Week 47--June 9, 2014

This has been a super weird week, Lots of ups and downs. One super cool thing this week was that we hit the standard of excellence. It was great to achieve that. One other super cool thing was something that was caused by my wonderful, loving, caring, beautiful Mom! I got a Package with two clickers to count Happy thoughts, among other things. That Package and those two clickers were a Miracle. Because of the Clickers, My Companion who suffers from Bi-Polar Depression was able to stay happy all week and to enjoy missionary work. It was awesome!

Well work here is starting to pick up, and It is awesome, we have some investigators that are progressing very well, one of them is Misty. Misty is getting married at the end of this month and then she should be getting baptized shortly there after. 

We are still working on finding, more people.

I love you guys,

Elder Bangerter

For anyone interested, I got the clickers from http://www.billionclicks.org.  I actually won the two I sent them, but anyone can purchase one.  :-) Sharon

Week 46--June 2, 2014

Well this week has been a good one! We had a good morning this morning, we went and played 9 holes at the local course with a member from the last ward that Elder Plotkin served in. I actually did pretty well according to the member, I shot 16 over par my second time ever going to play golf. It was Lots of fun!

We had a Baptism on Saturday, It went great! It was a great service! The girl who was Baptized was Mady. She is 12 years old and She has been waiting to get baptized for at least 2 years now, but because of circumstances with her mom she wasn't able to be baptized until now. It was a very exciting thing to see. Satan most definitely did not want the baptism to happen, there has been so much opposition with her getting baptized, and the one that I saw while I was here was that she broke her foot and was put in a cast that could not go in the water, just a few days before the baptism. Thankfully all went well and she got Baptized!

Things have been going kind of hard with my companion, he has been being extremely rude, and a jerk to me for quite a bit of the week. Then there are days where he is supper pleasant to be around. I guess that is his Bi-Polar kicking in.

Things are going very well right now. We are definitely in the Finding stages of the work, and are building the area back up.

I love Y'all

Elder Bangerter

Week 45--May 26, 2014

Well this week has been a very interesting week.

Hemet is definitely one of the weirdest places I have ever been. It is lots of fun here though.

I guess I will start off with that we have a Baptism this upcoming weekend, it is super exciting. This week has also been kind of a culture shock for me, for a few reasons, first of all I am living in an apartment with not only my companion, but one of my former companions, and a missionary I have served around quite a bit, so that is interesting. Then we are in Car for a few reasons, one being that our area is huge. The other really weird thing is that I am the Designated driver. My Companion is Elder Plotkin and He is from Riverside, CA, He was originally called to serve in New York, but because he has really bad Bi-Polar depression, he was reassigned to his home mission. He has 6 months left on his mission. So there are some challenges there.

Hemet is great, and I am Loving it here.

Sorry this letter is short.

Elder Bangerter

Week 44--May 19, 2014

Well I am getting Transferred to Diamond Valley in Hemet. I am splitting the ward with the ZL's (Elder McConkie & Taylor), My Companion is Elder Plotkin, and we are in car, because Elder Plotkin can't ride a bike due to some health problems. Hemet was actually the only place in the mission that I heard about before the mission, from Daniel Meehan, he said that it is a really interesting place, it is the international headquarters of the Church of Scientology, among other things.

I have kind of mixed emotions getting transferred today. I have truly come to love the people living in Hidden Springs. When I came in to Hidden Springs I wasn't too excited and I really didn't have the best attitude about the ward. I knew it was going to be hard, and I wasn't too excited to not have very much going for us. But as I served here I have seen so many miracles, one of the biggest of which happened overt the past few weeks. That was us Finding Tony and all the events that led to him getting baptized. We got referred to him 3-4 times in one week. Then as we taught him we could see him change as he embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was great to see it. Then as we were teaching Tony, his friend Miguel, who speaks very little English, was listening from another room, and as one of us bore testimony it touched his hart even though he didn't understand what we said he was touched by the Holy Ghost, and was baptized 3 weeks later (last night) and he asked me to perform the Baptism. As I performed the Baptism in Spanish my heart was full of love and gratitude, and my testimony of the Spirit was strengthened because the Spirit transcends Language. I am truly grateful to have served here.

I am excited to see what Hemet has in store for me. I realized on Saturday that It was my 10 month mark, it is crazy to think in two months I will have been out for a year. Well I guess I am off to my 4th Area and my 7th Companion.

I love all of you guys,

Elder Bangerter

Week 43--May 12, 2014

Well another week has come and gone. It was great to get to Skype home yesterday and I hope that everyone had a good Mother's Day. It was definitely a good day for Elder Rock and I. 

Unfortunately because of Calling home yesterday this E-mail will be short. Tony got confirmed as a member of the church yesterday and received the Aaronic Priesthood. It has been great to see him grow in the gospel. Besides that Not much is happening, we are trying to find new investigators.

One thing that I would like to share is that in two days it will be 185 years to the day that the Aaronic Priesthood was restored to the earth. Not to long after the Melchizidek Priesthood was restored. I know that as I reflect upon these Momentous events, my heart is full of gratitude that the Authority to lead the Jesus Christ's Church has been restored, and how much that restored Priesthood has blessed my life and my family.

I love all of you,

Elder Bangerter

P.S. Congratulations to Joseph Siddoway and Jaren Strader on receiving your mission calls. Give'em Heaven!

Week 42--May 5, 2014

Well it has been a great week in Moreno Valley. It's hard to believe that I have been serving in the Moreno Valley Stake for 28 weeks. It has been a long time but at the same time it feels like it hasn't been very long at all. I don't think that I will be here much longer before I get transferred, probably in 2 weeks when transfers roll around, but we will see, I could very likely stay for another 6 weeks, and I wouldn't mind that at all. It is hard to believe that next transfer will be my 8th transfer, and that next transfer will be President Smart's last transfer, before President Mullen comes in.

