MAY 2009 NEWS

Anziano Scott Ball

Italy Milan Mission

August 2007 - 2009

Ciao from Milan, Well, I just was transfered to the main city in my mission for my last city. I'm pretty sure it will be my last city. My companion is from Bountilful, Utah and his twin brother is serving in the Rome mission. Everything is going pretty well here. We just opened a companionship here in Milan, so the work is still slow with finding investigators. I can't believe I'm already this far in the mission. It felt like yesterday that I was at the MTC. I don't feel like my Italian has improved a ton, but my companion says he can understand me. We had a cool story this last week. We stopped by a investigator's house last week and we rang the doorbell at the bottom of the building. My companion spotted a bracelet on the ground by the door. We picked it up to realize that it was a diamond bracelet (real). We start talking about what we should do. We devise a method of getting it returned to the owner even though my companion wanted to sell it for some money to buy some ties... haha. We post a note in the palazzo saying that we found it and whoever lost it can describe it by phone to us and they will get it back. Then, the next morning, we received a call and this woman described it perfectly. We went back to the palazzo (building) and gave it to her. She offered us 50 euro, but we didn't accept it. Then, we kept talking to her and understanding where she is from and how she lost it. She is Russian (pure) and is a dermatologist. I quickly asked if she could rather remove my warts on my hands and she said yes. My companion say that I should have took the 50 euro instead of getting my warts removed, but I'm hoping to get a appiontment out of it. Anyways, enough with that. We have to go shopping for food. Ciao, Anziano Ball

Elder Mike Kleinman

Well I am busy with my new trainee. We had a baptism last week and are planning on a couple more before I get home. I can't believe my stay here is almost over. I will miss Argentina but I am ready to get going on the next phase of life, School and work.
I arrive home June 10th at 9:20 am. I told the family we must have lunch at Costa Vida for a sweet pork burrito ,Yum. I guess I will start online summer school and be looking for a job (Like the rest of Americans). I have loved serving the Lord and the people in Cordoba. I look forward to returning when the Temple is built. I heard about Chase's allergic reaction and it it is a must that the photo's be published in the newsletter! ha ha !
Take care my fellow missionaries, see you all soon !
Chau Chau
Elder Kleinman

Elder Logan Wells

Hey there brethern! Well I have been transferred again so that means that I am beginning my 8th area its a bit weird but we do what we can? It is cool though, so things are going really well I have been relieved of all callings no more office elder or district leader just going to die in peace and really not worry about that stuff. It is great to say the least, time is flying by so fast and I really can't belive it but its cool. It is awesome to hear how well everyone is doing, I love hearing from you guys, Mike try not to get to trunky! I love my area is all city and has old San Juan in it so we see lots of tourist that tend to stop us, which is cool, I don't mind seeing my fellow american every once in awhile. I love you guys have a great one! Logan

Elder Garrett Jones

Greetings from Connecticut! Things here are going well and I think I'm beginning to get accustomed to the area and am learning my way around town. We aren't teaching as many investigators as we were in my last area, but we are working with some way cool people. The members here are all awesome and seem to be very missionary-minded which means miracles for the work. Missionary life continues to treat me well. We're now in our nice new apartment (the sisters' old one), and I've decided that the sisters get much nicer places than elders do. I just got some good news. Carmen G. our investigator from the Bronx is getting baptised this Sunday and she called President Darger (the second councilor in the mission presidency who speaks spanish) and asked him to let me go back to Kingsbridge to baptise her. President Searle has been putting an end to that recently but I guess because Carmen called, they're going to let me! I'm so excited to go back and see everybody there again. It'll be awesome.That family has made the entire year and a half worth the trip just to be able to experience that one thing, let alone all the other good times and lessons learned in other places while doing other things. I hope you all keep on doing what you do and know that. I love and miss you. Garrett

Elder Grant Huish

hey clowns,
everything is good here in oregon. it is hard to believe that almost all of us are down to less than 6 months. i hope none of you are getting trunky though, that would just be sad. mission life is great. loads and loads of fun. i am glad to hear that most of you seem to be the same dorks that you were when we left. i am trying to think of a good story to tell, but all of the funny ones involve bad language so i wont tell them. so i guess i will just end it there and hand my computer over to another missionary. love you all elder huish

