung cut down his giant tree in his back yard. It was the 2nd time we'd been over to help. He would go up in the tree, tie ropes to the trunk and branches, and then chainsaw the branches down. We would direct the branches down (as big as trees themselves), untie them, and cut them to pieces with our own chainsaws. It was really fun. I felt very manly with dirt, sweat, sap, and cuts all over me, not to mention we were manhandling a giant tree. On one of the branches though, the rope got caught around Brother Hartung's arm, and burned his arm really bad as the branch fell downward. When the rope ran out, the branch jerked, and the rope broke his arm, just above the wrist. But he didn't know it was broken yet, so he grunted in pain a little bit, then continued chainsawing. Later he tied a rope to the top of the tree, including about 8 branches, and down below we pulled and pulled and broke the top of the tree off. It was so cool.

Ceyda is back from base, and we were able to teach her and West once. We talked about baptism, and they seem pretty excited to do that. We are aiming for July 23rd. We only have a small window of time to do it, because they're going on pre-deployment leave from July 1-16, then he'll be deployed probably July 30 or 31st. So we only have about two weeks to teach them the 3rd lesson, and all of the commandments, have them interviewed, and baptized and confirmed. We're going to try to make it work. He's been getting off work really late recently, so it's been hard to meet with them. Ceyda will still be around, but West will be gone for a year on deployment. Hopefully it will work out. They both came to church on Sunday (West's 3rd time, Ceyda's first time) and really enjoyed it. Ceyda felt awkward in Relief Society because the women talked about not having more than one piercing, and Ceyda has two piercings. But we talked about it with her, and I don't think it'll be a problem.

Sunday, we had dinner with the Mataaliis (a less active/recent convert family we've been teaching) and West and Ceyda at the Mataaliis place. It was really good for all of them, they are good friends now. Mataaliis are also a young couple with a baby boy. That was our second dinner of the night. Earlier we ate with the Faleumu family. They are Samoan, and of course, require we eat a LOT of food. We had ribs, which were delicious. We ate a ton. Then after an appointment, had the other dinner with the Mataaliis and West and Ceyda. We were SO full by the end. Reminded me of Dad's story about eating the giant potatoes. Elder Fackrell didn't have breakfast the next day because he was still full when he woke up.

Found out that one of the priests in our ward was in the same prom group as me when I came down for the high school's prom last year. It was fun to see pictures of us all, before we knew each other!

Our other investigators are doing well. Andy Zinniger is a guy in his 40s that we've been teaching a little bit. He's been coming to church for a long time, his wife is a member. He even teaches nursery, even though he's not a member. He's a really nice guy, and I think he'll join the church within a few months. He hasn't been wanting to be pushed into baptism, but I think he'll join soon. We see him once a week.

We haven't seen Sheryl for a while, but we will help her with yard work again tomorrow and teach her tomorrow night.

Christian is doing pretty well. We've all been trying to figure out a way to help him read the scriptures every day. So far it's working! Tonight we're going to invite him and his family to go down to the temple and take a family picture in front of it.

Yesterday every companionship got a small DVD player, so we could watch the Preach My Gospel training videos in companionship study. I can definitely imagine some of the missionaries abusing those... Don't worry, I won't! Our mission president said he's already planning on some being taken away soon.

Yesterday while riding to see a referral, we were riding down a street with a couple houses on it. We talk to everyone we see on the streets and try to share the gospel. As I was about to pass one house, there was a car pulling into the driveway. I could have talked to them fairly easily, or I could have passed them up. For whatever reason, I decided to pass them up and keep riding. I immediately started feeling guilty, since I never have a problem talking to everyone. I decided to ignore my guilt because I was well past the house, and when I decided to ignore the feeling, my water bottle, full of cold water, somehow made its way out of its holder and fell out into the street and then rolled down an open drain. I was really thirsty, and I just watched my water roll down the drain. That definitely taught me a lesson! If you get a prompting from the Holy Ghost, you'd better follow it. That was a minor "punishment" but often the consequences are more severe if we ignore instruction from God because we're lazy.

I hope you are all well and happy! I hope you all keep in touch with each other. Family is so important, and the world doesn't understand that nearly as well as they need to. Don't take ours for granted.

Love you all

Elder Jon La Follette

21 June 2011

2011-06-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hello family!

It's been an okay week! I apologize for not replying very much last week. We had limited time (as I do right now too!).

By the way, Tara, there are some Hiatts in our ward. The dad is Sam Hiatt, Maren's older brother! I thought that was a cool connection.

Happy Father's Day to Dad and Mike and Joe and Mike and Grandpa!

Happy birthday Camille this Saturday

West went to church again this week. He is solid. Ceyda comes back from Pendleton tonight. We will meet with them tomorrow night to discuss a baptism date. Hopefully we can get it done before deployment the lsat week of July.

The other day we played basketball with West in the morning. (short version of story) There was another guy playing with him that he didn't know. Eventually we found out he was Ruben, a guy we talked to on the street a few weeks back. We had given him a pass-along card, and he seemed mildly interested. While playing basketball, he said that card saved his life. There was "so much unrighteousness" in his life that that card saved him that night, and he wants us to come by and teach more. We coulnd't get a hold of him yesterday, but we met his neighbors, who have recently lost their baby, and want us to come teach. It's neat how God leads us to people all over the place.

No other big things to talk about this week, since I have so little time!

I did get a small pool table at a ward potluck white elephant gift exchange!

Have a great week!

Love you all

Elder La Follette

14 June 2011

2011-06-14T11:17:00.001-07:00

Hey family I am extremely short on time this week. Elder Gale is being transferred this week and we've got a BUSY day. I will have to reply to emails next week. I am very sorry.

I did see the pictures and got an idea of Tara's accident. I am so glad she's okay. That is awful. You're in my prayers Tara!

I will be staying in the north side of our ward, where I've been working. Elder Fackrell is my companion, and there will be two new missionaries coming in tonight on the other part of the ward, so we'll have to show them around.

Update-- West went to church this week (finally) and had a really great experience. Josh and Amanda Adkins-Setty took him (they're the ones that I skyped from). We have a lesson tonight with him. Everything else has been a little slow this week.

I love you all so much and I am sorry it was so short this week. I will be able to talk more next week.

Have a great week. Feel better Tara!

Jon

7 June 2011

2011-06-07T14:48:00.001-07:00

Hello family, this is going to have to be quick this week

We've had another good week. We've been focusing a lot on finding new people to teach.. Prayers would be appreciated. We need a little extra help with this.

A few stories from this week and a quick update are all I have time for.

Saturday night we went to an appointment to a less active I'm teaching. He is a elderly-person caretaker and lives at his work. Upon getting there, he told us there was something he needed help with. There was one old women on hospice care that would likely die that night or the next morning. He asked if we could do anything. We went in and met her daughter and talked for a while, then gave her a blessing. It was a really interesting experience. We blessed her that her passing to the next life would be really smooth. I felt very strongly that her spirit was longing to be free from her old and very, very frail body. I also felt she would not live much longer, and it wasn't God's will she be healed this time. Her labored breathing did ease though, and she looked more peaceful. I assume she passed away the next day.

Yesterday we had a district meeting. At the end, we all knelt as a district to ask if the Book of Mormon was true. It was a very powerful experience for all of us. I felt the Holy Ghost stronger than I've had in a while. It was really neat. The Book of Mormon definitely is true, and it's the best news in the world!

A good chunk of my area is Oceanside, and a lot of people we talk to go to or have attended Oceanside High. Several of them know about Jordan Wynn playing there and are happy to know I'm a Ute like him!

We had only one lesson with West and Ceyda last week. Ceyda had to go to base for 2 weeks so she asked me to give her homework. I made a pack of pamphlets and reading and stuff for her to do. She said she'd do it. West is still in town and I will meet tomorrow with him. Still no baptism date left.

We met someone yesterday whose mom cleans the mission home. She said that President Cook is the only mission president they've met who wears robe and slippers around home. I thought that was really funny.

That's all I have time for. Have a great week

Love you all

Elder La Follette

31 May 2011

2011-05-31T14:01:00.000-07:00

Hey family!

I'm rushed right now, the computers are weird here at the library today so I could get kicked off at any moment. If I do, I'll talk about stuff next week.

We went to the temple this morning. It's always a great experience. It's neat driving down I-5 and suddenly the big white castle appears out of nowhere! It's really neat. On the way back we drove on the coastal highway so we got to see the ocean a lot. It's really big. We saw an aircraft carrier in the distance.

The other day we were riding on our bikes to check on a person. On the way there, Kurt [edit] drove by and stopped us to chat! He is a member, who is dating Christine [edit], one of my favorite people to teach in Escondido. That was really fun to talk to him. After we saw the person, we were riding our bikes really fast to get to dinner. On the way, we saw a girl getting out of her car, so Elder Gale and I stopped to "contact" her. We started talking, and we saw Elder Fackrell speeding behind us. He looked at her to say hi, then realized we had stopped. He slammed on his brakes to stop, but only his front brakes work, so he crashed really hard right in front of this girl. It was hilarious. Elder Gale and I couldn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes. Priceless.

Saturday night we went to a wedding. Normally we wouldn't go, but there was a recent convert there that requested we go. It was really interesting to go to one of those! I've been to some, but I don't remember them well. They had dinner there too so we had about 2 platefulls of ribs. Mmmm!

Elder Gale has a metal slurpy straw from 7-11 that we've converted into a blow gun. You can fit pushpins perfectly in them and make good darts. We've been having target practice during lunch on a corkboard. So far I've been the best aim!

West and Ceyda are doing well. Ceyda has to be on base for 14 days, so she won't be able to be taught or go to church, but we will teach West by himself. He didn't show up to church on Sunday so we'll have to find out why, since he was so excited to go. Everyone is doing very well. We picked up another investigator lady yesterday. She is a Christian that was fascinated by the fact that Christ came to the Americas. I will meet with her tomorrow night! I say I because I go on splits with priests or the ward mission leader every night. We've split the area but I don't have my own companion for a few more weeks so we split up all the time. it's weird using the words "I" and "my". You don't say that muhc as a missionary.

That's about all I have for this week. I love you all and hope you're doing well.

Have a good one

Elder La Follette

24 May 2011

2011-05-24T12:25:00.001-07:00

Hello family!

I'm back in the tri-companionship again. Elder Farley left Wednesday morning. Our mission president came to pick him up at 6:30. While he was at our apartment, he mentioned how nice and clean it was. We didn't do any extra cleaning so that was cool!

This morning during our companionship study we heard lots of yelling and screaming next door, and some loud crashes. We weren't really sure what to do, because it could have been one thing our another, but eventually the cops showed up and broke up a fight. Apparently he was beating his girlfriend and such. Never a dull moment around here.

A few updates on our teaching--

I don't know if I even told you about our/my investigators. I say "my" because we still divide our ward boundaries. Elder Farley and I worked north of the highway, and Elder Gale and Elder Fackrell work south of the highway. Now that E. Farley is gone, I still cover north of the highway by myself, so the priests in the ward and other members go on splits with me all the time.

I have 3 good investigators. One is Christian [edit]. He's about 21, and is dating a less-active member of the church. His brother Josh just got baptized about two months ago. Their mom, Georgina, takes lessons from the Spanish missionaries. They all come in for the lessons. It's really fun to be teaching a family for the first time. They have quickly become good friends and almost like family to me. Christian wants to get baptized but either has to marry Joselyn (his girlfriend) or move out first. They don't have any money to do so right now, so we are waiting until they can. Right now we have a goal for a baptism on June 25. They all come to church every week and have strong testimonies.

Elder Farley and I also found a young couple in the Marines (LOTS of Marines around here, especially in our apartment complex). Robert (goes by West) and Ceyda (Jay'-duh) Bridger. They are both in the Marines and have a little girl. They have always admired the Mormons they've known for being such happy people. She has a Christian background, but nothing too deep. He has basically been religion-less. They are growing in their testimonies very quickly and are loving everything we've taught so far. He is going to be deployed in about a month or two, for the third time. We will try to set a baptism date tonight.

One funny story--the other day we taught West and Ceyda, and we brought by Brother Coleman, the Ast. WML. He likes to talk about doctrine without realizing he's confusing people. We talked a little about the word of wisdom, and we all discussed the bad things caffeine does to our body. Then West left the room. Bro Coleman then brought up the fact that caffeine does have great medicinal uses if used properly, as well as other positive things. West came back in, and looked befuddled. Eventually we stopped talking and asked him why he looked so confused. He said "just a minute ago caffeine was awful, then when I came back it was awesome..."

Yesterday we had zone conference. Toward the end, President Cook and one of the APs was doing a demonstration on using the scriptures to help answer concerns. The Spirit had been really strong for several hours and had been really peaceful and quiet. He asked Elder Gale (one of my companions, and a goofy kid) to go up to pretend to be the investigator. Elder Gale had to come up with a concern. He said something along the lines of "last week was a really hard week. I work on a ranch, and my dog saw a rat, and started chasing it. It ran into the road, and my dog ran after it, and a truck came and hit my dog..." There was a moment of silence, then President Cook busted out laughing really, really hard. About a minute later, he tried to gather himself and continue with the demo, and then started laughing again and again. It was really, really funny.

Apparently the world was supposed to end last Saturday. I'd heard about it since last September. We've been joking about it to ourselves the whole week. There were a few people that were really worked up about it, and LOTS of people were out Friday and Saturday night drinking and drinking and drinking and having parties and etc... The last week there were a lot of people that yelled and cussed at us (nothing new), but this time they included "you Mormons are all liars!! You idiots! The world is NOT going to end on Saturday! Stop LYING to people!!" We got a kick out of that one.

Well that's about it for this week.

Love you all, have a good one

Elder Jon La Follette

17 May 2011

2011-05-17T12:22:00.001-07:00

Hello family!

It's been a good week. Last Tuesday I got my new companion, apartment, car, and area. He is Elder Matt Farley, grew up in Spring City, UT, lived in Alaska for 5 years, and then to GA for a few months. We got along really well. He got his visa really quick, and will be on his way to Brazil tomorrow morning. We are both sad. This also means I'll have to go back into a threesome for the rest of the transfer. President Cook said they requested another visa-waiter, but one wasn't able to come. Elder Farley has taught me some Portuguese! I can say it better than I can spell it though.

We have the nicest apartment in the mission, according to the assistants. We have lots of space, a great kitchen, a couch, and even our own washer/dryer. We are spoiled!

We didn't have a lot of success late last week so we counted the people that waved to us as we walked around town. In one day, we had 26 wave/smile combos, 3 nod/wave combos, 6 smiles, 95 waves, 10 nods, and 2 honks. We also had 1 nod/smile/wave combo.

We picked up an investigator couple last night, West and Ceyda (jay-duh). They are a young military couple that looks really promising.

On Sunday we were asked to do a fireside for the youth. We gave a 30-min presentation on missionary work, then they played a game called "stump the elders". All the youth brought inanimate objects in paper bags. Elder Farley and I (north side) and Elder Gale and Elder Fackrell (south side) competed to find scriptures that related to the random objects, such as a stuffed duck, a container of bubbles, a mascara thing, etc. It was really fun.

Towards the end of a relaly long day on Thursday, we walked by a shop, and a mid-aged Mexican lady called "elders! Elders!" She asked us to come to her home and give her mother a blessing. We went there, found out neither were LDS, but loved Mormons. We taught about the priesthood, gave her a blessing, and she immediately felt better. It was a good day!

That's all I have for this week. Sorry it is short. Have a great week!

Elder La Follette

10 May 2011

2011-05-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hi family!

I just talked to y'all so I'll keep this one short. It's been a good week in my new area, Vista 3rd Ward. It's been way awkward to be in a threesome but it looks like that'll end in a few minutes here. My new companion should be in Vista by now. He'll get all orientated and such then our threesome and the Cooks will go with him to lunch, and then he'll come to our distrct activity. President Cook said he's a sharp kid so that's good. I hope he's not a square. I'll let you know next week.

I still don't know where I'm moving to or when, but apparently I'm moving today. Still don't know what my transportation will be like, so I guess I'll just have to plan on biking for now.

We did get to play with a cool sword the other day. We had dinner with Bro Porch. He is a single older member that is crazy, but he is awesome. He's a butcher by profession and always makes us fresh steaks. I'll take you to meet him Dad, don't worry! He pulled out a sword he wanted to show us and let us wave it around and take pictures.

We've been playing basketball for exercise the past week. It's been very humbling. I just now realize how much skill I've lost. I'll hit about 1/15 shots. It's embarrassing!