Well the big exciting news this past week was that Tony got baptized! It was a great baptismal service, we had part of it in Spanish, because Tony brought a friend with him who is interested in the church who only speaks Spanish. It was very good. I did get to do the Baptismal Ordinance, which was exciting.

Some other pretty cool things happened this week, first we found a guy named Lester, while trying to visit a potential investigator. The cool thing about Lester, is when we asked him "How long have you lived in California?" he said, "Only a few months" so we asked him where he was from, to which he replied "I'm from Houston." I asked him "Where at?" he said "Houston" I then explained that I am from Houston, and I was wondering what part. It turns out that he is from the Spring/Klein area. He went to Klein Collins High School. We then taught him about the Restoration, and got a follow up appointment. It was just cool that he was from the same area that I am.

The other really interesting thing that happened, happened while we were going through the ward list. We felt like we needed to go see a specific name. We went and visited the name and it turns out that she was the mother of one of the people that Elder Rock was teaching in Lake Elsinore. Her name is Lisa, and she has a 12 year old Daughter who is not baptized. Elder Rock was teaching the daughter in Lake Elsinore, and she was about to get baptized, but her mom said no. So Interestingly enough we run into the girl and her mom, and her mom agreed to allow us to teach her at her home, so she can know for sure that this is what her daughter wants to do.

This week was full of Miracles,

Sorry for no pictures, My camera is dead so it is charging before I can upload the pictures.

Elder Bangerter

Week 41--April 28, 2014

Here's how he titled his email...

The week our investigator got Shanghaied the day of his Baptism

Well this week has been an interesting one, as the subject of the e-mail so nicely indicates. It has also been a pretty hard one, but that's okay!

Well I'll start with some happy things that happened this week. First, we got to got to the temple on Tuesday, which I always enjoy. It is such a great feeling to be able to go to the the House of the Lord. My prayers are always answered there. We went with Brother and Sister Wilson from our ward, and did some names for them, which they appreciated very much. I have some pictures but I will wait until next week to send them.

We picked up a new investigator this week that was so enthusiastic about learning about the church! Her name is Stormy, She is the mother of 5 kids, and was raised Southern Baptist. We had a super good Restoration lesson with her on Thursday, all was well. Now here's the catch, her husband is meeting with the Jehovah's Witnesses, and after first being okay with her meeting with us, they discussed it as a family and decided that they did not want to investigate the church and therefore Dropped us.

Then there is Kenny, he got back from LA this week and gave us a call and said he wanted to schedule a lesson, which was pretty cool. We set up a lesson with him for Thursday, and (as we were asked to) gave him a call on Thursday, to which there was no answer. So we went over for the lesson and he wasn't there, so we called again to which there still was no answer, so we left. The next day we got a voicemail from him basically chewing us out for not calling him and not showing up to our appointment, and how he is starting to loose faith in us because we "lack basic organization and planning skills." Oh how it frustrated me! We did call, we did plan for it, we even rearranged our schedule so we could go see him. Then when he isn't there and doesn't answer his phone and then calls us out about it, it makes me angry, but I just deal with it and move on, We ended up having a lesson with him on Saturday, and it went very well, we taught about Faith and Alma 32, which ironically Dad suggested a few weeks ago via letter. The lesson went well, and we tried to commit him to be baptized. He said No.

Saturday was the National Day of Service and we helped out with a Mormon Helping Hands project repairing trails at Box Springs Mountain, it was a lot of fun and we got a lot done.

Sunday we had 3 investigators at church none of which were Tony, I'll get to that a little later,

and I was asked to teach Gospel Principles class. I taught about Baptism, and everyone there seemed to enjoy the lesson very much, and we were able to answer a lot of concerns that J.S. Ross had. It was good.

Now for the story of the week. How Tony got Shanghaied. We had lessons everyday this week with Tony, they all went really well. He got interviewed on Thursday and was cleared to go. We met with him Saturday night and I gave him one of my White shirts and a tie. Everything was all good. Now we get to Sunday, we go to Ward Council and talk about the baptism, everyone is excited, and happy that the ward was having a baptism. So we are in Sacrament meeting and Bishop announces it and Tony isn't there. So we go over to Brother Batchkoff (WML Ward Mission Leader) and He and I go looking for him because he usually walks to church, go to his house nobody was home, call his phone and it was turned off. We go back to the church to see if we just missed him, but he still wasn't there, and we missed the sacrament. So then I teach my gospel principles lesson, and we go out to try and find him again, and one of his roommates answers the door and says that Tony's brother picked him up and was going to give him a ride to church. So we try getting a hold of him by phone again, and then a number that we had never seen before called us and it was Tony. His family cornered him and made him go with them right before he was going to leave to go to church, and they made him go to Mass with them, and then tried to Anti him to the church. After talking to him on the Phone I calmed him down and we tried to see if we could get him to another Sacrament meeting, which he didn't make it to, therefore he didn't get baptized, but we were able to have a lesson with him. Then Our Zone Leaders chewed us out and said "get his butt down to the church and get him baptized" and "Just Baptize him today" and so on. I refused to do either because it was contrary to mission rules, and they would not leave me alone about it. It really irritated me, because I did everything I could to make it happen and they wanted me to do it anyway for the number for the month of April. It isn't about the number it is about the people! 

Tony is set to be baptized next week, he talked to his family and figured things out.

That's it for now

Elder Bangerter