Seeds Planted, Right?

Dear mom,

This week was kind of weird and slow. We contacted a ton of referrals that we found on the referral manager.  They were all dead-ends. But still. Seeds planted, right?   We had a blitz.  We had Zone Conference, too, on Wednesday. That was fun to have the whole zone together again. Elder A and I gave a short training on honesty. It was fun.

So some other things you might like. I found Jake's parents in the September 2012 Ensign on page 22! It was cool to see them. And right before I opened it up Elder A was saying "wouldn't it be cool to find someone you knew in one of these?" Ha-ha.

To answer your question- we are assigned to just one ward. There is a companionship of Sisters in the ward, too. We go on exchanges and blitzes, but unless we plan poorly we try and be in our ward with our investigators on Sundays. Speaking of investigators, we found a sweet family of 5 this week! They have 3 little girls, 5, 4, and 1. It was sweet. 

Our apartment is pretty nice here. It's pretty big, and missionaries haven't been in it for very long. Maybe a year or so. When they put Sisters in they moved the Elders out to this apartment. The beds are ok. Not the nicest, real loud and squeaky, but they're still comfortable. Just loud. We each have our own bathroom. Oh that reminds me, Elder A is getting transferred away this Wednesday! :( He is a boss missionary, and I will miss him so...

We're spending Thanksgiving with a member family here in the ward, the S... They are way cool!

That about sums up the week.

Love y'all!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Seaver

P.S. I'm working on finding somewhere to skype. We'll see. I doubt it though..

I Love Being a Missionary!

So- I have been a bit negligent with James's blog updates- sorry.

If you want to know what has kept me too busy to update this blog

you will have to check out my blog- as soon as I get one.

I will note that there are three updates posted.

Dear Mom,

S. B. got baptized and confirmed by us this weekend! It was sweet. Sister F., the mom of the family we just baptized, gave the talk on baptism and it was awesome. I love being a missionary! 

So this week was a bit slower than usual for us in our area. Not a ton went on, but we did get to go to Sumter for a day to blitz their area, and I got to go to Conway for a day as well. There I got to conduct my first Baptismal Interview for a lady named D. P., who was baptized this weekend as well. I love being a missionary!

So I came up with super hero names for Jake, Paul, and Dave this week. They are now a part of the Disasters. Jimi Lightning, Scarlett Thunder, Chumderbolt, Earthquake Jake, Tidal Wave Dave, and Waterfall Paul. Boss lineup, I know.

That's really about it this week.

Oh yeah, Elder Bednar left us an Apostolic Blessing, too. He told us before he bore his testimony, "If I feel so prompted to leave you a blessing by the authority of the Apostleship, you can negate it by being irreverent. If you start backslapping and laughing, the Spirit will leave and the blessing will be void." So yeah, the Apostles can do that. They're boss.

Anyway, love y'all!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Seaver

Week Full of Adversity

Dear mom,

Wow this week was just full of some crazy stuff. First of all, I went to my first Zone Leader Council, where we 14 ZLs and the Assistants- President and Sister Holm discussed the mission and some other junk that won't make sense to y'all, but anyway, it was fun. Then we had Zone Training Meeting, which is like a giant district meeting with the whole Zone where Elder Abankwa and I relay ZLC information that the zone needs and do some training (along with some other trainings given by members of the zone that we ask). It was a lot of fun. Then, oh then, Saturday came. And guess who came? Wait, hold on. I'll get to that in a minute.

This week was also filled with adversity. First of all, the Sisters in our district were teaching this lady named A. who had a family member pass away in the storm up north and a few others go missing. So Satan won that battle. Then 2 of our awesome investigators had their husband/father go into the hospital (he is 80-something, so it's time) and that prevented them from coming to church. Then our other solid investigator for baptism this coming Saturday, Sister B., had her son get locked up in jail at midnight Saturday night. Among some other things, people in the hospital cause of bug bites, and just a ton of junk. It was a tough week. But it will all be ok.

Anyway, the good news. Saturday we had a special visit to our mission. We had a 3-hour Q & A with Elder David A Bednar. Yeah. Nuff said. It was awesome! He is a master of gospel doctrine and principles and I learned a ton. Like, for example, what do trees symbolize in the gospel? What is the tree representing in Lehi's dream? So what does the tree represent in the allegory of the tree in Jacob 5? What is the fig tree? What are any of the trees in the scriptures? Brings a whole new light to the scriptures eh?

Or what about intelligences? There's a topic y'all should ask me about when I get home. I have done a ton of deep research. I will one day tell you the doctrine behind intelligences and the Atonement, but not in an email. Remind me in 10 months.