Elder Gary Chambers

Hey men, this is Elder Chambers reporting in... I am still in Buenos Aires going for a personal record of 5 transfers in one area and tying another personal record with having a comp for 3 transfers in a row! goodness... I guess we're just meant to be... Buenos Aires and me. Other then that, we had a baptism last saturday which was a positive (+) moment in my life... our great investigator Lucky got baptized! He's such a cool guy... despite his rare qualities, I love the dude. Well I just ran out of things to say... Oh yes! I wanna shout out a thanks to Elder Logan Wells for awesome gift of ties he sent me. Thanks man, you're the bomb! Now I'm out of things to say... I guess I'll tell you guys about the time when I thought I was going to die.......... hang on... let me find it so I can copy it in here... Ok here it is: We were driving along in a rickety old route car (ruta car) on our way to visit my comps old area... when suddenly the car hit a small bump in the road and the hood at the same time decided to say hi to all of us crowded inside, so it flew up and slammed into the cracked windshield, severely cracking it even more. I WAS TERRIFIED!!! I think my comp almost peed himself because he was sitting in the front seat while I was jammed in the back. Lucky for us the driver could no longer see, making driving much harder, especially at the high rate of speed we were already traveling. Fortunately, however, the driver decided to stop trying to drive under such conditions and slowly came to a stop at the side of the road. The most difficult thing for me from this whole experience was getting back into that piece of metal after the driver forced the hood shut. We were, however, close to our destination and no other rutas were in sight... so I crawled back into my fear stained seat while the more intelligent driver took it easy all the way to our stop. My happiest moment was getting out of that car.... I love life... and I love you too. Love, Elder Chambers

Elder Jimmy Miller

Hey BOYZ!!!
I can't believe i'm writing for this again! Time is flying. Reading that last newsletter blew my mind. i can't believe how soon some of you go home. It's finally getting warmer here in the ghetto. which is nice. all the fire hydrants are always getting opened up and pouring into the streets and people are always outside b-b-q-ing now. it's pretty interesting here. We gave spring a skip and jumped right into summer! A little too hot too fast but i'll take it over the cold. (props to Jeff for surviving Russian winters!) This week we'll be baptizing a lady who's been investigating for almost a year. She finally quite smaking and she's good to go now. We're also preparing another sweet lady from the Dominican Republic. She's way excited for baptism in May. Last week we got to go to a Yankee's game at the new stadium. Which was sweet. We (the yankees) finally pulled out a win in the 14th inning. Elder Jones was sadly tansferred away last cycle so i probably won't see him much if at all until we're home. sad. (Jones, if you're reading this i miss you!) gonna run. love you all! Live well. Live Happy. Live STRONG!
LOVE ELDER MILLER