Well that's about all for this week. Y'all have a good one

Love

Elder La Follette

3 May 2011

2011-05-03T12:27:00.001-07:00

Hi Family!

Last week we had Elder L. Tom Perry, his wife, and L. Whitney Clayton and his wife come speak to us and the San Diego Mission. That was a really uplifting experience. I don't have my notes with me so I can't tell you everything they said, but they talked of course a lot about missionary work, how members need to involve missionaries in their missionary work, and how the missionaries need to use all their resources.

Just before that meeting, President Cook met with just our mission (he asked us to show up an hour earlier than San Diego). There, he announced some changes in the mission boundaries. San Diego mission is short on units (wards/branches) and the missionaries are getting crammed. They have requested more area, so we gave them two of our stakes (2 zones). We gave them Penasquitos Stake and Poway Stake. Mira Mesa, my last area, was part of the Penasquitos Stake, so my last area is now out of our mission. Now the Escondidio Stake (I was in the Esco South stake, but on Sunday they combined with Escondido Stake to make one Escondido Stake) is one of the southern borders of the mission. No missionaries will be changing missions. We lost 38 missionaries' worth of area, so to balance that out, the Riverside Mission is giving us the Temecula Stake. Now Temecula is in our mission.

I am being transferred today from Escondido. I've been here 6 months and I've really loved it. The members and investigators have been great. If any of you come with me to visit later on, you'll be able to meet some of them. I've loved the people and the area. I'm sad to go, but it was expected because I've been here so long. Elder Bailey is staying, probably for just one more transfer (6 weeks). I'll send you pictures soon. Mom, I hope you got the pictures I sent last week. I don't want to lose a 3rd SD card!

Elder Lynn G Robbins came to the stake to help reorganize it, since they were combining. On Saturday we had the Mormon Helping Hands service project (I don't know if they even do it in Utah), and all the missionaries in the stake went. He showed up, as well as Elder Haynie and the new Esco Stake President. Elder Robbins shook all of our hands and took pictures with the missionaries. Look for a picture in the next Ensign! We did our service project in a local park, Kit Carson Park. Us missionaries had 2 jobs-- first was to rake and spread out some very thick mulch that a front-end loader dumped, and second was to cut and clear giant reeds around the pond. I got the job of being a reed cutter. A few minutes in, the mud got really thick and mushy, and I started to sink! I went to another spot to cut and got more stuck. I tried to get out, but just got further stuck in the process, so I decided to just cut all the reeds around me while I was stuck. There were 3 of us that were brave enough to go into the deeper water (we got permission, don't worry) and cut. I ended up going the deepest in mud. At the deepest, I was up to my thigh in watery mud and on top of that, up to my waist in water. Needless to say, I got pretty messy! I used one of the rakes to pry myself out, and upon getting out of the water, I realized our phone had been in my pocket the whole time, as well as our keys. The keys still worked, but the phone was dead. We took the phone home, showered, and tried to dry it. We put it in a bowl of rice and brought it to Ren Livingston's house (he's a nerd with electronics skills!). We took it apart and dried it. He gave it a 10% chance of living. We left in in a bag of rice all day, and thank goodness, it was working by night time! Whew! The main light doesn't work, but everything else does. We have to go in a dark room to read texts, but it's okay.

That's about all for this week. I hope you all are doing well. Congratulations Joe and Daniell! Y'all have a good week, I'll talk to you (at least some of you) on Sunday. I don't know what time, it depends on when my new wards' meetings are in the morning. I don't know where I'm going yet, but I'll find out in about 5 hours.

Love,

Elder La Follette

25 April 2011

2011-04-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

Hi Family!
I hope you all had a great week. We had a good week here.
It was a long week, not a lot happened, unfortunately. A few days we spent all day trying to contact referrals and potential investigators without really any success. We did pick up one new investigator, who actually used to be taught 3 years ago-- Antonio [edit]. He is a single dad, 33 years old and has an 8-yr-old son, Eddie. He is a super-active athlete between soccer, volleyball, and softball. Strong Catholic background, but he said he is always willing to learn more about other religions. When we went over there, he said he still had his Book of Mormon from a few years ago, and it was in a very accessable place. Most people put theirs in a box or throw it away but that was good news. We've had some other new investigators but some of them are more promising than others. Antonio has some good potential.
We had a hard time getting a hold of Max recently but we finally got to teach him again. He and his wife Becca are still focused on the temple and getting him baptized. Because we hadn't met for a couple weeks we'll have to push his baptism date back, but he will be fine.
Elder Bailey was sick this week, so we had to stay in for an evening on Wednesday. We had some weird concoction of Billy's on Monday that probably started it. He gets really bad stomach pains after every meal but he's feeling better now.
We weren't able to get a hold of John all week, which was strange. He's usually home all day every day, but ever since he got his car and bucks, he's been out doing who knows what. He's been drinking pretty heavily and smoking and probably other stuff. He's taken several steps backward as far as spiritual progression goes. We hope we can get a hold of him and help him start doing the right stuff again. He's starting again to really screw up his life. He got a great blessing in permanent disability income, but he's spent all of his money so far on stupid stuff, especially vodka. Let's hope he turns around soon.
Jamie, Christine, Billy, and August all went with Bishop Marler to the temple last Tuesday to do a baptisms for the dead session. They all had extremely spiritual experiences and loved it. Their testimonies grew a lot in just a week. For example, Jamie said "The last 16 months and after I got baptized, I thought for sure this was the right thing to do for me and my children. It all seemed right. After having gone, I know. I know I know I know it is the best thing I can possibly be doing." Christine and Billy said something similar. We haven't been able to talk to August much about it, but he did mention he really enjoyed it.
One of our zone leaders, Elder Brown, is a trombone player from Brighton HS in Cottonwood Heights. We talked about band and I'm pretty sure he's going to join the Utah marching band when he gets back (goes home next week). He said that'd always been a dream, and after talking, he decided he'd audition. That would be really neat to have a buddy in the trombone section when I get back!
That's about all I have this week. I hope you all are doing well. I appreciate your support and emails and stuff. Mothers Day in a couple weeks, and it's time to talk again! Hurray!
This will probably be my last week in Escondido, which is tough. I really love it here. Transfer calls are Saturday, so I'll let you know next week.
Love you all
Elder La Follette

19 April 2011

2011-04-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

First off, Happy Birthday Mike on Sunday! 31?? Sheesh. Hope it was a good one!

It was a quick week, but a lot happened! I will have to shorten my stories considerably because it took a week for them to happen but I have about 15 minutes on here to tell you.

I'll go in chronological order except I'll start with the best news-- Jamie and Christine are officially baptized and confirmed members of the Church! Saturday was a great day! President Cook and his wife came to the baptism service. Bishop Marler baptized Jamie, perfectly on the first time. Elder Bailey took 3 tries to baptize Christine (rookies...). He did fine, but her hair and much of her knee came up the first time, and the second time her knee came up again. Before the 3rd time, President Cook suddenly appeared right next to me (not 10 seconds before he was standing in the back of the room with a giant crowd of people between us--I was a witness) and told Christine to sit down in the water. We had told her before but she had forgotten. He reminded me of the butler guy on Mr. Deeds--"I'm very sneaky sir." Later Pres and Sis Cook were talking to Billy outside in the parking lot. We were in our car watching them briefly. When they were done, Billy walked in between them and us, and when he passed them, they were gone! We looked around and they had vanished. We drove around and within about 7 seconds they had made it from the door of the church to their car halfway across the parking lot. They are QUICK!

My camera came in the mail that I ordered so I can start getting y'all more pictures now. Hopefully I can get some off this week in the mail.

Had a sore back for about 4 days this week. One morning was really really bad. Mom (and Camille I think) remember my sophomore year when I hurt my back really bad and I couldn't even walk the day of the parade? It hurt that bad on Thursday. Ouch. I took 5 ibuprofen and that did a good job. Still hurt but we could go out and work.

On Friday we had our monthly ward dinner in the gym at the church. This time the YMYW were doing a fundraiser where people brought in stuff from home to sell, and all the money would go to the YMYW. We decided to contribute too! We put in our Book of Mormon and a Finding Faith in Christ DVD. The silent auction happened throughout dinner. We watched the bidding for other items all around go up and up and up and not one person had bid on our stuff! People were buying cakes and thank you cards and stuff but no one wanted the word of God. We eventuall went to our book and took the starting bid price off and put "FREE" on it. Still no bids. When the auctioning was over, Chuck Borough went and bought our book for $4. He said "hey maybe I can read this again!" We all had a good laugh. No one bought the DVD though. For dinner, we sat down to eat with some of the young couples that we're buddies with. In a short time, about 6 people at the table were all ganging up on and giving Elder Bailey a hard time for being a Red Sox fan. It was really funny. When the dinner was over, 3 people handed us desserts that they bought but didn't want. So we went home with a cheesecake, a GIANT chocolate/cherry cake, and some weird oatmeal or something.

Saturday morning we went to help Brother Olsen in his yard. We helped him last week, and this week we helped him get rid of some brick walls he didn't want up anymore. I did most of the sledge hammering (my hands are still sore). It was so fun! Then he whipped out a jack hammer to use to finish the wall off. Those are so fun to use! Very heavy but really fun. We split the jack hammer time 50/50 because it was so tiring to use. Elder Bailey didn't want to try so he didn't get in on the fun.

Saturday night after the baptism we had dinner with the Velasquez family again. They are a young couple that we're buddies with. All of the last 3 times they've fed us it was after a baptism. Part of the conversation we talked about stake conference coming up. We asked if they knew a Brother Weddle in the Felicita Ward that they could point out for us. Apparently Eric Weddle and his wife are really good friends with the Velasquezs and they hang out a lot. Sis V texted him to come over, and we were really excited! But they were in Utah watching a movie. We'll have to try again in a week or so.

On Sunday after the confirmations for Christine and Jamie, they were getting the sacrament ready. It was going to be their first official sacrament, and they were really excited. Then Jamie's little baby Fiona starting screaming so Jamie had to take her out. When she was halfway down the aisle, Sister Fraedrich, the RSP, stopped her and took the baby so Jamie could go sit down, and Sis F took the baby outside. That was really, really neat to see that. Jamie and Christine had a really good experience with the sacrament.

The past two times we visited John, he was plastered drunk. He bought a car--I don't know what for, but what the heck. The first time we went over he brought us outside to show us his new car. He showed us our own car. He started rubbing it and said "look, it's even your color! Isn't it pretty?" Then he kept hugging us which was weird. Yesterday we went back and this time he showed us his real new car. Showed us 3 times. We also went with him to throw his vodka and cigarettes away in the dumpster. He's pretty remorseful when he's drunk. I wish he'd be that way when he was sober!

That's all I got for this week! I hope you all are well. Thanks for your love and prayers. Have a good week

Elder Jon La Follette

12 April 2011

2011-04-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

Hello family!

I'll start with the best news.

After 16 1/2 months of waiting, fasting, and prayer, we have finally received permission from the First Presidency to have Jamie get baptized. It is such a wonderful relief and is fantastic news. Jamie cried and cried when we told her. We are all so excited. Christine and Jamie both had successful baptism interviews on Saturday, and we made baptism plans yesterday for the baptism service this upcoming Saturday. We will probably have to do it in the chapel instead of the regular room because there will be so many people coming. Elder Bailey will baptize Christine and Bishop Marler will baptize and confirm Jamie. A bishopric counselor will confirm Christine. We are so excited!!

The same night we told Jamie and Christine the good news, we had another lesson previous to it with Malina, a recently-activated recent convert. She told us a really neat experience. Long before she investigated and joined the church in Washington, she was living in Riverside, CA. She knew some Mormons but didn't like the church very much, and didn't care. Everyday she would go to work by walking a half mile or so to her bus stop, then ride to work. Many times, she would pass a man that was dressed very business-like, well groomed and whatnot. He would tell her every day in passing, "Minette is looking for you." This happened over and over again. About 6 or 7 years later, she missionaries in Washington state, and accepted the Gospel and was baptized. Soon after she came out of the water, it occurred to her what that man had said such a long time before. She had been baptized into the Minette Ward in Washington.

We've had some good lessons with John this week, finally. He got a new laptop, and his favorite website recently has been lds.org. He's been watching a lot of Gen Conf talks from past years and this past conference. He still didn't come to church this week, but we are still hopeful for him

We have started teaching Max [edit]. We found his wife, Rebecca, several weeks ago when the relief society president gave us a bunch of unknown sisters' names to find. She had grown up in the church and married Max, a non-member. They came to church about 3 times, then now we have started teaching them. They told us before we taught anything that he wanted to join the church so they could be sealed in the temple. That makes our job significantly easier! He is scheduled to be baptized on May 7. He is super. They are a young couple, Max is 21, Becca is 20. He is in the Marines and they both work on Pendleton. They read and pray and go to church, and are getting to know people quickly. We are excited for him and her.

August got his patriarchal blessing this week. He is officially engaged, and he and his fiance are about to take temple prep classes, as well as Malina.

The Boroughs went to Salt Lake last week and brought back some Grandma Sycamores bread. It is so, so good. I miss it.

I ate a PB and honey sandwich this week. Ate most of it, and before I took another bite, I realized a live earwig was sitting in my next bite. I threw it away. Yuck.

Ren [edit] (one of our favorite members) showed us a picture he took in Salt Lake on his mission (SL South mission). It was one of the highway signs that usually tell travel times or amber alerts. It read "It's the 31st! Have you done your home teaching?" Only in Utah.

We've heard some reports that archeologists are finding metal plates containing old records all around the world. They are very similar to the gold plates Joseph Smith had. Some news stations apparently have said things like "maybe, just maybe the Mormons have it right." Do y'all have more info on that? That's sure awesome, because most poeple think it's really weird that the Book of Mormon came from gold plates.

That is all I have for this week. Pictures of baptism and today's zoo trip are coming soon. Lots of hot weather and sun down here. Hope y'all are enjoying the spring wherever you are. Love you all very much. Have a good week

Elder Jon La Follette

PS-- P-Day for the last week of April is on MONDAY because Elder L. Tom Perry is coming to our mission Tuesday, Apr 26. So make sure to send your emails before then.

5 April 2011

2011-04-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone

It's been a good week. It was really hot this week. It was around 94-95 degrees all day most days this week, with about 50% humidity. Not fun! I saw on Gen Conf that it snowed in Salt Lake. That sounds nice!

We have a baptism date for Christine [edit]. She was going to wait for the permission to get Jamie baptized so they could get baptized together, but Christine basically is tired of waiting, so she wants to be baptized soon. We picked Apr 16 (a day before Mike's birthday!). We are all excited to get that done.

This week Christine and Jamie both threw away their coffee makers. It has been quite a while since either of them have had coffee, but now they got rid of any temptation. Christine is very ready for baptism, and so is Jamie.

I was on companion exchange Sun-Mon with Elder Griffin from the San Pasqual ward. Monday morning we went to the church building to make copies of Gen Conf talks in 2008, and suddenly our mission president randomly walks in the door to the library. He was looking for a district meeting for the Spanish elders but had the wrong building. I asked if he had any word on Jamie, and he said he got a call from Salt Lake, but he will have to return the call. He is confident it is good news, so I hope he is right. Maybe, maybe Jamie can be baptized soon!!

In General Conference, they sustained several new Seventies. One of them was a Haynie. He is the stake president for our stake, the Escondido South stake. We are excited for him! The missionaries get to know him well, including me, so that is awesome. He is very fit for the calling.

Also while I was on exchange, we knocked on a random door, and a mid-aged lady answered. Her first words were "all right Elders, who sent you this time??" We thought that was funny. She said if she found a divorced LDS man with 6 sons, she would happily join the church. Until then, she wasn't interested. That is the most interesting "concern" I've ever heard!

We got another new investigator. Max [edit] and his wife Becca have lived here for almost a year. They are a young couple, and he is in the Marines on Camp Pendleton. She grew up a member, but they haven't been to church much since they were married. They have been to church 3 times since we first found them a couple months ago, and now we are teaching him. Before we started teaching anything, they both said their goal was to be members of the church together and get sealed in the temple. That sure makes our job easy! He'd read some of the Book of Mormon before when he was in Afghanistan, but he wants to try again. We are excited to be teaching Max.

This week we have spent most of our time finding former investigators. We have been trying really hard to find new people to teach, so we tried that route, since there are many dozens of former investigators' records in our area book. We ended up destroying about 40 teaching records because we can't get a hold of them anymore. About 36 of them have moved within the last year. I didn't realize the population comes and goes that quickly!