Anyway, glad to hear most all is going well! Love y'all. 

Love y'all!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Seaver

Cool Grey Suit

Dear Mom,

This week was great! We baptized a family of 7!  Only 4 of them were old enough, but same difference. It was super sweet. The Spirit was so strong there! It was amazing!

Well I don't really have a lot to say this week. I got to go to Myrtle Beach on an exchange. Off in the distance I saw the ocean. That was cool I guess.

There is no hurricane danger here. Just kinda windy and cold. It didn't even rain. Myrtle Beach got a little rain. No biggie though. I hear up North it's going to be a "perfect storm" or something. Huh. We'll see.

Elder Abankwa's first name is Chris.

I don't know Linda. Or at least I don't think I do. So add her if you want to. I don't really care.

I love being a missionary so much!

Glad to hear everyone is doing well.

I'm wearing a cool grey suit I found in our apartment right now. It had a hole in the knee. It also had a vest. But I gave it to a member, she chopped up the vest and she patched up the knee. I like having a suit that's not black.

Being a missionary is the greatest. I would not trade it for anything in the whole world. Ever.

I love hearing about y'all's missionary experiences! Nothing brings greater joy in the whole wide world. "How great shall be your joy," and all that. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I'm tired.

We worked pretty hard this week, and it really paid off. There are so many miracles in the mission field. It's amazing!

Yeah go ahead and read my journals and all that. The journals are just for you and dad. 

Anywho. That's about it for this week.

Love y'all muchly!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Seaver

District and Zone Leader

I have again posted 2 posts on the same day,

so read on... -  don't judge!!

Dear mom,

I am in Florence Area, Florence district, Florence Zone, Florence, SC. Everything Florence ha-ha. It's awesome. My companion is Elder Abankwa from Ghana, West Africa. He is awesome! A fun-loving guy and a powerful teacher. We are the Zone Leaders here in Florence. Our area has Darlington in it, home of the Southern 500! Hopefully we'll get to travel all the way out there and get a picture one day. We are in the biggest Zone of the mission, and probably the biggest area. It's HUGE. Our zone covers all the way from Conway, to Cheraw, to Hartsville, Sumter, to Marion, to Myrtle Beach, and even over to Tabor City, NC, the only area our mission has in North Carolina (which is where President Holm served his mission years ago). Unfortunately Tabor City is currently closed to missionary work- for a while. Anyway, I am also the district leader here in Florence. The district is the sisters, Sister Browning from Idaho, and Sister Garlick from Centerville, Utah, and us.

This area is great, it's loaded up with people to teach and baptize! Speaking of which, on the 27^th we are baptizing a family of 7, the F. family (only 4 will be getting baptized, the other 3 are too young. They also have one in the oven due in about 6 months). They are awesome! They were found by tracting done by Elder Abankwa and Elder Fisher before I got here (this is the 2^nd time I have reaped the reward of Elder Fisher's tracting. The last time was back in Anderson. He found Cecil and Michelle with Elder Greear right before I arrived there). I love it here! The ward is great, and it is filled with awesome people!

So, I can hardly believe how much goes on every day. It's nuts. Being out here in the world as missionaries we get to see a lot of things. Everyone knows someone who isn't keeping the commandments, or who is doing their own thing. But out here we get to experience people who are truly wicked -People who are "past feeling," as Nephi so aptly put it. There is a lot of just pure evil in the world. I am so glad I have the chance, and that 58,000 other Elders and Sisters, and thousands more to come, have the chance to share the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our brothers and sisters. There is nothing more rewarding and joyful than seeing the Atonement applied in someone's life. Problems, pains, worries, struggles, and sins and temptations go away when you apply the Atonement. In essence, Satan doesn't exist in the baptismal font.

Well anyway. So glad to hear about all the babies popping up outta the woodwork! Babies are awesome!

Oh, interesting note- Elder Stanley and I whitewashed Gilbert, right? Well, then Elder Stanley left and I trained. I left my dear trainee there and who is his new companion? Elder Stanley's trainee! Our dear sons are serving together in the area that their fathers whitewashed and prepared for them. It was pretty cool to see that, and Elder Stanley got a kick out of it at transfer meeting Wednesday. Ha-ha. Oh yeah, as a Zone Leader, we go to Zone Leader Council at the beginning of every month to discuss the mission and prepare to help the zone at Zone Training Meeting the following day. Elder Cardon is a ZL in Columbia, so I get to see my good ol' MTC comp every month for a while! :) Oh, to answer your question, there have been Zone leaders who served for 1 transfer, all the way up to 9 months- it all depends on what the Lord tells President Holm to do.

