Stake Conference

So we had stake conference yesterday and on Saturday. It was really good. We have a sweet stake president and he's super funny. He's also in one of the wards we cover. It also happens to be the ward that is struggling with missionary work, and has been struggling for a while. And it's also the ward that the first counselor in the mission presidency lives in. So we're not sure why it's struggling but we're making plans to get the work going. The problem is basically the members don't think the missionaries care about their ward so they don't care about it either. We're just going to do a bunch of active member lessons and see what comes of it. Other than that not too much happened. We've been trying by a bunch of people and been having very little luck all week. Hopefully this next week is better. We basically did a bunch of service all week. We also have this investigator who went to Bible college or whatever you do to become a pastor, but he requested a Book of Mormon because he was wondering why the college was knocking the Mormons all the time so he wanted to find out what they're all about. He's pretty open to what we teach him, but he also researches a lot of anti stuff, but he takes it with a grain of salt, but we're sure he also takes what we teach him with a grain of salt. So we end up answering a lot of questions that he has that are totally irrelevant. We'll see what happens with him. He also doesn't want to come to church because it's three hours long, which is funny because he studied to be a pastor... We also got a Book of Mormon request for this weird dude who just got out of the shower when he answered the door. He was all wet and shirtless and apparently he believes in pagan gods and bad dental hygiene. Specifically Thor and Odin. It was an interesting experience.

Elder Naegle

Springfield round two

So this last week had a lot of good byes for Pea Ridge and Metfield and I was actually really sad to leave some of the members there and some of our investigators. But Republic and Chesterfield is pretty good. My new companion is a goofy dude and he's awesome, we get along really well. He's got three transfers left and I've got four so we're both at about the same time in our missions. We both want to work hard and finish strong and we like each other so it makes it a lot easier to do that. Our biggest problem is that we get along too well and sometimes just talk instead of study, but we're working on that. We've got a pretty nice apartment. Some other missionaries before us brought a huge carving of Jesus Christ's face into our apartment so we just have a huge face watching us all the time. We cleaned a bunch of junk out of our pantry and fridge the other day and we threw away about a couple hundred dollars worth of food. Some of it was expired some of it was just junk that we shouldn't be eating anyways. We've got some good investigators in Republic. One guy has been reading the Book of Mormon faithfully but he won't come to church until he gets his answer but we're seeing him tonight and we've got a solid lesson plan for him so we'll see what happens. We also taught this other investigator last night with some a member couple and it went so solid! She apparently used to be super turned off to the Book of Mormon but the missionaries taught her and she warmed up to it, and she loved the Plan of Salvation lesson. We taught her the word of wisdom and she was already living it and believes in all of it! Even the coffee and tea part! She goes to another church, but we invited her to stake conference this next week and she said she would come then she told us: I'm not going to tell my church because they're super judgmental. She's so solid. We have a few other investigators, but I haven't met them so that will have to wait til next week. Chesterfield is struggling right now but we've got a guy that the missionaries taught the first lesson to last week and he was a referral and we got a referral the other day that we still need to contact and then we actually got another kind of referral for an old lady that's had some struggles with her husband running out on her and draining all her bank accounts and stuff while she was dying in the hospital, so we're going to go talk to her and see what's up. So things are looking up. We've also got an anytime fitness right near by that we're going to work on our summer bodies with.

Love

Elder Naegle

p.s my new address is 1600 Windmill Way Apt F205 Republic MO 65738

this is Daniel Poe

This is Tanner, Zach and Vicki and Rob Ingram. They're so awesome

This was the District in my last area.

 This is Kimberly and Katherine left to right

This is the Andreasen family from Metfield. They're probably my favorite members there

This is Bernadette. She's a less active in Metfield and she always tells us crazy stories 

This is the Curries, they're awesome! They're my other favorite members in Metfeild

This is the Sperrys. They're awesome and my other favorite members in Metfield. They actually know my grandparents. #smallworld

Transfers

So this last week was kinda strange. Not really. We had MLC on Tuesday and that was really fun. It is always good to get instructed by President and Sister Loveland. One of our investigators has really started picking up steam. His name is Daniel. He lives out in Garfield which is basically the boonies. He's actually really sincere and wanting to learn. Even though he would seem to be kind of a backwoodsy guy, he is actually pretty sharp so that will help him. He just needs to read the Book of Mormon and he knows that because he says it ever ytime he asks a question pretty much. I also had exchanges with Elder Brown in my district and that was a blast. We had a great day and then we built a fire in our backyard and roasted marshmallows. They were super old marshmallows so they didn't taste that good. And the chocolate we had was really thick so they weren't the best smores. Also I found out a day later that the graham crackers were expired as well. But they still tasted good. Elder Brown and I had a really good heart to heart and he helped me out with some of my struggles so that was a tender mercy. The only other big thing is that one of our members has a girlfriend who is agnostic and her family is atheist. She came to church the a couple of weeks ago and then watched some conference and then came yesterday. Our stake had a mini-mission which was really fun, we had to lead district meetings with teenagers and it was difficult because they don't know how to be missionaries. Anyways her family was making fun of her for going to church because they're all atheists and she stood up to them and said that she knew she felt something and that she was going to keep going to church. So things are going pretty swell right now. But we got transfer calls the other night and I am actually leaving to go back to Springfield Missouri. I will be serving in the Republic ward as well as the Chesterfield ward. I'm actually going to be in the same district as my old area so that will be a good time.