Daniell might know about Cruisin' Grand. Starting last Friday, every Friday from April to October, all the people around Escondido with old cars come and park them on Grand Avenue. It is kinda a flashback to the 1960s or something. It's really neat to see. Probably a hundred or more old cars line the streets and thousands of people come and look at them, listen to their engines roar, sit in them, and take pictures. It was really cool to walk/drive through and see all the different types of cars. We're trying to get Bro Borough to take his Model T racecar to Cruisin' Grand. You should all search Cruisin' Grand on google. It's so cool!

Well that's about all I have for this week. I hope you all listened to conference or will in coming days. It was awesome. It's cool as a missionary that we have to see all 5 complete sessions, so we get it all.

I hope y'all have a great week

Love
Jon

22 March 2011

2011-03-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Hello family!

I'm gonna do the "main" email first to make sure I have enough time.

It was a good week this week. First off, transfer calls were Saturday, and Elder Bailey and I are staying in Escondido, like we requested. Woohoo! So I'll probably be leaving Escondido in 6 weeks.

Wednesday I got my first official dog bite. We got a call from a random number, the guy on the other end said he was a member and wanted a blessing. We went over to his address, but there was a locked gate. There was a 3 foot fence, so I just climbed over and we went inside. Just then some lady yelled at us from behind and said something along the lines of "what do you think you are doing!! You just climbed over the fence!! This is our yard!" Then the guy came out of the house who was expecting us and said "it's okay, they're here for me." She calmed down. Then a medium sized black dog came out of the house and barked and barked and barked and barked. We just ignored it so it bit me on the leg just above the ankle. Didn't hurt that bad so I just ignored it, then it bit me again harder. The lady got mad at the dog and started frantically asking if I was okay and if it drew blood and whatnot. It was really annoying, we just wanted to get inside to talk to the guy. Eventually we made it in and sat down with the guy. He said he was an RM and his name was Chris [edit]. He had been inactive and about to divorce his wife. He wanted to see the missionaries so he called the San Diego mission, who gave him the number to our mission. The office gave him some missionaries' number, which were the wrong missionaries. Then he called back and got our number. We gave him a blessing and he felt better. On our way out the lady came again with her dog (he and his wife were renting from the lady, who turned out to be a retired cop), and she started being frantic again and made me show her my leg to prove there was no blood. That wasn't good enough so she got down and checked herself. It was really awkward. She mentioned she was going to such measures to make sure I wouldn't call animal control. Oh my... We assured her we wouldn't then left. Chris came to church this week.

We met with Richard that afternoon, and had a good lesson. He said no to baptism right now, but said he wants to work towards it. He wants God to tell him why he went through his hard times before he accepts baptism. Kind of bizarre, but we couldn't convince him otherwise. He is also moving to AZ the first week of May so we need to hurry!

There were lots of people dressed in green on St. Patricks day. More than I ever saw in Utah! Everyone was dressed up. Downtown there is R. O'Sullivan's Irish Pub which was decked out with balloons and whatnot and there were TONS of people there. Apparently it's quite the holiday here! We had corned beef and cabbage at the Boroughs.

Saturday was Shai's baptism. Or as she says it, "bapatism." She was remarkably well-behaved, which was nice. There were a lot of people that showed up (more than Billy's) and it was a really nice service. August baptized her, and we were the witnesses. He had been practicing the prayer with us all week long and said it perfectly the first time. I got some pictures. I look like a goof but oh well. I will send them in the mail. We are so excited for August and Shai. They are excited to go do baptisms for the dead soon.

After the baptism we had dinner with one of our favorite couples, the Velasquez family. They are a lot of fun, and made breakfast for us. Dessert was some really, really good cupcakes. We asked why they were so good, and Sis. Velasquez said the secret ingredient was Guinness beer. Cooked the alcohol out, of course. We thought that was funny. I've now had beer on my mission.

We saw John a few times. He is struggling coming to church, and with humility. On Sunday we had a lesson, and it was really hard to teach anything. He said several times the words "I'm perfect. I'm saved. I'm perfect." "So there is no room for improvement anywhere?" "No. I'm perfect." Oy... He was less dumb the next day but we're trying hard to get him to church. Hasn't been since January.

Christine went without coffee 6 of the last 7 days, since we taught her about the Word of Wisdom. She makes our job easy. We will introduce a principle, any principle, and she will then tell us why it is important, and then promises to live by it. We don't even need to invite her to do anything! She said she can go 7/7 this week easy. Other than that, she is ready for baptism. Still waiting on Jamie's letter from Salt Lake.

Yesterday we had some pretty crazy hail in the morning. It covered everything, so it looked like winter for about 10 minutes. At the biggest, we had dime-size hail. Thank goodness there was no damage to our car! Elder Bailey and I decided to run through it to the garage and back as many times as we felt like. I don't know why. Probably because we're stupid. It hurt!

Other than that we are doing well. It has been really nice weather-wise down here lately. We've had a hard time finding new investigators. We didn't have any this last transfer. We had 8 the first transfer Elder B was here. Hopefully we can pick up some more this next transfer.

That's about all I have for this week. I hope you are all well and happy. Thank you for your love and support. Have a great week

Elder Jon La Follette

15 March 2011

2011-03-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hey family
It's 12:34:56 wahoo!
It's been a better week than last.
Going to the temple last week was awesome. It's always a good experience. I have some new pictures I'll send. Tuesday night we had a lesson with Christine [edit] and Kurt [edit] in Christine's car. We usually meet with them at the church every Tuesday which is a little ways from our area, but this time they were crunched for time so we had a lesson in the car. That was fun!!
Wednesday was John's birthday (49) so we had a lesson in the afternoon, and then we went to buy a cake for him. In the evening we brought Brother Smith with us to sing happy birthday to him. He was happy because no one else really did anything for his birthday.
John missed church this week because he drank and drank Saturday night again. This time he felt REALLY bad about it and wouldn't stop apologizing to us. We were nice, but he said 'no, this is unacceptable. This is unacceptable." That was good to see him humble for once and want to be better. It is a good step for him.
Thursday we spent the morning doing some service and I made an awesome cardboard version of Lehi's dream. I painted it black after, and soon we'll add color to it. We took our car to Pep Boys to get its brakes fixed, and we had to wait for about an hour before they could start working on it because Elder Denos (the car coordinator for the CCM) took forever to approve it, even though he sent us. Ha ha!
I also learned how to play "Come Thou, O King of Kings" on the piano. Now I can play it while Dad whistles! I'm getting a lot better at piano on my mission.
In our mission leadership meeting on Saturday, EB and I set up because it was actually held in our building (usually in Vista or C-Bad). We had some extra time so I started fiddling around on the piano. Pres Cook walked in and liked what he heard. He told the APs to take note that I can play piano well. Dang it! Now I'm stuck for a year and a half playing piano...
Sunday we ate with the U of U alumni in our ward, the Juliens. They are a really fun family. At one point Bro Julien said "Honey, they are Ute fans! These are our people!!" That was a fun dinner.
Still no word from Salt Lake for Jamie. Someone in Utah should go up there and ask the First Presidency to hurry!
Elder Bailey and I will likely be in Escondido another transfer (6 weeks). We've been asking Pres Cook to let us stay, and he said we will stay together again. Transfers are in a week, and we won't know until Sat if we're going, but it's likely we'll stay again. We are very happy about that.
That's about all the great stuff for this week. I hope you all have a great week. Love you all
Elder Jon La Follette

8 March 2011

2011-03-08T14:40:00.001-08:00

Hey family,

It has been a long, unproductive, and trying week for the most part. But that happens.

The most fun part was Wednesday-Friday we were inside because I got the stomach flu. Woo... On Wednesday I felt okay until about 3:30, then I had to go to the bathroom. Next thing I knew I was in front of the Borough's fireplace for about 9 hours just trying to live. I barfed 16 times between Wednesday and Thursday. That was super exciting.

We only had 9 lessons this week. We usually get about 20. John was wacko for Saturday's lesson. We started to watch a general conference talk like we do a lot, but this time he just spent the first 2 minutes of the talk constantly making fun of the person who was giving the talk. He didn't stop talking, so we just turned it off and left. He didn't want to go to church either because he doesn't like testimony meeting. That's the only one he's been to, and that was clear back in January. He was a punk this week. We only had 1 investigator show up for church, Christine. She is doing super well. We taught her the word of wisdom yesterday. She drinks coffee a lot but was willing to give it up starting today. She has so much faith. We are still waiting for a reply from Salt Lake for Jamie. We didn't see Richard this week. We will probably get Shai interviewed this week and then her baptism will be next week. That's all the updates we have.

Today is temple day! Once every 3 months we get to go. We'll leave for La Jolla (city where the temple is) in about 10 minutes. We're very excited.

The weather is warming up again. Can't wait until it reaches 100+! Mike and Emily know how fun that is!

That's honestly all the updates I have for this week. It was a long boring week with about nothing exciting. Except yesterday we got yelled at by someone (like usual) saying "You're going to Hell!" This time I decided to reply "why?" He thought for a minute and then screamed "because you have 25 wives!" "Oh really! I didn't know that. Where are they?" He swore again then went away. That was fun to joke about for a while.

Well I gotta go now. I hope you all have a great week.

Love you all

Elder Jon La Follette

1 March 2011

2011-03-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

Hello family!

It's been another good week. Our investigators are still doing well. We haven't found a new investigator for 3 or 4 weeks now, but we are working hard to find one. So far it's the same people-- John, Christine [edit last name], Jamie, Donna, Richard, Shai, and Lahraseb. We haven't gotten a hold of Lahraseb for a while now, but we're still trying.

There are a few stories from the past week.

On Wednesday, we were going to contact a referral that we got from other missionaries. We got down there, and the lady that answered the door (not the referral) spoke only Spanish, like most people in that part of town, and we gathered that the referral wasn't home. We turned away and went back up the driveway and began to open her gate. Just then, a car full of spanish elders drove by, all of whom I know, and one of them, Elder Thorsteinsen (a big BYU fan) leaned his head out the car window and screamed "UTES SUCK!!!" It was loud enough the lady at the door came back out to see what had happened, and of course the car had driven on and we were the only ones out there. It sounded like we yelled "you suck!!!" right after we had gotten turned down at the door. We exited the gate, turned sheepishly to the lady, and smiled and waved goodbye. She waved back. Good thing she didn't speak english...

Some of you (Joe) might be interested to know that on Thursday, the front page of the major San Diego newspaper sports section had a huge picture of Jimmer Fredette, and the headline was "Year of Jimmer". There was then a page and a half dedicated to him. Apparently Kevin Durant said that Fredette was "the best scorer in the world." He better live up to that now.... This was before the big game on Saturday. We heard about the game from almost everyone we talked to, and President Cook even mentioned it in zone conference yesterday. Poor Aztecs.

We finally got Richard to church on Sunday. It's always a delicate situation taking investigators to church for the first time. You are around them a lot, mingling them with the best members, and trying so hard to ensure that their experience at church is the best possible. Sacrament meeting was first, and we looked at the program. Sister Pate and Brother Sommer were speaking, so we figured they are spiritual, calm people, this should be a great meeting.

Sacrament came around, and the second prayer on the water was SO LOUD. I don't know why the priest didn't take his face away from the mic. It was to the point that the speaker maxed out and got really fuzzy, but he just went on with the prayer. After the sacrament, Sister Pate spoke. The subject was visiting teaching. She did a really good job making it sound like people like Richard and other teachees are numbers and important projects. Not to mention that IswearSisterPatenevertookasinglebreathduringherentiretalkandspokesofastitwasreallyhardtofeeltheSpiritanditwasveryanimatedandSUPERCRAZY!!!!!!!

I wanted to die. Brother Sommer was next, hopefully he would calm it down and have a great talk. I don't like to be critical, but it sounded like a bad general conference talk, sounding very rehearsed, like a script. He also ended up being very bizarrely animated in the way he spoke. He ended, and I was happy to hear the closing song. At the end of the song, the prayer person was coming up, and the Spirit was almost there, and then Bro Sommer jumps up to the pulpit yet again, and yells in the podium "OH Yeah!!! I almost forgot the most important part! Well not the MOST important, but VERY important! When you're done home teaching for the month, REPORT YOUR NUMBERS!!!" and sat down.

I wanted to go run full speed into a brick wall.

But then I thought of Dad's story, how he got an investigator to church finally, and then some lady bore a crazy ranting "testimony" and he felt ruined. But the investigator didn't remember it, but remembered the Spirit. So I was optimistic again. We talked to Richard after the meeting to see what he thought, hoping he looked past the insane speakers. But he said he did not enjoy sacrament meeting. He knew it didn't apply to him and he thought the speakers were weird.

But he stayed the other two hours, and he really enjoyed those. He met lots of people and participated in class with good comments. Then he saw my quad scriptures and said he really wanted to get some of them. Hopefully next week (fast Sunday) will be better. Hopefully.

The 2nd hour of church, Brother Snapp, the gospel doctrine teacher, had us do a portion of his lesson. We were supposed to talk about righteous judgement. But he wanted to be fun and introduce us. So before our segment, he got out a CD player and played a song by the Righteous Brothers (non-LDS singing group back in the day), then said he had brought the Righteous Brothers to our church. Then he introduced us and we had a good lesson. That was fun. We were celebrities for about 15 seconds.

Yesterday we had zone conference from 7:30-3:30. That's a long meeting. But it was good. President Cook and Sister Cook talked a lot about having good studies in the morning. That's my favorite part of the day so I enjoyed it. I really like reading the scriptures. Not a lot else to tell about that though, other than boring missionary stuff. I did see most of my missionary friends though. Seems like most missionaries I know happen to be in the Escondido South zone. Cool! 3 of the 4 companions I've had were there. Only E. Child was gone, obviously. He's home.

Last night we "street contacted" a group of teenagers. They were nice, until the girl in the group realized who we were. She handed back our pass-along card and said "Jesus didn't die so you could have religion. Remember that!" and walked away. I think she was largely right, but she meant something different. We thought that was funny.

This mornign we had our regular once-a-transfer breakfast with our stake president, Pres. Haynie. He invites all the missionaries in the stake over. It was awesome. Then after, I redeemed myself in beating another missionary at ping pong, after last time. I talked a lot of smack last time and got my butt kicked. It wasn't even close. But this time was better. Then Elder Bailey and I slaughtered two other elders in pool. We're becoming quite the pool sharks because Bro Borough has a pool table.

Billy is doing super well with the Holy Ghost. He is a changing man.

That's all for this week. I love you all. Have a great week! Send me pictures, but not food right now.

Love

Elder La Follette

22 February 2011

2011-03-01T12:22:00.000-08:00

Hey family!

I'm short on time so I will have to type quick

Billy was baptized on Saturday afternoon. It was awesome! It was my privilege to baptize him. He really felt the Spirit, as did everyone at the service. His knee came up the first time, so we had to do it again. The second time he went down he went under, and I couldn't lift him back up when I tried to! I redid my footing, and while using all the energy I had, finally lifted him out of the water! I almost slipped into the water myself but it worked out! He is a very dense person! Heavy for his size. It was awesome. While we were changing, he said "that hot feeling I had... was the the good comin' in, er the devil leavin??" That was funny

We got the letter we needed from Jamie's probation officer that is proof that she is doing well in her probation. That is exactly what we needed to send to the First Presidency. We got a hold of it, gave it to Bishop Marler, who faxed it immediately to President Cook, who relayed it to Salt Lake. We are awaiting word now. Jamie will be baptized soon after we get approval. Christine, her roommate, FINALLY accepted baptism, and wants to be baptized the same day as Jamie. Hopefully we'll have another couple baptisms soon!

August got clearance finally from Bishop Marler to baptize Shai, and set a date for March 19. I still will be here for sure by then, so if all goes well we'll have another baptism in March.

Many blessings this week!

Ruben decided he wasn't interested in the church anymore and didn't want to waste our time. He is no longer investigating. But I'm sure someday he will again.
We had two companion exchanges this past week. You can ask Joe what those are. They were both in the San Pasqual ward, where our DL Elder Walters is, which is my most recent old ward. It was neat to go there again and see everyone. The Jahns are leaving for Provo MTC tomorrow, and then will be in the Iowa Des Moines mission within a couple weeks. We exchanged contact info. They'll get back home a month after I do. I'm excited for them!