Elder Jeff Stoker

The month of April was great for me. I was able to go to beautiful Kazakhstan again (that was in a sarcastic voice btw). I love kazakhstan, but the church just rents an apartment, and we end up sleeping there for about 5 hours before we have to get up and jump back on the train back to Russia. Now the visa renewal trip is 24 hours with 20 hours of it being traveling. ARGH! haha. Its all good though. The great news is i have a new visa. Speaking of great news...Yesterday we found out that President Ucthdorf and Elder Andersen will be coming to Samara on May 30. Needless to say, but i will...I am way excited. All the missionaries are geeking out. haha. Let's see what else happened this month. Oh, i will tell a story that happened on my visa trip....here is the entry "We took a train from Saratov, russia to uralsk, kazakhstan. On that train we got stopped at the kazakhstanian border. They started to go through our stuff, and look under our beds (this is a normal routine.) Then they decided to unscrew the wall in our little room. When they took off the first screw off, one of the guards pulled the wall back and shined his flashlight into the hole. He then screamed at us and told us to get out of the room immediately. We obeyed, because they had AK-47s.... one of the guards slid the door 3/4s of the way closed, and i was able to see over the guards head thanks to my 6'4" height advantage. I saw them finish unscrewing the wall, and they started pulling out jars of red glowy ball thingys. It turns out that the red glowy ball thingys were caviar (spelling?). I guess there is a conspiracy going around. I thought something smelled a little fishy when we went into our room. Luckly, they just took all of the fish good, and let us continue on our way. We were able to get our new visa and make it back to Saratov the next day. I am still way tired from going through all of the border checks in the middle of the night." Some pretty interesting things happened during contacting this week though. I will only mention two things. We ended up contacting in a park the other day, and as we were walking, we came across a middle aged woman sitting on a bench. She insisted that we sit down on the bench with her, and tell her about the church. She seemed normal enough that we accepted the invitation. It soon became apparent that she was way drunk. We talked with her for about 5 mins, and we told her that we were leaving. She asked me what my name was, and reached out her hand. In Russia, you must shake a woman's hand if she puts it out. Its the proper soviet union way of life. So i told her my name, and shook her hand. She must have decided to hold hands, because i couldnt pull away. I kept trying to pull away, but to no avail. Luckily i was able to finally jerk my hand away after a couple of mins, and we said good bye. My companion was laughing so hard, and he still laughs about me holding hands with a drunk woman. My second story is the longest conversation that i have ever had at a door step. Last night we ended up talking to an armenian gypsy for 2 hours and 15 mins. It was very interesting. I wont go into details, but i will tell you that we talked for maybe 5 mins as he lectured us for 2 hours and 10 mins. Well, i think that is all the stories that i have time to write....errr...type. Love you all. Thanks for your examples.
As always...have a great month.
Elder Stoker.

Elder Max Crandall

Brethren * How*s it goin*? Things are great here in Warshington. I am loving life and loving serving the Lord. I*ve been transferred again and now I*m in Sultan. For some reason I just cannot seem to get away from the Snohomish zone. I*ve served around or near this ward three different times. It*s all good though because this is where the work is really happenin*! Sultan is completely po-dunk. The population is only about 3500 people. In fact, the Sultan ward is actually comprised of the population of four or five towns; Sultan, Startup, Gold Bar, Index, Skykomish, etc. It basically means we run out of miles quick. Also, being the zone leaders is rough because we*re on the far end of the zone, and the zone is huge. One advantage is I*m in a 4-pack. My new companion*s name is Elder Qualls. We are with two other companions, Elder Campbell and Elder Bley. Elder Campbell has been out for about eight months and Elder Bley has only been out one transfer. I guess I should start with a little Sultan ward history. What makes this ward famous is a ridiculously missionary minded member named Brother Styles. His basic philosophy is baptize, baptize, baptize. His wife asked him the other day, after 27 years of marriage, *Why are you so focused on missionary work?* At least he admitted it. He sighed and said, *I*m just obsessed.* He*s great. One of the most intense people I*ve ever met, but he*s amazingly smart too. So the Sultan ward is somewhat divided. Half of the ward sides with Styles and wants to help everyone receive the blessings of baptism and confirmation. The other half suffers from doubt and disbelief as to whether the new members can stay active. It*s been cool though, because what most of them don*t realize is Styles works just as hard at retention as he does at baptizing. He*s only one man though. If everyone realized what we*re doing and helped, we*d probably retain 100%. Every Sunday after church, we have a fellowshipping lunch. Every Saturday night, Styles buys a ton of ingredients for lasagna. He pays for it all out of his own pocket, brings it all to our house, and we make four pans of lasagna. The missionaries do all the work, throw it together, organize the lunch, cook the food, and all the members have to do is bring the less active members and the recent converts. It*s amazing. Yesterday we had 60 people at the *lasagna dinner.* I*ve become the master lasagna maker. There*s a lot of work to be done here and sometimes things get really crazy. I actually haven*t been this stressed in my entire mission but it*s cool though because I can see how the Lord is actively keeping me from completely losing my mind, curling up in the fetal position and weeping bitterly. I owe Him a lot and I can never fully repay all that I owe. The Lords' will will absolutely be accomplished.The only variable is our own personal salvation and joy with those souls after this life.I couldn't imagine standing before God next to the person with whom I failed to share my testimony.Having to apologize for all the blessings that individual missed out on because I failed to open my mouth is a hell worse than I can imagine. God*s speed, Gentlemen --Elder Crandall