27 December 2011

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

20 December 2011

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

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

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

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

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