Last week on Tuesday night we went to the Christensens for dinner (one of our buddy families), and while they were cooking the fabulous steaks, Bro. Christensen played Wii golf right in front of us. That wasn't cool! It was tempting, but it was funny. We didn't give in, don't worry. The steaks were good, and EB and I got a large red velvet cake out of the dinner. Yum!

On my exchange yesterday, we helped the Kunze family with their yard in the morning. They live right across the street from the Jahns so we got to know them well (non-members). E. Hart and E. Walters had organized doing this service with another member family, keeping it small,but helping out a lot. When we showed up yesterday, the whole street was full of cars, and there were over 50 people helping in the yard from the ward. Of course someone provided donuts and lemonade, and there were 3 trucks. Good ol' Mormons! There were people from age 3 to age 75 there helping. We got a LOT done! We packed 32 large yard bags full of weeds and leaves and stuff. It was awesome!

Well that's about all for this week. I hope you are all doing very well. I'm sorry this was kinda short.

I love you all

Stay warm in Utah!

Elder Jon

PS....Go AZTECS!!!!!! (that is the hometown team so I can say that...tee hee)

15 February 2011

2011-02-16T12:21:00.001-08:00

Hey family

First of all, let us have a moment of silence for the resignation of Jerry and Phil.

Thank you.

This week has been another good one. Biggest news first, I had a very yummy orange off an orange tree, and it was very tasty.

Next biggest, Billy got off parole on Tuesday afternoon!!! He is super excited. He had his baptismal interview on Saturday night, and it went well. His baptism will be this Saturday at 5pm. The ward, us and Billy are all very excited. Pictures to come soon

We found out the reason John was in the hospital was because he drank over the past weekend. He drank, and drank, and drank some more. Then he drank some more. He hadn't had alcohol in decades. He got some pretty nasty alcohol poisoning. We kindly let him know how stupid that was of him, and he has learned his lesson. We 3 fasted this last Sat/Sun for him to quit smoking. He joined in and did very well. We didn't think he'd make it through the night without smoking/eating something. He made it until noon on Sunday. He actually missed church because his medicine without food made him very, very weak and sick. He tried really hard. We were very proud of him. Let's see how that goes!

On Wednesday, all missionaries in our mission got the privilege of texting. Oh my has it been nice. The past few months President has experiemented with it with the zone leaders and district leaders. It is so nice, because people won't ever answer their phones, but they're happy to reply to a text right away.

On Thursday, Elder Bailey woke up with super severe itching. He had weeded right in the middle of stinging nettle the previous day. Mom and Camille will remember how crazy that kind of itching drove me that one Sunday. He was going berzerk, it was funny. The whole time I was in the shower, he was punching his pillow to get his frustration out. He emptied a whole tube of Gold Bond anti-itch that morning. Didn't do a lot though. Funny stuff.

I got a letter this past week from my friends in the U of U band! They sent one during marching band, and now this one. That was a good booster! They sent a couple Valentines Day cards and a lot of the people I know signed it.

Also on Thursday, we had three evening appointments, and they all fell through. That makes for a bad day as a missionary. Jamie and Christine both got sick. We ended up helping Bro. Christensen see some of the inactive people he'd been assigned to find. After that was done, we still had two hours left. Just then, a couple in the ward that we're friends with called and she asked for a blessing (she's almost due with a baby). We went to help her out, and they were very very grateful. After that, we called Donna on a whim (she never answers her phone), and she answered and said it was a great time to come by. We had an awesome lesson on the beginning of the Plan of Salvation. She loved it all, especially the fact that we lived in heaven before here. Most people don't react to that, but she loved it. She also ended up coming to church this week. She's starting to progress very well. It's neat to see that God works in many ways to bless His children! A bad night turned into a great one.

That's all I have time for this week. Thank you all for your support and love. Have a phantastik week!

Elder Jon

Go Utes!

8 February 2011

2011-02-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

Hey family!

I'm short on time so unfortunuately this will have to be quick.

It's been a lot better week.

Our investigators are doing pretty well. Nothing big to report, except that Billy hears about his parole TOMORROW (everything rests on that). Please pray for him.

John has also been pretty sick lately, and checked into the hospital early yesterday. He was there most of the day, and we went to visit him in the afternoon. (Palomar Pomerado Hospital for Daniell). He is doing okay and is annoyed with having to be there. He's funny. He is fine though.

We stopped by Patrick yesterday for a lesson, and he said he went to a Catholic church on Sunday and loved it. He said "hey guys, thanks for all, but I realized that's where I belong. I was born Catholic and I'll die Catholic." He may have been on one of his "down" days. We dropped him because he wasn't interested, but we'll stop by again. I'll let you know how that goes..

Last Wed we saw a guy on a really busy intersection that had stalled his car (Felicita and Center City). We parked the car really quick at a nearby CVS and ran out to help him. There was a HUGE truck that turned the corner and squealed tires but we got out of teh way in time. He had a stick and a dead battery, so we just needed to push him for a combustion start. It worked. He was grateful, but had to drive off. That was fun!

We had dinner with the Wanless family on Saturday. It was just a normal dinner until we found out that they are Kaytlyn and Mara Monsivais's aunt and uncle! That was weird! But very cool.

If you sent letters, I won't get them until tomorrow. Transfers are today (I'm staying here), so they've been holding mail at the office since Thurs. I'll reply next week!

There is a really really big hill by the Boroughs that we ride down when we're on bikes to get down to the main city. Yesterday we decided to not brake the whole time because it was boring, so we road down really fast. I leaned down to my handlebar for wind resistence. When we got to the bottom, there was a car that pulled up next to us and the driver rolled down his window and said "45!" It felt fast! That was so fun!

Well I am out of time. I am doing well and am happy and busy. I love you all. Have a great week

Elder Jon La Follette

1 February 2011

2011-02-01T12:07:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone! Tomorrow's Groundhog Day! Hopefully winter stays around some more so it stays cool here!

On Wednesday August called us. He was going in to get a biopsy for a large bump on his neck. He had been really worried about it, had 2 doctors appointments, and had been told that it was probably cancer. We said lots of prayers for him. Not only is cancer not good, obviously, but he doesn't have enough money to pay for any surgery he'd need. When he called us he told us the doctor came in to check his neck before the biopsy. He felt his neck and said there was definitely a bump there. He left the room to get some paperwork, came back and felt his neck again. He couldn't find the bump anywhere. He checked up and down his neck, in and out, and the bump was gone. The doctor said August could go home, and no biopsy or surgery was needed. Tender mercies of the Lord.

On Thursday night, we were towards the end of our day, and went down a street (San Pasqual Valley Rd and Grand if Daniell knows where that is), and we saw what had to be thousands of cones, and about 30 police cars. We were on our way to the church, but when we were done, we took the same road back. It was still there. We got closer and some signs said it was a police DUI checkpoint. Every car was required to stop in one of the lanes set up by cones and you would pull up to a cop and give him your license and talk to him. Good thing I had my license! We pulled in the middle of all of it, and stopped by one of the cops and rolled down our window. He asked for my license, looked at us, and asked "have you had anything to drink tonight?" We said no, and he laughed, and said "Figured. I'm required to ask! Utah eh?" "How many Utah licenses have you had?" "You're the only one! I've had 2 from Arizona though." He asked us about our missions very briefly while we were waiting for the car in front of us. That was a fun experience though! I can now say I've been stopped to be checked for a DUI!

Our investigators are doing well, kinda an average week. We met with Jamie and read through D&C 76 with her. She loved it, especially because it was all new to her. She's a lot of fun to teach, because she has so much faith and a really strong testimony. We received great news after the lesson. Bro Maughan, the ward mission leader, got a hold of Jamie's new probation officer and the officer agreed to write a letter of recommendation for her to get baptized. It is exactly what we need to send to the First Presidency, and has been very difficult to get. We are so excited!

Billy finally got a job this week. He has been trying for over a year to get a job, but has been very difficult because of his prison record. But he got a job shining shoes at the local Toyota dealer. He's very excited.

John was up too late Saturday and missed church again, but hopefully he can come next week. He's still working on quitting smoking. I will bet it's gonna take longer than he expects to quit smoking, but we'll see.

Ruben is doing pretty well. I forgot if I told you about him or not. He's the brother of a church headquarters referral we got like a month ago (still haven't met the referral yet!). He's 15, and loves to learn. The first time we went over, we taught him how to pray, and when he prayed, the Spirit came in really strong. Recently we finished teaching him the Plan of Salvation. He's a really good kid. He's scheduled to be baptized March 5.

We picked up another new investigator yesterday. He was also a church HQ referral. His name is Richard Irizarry. He has been a religious man his whole life (45 yrs old), and has tried every religion you can think of, to try to find the true one. He's been Catholic, Protestant of every kind you can think of, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and he didn't like any of them. He felt they were all wrong in different ways. He knows some Mormons around here, and is very impressed that they "practice what they preach when no one else does." He was impressed with our calmness for 19 yr old kids, and wants to know what it's all about. We read through the Book of Mormon Intro with him, and he is very very excited to read the book. We can't wait to teach him the Restoration. He is very ready for it.

There is a guy sitting next to me that is listening to music, and forgot where he was, and broke out singing really loud. That was really funny. Oh there he goes again!

That's really about it as far as the work goes this week.

Here's a thought for you:

Brother Borough has a lot of really good quotes in his book that he's come up with throughout his life as a scientist. One of them is "there is not one-trillionth part of the Universe where one could stand, using our most powerful telescope, and see the Earth." It's kind of confusing, so you can ask Dad. But basically it's saying the Universe is so huge, that you can pick any one-trillionth part of it, pull out our best telescope, but you are so far from the Earth, you won't see it.

Heavenly Father created everything. He has so many worlds, and children. Try to fathom that.

Now, go to Moses 7:28-31. This is Enoch and God talking, and looking at some people who are messing up in their lives. Enoch notices God is weeping for them. Enoch, knowing about all his endless creations, notices that God's heart is with these people, and is weeping because of their transgression. How sad do we have to be before we start crying? God has so many creations, but knows and loves every single one of them so very very much. Try to comprehend God's love for you, or the person next door. It's pretty neat to think about.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Keep writing me letters, please! I've gotten one letter in the past month in the mail. You don't have to write them all the time, but they're appreciated! Camille, you're off the hook because you sent a package (that I still haven't gotten...)

I love you all!

Elder Jon La Follette

25 January 2011

2011-01-28T17:05:00.000-08:00

Hey family!

I'm going to write my "main letter" first so I make sure to say what I want to say!

It's been a good week. I guess most of them are good as a missionary.

First off John is progressing really well. We emphasized one lesson the importance of baptism, and made sure he knew he has to quit smoking before he is baptized. The next lesson he was in a strange mood. He sounded very sarcastic the whole lesson, it was kinda annoying. He was convinced he was already saved, and that baptism didn't really matter. He wanted to keep meeting with us, and would go through baptism, but he didn't really care. We were pretty frustrated when we left.

We went back again yesterday, and he was very different. He said he had prayed long and hard, and that he felt he should go through with this. He described having a very powerful experience. He was worried he wouldn't be able to prepare himself, saying that the Lord asks very hard things of him. We shared 2 Nephi 23:25 (I think that's it) and helped him realize that the Lord steps in after we do our best and put in effort. He is already in the process of quitting smoking, and is veyr excited for baptism, and especially excited at the idea that he can go in the temple after he's baptized. He's always loved looking at pictures of the Salt Lake Temple (he lived in St. George for a while), and we showed him pictures of the San Diego temple. He is more excited and motivated than I ever thought he would be. It is very exciting to see.

Billy isn't doing as hot. He's gotten in a lot of arguments and fights with his roommate. Both are big black guys with bigger egos. Sometimes it's funny to hear stories about their quests for domination. But Billy has been pretty upset, and we're doing what we can to help him out, and maybe to find another place to live. He's just not getting along. The HP group leader Bro Zierden is having separate appointments with Billy to help him sort that out (Bro Z used to be a police chief and the sort), and to help him gain a spiritual testimony, on top of what we're doing with him.

Zion hasn't showed really any interest in the lessons, and pays attention to about 10% of it. We will read a chapter of the Book of Mormon with him, explaining every 3 verses or so, and summarizing the chapter in the most basic terms when we finish, and then summarize it again simpler, and then we will ask him what the chapter was about. He usually doesn't have a clue. We are going to try to teach him tomorow, but will probably end up dropping him.

Last night we had a FHE with August and Shai--I don't know if I talked about them or not. August is a LA member, baptized 6 years ago, and Shai is his 12yr old daughter, not a member. We have been teaching them, and August will baptize her when Bishop Marler gives the OK. We had a lesson last night in the Julien family's home. They are a fun family, and Bro & Sis Julien are U of U alumni, and big red Ute fans like me, so that is always fun. They also have a next door neighbor, non-member, who are U of U alumni, and not interested in the church. Funny how that works!

The rest of our investigators are doing okay, nothing really new to update though. We've been getting a couple new investigators, but I will tell you more about them later. Nothing huge yet.

On Sunday, we were asked by Bro. Cottam, the choir director, to help sing in the choir in sacrament meeting. We sang a cool arrangement of Our Savior's Love. It was pretty neat to do that. We actually had dinner with the Cottams that night as well, which is always fun. Bro Cottam is a jazz trombonist like me, so we talk jazz music whenever we are around each other. He is in a group full of LDS jazz musicians. Our stake president is the drummer. Bro Cottam also served his mission in France, so we talk a little bit in French. He's a very easy person for me to get along with. He looks like Dr. Fullmer, but with gray-white hair (Fullmer's getting there).

Last week we had interviews with President Cook at a nearby church building. That was the same building that Eric Weddle goes to church. Elder Bailey and I made sure to stand at the pulpit for a few seconds so we could say we stood where an All-American Ute and now Charger stood. Hopefully we have a stake activity sometime and I can go meet him!

I finally got to ride my bike again yesterday. I had a flat tire two weeks ago, and I repaired it last week, and we went down the hill and it popped. I patched it again, and it popped in a different place. One of the members bought me a new inner tube, and it finally works now! Now my knees and legs are sore, because biking in Escondido is like biking up or down Quail (by Timpview) all day long.

That's about all for this week. The transfer is almost over already, the mission goes by quick! 99% change neither I or Elder Bailey will be transferred though.

I hope you all have a great week! I appreciate your love and support, and your prayers. I pray for all of you as well.

Have a good one!

Elder Jon La Follette

18 January 2011

2011-01-18T12:43:00.000-08:00

Hey family!

I hope you all had a great week. I had a good one, kinda average, but an average week isn't bad.

Yesterday was a pretty bad day, I dunno if it was my worst one, but one of them for sure. We were really excited because we had about 6 solid appointments throughout the day, and everything was going to work out. We got Elder Bailey some new bike stuff and we were really excited to work. We came outside and it was about 85 degrees (much hotter than it has been so you could definitely notice) and no clouds. We got to the bottom of a very long hill on our bikes, and then out of nowhere my bike tire explodes. The air was gone in about 2 seconds. We walked back up, patched the tire, pumped it up, and were all set to go, rode down again, and then it exploded again... in a different place. We just put our bikes away and decided to walk. We walked all the way across Escondido to John's house, (about the distance and "difficulty" of walking from our old house to Timpview) and he is always there 100% of the time for lessons, but he wasn't there. Frustrated, we went a little further to Zion's house for a lesson, and he was there. He didn't pay attention to 90% of the lesson and just smoked the whole time we were there. We'll probably drop him. He just doesn't care about anything we're saying. More frustrated, we walk back to John's house, and he's still not there. So we walk back across town and back up all the hills to dinner at home, where a member was going to drop off food. She forgot. So, we ate an orange and a glass of water and then got dropped off at the church for another appointment after. The lady we were teaching was MIA for about an hour, so we missed that, and she called us later at the end of the night. Another missed appointment. Then we saw Billy, but he spent the hour talking about himself again, and didn't have one second of silence for us to cut in and teach. We almost walked out of the lesson. Finally we shared a scripture and left. We went to another appointment (Donna) and she wasn't there either, and of course didn't answer her phone. So we walked back up the hill again to the Boroughs (at a quick pace it's about 25 min about a 30 degree angle) and finished our day.

Other than that my week was good though!

Our investigators are doing okay. We are meeting with Jamie tonight. We haven't seen her in a while, but she is doing super well. She is dating a new guy now. He came to church twice (he is a member for Carlsbad) and helped us move stuff once. He is way nice, and will be good to Jamie.

