We have a teaching pool of about 10, and I told my comp we will be doubling it.

Elder Sedlacek sent us a bathroom selfie.

Dad,
Just keep updating me on the Colts and Bengals and Reds. There are so many fans in this area hahaha. Brother P***** went to the Colts game and sat on the first row 30 yard line Saturday! He is so lucky. I will send you more in a general email to you and mom. Thanks so much for all you do Dad, you're awesome and a great example to me! Have a great day and week at work! Love you so much.

Hi mom!

I have until 11:40 today. Flying in to Cincinnati was crazy--there was lots of turbulence. When we got into the airport the humidity hit me like a train! I was not expecting it haha. I am used to it now though. It is so green here! There is no such thing as yellow grass. No sprinklers in the lawns, the grass, if you can call it that, is mostly weeds everywhere that grows like grass if you cut it, and it grows without sprinklers. 

 

The language here is a little different with lots of funny phrases hahah. They eat the same food as Utah mostly here, so it's not much difference there, just the weather and the size of the towns. They are all tiny! Very rural. 

 

My comp's name is Elder _____ and he is an interesting guy. We live above an appliance store. When I got to the apartment on Tuesday afternoon, I walked in and it was a mess. {Mom's note: Elder Sedlacek is known for liking things to be clean.}  My comp hadn't been cleaning very much. Oh boy! I said, "We have a lot of cleaning to do." So I cleaned the dishes and shower that night after we got back home. The second day, by 5:30 pm we had visited two member households. We talked to F****, a non-member who has been going to church for years with his wife and he just hasn't been baptized.  I didn't think we should spend so much time with members so after dinner we went out personal contacting.

 

We are not allowed to tract! It is strange since everyone stays inside all day due to the humidity. But now we are doing a lot better. We had a teaching pool of about 10 and I told my comp that we will be doubling it. We started working hard with pc'ing and it paid off! Now have three new investigators who are actually interested and one is on date! Sister B*** is the wife of a recent convert and has been going to church for five weeks now without being taught any lessons other than her husband talking to her. She told him yesterday that she wants to be baptized ASAP. So we are going to teach her all the lessons on Tuesday! Then we want to baptize her on Saturday if we get approval!!! Is that awesome! Obedience and hard work pay off.

 

More about my area, we do have a car but since my comp does not have a license and greenies can't drive right off the bat, we can't use it. It is with the Lawrenceberg Elders right now until we can get permission. Hopefully we will get it, until then we are walking, and our area is like 5 towns outside of Batesville so we really are only able to cover Batesville because we don't have bikes. So we need the car pretty bad. In our apartment building we have a free dryer and washer to use and so that is awesome! We also have a dish washer too, but since I can really only afford basic food I don't use many utensils, and so I wash them by hand. 

 

The people here are very friendly, when we walk down the street, we wave at every car we see and they usually always wave back. The members seem to really like me and they have just recently started to feed us a ton which is nice! 

 

My blood sugars have been good. So far, my average is about 140.

 

I have to go now Mom, I love you guys so much, you're all great examples to me. Keep doin' what you're doin' and have a great week!

 

Elder (Jared) Sedlacek's first p-day email: "I feel like I am sinning if I am not doing anything haha!"

Well, the first thing I noticed about Elder Jared's emails is that he did the opposite of his brother. Jake always wrote the most detail about his week in his email to his Dad. Elder Jared wrote a small paragraph to his Dad, but saved all the details for Mom. :) 

Thanks Dad,

I am having a good time here. The spirit here is amazing as you said. It's amazing how we can receive inspiration on what to say when we are teaching the lessons with investigators. Read Mom's email and you will hear all about it.

 

*************************************

 

Hi Mom!

Thanks for sending the family pics, is that all of them? They look good. Thanks for sending my meds. 

 

My companion is Elder Neilson. He is a cowboy  from Hurricane, Utah. He has the whole cowboy accent and all haha. He loves hunting and outdoors stuff just like me. We get along pretty well. 

 

We are teaching three "investigators", 1 on Skype named Hailey, and our teacher acting as an investigator, and a guy named Andrew. I am pretty sure that Hailey and Andrew are members, but they don't tell you if they are or not so who knows? Andrew is a golden investigator. By the second lesson we had taught him to pray and he has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot. We are going to ask him to be baptized next time on Saturday. Hailey we don't really teach anymore because of schedule conflicts and because we are leaving here on Monday morning. She didn't go as well, we couldn't really figure out her needs, so she was hard to teach. Ashley is our teacher and the first lesson went okay until we asked her to be baptized. Of course we botched it and she said no because she is baptized and didn't want to be baptized again. We couldn't think of what to say and ended the lesson. We made up for it, though, and she is now progressing. We will teach her two more times and we plan on asking her to be baptized again. 

 

Tell Nicole and Jeff their "from the journal of Jeff" idea is really good and to keep it up, I like it.

 

I love my district here, they are so awesome. We are like family now practically. We all eat together and everything. We are all going to Cincinnati, except for the one set of sisters and our district leader, Elder Downs and Elder Hanks are going to the Georgia Macon mission. We will miss them. My comp and I sleep in a room with all Spanish-speaking Elders and they are great guys! They follow the rules well and they are very funny hahaha. We will miss them, too. It's weird how all the Elders that come before us seem so much older than us, but they are actually our same age hahaha.

 

My camera is not working. Every time I try to take a picture there is a little yellow flashing light on it and then it turns off. It has full battery and the cards are empty so I don't know what to do. I got some pics though before it started to not work anymore, but just a few. I will send them another time, I forgot to grab the card so I could send them. Some of the other Elders will send pics of us at the temple and such. We went to the temple today and it was awesome. 

 

Sundays and p-days are the best here. You can relax while learning and being productive. I feel like I am sinning if I am not doing anything! haha. The days are really long and the weeks are short just like you said. the first full day I was here was the worst though, I was homesick and couldn't focus, but now I am fine. I love it here, it's fun to me haha. The classes kind of suck though, being 3 hours long with at least two of those a day. Gym time really makes up for it though. You can really let off some steam in there and it feels really nice to actually move for once.

 

I can't wait to get into the actual field though, it will be nice not to have super long classes and to teach real investigators. I have seen a lot of my friends here, even Jake Wilkinson who left in June. So did you guys cry all the way home or what? Don't lie to me. 

 

We are singing in the MTC chior with the National Tribute Band. Look up "John's Song" and " I am born." We are singing those with them this Sunday evening. We will fly out on Monday morning. We are leaving here at 4:30 in the morning! And fly out at 9:40 am. So expect a call in between those times haha. You best believe you will get a call haha. I will sleep the whole flight; I am pretty tired! How is everyone doing?

 

Well, I got to go now. I will talk to you more on Monday. Be ready to get a call, I am guessing most likely around 6am maybe a little later. Thanks for all that you do, I love you guys.

 

Trading one Elder Sedlacek for another

Well, Elder Jacob Sedlacek arrived safely home on July 28th! He served to the best of his ability, and we're so proud of him! Thanks to everyone who followed along with Jake's experiences in the Washington Kennewick Mission!

Then exactly 8 days later, Elder Jared Sedlacek went to the MTC before heading to Ohio in a few more days.

This blog is going to transition from one brother to the other. Stay tuned for the experiences of Jared in Ohio!