I love being a missionary!

Love y'all so much!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Seaver

There are Going to be Tons of Young Missionaries!

Dear mom,

Holy Moses conference rocked! We watched all 5 sessions at the church, and Sunday between sessions the Mattsons fed us some awesome chili, and a recent convert of Sister Chai's (she came out with me), Diego. It was a lot of fun.

There are going to be tons of young missionaries! It'll be weird having sisters younger than me. There used to be that "older woman" thing so the temptation was lessened. I wonder how that'll go with all the young sisters and elders coming in. :p It used to be cool when I said, "I left on my mission when I was 18 and will be home when I'm 20." But now that's average. Ha-ha.

Elder Holland's talk was almost identical to a talk he gave in the MTC in Jan 2011. All our mission apartments have a copy of it because it's so powerful. Of course there were differences seeing as the audiences were different, but I love anything and everything about Peter, sweet Peter. He is awesome. And it was awesome that Elder Hales gave almost an identical talk ha-ha. Just goes to show how inspired these people are- they all pray and plan and write those talks not knowing what anyone else is going to say. But there always seems to be a theme! I counted 5 times that D&C 121:34-46 was quoted, as well as a ton of other repeats. It's awesome. I also felt really cool when they would announce speakers or mention people and I could say, "I am friends with his grandson," or, "I shook his hand once." Haha.

For those inquiring minds, I have met, or associated in some way with the following:

• ·      Quentin L. Cook (spoke in a stake conference I was at, shook his hand)
• ·      Walter F. Gonzalez (spoke to our whole mission)
• ·      Robert C. Gay (spoke in the Greenville stake conference they had when I was still in  Anderson, he was just an area authority then, now a seventy)
• ·      William R. Walker (came and toured our mission just a few months ago, shook his hand, too)
• ·      Elder M. Keith Giddens (came and spoke with Elder Gonzales, he is our area seventy)
• ·      Elder Alvin f. Meredith (spoke when the W. Columbia stake was reorganized with Elder Walker, shook his hand when President Holm introduced Elder Stanley and me and we thought he was just another brother in the area. When he started speaking we felt so dumb for being all like "how are ya brother?" ha-ha)
• ·      Jay E. Jensen (Alex. Nuff said)

Did you sense the urgency the Brethren had? This work is far too important to waste any time. "Don't delay, it's getting late," said Elder Holland last conference. You can really feel their earnestness and zeal and urgency, can't you?

  

I found out Saturday that I will be being transferred this week to a new area. More details next Monday...

I was reading in PMG the other day and I found something fun. It's a personal study activity. So, to fulfill it I must ask y'all to please respond to the following question

Pick a commandment (tithing, Law of Chastity, Word of Wisdom, etc) and write to me how keeping that commandment has blessed your life.

So glad to hear the hike went well! Pictures?? :)

Love y'all so much!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Seaver

Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy

James's mom was out of touch living her life the last two weeks and did not update his blog- to you loyal readers I apologize.  There are two new posts, so read on below after this post.

Dear family,

This week was a blur. So fast! Plus I had a nice cough going on from the fall allergy season coming in, so I have been in and out of a Benadryl coma. Ha-ha.

We worked hard and it paid off. There was a lady named A. who got baptized in Lexington ward on Saturday, and we as a district (6 of us) sang Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy. Then on Sunday, President and Sister Holm spoke in the Lexington and Gilbert wards. Lexington had us missionaries sing that song again for them and it was awesome! We practiced a lot and it paid off.

Then we randomly had a guy we taught months ago named T. H. show up at church. It was pretty sweet! He stayed for Sunday school, and then took off, but during class one of the members said something like, "When I was investigating the church I would just make up excuses to not go because I thought it was a 'cult'." Then Timmy said, "That's what I've been doing! I have made up excuses for the past 2 months, but today I couldn't think of one, so I had to come..." It was so funny ha-ha. But he is being prepared and I can't wait to teach him!

         

The Master is so good at diffusing bashes with people (Matt 21:23-27). I wish I were good at not bashing... But it's too fun to confound people by proving what I believe with their own Bible. :p

We have been having geese fly-bys every morning for the past few days. They honk and honk and honk for a good minute before they pass overhead. We saw a bunch of ‘em land in a field on our way to the library today. It was fun stuff. Today it was extremely foggy as well. Er. Is foggy. Currently foggy.

That's about it for this week though. Glad to hear all those kids are doing well! Send ‘em my salutations next time you see ‘em.

Love y'all a ton!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Seaver