John is doing okay as well. We are still trying to get him motivated to quit smoking. He wants to be baptized still. We see him mostly every day. I don't know if I said but he looks like Jeff Foxworthy. We had taugh him about the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and the Gospel (faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, endure), and he is consistenly reading and enjoying the Book of Mormon.

Zion doesn't seem to care about anything, so we're probably going to stop teaching him soon.

We are teaching Shai [edit last name], who is August's [edit last name] (a recent convert and less-active member) daughter. August has been trying really hard to meet with us and come back to Church. He also wants to baptize Shai, so he is working with Bishop to get that squared away. Shai can't wait to be baptized. She is 12 and a ball of energy. She loves to draw and understands the plan of salvation really well. She has a short attention span, but she is fun to teach.

Billy is having a hard time overcoming his own pride. He loves (LOVES) to talk about himself, and how awesome his past was and all that stuff. He has interesting stories, but it's easy to get tired of them after a while. We can squeeze in a couple minutes of lesson in, then he tells another story--that originally is relevant--and then gets us off subject again. It's been kinda frustrating. The high priest group leader, Brother Zierden, who is a former cop and a large man that just sounds like he has a lot of authority in his voice, has felt inspired to work with Billy on these exact problems. He couldn't have started at a better time. I will let you know how Billy's heart changes! Billy still loves the church and meeting with us, but has a very weak testimony, despite what he says.

We have met a couple less-active or inactive people that we are now teaching. One of them is Malina, 30, who was baptized last April in like Virginia or something. She has been inactive but still reads her BoM, and wants really badly to come back to church. She is a lot of fun to teach. We're still getting to know her.

We also had our first appointment with Suzanna, another inactive since she was married at 18 (raised in the church). She wants really badly to quit smoking, so we're excited to work with her.

That's about it for now!

I appreciate your prayers and love. We're staying pretty busy. I love you all. Have a great weeK!

Jon

1/11/11

2011-01-11T15:13:00.001-08:00

Hey family! I'm short on time but I'll write as much as I can

This week was a good one!

We finally got Elder Bailey a bike. He got an old one for free from a member family, the Fraedrichs. He didn't care about having a nice one, so that was neat for him to save $300.

LAst Friday and Sat I went ot Vista for the day for a leadership training. All ZL, DL, and trainers go. It was pretty neat to see how to be a better missionary, and to better use the Spirit in lessons and finding new people to teach. Heavenly Father definitely knows his children, and leads us to them and their needs. It's amazing how many people we meet that are ready for the Gospel.

We have a new investigator named Lahraseb [edit last name]. He is a political refugee from Iran, and is now good friends with the bishop. We got him a Farsi Book of Mormon, and it is weird looking! It's pretty neat though. He is a Christian, and really likes the Church.

I'm not sure whether I mentioned Zion [edit last name], a new investigator or not. He's from S. Carolina, and a good guy. It's hard to have focused lessons sometimes, but he is progressing well. He was as high as a kite one lesson, so we had to reteach it! That was funny. He seemed non-interested in the Church yesterday, and we were thinking of dropping him, until he said that he "feels his Spirit again" when he meets with us. He said it was a long time since he felt that good, so we're going to continue meeting with him. I'm excited to see where it goes.

We've been having a great week working with members and such. Most good/great weeks for missionaries here include 1-2 referrals. We currently have 15 to contact, and we've already contacted 16. Some are inactive members, some are nonmembers. It is really neat to see blessings flow in. We are staying very busy!

John accepted to live the Word of Wisdom this week. Now comes the process of quitting smoking! He seems determined though. I am excited. He loves reading the Book of Mormon and meeting with us. It's pretty neat to see

Thank you for your love and support! I hope you Utahns are keeping warm! I am doing very well, and staying busy.

Love you all

Have a good one

Elder Jon La Follette

4 January 2010

2011-01-04T13:32:00.001-08:00

Hey family!

It's been a good week. I hope everyone had a safe and good new year.

My new companion is Elder Bailey, from Ephraim UT. He is a sports nut like me, a Utah fan, a Jazz fan, and life-long baseball player like me. He also played saxophone for 6 years, and likes music. We get along well. He is willing to work hard and try new things, and jumps out of his comfort zone well, even though he is nervous a lot. He is learning really fast, and is a really good missionary. It makes being a "trainer" pretty easy.

It's been raining a lot here in Esco, and apparently snowing other parts of California. It's been a little chilly, but the only time I've been cold here was last night. It was about 35 degrees with rain (wet clothes contributed).

We have picked up 2 new investigators, Donna (a former investigator) and Zion, from South Carolina. Donna has been going through very deep depression lately, and has been praying for help from God. The other night, we felt impressed to visit her, although she wasn't planned in our evening. She let us in of course, told us her life story, and said she wanted to be baptized before we ever mentioned baptism. I expect she will progress really fast, and is excited to learn. Zion is a middle-aged black guy from S. Carolina. He has heard of Mormons and LDS people, but never knew that they were the same group! He is pretty interested to learn as well. He told us some things we didn't really want to know, but it was a good lesson. We will probably run by his place on Wednesday. I'll let you know how it goes.

John accepted a baptismal date for Feb 5. He went to church this week and absolutely loved it. It was testimony meeting, but it went well and the Spirit was strong--whew! Missionaries always worry about bringing investigators to a fast and testimony sacrament meeting. But it worked out. He wants to come back every week. I'm excited for him.

Still no word from the First Presidency for Jamie, and Billy has a parole hearing this Thursday. A lot is depending on that hearing, so keep him in your prayers, please.

I'm sorry this week is short, but that's all the time I have. That's really all I had to say, too. There's one story I told Mom and Camille about biking and knee pain, so if you want to know about that, ask them.

Hope all of you are doing well. I appreciate your emails, letters, and prayers. I lvoe you all very much. Have a good week!

Elder Jon La Follette

28 December 2010

2010-12-28T21:22:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone

it was good to talk to y'all on Skype the other day! Not a lot new since then, really, other than my area is being split, as expected. I'm staying in the Esco 1st Ward, and some new missionaries are coming in to fill the San Pasqual Ward. President called me Christmas night, and asked me to train a new missionary. Very unusual for someone of my experience level to train, so that's nuts! It should be good though, this is a good place for him to start out.

Oh, funny story, on Christmas after I called, we went to dinner with a recent convert and her member boyfriend. While they were making dinner, they asked us to go start the fireplace. We were using another members house while they were gone, and they had accidentally left the gas in the fireplace on just a little bit. When we went to go start the fire, Elder Child turned on the gas all the way without realizing it'd been on before, and lit it. A HUGE fireball (probably the size of a small couch) ignited and singed most of his hairs, and wrapped around my leg. Obviously it was too short-lived to do anything, but it was hilarious. The recent convert, Christine, stopped her current phone conversation and laughed and laughed and laughed. Good times.

I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday, but we had zero time to prepare (along with forgetting/procrastinating), so I ended up giving my farewell talk again. I got lots of compliments, so I guess it worked out! Whew!

Well that's about all for this week! I'll let you know how the greenie is next week, and how it's all going. It'll be interesting, especially living with the Boroughs. haha...

Happy new year everyone, I hope Christmas was great. I love you all, take care

Jon

21 December 2010

2010-12-21T16:30:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

It's been a great week!

First off with the best news! Barry was baptized on Saturday!!! He is doing very well and has good friends in the ward now. He will be fine.

Funny story, Barry is a big man. A very big man. We found a GIANT suit for him, a 4X, at the church, and it wouldn't fit. You can fit Tara and Camillle in a 4X. We spent 3 hours trying to find a bigger suit Friday morning, and finally got one from the San Diego temple to rent. They had 1 6X suit, and let us borrow it. He fit, whew!

Since Barry has a really bad back, we almost had Elder Child AND me baptize him and lift him out (we got permission to do so), but we ended up putting a church chair under water, and having Barry literally sit in the chair, and then Elder Child pushed the rest of him under water. The first time we tried it, Elder Child said the prayer wrong, so we did it a second time. Barry's pinky and belly were above the water the second time, but the third attempt was good! I gave a talk at the baptism on the Holy Ghost, and then on Sunday I had the priviledge of confirming him. It was really cool to literally feel the transfer of the Holy Ghost from me to him.

I also found out on Wednesday that Phillip [edit last name], one of my investigators in Mira Mesa, got baptized and confirmed the Sunday after I left, as scheduled, so that was awesome! Missionary work is very hard, but seeing baptisms makes ALL the work on the side even more worth it.

On Thursday, Elder Child and I got some wood, and made a small replica of Lehi's dream on a board. We made it so it can be built and taken down, so little kids can participate in the lesson. We drilled 3 holes so we can stick the "tree" in and out, as well as the iron rod. It's awesome! We are going to put some velcro on the "great and spacious building" so little kids can build it. We took it to our lesson that evening with a recent convert, and they loved it. After the lesson, the convert's boyfriend Kurt (a member from Vista, grew up in Sp. Fork) showed us his 7 pistols. They were awesome. It was a little awkward though, since he brought in the guns to the church (against his girlfriend's will) to show us. Don't worry, we didn't pick them up--that's against our rules. They are so funny. They are both in their 50's, and I would bet they'll get married. We're having Christmas dinner with them.

After the lesson, we went to a member's house--the Christensens-- to help them out with stuff, and while watching then prepare dessert, Elder Child mentioned that it was impossible to swallow a spoonful of unsweetened cinnamon. I took him up on the challenge. I failed. Camille, I dare you to try it. Let me know how it goes.

Well it's Christmas time! I hope you are all happy and well wherever you are. I think about you and pray for you, and don't forget why we celebrate the holiday! I think you should include Hel 8/9 in Grandpa's Luke story he reads.

Final decision--I will call Mom's cell phone at 12:30MT on Christmas Day. If Skype doesn't work, etc, I will call other phones individually. I will do my best to talk to everyone. Yes, I am allowed to. We can call all immediate family. I look forward to talking to you all! I love you all so much. Merry Christmas

Elder Jon La Follette

Some Pictures!!!

2010-12-16T10:00:00.001-08:00

14 December 2010

2010-12-14T23:07:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone!

Sorry about the short replies to your personal emails, we had a temple trip this morning so it squished the rest of our day. I appreciate them though!

This week has been another good one. It's been HOT though! It feels like late June or early August in Utah! It's been above 90 everyday this week. Blegh

This week in Escondido there was a house that belonged to a guy who made massive amounts of homemade explosives, with very dangerous chemicals. The police found out a couple weeks ago and arrested him, and this week they did a controlled exploding/burning of his house. It was pretty cool. Some people said it was national news, so you may or may not have heard about it.

Barry might get baptized on Saturday. He has been taught all the necessary lessons to be interviewed, and he will be interviewed tomorrow. If all goes well, I'll have a baptism to talk about next week!

Still no word from Salt Lake on Jamie's situation.

This morning we went to the temple again. We got special permission from President Cook to go WAY early with the Jahns because they work in the temple on Tuesday mornings. Missionaries only get one session when they go, but we got to get to the temple a 5am and do two sessions and 7 initiatories, and we got breakfast at the cafeteria. It was awesome!! They do a really neat job with Christmas lights at the San Diego temple, it's almost as cool as Temple Square. We got there when it was still dark, so the lights were really bright, and spotlights were still on the temple, and everything was surrounded by the morning marine fog. That was really neat! Sorry I forgot my camera.

Christmas is coming up soon! A lot of people are in the Christmas spirit down here, and I am sure they are wherever y'all live. Whenever you read or think about the Christmas story, remember to include the Christmas story on the American continent with the Nephites and Lamanites! Christ wasn't born there, but there were a lot of cool things that happened. Helaman 8-9 (I think) covers that, so I suggest you read that again when you're in a Christmas-y mood.

I appreciate the support, love, prayers, etc in my behalf. I feel very blessed to have the family I have. I pray for each one of you individually, and I hope you are all doing well. I'll miss y'all this Christmas, but there'll be more in the near future I'll be there for.

I love you all so much, I hope you all stay well. Keep writing! I've had a big lack of letters the past couple weeks!

Have a great week

Elder Jon

7 December 2010

2010-12-07T12:18:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone!

Today is Dec 7... Pearl Harbor Day.

It's been a good week here in Esco. Recently we've been working on Brother Borough's Mercedes, which has a big problem in the fuel line. I've been learning a lot about cars since I've been with Elder Child. Told you he was like Brad. We changed the fuel filter and some hoses. When we unscrewed the old filter, a bunch of gas sprayed out and got all over us, so we smelled pretty bad for about an hour or so until we showered. But when we were done, I got to drive his car for a little bit to his garage. It has a lot of juice! That was fun. I have realized how much money we wasted when we had to get a fuel filter replaced on my truck or some other car. The part is like $10, and I know how to put one in now. Yay

Last Friday I went on an exchange to San Marcos with our district leader, Elder Walters. He is from near Rexburg, ID. He is a very stereotypical Mormon missionary, it's funny. Went to BYU too. When we were there, we had a lesson with their investigator family, and had it in their storage unit, which may or may not have been their house. We taught them the Plan of Salvation, and they loved it. The next day, since they only are teaching that family, was spent tracting almost all day. We walked all across San Marcos, tracting and things. Towards the end of the exchange, we decided to turn back on the 45-min journey home, and crossed a train station to get there. We decided to instead take the train back to the apartment, which was very convenient. It is a lot like Trax, but Trax is nicer.

Yesterday we chopped wood for a member family, the Livingstons. Elder Child had the axe the whole time, and I did the sledge hammering on the axe. I didn't have gloves, so I have blisters all over my hands, but it was so fun! Later we came back and had dinner with them. They are a lot of fun, good friends with the missionaries, and their personalites are a LOT like Mike and Emily. Sister Livingston can't say La Follette, so she calls me "wallet."

When I first got here, I slept on a broken box spring bed frame thing that squeaked a lot. We finally got a new one yesterday from the APs. The past couple weeks we have been breaking down the old one and using it for fire wood in our fireplace. Good thing the APs didn't ask where the old one went!

This weekend a bunch of congregations from lots of churches are getting together to do a big reenactment of Bethlehem around Christ's birth. There was a meeting on Sunday at the Methodist church to discuss it all, and we were asked to go by some stake guy. It was really awkward. But some Methodist people realized that we couldn't have coffee at the event, so they timidly asked if hot water was okay. We assured them it was, and then added "hot chocolate is okay too!" They were floored at the idea. I am not really sure why. They were baffled that we couldn't have coffee and tea, but hot chocolate was okay, even though it had caffeine. They were shocked when they found out we could have soda too. That was so funny.

As for investigators, Barry is continuing to progress well. He agreed with and accepted the Word of Wisdom last night, and is listening to the Book of Mormon on CD in his car. He really enjoys it. So far his Bap Date for the 18th still looks good. He will probably get interviewed this Saturday.

Still awaiting further word from the First Presidency for Jamie's situation. Billy will be off parole in February, so he can get baptized then. I will likely still be around. We had a couple referrals from Salt Lake a couple days ago, so we may have new investigators by next week.

Mom said Utah and BSU are playing in the bowl game, that will be awesome! GO UTES!!!

Poor byu has to face UTEP in the chili pepper somewhere-in-the-middle-of-nowhere bowl.

Let me know how practice goes with the teams. Who's in the championship game?

Well it's good to hear from everyone, I hope you all continue to do well. I love you all and pray for you every day. Be happy

Have a great week

Elder La Follette

2 1/2 weeks until Christmas! I think

30 November 2010

2010-11-30T11:29:00.001-08:00

Hey Family!

It's the last day of November... already! Holy cow! This Saturday is my Monthday. 4 months. Crazy!

This week has been a good one.

I found out that in the bordering ward, the Felicita Ward, there is a Brother Weddle. Yes, that Brother Weddle. I hope there is some stake activity that I can go meet him at, and give him a U sign!

Thanksgiving was good, except that my companion and I were SICK all day. Our mission president's wife told us to stay inside all day. A sick day as a missionary is not as fun as a sick day as a human. We got to watch Church movies all day. That's it. We had to call our Thanksgiving dinner and tell them we couldn't come, but he said to come down anyway to pick up a plate. We went down, and they had two spots on their table for us (the rest of it was cleared, because they already ate). The dad, Brother Cottam, talked to us as we ate our dinner. He is a jazz trombonist! I hope he lets me play sometime.

Utah beat byu! WOO!!! Most of the people down here are upset for that... haha! Go UTES! Elder Child is a big Ute fan too, so we had a good day.