Love ya'll

Elder Naegle

General Conference

Not too much happened this week. It was actually a really slow week. But we did have General Conference and that was fantastic and greatly needed. Zach was baptized yesterday and it was a great event. His mom was crying right after his dad baptized him. It's been such an awesome experience to work with that family. Tanner talked at the baptism about how much better their house has felt and how much better they've gotten along as a family since he got baptized and his family started coming back to church. So it was great to be a part of that. On Friday we went to the mission office to turn in some driving records and President Loveland asked us to take a truck up to Joplin which is like an hour north of us. So I got to drive in a truck while my companion drove our car behind me. It was a nice time to be alone for once. Really the only other semi-interesting thing that happened was that we helped the Sugar Creek Elders do some service. We went to this one lady's house who had to move out or something. Anyways, the place was the most disgusting place I've ever been in, and I've been in some disgusting houses on my mission let me tell ya... All we did was move some heavy stuff and then fill up some black trash bags with books that they were going to take to the library. This lady had literally thousands of books. So yeah that's about all.

Elder Naegle

Director of Proselyting

So nothing too exciting happened this last week. But Zach is finally on date again, so that will be good to finally get him baptized. We're shooting for the 2 of April. We're pretty sure he can answer all the baptismal interview questions already so he should be fine by then. It will be interesting having a baptism in the middle of general conference... Also Kimberly and Katherine will be getting baptized this Saturday. If they can pass the interview... We went over it with them yesterday and they didn't remember as much as I was hoping they would but I think it will be ok because they've been having a ton of crazy stuff happen since they committed to be baptized so if the devil's trying to stop them then it must be good right? Also on Thursday we had MLC, and you might be wondering to yourself, Elder Naegle, you're not a zone leader anymore why did you go to MLC, well I'm not but they invited all the district leaders in the mission to come so I got to go. We had a guy by the name of Bro Hemingway come and instruct us. He is the Director of Proselyting, or something along those lines, for the entire church. He is a genius and he taught us some neat stuff. Basically he showed us how we were not using Preach My Gospel to it's fullest capacity. It blew my mind. We also had stake conference which was really good. President Loveland spoke in the Saturday night session and he totally called out all the parents and told them they should make sure their kids aren't looking at pornography it was funny. Actually, that's pretty sad when you think about it.... Anyways I think that's it other than we have zone conference on Friday and hopefully it's all about what we learned at MLC because I've kinda forgotten some of the stuff and you can only record so much in your notes.

Elder Naegle

This last week was pretty slow so there's not that much to talk about. But, we did set some baptismal dates with these two young girls. Their mom is a returning member and they are 10 and 11, I think. So I'm actually excited about that because they are excited about it and one of them takes her Book of Mormon to school and shows it to her friends and stuff so they're both pretty excited. Then on Sunday a member brought her niece and her niece's husband who are looking for a church and they had some questions about the church and I think they enjoyed the services, even though we had some strange testimonies, there wasn't anything that bad. So hopefully we will be able to sit down with them tonight and teach them a lesson, we have dinner with the members who brought them so they're trying to have them over for dinner as well. So that's about it really, we have stake conference coming up this weekend so that will be really good. Then we have general conference not too long after. And then suitcoat season is over and I'm officially done with suitcoats, except for church and meetings. So yeah that's about it.

Elder Naegle

Life is better when you know the truth.

The subject of this email is a quote from Tanner, our recent convert. The branch presidency had him get up and give a little testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday and he did an great job. He is so stellar. His younger brother is going to be baptized not this Saturday but next Saturday so that's fun. Their family is doing so well, especially for being inactive for over 10 years. Another cool thing that happened was that we had a non-member couple just randomly show up to sacrament meeting in Pea Ridge. They said they liked it and that they'll probably be back next week. They will most likely live in the Metfield area or even Sugar Creek but we cover Metfield and if they live in Sugar Creek's area we're going to teach them anyways because there's no reason for them to drive past our building to get to the Bentonville stake center. Um, the only other cool thing that happened was that Elder Sosa and I got a gym membership today and so now we can work out every Monday. Other than that things are going great!

Love,

Elder Naegle