We were going to a dinner appt. the other day, and we were going about 60 on a lonely dark road. Suddenly there was a huge buck that jumped in the road. We swerved violently, missing the buck's head by about 1/2 an inch. In doing so, we almost swerved off the road into a medium-steep drop. That was scary!!! But, we're alive. Whew

Yesterday we went to a Chinese place with Brother Boroughs and Brother Smith. I got some orange chicken, and it had what looked like a radish or something on it. I decided to eat it, and see what it tasted like. The next 20 minutes were spent extinguishing the inferno in my mouth caused from an intense extra-spice cayenne pepper. That ruined my lunch!

Our investigators are doing well. The biggest update is that Barry committed to (missionary lingo, I know) a baptismal date! he is scheduled for Dec 18. He seems excited for it. He has a lot of questions about the Priesthood that we're trying to answer, that we really can't answer. Such as, why is the Aaronic Priesthood not named after Moses, and why are the apostles called disciples, when everyone else is called disciples too. The simple answers we gave him just confused him, so that made it pretty frustrating! We'll have to continue to study up on everything Priesthood.

Billy and Jamie are doing well also. Billy has a new girlfriend, named Sherry. She is a recovering alcoholic, and super nice. She is a Lutheran, but loves to study about other faiths, especially our church. Billy is trying to get her to listen to us.

Jamie had her baby right before I got here, so it's been hard to get a hold of her, but she is doing very well.

Christmas season is coming up! The decorations are already up here in CA, as I'm sure there are where you all live.

I hope to hear from you all! I haven't gotten letters in two weeks, so you better write! The emails are very appreciated, so those of you who have been writing, thank you.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. I love you all

Elder Jon La Follette

23 November 2010

2010-11-23T15:49:00.000-08:00

Hey family!
I guess you are all wondering,
I have been transferred to Escondido (some of you may have heard of it). We serve in the Escondido 1st ward, and San Pasqual ward. It's pretty sweet. The geography here is weird-- lots of bumps (they call them mountains), but not in a big line. They just are there randomly throughout the valley. If you look at a bowl of bubbly oatmeal, it looks like that.
My companion right now is Elder Child, from Magna, UT. He was pretty happy to find out I was a U fan. He wants to go there in about a year. This is his last transfer in the mission, he'll go home Dec 28 or 29. He reminds me a LOT of Brad Christopherson. Not the same look, but the same voice, mannerisms, and he LOVES cars and is a good mechanic and fix-it guy. He also makes a lot of "Christopherson jokes." It's been easy to get along with him.
There are some members in the ward we visit a lot to get supplies for whatever, to work on service projects, or to hang out on P-Day, named the Boroughs. In their living room, they have a pool table, a HUGE rock display with a black giraffe statue, a talking parrot in a big cage, a chess set, a weight machine, a bunch of comfy recliners, and a large swimming pool. Yes, indoors. For Tara, Camille, Joe, and whoever else, you know those houses we used to build on The Sims game that were too good to ever happen? That's the Boroughs house. They also have ten (10) pianos. To make it more interesting, Bro. Boroughs served a mission, wears garments, went to BYU, actively attends church and activities, but doesn't believe in God. He has a very interesting but fun personality. They are a fun family. They get offended and annoyed if we ever ask for permission to get or use anything. If we ask they'll say "of course you can, why are you asking?"
We have some pretty awesome investigators, and a recent convert that we teach. The RC is Christine, who is dating a guy that lives in Vista, also a member. She is around 50, but has a personality like Tara, just super happy, silly sometimes, and very fun to be around.
Our investigators are cool too. Billy is a former NFL receiver, played for NYG, and the Chargers, and is a "dry member." He is waiting for his parole to be over in February to get baptized. He is super solid and happy with the church.
We have Jamie, a lady with two kids (2 yrs old and 2 weeks old), who also has a fabulous testimony and actively attends everything. She is waiting for a probation exception from the First Presidency to get baptized. President Cook is working on that with Salt Lake.
We also have the Pinson family. Bro Pinson was excommunicated, but is working hard on coming back to church, and has a wonderful testimony. The first night I was here, we went to see him at work (he's never home), and he used his position at Nordstrom to trade one of my beat-up pairs of shoes for a brand new pair of really nice ones that were more expensive, but with no cost! Everyone helps missionaries in their own way. That is the way he likes to help. Sis. Pinson is a member, and their two children are 9, and are waiting for their dad to be baptized again so he can baptize them. They are so wonderful.
Our newest investigator, Barry, is a big black guy (I seem to be teaching a lot of those!) from Pacific Beach, CA. He just showed up to stake conference a week and a half ago, and wanted to be taught. He's been taught by missionaries before, and wants to try again. He is getting fellowshipped well, and I have no doubt he'll be baptized while I'm here in Escondido.
That's all of the people we've taught since I've been here.
What are everyone's plans for Turkey Day? I hope you all have a great one! We're just eating with some members in the ward. Remember to be grateful for blessings outside of Thanksgiving. We are really blessed.
I love you all so much! I hope you have a fabulous week, and for the Utahns, enjoy the snow!

Elder Jon La Follette

PS--- RIVALRY WEEK! GO UTAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Someone wear red on Saturday for me, and cheer extra loud. A lot of members here are BYU fans. A couple are U fans. I can't wait to give them a hard time when Utah trucks BYU. Go UTES!

9 November 2010

2010-11-09T14:11:00.001-08:00

Hi family!

I don't have a lot of time, but it's been a good week.

Monday-Wednesday the Santa Ana winds came in and suddenly November turned to July. It got up to 98 degrees on Wednesday. Whew! That was hot. But it's nice and cool now.

We have a new investigator, Phillip, in the singles branch. He was a referral from church HQ, and has a friend that is an active member of another branch. Long story short, we gave him a book of Mormon, and have taught him 4 lessons. He has been to church twice and LOVES LOVES LOVES it. He has a baptismal date for the 21st of November. He keeps telling us every day how excited he is.

I am sorry I don't have time to give updates for everyone else, but our investigators are doing well. Rod didn't come to church so we'll have to push his BD another week. Marvin is doing awesome and found some work part time. He is actually sitting next to me here at the library looking for more work. He is awesome.

Transfers are a week from today. It is very likely that Elder Hinds will leave, and I will stay here with a new companion. We find out Saturday night.

I apologize that this is so short this week. I love you all so much. Keep your letters coming! I pray for each one of you individually every day. Stay happy!

Love, Elder Jon La Follette

PS- Utah vs. TCU......yuck. Let's all hope they pick it up.

2 November 2010

2010-11-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

Hey family! I hope you all had a great week.

This week has been trying, especialyl because my back tire on my bike bent, so I can't ride my bike for a little while, probably for two more weeks, when it gets fixed at transfers.

We have a couple new investigators, one of them reminds me a LOT of Tara. Her name is Collette Graham, but she goes by Bishop. She has the same stature, haircut, hair color, face, mannerisms, open mind, and similar personality to Tara. It's weird! She also went air softing at the Marine base with her husband this weekend. She is awesome.

Last night we dropped by her house a little late for our appointment, and her husband, David, answered the door. He said they couldn't meet because he and Bishop were about to head to church. It was Monday night, so I knew it was another church. We were disappointed, until we asked which church. He talked about how his neighbors (members of the branch) had invited him to church tonight. Then we realized it was the singles FHE, which we were about to go to. We turned from sad to glad in one second! We go every week to the branch FHE, so it was fun to watch them get acquainted and have a good time.

This Thursday we had Elder Zwick of the Seventy come to our mission. I can't possibly summarize all that I learned when he was here, but I learned so much about how tobe a better missionary and human. He talked a lot about having a solid foundation on Christ. That is the only thing that is immovable (Hel 5:12). I had a great experience. I also got a picture with him and his wife. (He and his wife were U grads, so we enjoyed talking about the football season for a brief moment!)

On Wednesday, we had a lesson with Rod Hudson at the church, but my bike was broken, so we had to get a ride, or walk. We spent an hour calling for a ride in the morning (27 different people) but no one could come. Finally we got a ride for our investigator, but we had to walk. We also had planned on a member coming with us--Jesse, who is in a wheelchair. We walked to get Jesse, knowing we'd have to push him to Church. He was still in bed, and the only one home. But, he yelled out the window and told us one window was unlocked. So we hopped the wall, climbed through a bunch of garbage and furniture, pried open the window screen, and climbed in the window to get in his apartment. We felt like ninjas. We got him up and dressed, and ran over to the church.

Got a letter from Brett this week too, he is in Sweden. He is happy and doing well.

Well family, it's been a good week. Trying, but good. I love you all so much. I pray for you, and I hope you pray for me.

Talk to you next week

Elder La Follette

26 October 2010

2010-10-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

Hi family!!

It's crazy how fast all of these weeks go. Next week I will be 1/8 done with my mission already. Crazy, isn't it? I am loving every moment of it.

Recently I've been studyin the 2nd coming of Christ. I encourage you all to read about it somewhere. It's going to be so cool! Armegeddon is going to be nuts. Just thought that'd be interesting for all y'all to study if you're bored.

This week has been okay, just average really. Except that we have no scheduled baptisms upcoming. Within 2-3 days, Marvin, Charles, Zeny, Kerry, and Rod's baptismal dates have all fallen. It's crazy. We are still visiting with Charles almost everyday. His testimony is strengthening quite a bit, and I don't think he'll have any problem getting baptized. He has officially quit smoking!!! The bishop met with him and said he'd write his part of the letter that will go to the First Presidency, petitioning for Charles to get baptized before his probation finishes in 6 months or so. After Charles and the bishop write their part, President Cook (mission president) will write his part, and we'll send it off! I bet it'll be on it's way to Salt Lake City by the end of next week.

Marvin is still waiting on getting his legal papers from his family in Tijuana. He has been trying to call them on members' phones, because he doesn't have enough money to pay his phone bill. Once he gets that, he can get married and baptized. His fiance, Rosa, came to church the other day for the first time and loved it. The Spanish speaking elders are teaching her, because she does not know English. She has been hardhearted the past several months, and she now wants to be baptized the same day as Marvin. It's so awesome!

Zeny was one lesson away from getting a baptismal interview, and getting baptized this week. But she recently learned that she'll have to give up gambling to be a member. She is the founder of a non profit group that helps poor people in the Phillipines that gets its funds from a local casino, that pays the group to bus the members of the group over to gamble for a night. She said she would pray about it, what she should do. She recently decided to not give up gambling, and indefinitely postponing or even cancelling her baptism. It is very sad, but we can't force anyone to do anything. Hopefully a miracle will occur.

Yesterday we were riding in on bikes to eat lunch at our apartment, when suddenly my bike stopped. I got off and looked, and somehow, some way my back wheel rim bent in a very odd shape, making it impossible to ride. It basically taco-ed. It was baffling how that happened, but I suppose everything happens for a reason. I'll have to get it fixed soon. Ugh

On Friday night we ran into a couple of serious bible bashers. Two guys had planned to meet us on the sidewalk one night (it worked out too perfectly to not be planned), and started trying to convince us that we weren't real Christians, that our Christ was different from the real Christ, and that our church, though with good intentions, was really Satanic in nature. One of them was a pastor from Orange County, and the other, I don't know. We talked to them for about 30 min, trying over and over to end the conversation. It was annoying, but oh well. We invited them to visit mormon.org and pray about it. It was entertaining, almost, to see how childish adults can be. There were a lot better things they could have done with their night. The downside with that is that it caused us to miss an appointment with a strong potential investigator. Oh well. That was interesting. We run into bashers a lot (usually JWs), but these guys were extra rough. Good times

Last week we started talking to a nice old man who let us in his home. We shared the story of the Restoration with him. In a very spiritual process, we explained how Joseph Smith knelt down to pray to God, and Elder Hinds shared a powerful account of the First Vision. When he finished, it was quiet, and we waited for his response. He finally said "gentlemen, it has been a pleasure to talk to you today. But, I'm afraid I have to poop now. Have a good day." When we got outside, we laughed and laughed and laughed. It was so funny

The weather here has been beautiful. We've had warm (not hot), breezy days with some clouds most of the time. This is not the October I'm used to! It's pretty neat! I am excited for winter, when it hovers around 50 degrees.

Well family, it is good to hear from all of you in emails and letters. I love you all so much and appreciate your support. You are in my prayers constantly.

I hope you all have an outstanding week!

Elder La Follette

PS-Mom, did you find my camera card? Do everything you can to find it! When you find it, send it down (after you put the pics on the computer), and I'll send the one I have up! Thanks!

19 October 2010

2010-10-19T13:29:00.001-07:00

Hey family!

I'll start off with the great news.

Patrick [edit] was baptized this week. I had the wonderful honor of baptizing him. What an experience. It is such a joy to be able to participate in that ordinance, and helping one of my brothers come back to Heavenly Father. It was awesome to see his face as I pulled him out of the water. He was still Patrick, but he looked like a new person. He couldn't stop smiling. He said it was "the craziest feeling [he had] ever had. It felt like a dream." It was so fun! Pictures are to come soon.

Not a lot else happened this week. Except, that we had a couple hold-ups on our investigators. Charles will not end up being baptized for a few more months. He is on the tail end of a probation for a robbery a few years ago. That was definitely depressing news. But, I believe he will still be baptized. It will probably happen after I am transferred, though.

Marvin also had a hold-up. I will tell you later why.

Zeny will be delayed about a week, but she will also be baptized soon into the family ward. We are all so excited!

This week it has been really cloudy and really misty, sometimes rainy. Today it's raining hard. This weather is very unusual for San Diego. The people here are running around panicking like molten lava is falling from the sky. It's quite amusing.

That's really all for this week. It's not terribly exciting, sorry. I hope you are all doing wonderfully. I appreciate your emails and support. Someone tell Grandma and Grandpa to write. Have a great week!

Elder La Follette

12 October 2010

2010-10-12T14:32:00.001-07:00

Hi family! I hope you all had a great week!

This week wasn't quite as eventful for me as others, but it was still good.

Charles ended up relapsing to his cigarettes and coffee right after I finished telling y'all he was done. But, overcoming addiction is a process. He is now scheduled for Oct 23. He was clean yesterday. We are praying hard for him!
Marvin FINALLY got his fiance's birth certificate from Mexico. Turns out he needed it because she tore up her old one in some weird rage. But, their relationship is improving a LOT. We gave him some advice, which coming from missionaries, was odd, but it helped. We told him to be more romantic than he was. He said he hadn't been on a date with her in a year, and didn't really do any favors. That day, he took her and their little girl, Jocelyn, to the park and played games. He practiced saying "please" to her, and spent a lot more time together. She noticed a huge change. They are beginning to be happier. He can't wait to take her to the temple in about a year or so. Marvin will probably be married on Thursday, interviewed Friday, and baptized Saturday. Now that he has his papers, it's a lot more realistic.
Patrick will be baptized Sunday morning. He has a strong testimony already. Though he was nervous and shaking (like Clifford getting into a bath) as he went up on Sunday, he bore his testimony in front of the singles branch. It was simple, but very powerful. He was so grateful for being able to finally come to know the truth (he grew up in Ogden.. haha). He is very excited to be baptized.
Zeny is also progressing well. She finally understands the Restoration and why Priesthood is so very important. She grew up Catholic, and was confused by a lot of things. But, she wants so badly to be a Latter-Day Saint, and is willing to do anything to get there. She is so nice to us! She makes us a lot of Phillipino food that is very yummy. The other day, she had some questions about whether some things she was doing were unacceptable for Latter-Day Saints. The thing she was most worried about was her attendance at several nursing seminars, in trying to become a nurse. We assured her that was completely fine to go to those, much to her relief. But it was really neat to see how faithful she was, and willing to give up something that meant a lot to her, so she could be a good follower of Christ.
Recently we've had a drought of referrals received, and had a really hard time contacting the ones we had. On Sunday, we received 7 referrals. Yesterday we received 3. When it rains, it pours! It's a great day when we receive 1. Some of them look very promising.

Saturday, we had the chance of helping someone move their furniture and belongings out of their home that had just burned down. This person lived next door to one of our investigators. It felt really neat to help. Then, we received a phone call from a member, saying that his mom also needed help moving things out of her house, which had also burned down a couple days before. Twice in one day we gave that same service. It was ironic and very neat!

Yesterday I was asked to give a 15-min talk on Charity in district meeting, which began an hour after the phone call. That was fun. I have never prepared a talk so fast in my life! But it ended up being a pretty good one, and it helped me realize how long of a way I have to go in order to have Christlike love. But if you don't have charity as a missionary, you can't really be a good missionary. I will need to develop that really quickly. I am trying really hard to love the people here, and I do, but I could always love them more.

Well, I don't have really any funny stories from this week. Sorry. If I think of any, I'll write them down in my letter that I send.

I love you all very much, and hope you have a great week!

Elder Jon

5 October 2010

2010-10-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hey family!

I hope this week is going well! The 4th is my Monthday! I've officially been gone for two months already. I'm already 1/12 done. Crazy isn't it? Time goes by so fast.

This week was awesome. The weather was a lot better. In fact, the past couple days it has been super cloudy, and we had a misty rain yesterday that we don't ever get in Utah. It was almost like warm snow, just droplets floating in the air. It felt so good!

There's been an air show going on recently at the airbase, featuring the Blue Angels. It is so. cool. Holy cow! Several times they flew right over our apartments, so close that we could read "US Navy" on the bottom. It's always been a dream of mine to see them, and now I've seen them four consecutive days! There was lots of lightning and thunder the first day they came in, which was really neat. It was the first time Elder Hinds has seen lightning since he's been here in CA.

Sunday night we had dinner with a young, fun family. They fed us chili, which I was really excited for. We get dinners every night, but this one was fun because of the chili. She likes to put spice in the chili to give it flavor, which is good. Her husband and her took a bite of it first, and said she'd put way way too many peppers in it. I figured "how bad can it be?" I took a bite and it felt like my head burst into flames. It was SO hot! I immediately started sweating and snot started coming out of my nose. It was really funny, we all had the same reaction. She didn't finish hers, and her husband dumped a huge amount of yogurt in his to douse the flames. He said he never thought he would put yogurt in chili. The whole thing was really funny.

The other night we were short on our standard street contacts (20 people a day), and we were running out of time. We were a long way from our apartment, and still had 8 people to talk to. Elder Hinds sped a little bit driving around, and the first light we came to turned red just BARELY before we got to it. I said a quick prayer and looked up, and it immediately turned green. It was so cool! This happened for 4 consecutive red lights. We were eventually able to barely get our contacts and get in the apartment on time. It was so cool to see Heavenly Father watch out for us in such a simple, but awesome way.

Two nights ago, we had just finished contacts for the day and were about to head in for the night. We walked down a really dark street to our car, when I felt a really strong tugging inside, feeling really unsettled. It was very uncomfortable. I then felt fear, that didn't generate like it usually does, but it felt like the feeling was placed inside me from somewhere else. Elder Hinds felt the same thing. We knew it was a warning from the Holy Ghost, and we went in a quick direct line to the car. I am glad we followed the warning. I don't know what was going to happen, but I know that we were being warned of danger.

General Conference was awesome! We were able to watch all 5 sessions at the stake center. There were about 14 of us missionaries and like 4 other people. It was fun. Our YSA branch president's son is first string on his football team on offense, defense, and special teams. They had a game Saturday night, during Priesthood session. He chose beforehand to miss the game so he could go see the session. His coach obviously wasn't happy, but the kid was really happy he made the right decision. I thought that was really neat, and a very hard decision to make.

Well we have two baptisms scheduled for this Saturday. Charles so far has been clean from smoking for a few days, something he hasn't had since he was 13 years old. I think he is finally done with that, which is wonderful! Marvin still isn't married, but he is trying to get it all figured out. We are really leaving it in the hands of God.

Time for me to go, but I love you all very, very much. Good luck with the move, and don't forget to ask for help. Wish I could be there to help. Give Cliff a pat for me. Have a good week

Elder Jon La Follette

PS- Camille, my baseball glove is at a kid's house named Carson Rawle. Go on facebook and talk to him and see if you can get it back. It's a really nice glove. Thanks!

21 September 2010

2010-10-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

(Received Saturday Sept 25 via snail mail)

Hello family,

I'd just like to finish the email.

Marvin [edit last name] will probably be married this week, and be baptized on the 9th with Charles.

So our investigators are as follows:

Charles [edit]- Oct 9

Marvin [edit]- prob. Oct. 9

Patrick [edit]- Oct 16 (probably will move up to 9) {new investigator in YSA branch. He is from Ogden and never went to church stuff. He is a Marine that works on planes.}

Carrie [edit]- Oct 23 (prob will move to 16)

Shakema [edit] (she reminds me a lot of Daniell)- postponed baptism

Zeny [edit]- a sweet old Phillipino lady who loves learning about Church.

Ben Whitby- sweet guy in late 30s, slow learner but is fun to teach. He will have to quit smoking and drinking coffee.

Ryan [edit]- late 20s, is reading and enjoying Book of Mormon

Caesar [edit] we've only met him once, but trying to get a hold of him.

On top of those are a couple dozen potential investigators and some less-actives. Needless to say, we are busy! We meet an average of about 50 people every day through street contacting, tracting, and referrals.

One day when we were tracting, E. Hinds found a quarter. He wondered what state it was from, so he brushed it off. He said "Wyoming... No wonder it's on the ground..." I laughed pretty hard for a bit. I thought you'd appreciate that.

The Utah marching Band (more specifically some of my friends who are in it) sent me a card the other day! That was really nice of them. Most that signed it aren't LDS. That made me happy!

Turns out one of the guys I know in the singles branch is the son of Bob Bedont, the guy that announces the marching band at all our games & shows. That was so neat! He likes Utah football a lot too.

It's still mid-September, but most people here have Halloween stuff up already. A surprisingly large amount of people have their Christmas stuff up all year. Californians are crazy! Some people CA "The Land of the fruits and the nuts."

I wish I had time to tell about all my experiences. The mission is awesome. I am learning so much about the Gospel as I learn to teach it. We truly have something precious that no one else has. I encourage everyone to talk about the Church this week that needs to know about it. Let me know how it goes!

I love you all very much. Have a great week!

-Elder LaFollette

PS- I got a Dunder Mifflin shirt today for free. I love Kohl's free coupons for $10 off!

Addendum- Thanks for the package!!!

28 September 2010

2010-09-28T13:27:00.001-07:00

Hello family!

Sorry I don't have time again to reply to all your emails, but I read them and very much appreciate them!

This week has been great. It was really, really hot yesterday. It has been in the 80s the whole time I've been here, and then it was 95 on Sunday, and then 110 yesterday. We were on bikes yesterday. Not very fun! I drank about a gallon and a half of water throughout the day.

Our investigators are progressing very well. We now have 5 investigators with baptismal dates, all in October. Charles (Oct 9), Marvin [edit last name] (Oct 9), Patrick [edit last name] (Oct 16), "Auntie" Zeny [edit last name] (Oct 22), and Carrie [edit last name] (Oct 23)

We had a fabulous lesson the other day with Patrick. Before we arrived, they had watched "The Testaments" which are apparently very, very touching. I guess I am the only Mormon in the world that hasn't seen that DVD. But, we talked about Christ a lot to start the lesson, about what he means to all of us, and his Atonement. The Atonement is for everyone that ever comes to the world, but it is so personal at the same time. Two of the members present tearfully shared dreams they'd had in which they met the Savior, and felt his love for them. Most of the lesson, we didn't say anything, but rather just soaked in the Spirit that was filling the room. It was so strong. Almost everyone there was silently in tears, and everyone had a huge smile. The Spirit felt like swimming in molasses, it was so strong. Even with the places I've been in my life, that was the strongest I've ever felt the Spirit in my entire life. It was very special.

We gave Charles a priesthood blessing on Sunday, because he is still stuck on having 2-3 cigarettes a day. He is pushing very hard to get baptized, but knows he needs to break the habit first. He was promised that as he was faithful, the cravings would be taken from him, and the burden be lifted from him. On Sunday, he smoked 1/2 a cigarette. That was the fewest he's smoked in a day in over a decade. He attributes his success thus far to the blessing. He is truly becoming converted in mind and now in his heart. It is so exciting to watch!

The last of the legal papers Marvin needs to be married should be in today or tomorrow. (This time for 99% sure) He will be married before General Conference, and be baptized next week.

Some of the days have been very difficult. Sometimes it is very hard to go across the street yet again and talk to a person that will most likely turn you down, just like everyone else. But the Lord is with us all. He loves us so much. Our burdens can and will be lightened because he went through the Atonement. He did it just for us. He knows the hardships we go through, and He knows them perfectly. He will take the burdens from us as we allow Him to.

I know Heavenly Father is there and hears our prayers. Yesterday I was having a very, very difficult morning. I felt angry inside, frustrated, exhausted, and sad. I felt alone, and didn't know what to do. I knelt in prayer, spilling my feelings to Heavenly Father. A couple minutes later, as I was still talking, a small voice came into my head. I felt the words "Jonathan, I love you. You are my son, and I love you." That was the first time in my life that I have ever come to tears because of a prayer or prompting. I know He is there. Remember that in your own lives. We all have something very special that most of the world doesn't know. I hope that we treasure the precious knowledge we have.

I forgot most of the funny stories from this week. But yesterday (the really hot day) after our district meeting, we were having contests as to who could keep their hands on the hot metal of the car the longest. Not quite sure why! But it was fun. I got 2nd place before I had to douse my hands in water bottle water. We were also seeing who could pick up other people. Only one person could pick me up, because I've so heavy. But I tried to pick up someone, whose weight I overestimated. Because of that, I ended up falling on my butt. It was really funny.

Well, that's all I have time for this week. I love you all very, very much, and I appreciate your letters. Please print out your emails and send them, because I don't have time to really read them. I will try to write back something though, because I appreciate it so much.

Have a great week

Elder La Follette

21 September 2010

2010-09-21T19:57:00.001-07:00

Hi family!

This week went by really fast.

Wednesday-Thursday I was on a companion exhange with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Morton, in the Del Mar area. Holy cow there are some rich people there. It is the richest ward in the church, and pays the most tithing. The people are also less humble and less receptive there. I got more doors slammed in my face there than the rest of the mission combined. Whew! It's funny though, seeing how childish some adults can be. They seem so afraid of two young guys in white shirts. I also talked to a lady in French while I was there, so that was cool. We taught a lesson at night at a park right next to the beach, so that was awesome!

As far as our investigators, we've had some disappointment. Becca (edit last name) suddenly stopped contacting us, and we found out she is moving back with her husband and doesn't want to talk to missionaries for a while. Very sad. She would have been baptized this week. Shakema has also been hard to get a hold of, cancelling appointmens too. It's frustrating, but we have to be patient. We haven't dropped her yet though. Charles is trying really hard to keep the word of wisdom, and so far doing well. He is down to 1 cigarette a day (used to be two packs a day), and is no longer drinking coffee. He has a lot of faith, and is excited to be baptized. He reminds me of Dad a little bit, in that he is in his late 40's ( I know Dad is older), and licks his beard when he thinks. It's really funny. Marvin (edit last name) will probably be married this week, and baptized the Oct 9 with Charlie.

We have two new investigators. One of them is Patrick, a Marine, who is friends with some people in the singles branch. He is so excited and soaks everything like a sponge. Carrie is the other, she is 14 and wants to be baptized soon. She is very smart and is fun to teach.

Well I have to go. It has been a great week, exhausting, and up and down emotionally. I have a good San Diego tan going on.

I will write more in a letter. Have a wonderful week

Elder La Follette

14 September 2010

2010-09-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

(via snail mail)

Hi family,
Here is the end of my letter this week.

I sent my camera card a couple weeks ago. I really, really hope it wasn't lost in the mail. I have like 100 pictures on that.

So two of our baptisms were postponed, because we can't get a hold of Becca and Shakeme keeps cancelling because of homework and friends. Devin just moved out of our mission into his mom's house. But he said he'd still like to talk with us when he's around.

We currently have 12 investigators, and several other people we are focused on. Needless to say, days are busy. We did a lot of tracting my first week, but not much recently. We've been blessed with a lot of referrals and investigators.

Sunday Night, we had dinner at the Colin's house. We have dinners w/ members every night except P-Day. But this time, it was just Sis. Colins and her mom, and we have to have an adult male there, so we were forced to eat outside. It was sad and awkward to tell them we had to eat outside, but being obedient to mission rules is more important.

Last night we had FHE with our singles ward again. We go every week because the branch president wants the missionaries to teach a lesson at the end, to whoever wants to stay. We had a long but very powerful discussion on the Restoration, particularly about prophets (general conference), and the First Vision. The Spirit is so awesome. There was a non-member there, and now he is pumped to hear the rest of the message from us. We meet tonight.

Someone also brought a huge box of old ties to get rid of. I picked out 4. It was like Missionary Christmas! I got a nice one, a very ugly one, a Santa tie, and one with otters on it.

Will, everything is going well. Some days are better than others, but it all goes fast. It's crazy to think I'm already over 5 weeks in, 6 on Wednesday.

I hope you get those pictures.
I also left my razor cord at the MTC. I wrote them, and they said they looked but couldn't find it. If all else fails, I could send my razor home and use it later. Or you (someone) could find me a cord!

Well I love you all very much. I pray for you and love to hear from you. Have a good week.

-Elder LaFollette

14 September 2010

2010-09-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

Hi family!

Sorry I wasn't able to email last week. We had our quarterly temple day, so there was no time. We didn't even get to shop, so I had Ramen all week for every lunch. The SD temple is beautiful!

This week has been awesome! On Wedesday we had another companion exchange, which lasts 24 hours. Elder Hinds went with the DL, Elder Snyder, so I was left in charge of our area for a day with another greenie, Elder Woodward. That was interesting! I forgot a map, so it we had to cancel a couple of visits because I didn't know where they were, and we also couldn't drive, because I haven't been certified by the mission yet (lots of paperwork)

A few funny stories this week:

[edit content for privacy of individual]

When we were tracting the other day, we passed a house that looked like it was straight out of Willy Wonka. It was all green, but the shrubs in the front were cut in perfectly smooth balls, and there was a perfectly wavy hedge. I should have taken a picture. That was my favorite house so far.

When we were talking to one of our investigators, Ben [edit last name], his wife (who has a learning disorder, and is a member), would make really bizarre comments in the middle of one of our thoughts. For example, we were telling him about the Priesthood and what it was, and she came in with a "I've known sign language since I was 4!" It makes it interesting to talk to them! They are so fun though! She also sings REALLY REALLY loud in church. It's so fun!

Camille, you can use my computer. Be nice. And send more CDs. Just churchy stuff. I'm not picky.

We were going to have two baptisms this week, but both girls are being flaky, so we've had to postpone it for next week. So far, we have 3 baptisms scheduled for next week, with a possibility of one more. I don't have enough time to go into detail, so I'll probably just write.

My time is running out so I'll have to write by hand the rest of the letter.

How is everyone doing? I appreciate your emails and letters. I love you all very very much, and pray for you often.

Have a good week.

Elder La Follette

7 September 2010

2010-09-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

(snail mail)

Hi Family & Friends,

We didn't have enough time to email this week because we went to the temple this afternoon. If everyone could print and mail their emails, that would be great.

This week was awesome. We had a zone conference on Wed. where we found out that until August, the mission was averaging about 23 baptisms a month. August brought 78. President Cook was thrilled, but no one is satisfied. We have a goal of 90 for September. Elder Hinds and I are looking to contribute 5 to that this transfer. We have been blessed with a lot of people to teach. Our top 5 investigators are:

Becca [last name edit]- she is set to be baptized Sep. 18. She is soaking everything up like a sponge, and praying all the time. She is getting divorced and looking for a a good religion.

Charlie [edit last name]- Charlie is in his 40's, divorced, and has been in some pretty deep poverty. He has been out of work for 15 months, searches for a job all day everyday, and still has a smile. He has enough faith in Christ (a born again Christian) for 5 or 6 people. He loves to visit, talk, and ask questions. He is set for Sept. 25.

Shakema [edit last name]- Shakema reminds me of Daniell. She is 16, african-american, and very mature for her age. She knows she needs something to add to her knowledge of the Bible, and she is loving the true gospel so far. She is set for Sep. 18.

Marvin [edit last name]- Marvin is in his late 20's and has been taught the lessons several times The only thing between him and his baptism (which he is pumped for) is getting married to the girl he's living with. that will probably happen this weekend or next.

Devin [edit last name]- Devin is 18 and needs something to do. We had a hard time getting a hold of him for a while because he's always out loking for a job. But recently we had a great lesson with him on the Joseph Smith story He decided to pray right then to know if it was true. So we went outside and knelt, and he offered his prayer. He described being "wasted with calmness and peace." We told him that was his answer. He basked in it for a another five min. or so.

We are teaching a lot more people than I have time to write about. But there are some funny stories.

We met a man that looks like the guy in "Up." He had a memory problem. He invited us to come see his pictures. He showed us pictures of his old job as one of the main guys behind the Tomahawk missile, and he life in rocketry, and his boyhood near Bransen, Missouri and how he herded cattle and drove mules, then about his college ears, and getting a job making missiles, and the Tomahawk, then back to his boyhood, etc. The 5th time around, we had to politely excuse ourselves. That was a pretty funny experience!

Sunday night, Elder Hinds had to poo. To his great suprise, we had no toilet paper. I heard shuffling and cupboards opening in the bathroom. Eventually, he emerged, searched frantically for Toilet paper, then went into the kitchen. A minute later he came out carrying a box of Swiffer wet wipes, and went back in the bathroom. I was disturbed. We told our ward mission leader, he and his wife laughed hysterically an gave us a couple rolls. Wow.

Yesterday we met with Jessie. Jessie is a recent convert. After we talked to him about the Holy Ghost for a while, he began to tell us his take on the Book of Mormon stories, mostly on his idea of what King Lamoni's servants' reaction was to Ammon cutting the arms off. He then told us what the people who were trying to steal the sheep were thinking. He is African-American, and used some of his slang in the stories. It. Was. Hilarious! After an hour of nearly peeing our pants, we agreed he needed to do a a comedy tour of "The Book of Mormon according to Jessie [edit last name]."

Well it's time to go. Sorry I couldn't do emails today. Print them out and send them, please! I will email next week. I love you all so much. Hang in there. The Gospel is True.

-Elder La Follette

31 August 2010

2010-08-31T17:04:00.000-07:00

Hey family!!

I have finally made it to California! I am currently in a city called Mira Mesa. We are about 25 minutes from the beach. It is right next to Miramar, where the military base is. We are serving in the Mira Mesa 2nd Ward, and the Black Mountain YSA branch.

The first day or two I was dying because I was sweating like a fire hydrant from the humidity, but I've gotten used to it now. Some days it's hot, but it's not unbearable. Short-sleeved shirts are awesome.

President Cook and his wife are so awesome. They are great leaders and great listeners. He said my name right the first time, which was cool, because no one ever does. My companion still messes my name up sometimes.

My companion's name is Elder Hinds. He is from Pearland, TX, which is just south of Houston. He has been out for almost 15 months. He, along with all the other missionaries, is extremely obedient. The mission is full of obedient missionaries. A minute late to get up, get to bed, be in the apartment at 9, etc, is unacceptable. It's awesome. He has a strong testimony, and is very faithful. He doesn't have the most upbeat personality, but that's okay.

Mom, my bike is WONDERFUL. It's a smooth ride, the gears work, and best of all, it's really light. Apparently it's made of aluminum so it's light and therefore easier to pedal.

The night I got here, we set down my bags in the apartment and jumped right to work. It was a little intimidating, but oh well. We had an appointment with our best and most progressing investigator, Becca (edit last name). Becca is around 24ish, going through a divorce, and best friends with another girl in the family ward. We taught her about the restoration, and committed her to read the BoM and pray. We also watched the Finding Faith in Christ DVD. She is having a very hard time in her life, but she is so awesome for trying to press through it. She is going to be baptized on September 18.

It's amazing how many people we teach. We currently have about 7 investigators, 2 others who are almost investigators, 8 referrals, 4 LARC (less active/recent converts), and about 20 potential investigators. As well as seeing as many of those as we can every day, we tract and contact about 2-3 hours a day. Needless to say, work is very busy. We have a car-share, which is we get the car Thurs-Sunday, and the companionship in the area next to us, who we share with, gets it the rest of the week. Mon-Wed we use bikes, and Tuesday is our P-Day.

Our district is awesome. Elder Snyder is our District Leader, and he is from Sandy. He's been out 13 months I believe. His companion is a greenie like me. Next week we go on companion exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I am going with Elder Kim to Del Mar, and Elder Hinds is staying in our area with Elder... I forgot his name. Del Mar is the richest ward in the church, and pays the most tithing. It is right next to the beach. I am excited for that day!

Other investigators are Charles, who is divorced, in his 40s, and going through the lowest of low times one can come across. He's been out of work for 15 months, and has been back and forth between his sister's house in our ward, and a homeless shelter in downtown San Diego. But, he has some of the strongest faith I've seen anyone have. He still trusts in the Lord that he can find a job and get on his feet.

Another is Ben and Kristin (edit last name). Kristin is a less active member, and Ben is a non-member who has a big problem with the Word of Wisdom. He smokes a drinks a lot, and has admitted to an addiction to coffee. I challenged him to not have any coffee today, and take an ibuprofen for the headache. He said he would, and I will call to see how it went. They met with missionaries before, but ended up being flaky and cancelled appointments a lot. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he agreed to read it with us as much as he can, since he can't understand it very well (he and Kristin both have learning disorders). They are wonderful souls, and I think they will eventually be baptized.

I am out of time, so I will have to send it as it is. Everyone have a WONDERFUL week and send me mail!!!

Love you all

Elder La Follette

23 August 2010

2010-08-23T10:57:00.001-07:00

Hi Family!!!

Another week is suddenly gone, and tomorrow it is time to depart to the mission field. The MTC has gone by so fast, looking back. I've had two amazing teachers, Brothers Losee and Thacker. They are different in personality completely, but both have helped me and my district so much in learning how to effectively share the Gospel with others. My district has been amazing. We have been family to one another, since we are all away from our real families. I will send pictures home soon, so you can see what everything looks like!

I now know how missionaries are weird when they get home. The MTC is like being in seminary or institute all day, every day. You can't be doing that and not have a completely different mind set than what you've had the rest of your life. It's amazing, though. The Spirit is always so strong here in the MTC, and everyone has strong testimonies of the truth.

This week we had our final practice teaching appointments. Louise, who we were visiting for the second time, brought her husband this time, which was at first intimidating. The biggest reason was that we came to the door to knock, and realized we didn't remember at all what we had taught her the previous week, because we have so many people to teach and no where to write everything down yet. But, her husband said "Louise told me everything you talked to her about last week! It's amazing!" So we responded "Great!! What did she tell you?" Whew! We committed her and her husband to being baptized in that lesson. Of course, these are members being good actors as investigators, but they really help in knowing how to teach. I feel comfortable now walking into someone's home and getting to know them and talking about the Gospel. It's amazing how far I've come in three weeks, really.

We got a new set of missionaries this week, just like every week. But this time, our district was selected to help host the new missionaries, just like I was. I got to take 3 different missionaries around to get all their supplies, to their room, and to meet their district. One was from TN, one was from Boise (a big BSU fan, so we talked about football), and one went to Timpview High. My companion thinks I'm so popular because I've been seeing so many people from high school and college!

In our fireside last night, there was an especially beautiful musical number, a trio of piano, cello, and the best male voice I've ever heard, performing "I Know My Redeemer Lives" It was so amazing and reverent, that the main speaker asked to cancel the planned closing hymn so they could perform it again. It was amazing. This morning in the temple, the elder who sang was in the same temple session as me and my district. Very cool! I guess he's a celebrity now at the MTC.

That's about all for this week, I think. I will get up at 4am tomorrow to report to the travel desk, and travel to SLC, and call y'all, and fly out to San Diego! Thus begins the mission.

Thank you all for the updates. I am proud of Joe and Daniell! I wish I could be at the wedding!!!

I love you all dearly, and I will talk to you soon

Elder La Follette

16 August 2010

2010-08-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

Mom,

here's the rest of the letter. Have Camille post it.

It's hard to really say what I'm learning, except that it's just... missionary stuff. Finding, loving, teaching, baptizing. That's about it. Lots of sitting. The camelack is the only thing keeping me awake sometimes.

Went to the temple again today. Went last week too. We go on P-Day morning at the MTC.

Another batch of elders left this morning, and the last 4 from their district leave tomorrow. Suddenly, we're the oldest district left. There are 3 districts to a zone here.

I leave the MTC a week from tomorrow. Tuesday the 24th. We report to the travel office @ 5am. We drive to the airport and then fly to San Diego, then drive up to the mission. It's coming so fast! I can't wait to get to real work. I just want to teach and baptize already.

(Addendum #1) Make sure Dad and Joe and M/Tara remember to write or email. I know how easy it is to forget so I don't blame any of them. Letters are nice though.

I need mailing address for M/Em, M/Tara, Joe, and Dad.

(Addendum #2)
Mom, forgot some things.

The other day, I met Elder Roark, who is going to Carlsbad Spanish speaking. He said my name right the first time and I was confused and asked how he knew. He is from a town 20 min. from LaFollette, TN. Cool, huh!

I've also been asked to play piano for priesthood and prelude music for sacrament meeting. Big surprise... ha ha.

I think that's all I forgot.
-Jon

(Addendum #3)
Oh yeah!
I get a phone call before I get on the plane. I will let you know how many minutes I get. Depends on how many I buy. Probably half hour or so. It'll be like 6:30 or 7:00. Will be early. make sure you're up!

(Blog-Keeper's Note)

2010-08-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

Unless the author indicates otherwise, comments on this page will likely be sent to Elder La Follette.

Keep writing to him!

15 Aug 2010

2010-08-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

Hi family! The computer is dumb and just took like half my time away so I will try to type fast.

This week was awesome. I've always heard to "make it to Sunday and then it will go fast"
Completely true. I woke up Monday morning and suddenly it was Friday and Saturday again.

Speaking of Friday, Camille may have told you there were firetrucks and sirens and stuff at the MTC. It was Friday the 13th, and on my way to breakfast I saw everyone standing outside. Come to find out, the fire alarm had gone off. Sister Decker said she saw a jammed toaster and some black toast right before the alarm went off. I was irritated because I was hungry, and we were about to miss our teaching appointment. But, 45 min later we were able to go and eat, and the TA people said they'd made a mistake and ended up bumping us back an hour anyway, so it all worked out.

We had a fireside last night all about music. Three composers of hymns came in to speak about the hymns they have written. The final speaker was Newell Dayley, who Camille might remember, was one of the men that helped our Jazz Band when we did the MENC project. He wrote Lord, I Would Follow Thee. The two others were Thomas Durham and Stephen Jones. Most of the missionaries I could see were bored out of our minds, but us musicians were fascinated and had our hymnbooks out the whole time. Elder Cathcart (of another district. He will depart for Fort Worth tomorrow) and I were just eating up everything they said. He is a lot like me, except from AZ. He is a percussionist, loves music, and he played baseball in high school and is a big Diamondbacks and Padres fan. We have a very fun zone. Some missionaries left at 3am this morning to West Indies and South Africa. The South Africa missionaries are on a 36-hour journey to Cape Town. I do not envy them.

I am learning a lot here. We study as much in 15 min as normal people do at home in a week or two. We are cramming our brains full of teaching goodies, and learning how to concentrate on investigators' needs. We teach people, not lessons. I love it here. The Spirit is almost always very strong. Some days you just don't have it though, and you have a "stupor of thought" feeling all day. It's awful! I hope I have as few as possible days like that in the field.

I am glad everyone is doing well. My time is running out because the computer is dumb. I will handwrite again whatever else is left to say. I love all of you very, very much. Your support is awesome. Keep sending letters. The MTC is a wonderful place, but a very hard place to be, and letters are a huge morale boost.

Also, send my camera card so I can send pictures back with some explanations.

The Gospel is True, and God loves you all.

Elder La Follette

9 Aug 2010

2010-08-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Family

Just send me goodies you know I like, I don't care what kind! Also, on Wednesday nights, our zone has "fiestas" where we all share and put some food in a big box and we all partake of the goodness.

I squirt bottle would be nice. My exercise clothes get wrinkly, and it gets hot sometimes. The air conditioning at the MTC isn't very good sometimes.

I am glad you're doing well. I am doing well here, and staying very busy! Of course there isn't a lot of down time so there isn't much time to think about home, which is good. It is weird sometimes to look out the window in class and see the mountains I've grown up around. The hardest part is during gym when we go outside and I can the area where my house is. But I am soon distracted by the joys of sand volleyball with the other elders and sisters.

The MTC is awesome. There is a LOT of work to do everyday. The schedule changes daily because the MTC has to accomodate so many missionaries. My district is better than I could have hoped for. They are Elders Turner (from WA), Buttars (from Logan), Bennett (from Syracuse UT), Johnson (from Holliday UT)--they are all going to Phoenix--, and Elders Hart (from Ogden), Owens (from San Antonio), and my companion, Elder Zarate from Ithica, NY (said Zuh ROT ay). The last three elders and myself are the Carlsbad missionaries. We also have four sisters, Sisters Ashby (from Springville), Thurston (from Burley ID, wherever that is), Decker (from West Jordan) and Lyman (from NC). We all get along very well and have a great time working together. Our two teachers are very different, but both amazing. One of our zone leaders reminds me exactly of Mayor Quimby in the way he sounds and acts, which is funny because his name is Elder Simpson.

The other day we were outside studying as a mission and a bird flew under the tree we were by and pooped on Elder Owens' journal. We had a great time laughing at that. We don't study outside much anymore!

My branch president lives on Osmond Lane, President Myers. Maybe you know him. Our church meeting yesterday was so awesome. We had priesthood in the morning, in which Elders Hart and Owens had to wing a short lesson on blessings because the branch presidency forgot to let them know in advance what the topic was. That's how the missionary talks work. Everyone in the branch prepares a short talk, and two are chosen to speak out of the congregation with no warning. The music is the best here. We aren't allowed to listen to music on CDs or anything so live is all we get. The departing district in our zone sang a musical number, Joseph Smith's First Prayer, with a gorgeous piano part. After two verses, the piano played the melody while one elder recited the account of the vision, then they proceeded with the last verse. If you pick up a hymnbook and read and imagine what it sounded like, maybe you'll get some of the overwhelming spirit we had in the meeting.

The fireside last night was decent, but not as powerful as church. But, there is no sound in the world like a beastly organ and 3,000 missionaries singing their guts out to Hope of Israel and We Will Bring the World His Truth. In the second hymn, the words were changed from "we will be the Lord's missionaries" to "we are now the Lord's missionaries." That was so, so, so powerful.

I've seen a lot of friends here from high school and college and other places. I've seen a lot of Ryan. We have eaten together, and talked in the halls. He came by with his companion last night to say goodbye, as he left this morning for New York. He will be a great missionary.

My new nickname after a night of loud snoring is "Hermano Oso", which is Brother Bear.

Let Kevin know my whole district is praying for him.

My time is running short, we have a timer for 30 min until the computer shuts off. Send mail, email and packages! I will write on Mondays, my P-Day.

Also, there is a pile of institute stuff on my desk, particularly a diagram of the plan of salvation. If you could send that to me, that would be wonderful. Also, send my other camera card. I want to send my other one home next week so I can show you my pictures.

If there is anything else to say, I'll send a letter, since I have about 4 minutes left to print and send everything.

I love you all dearly. Have a great week. The Gospel is True. Tell people to write, letters are not overrated.

Elder La Follette

Aug ? 2010 (day was torn off)

2010-08-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

(received via snail mail 8 Aug 2010)

Family,

I am allowed one letter today to let you know I've arrived safely and started working.

My companion's name is Elder Zarate, from upstate New York. I've seen Ryan a few times as well as other friends from THS and Utah. My district and zone are wonderful. The Spirit is strong here.

I am scheduled to leave on August 24. I will email more thoroughly on P-Day (Mondays), so you will hear from me again soon.

Send food! I love you all

-Elder La Follette

Pictures of MTC Day

2010-08-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

Jon stepping off the porch and seeing his childhood home for the last time before it is sold. Jon and Camille wrote this in the concrete when they were very little.

Jonathan's father, Rodney
Deciding what to order!

Jonathan's sister, Camille

Cousin David
Jonathan's mother, Tammy

A very full Jon
A mother doing her duty- cleaning up Jon's spill! Jon is embarrassed.

On the way out of Missionary Mall for a couple last minute things, Jon and Tammy walked by this sign for a store, so they took a picture!

Unloading luggage

"Make your best cry faces! 1... 2... 3... Cheese!"

Elder LaFollette

A final farewell to his mother

"Well, see you in two years!" Jonathan crossing the street to the Missionary Training Center.

Elder Jonathan Leroy LaFollette

2010-08-05T10:45:00.001-07:00

Jonathan reported to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT at approximately 1:00 p.m. on August 4, 2010.

This blog is being maintained by his family to document Jonathan's experiences, thoughts, and pictures from his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the people in the California Carlsbad Mission.