I had to rely on Heavenly Father so much!

Looking south from Norwood into Cincinnati, with Kentucky beyond.

hey dad! so it was a good week, it flew by. seems like yesterday we were emailing hahaha. yep, we have the university, the zoo, and all those cool skyscrapers hahaha. we have all that stuff, we are wanting to go to some of it on p-day one of these days. the training was with Elder Bennett, it was so good, the food was good too hahaha. the apartment is pretty nice, and also spacious, I like it. thanks for sending the advice, it will help. so we have a few solid investigators that we teach, but they are "eternigators" unfortunately. g*****, who I mentioned last week, he found a job at a bakery. the stake patriarch is in our ward and he owns the bakery. G is doing well now, he has been coming to church lately, which is awesome! then we teach a young adult, A***, he is a funny guy and lives with his fiance. we have taught him a few times but he has yet to come to church while i am here. then we have a few other less actives we teach. we found 7 new investigators this week so we will see how they pan out. it is starting to get really cold, like in the 30's, but it has not snowed on us yet. it doesn't snow much here supposedly, just rain. i just can't believe i have been out almost 4 months! so far we don't have anyone for Thanksgiving, but we are maybe going to go to a member family if we can't find anyone, they told us we could if we have nowhere else to go, and maybe have our own with some elders in our district. there are not nearly as many trees in the city as there were in Batesville, so it is a lot different. that really sucks about utah dropping in the polls, but good for all the other teams. i heard that the Bengals finally lost? idk. thanks for all those sports updates, i really appreciate it! you have a great thanksgiving too, dad! I will make the best of it, that is for sure hahaha, thanks so much for all you do to keep me out here, i know it is a lot. I love you so much dad! have a great week as well! talk to you later!

hi mom! so this week went by crazy fast! me and elder n are getting along so well! we go to bed laughing hysterically every night hahaha, we have a lot of fun while doing a lot of work. so i wrote about our investigators in dad's email, so you can read that to find out about them. one cool miracle with g***** this week, he called us and elder n answered and he told us that he didn't want to do the "mormon thing" anymore, because he didn't think he was going to get the job he needed desperately. so elder n promised him that if he came to church one last time, he would get a job, and he did! that just goes to show how when we promise things in the name of the Lord he will follow through with that promise. it was an awesome miracle! that is way funny advice from brother ricks! haha tell him i will be sure to do that hahaha that is way cool about mia's play, tell her congrats for me and good luck. that is a crazy miracle from that boat trip story of Sister D, that is amazing. i like the analogy, covenants really are what keep us afloat, and they bring so many blessings when you live by them. they are huge blessing. this week i had to take over the area with a greenie, and it was super stressful. i had no idea where i was going, and had to rely on heavenly father so much! it went well though, i was able to find my way around on the buses okay, probably thanks to your prayers! so on that same day, we were going to go visit a former investigator, so we got to the house and stepped onto the porch and all of a sudden the door opened and this guy walked out and said "angels! come in!" and so i was like, "okay!" we went in and he locked the door and sat us down and started telling us about how he was shot by a beam of light and now he can warp televisions with his eyeballs! so we listened to him for a minute and we were like, "we have to go man, sorry," and we left. then i remembered that elder n had warned me about a week prior, that the guy in that house has a mental illness. so yeah, that was my crazy story for the week hahaha. thanks for sending my supplies! for christmas, i might want some sweaters and some thermal garment bottoms, for when it gets really cold. i am going to buy a sweater today, but i could use some more haha. and by the way, my gray suit is now too big in the jacket, the pants are fine but the jacket is just too big, i shrunk too much hahaha. should i send it home or save it for later or what?

Mom: Well, that is a crazy story about the guy who can warp televisions with his eyes! haha

I am glad your week went well and went by fast. That helps when that happens, huh? Sounds like you and Elder Nielsen ARE having fun together, that is good. You two looked like good friends in the pic that was posted of you guys on the mission facebook page. I like the story about Elder Nielsen promising G he’d find a job if he came to church.

Amy is here and she says to tell you hi from Aunt Mimi!

Sweaters! Jake liked having sweaters, so I will check that out. So your suit coat is too big? You should hold onto it, you will probably come across a member or someone who knows how to tailor it and can cut it down for you. 

Elder Sed: if you do the thermal garment bottoms, i need the 28-30 size waist, and by the way, i still have a six pack! i am just a little smaller, but me and elder neilsen do 50 pullups everynight before bed. So i heard it's been really cold in utah?

Mom: Thanks for all the pictures! They are awesome!

It has been cold, but not too bad. About 40 degrees for the highs. It hasn’t really snowed yet, though, but supposedly it will on Thanksgiving.

Are you figuring out the buses okay? Someone I know from there suggested that you get help from the students on the campus, they would know the buses really well. Maybe you have already figured that out. 

Elder Sed: yep hahaha, sadly we don't make it to the campus much though since we live 20 mins out of our area, and it is a one hour trip one way to get to campus.

so what is going on at home? and by the way, i hope you know i have not told you the half of all my stories hahaha i have a lot saved up, some funny, sad, scary(not bad), and some crazy cool spiritual ones too.

Mom: Well, I have told you pretty much what’s going on at home, just the usual school, work, theatre, callings, etc. Nicole is starting to show! Everyone is doing well. Dad has a cavity haha. 

Elder Sed: i look so young in that picture from the mission meeting hahaha, but i am starting to get people who say i look 18 more and more haha!

it was great to hear from you! thanks for all you do for me! I love you mom! I love all you guys! have a great week! talk to you later!

Elder Sedlacek

My comp and I are greenie-busting each other

Hey dad! so it has been a long week. i am in cincinnati! and i am with elder neilsen. we came out together and we are greenie-breaking each other!!!!!! it is crazy. we are the only two missionaries in all of cincinnati and it is a crazy place! people get shot all the time. i love it though, it is so funny to talk to everyone. we talked to a guy at the bus stop who was rolling up a joint in front of us! we have no car, so we have to ride the buses everywhere we go, and since our area is kinda sketchy we live 20 minutes out of our area in a suburb. i will tell you more in the general email as usual. we have a few investigators, but they are eternagators. one named g***** is really hard headed and is about to become homeless. we have a few others i have not met yet, so i will tell you more about them next week.
thank you for that story from your mission, that really applies to me right now, coming from small town indiana to MASSIVE cincinnati, where you hear gunshots all the time and there are very few white guys, that really helps me. the first few days were really hard, because the bus routes are so confusing to me, although i will get the hang of them. i wanted to be able to help elder nielsen so bad, but it was hard not even knowing which bus stop to go to hahaha. but yeah, we have all of cincinnati and downtown, so i have officially been to cincinnati, it is a cool city. thanks for all the sports updates, i love hearing them! that really stinks that utes lost. again thanks for all you write to me every week. It really means a lot. i will tell you more in mom's email, of course, but i always like to write you, thanks so much for all you do for me dad! you're an awesome father! i love you so much! talk to you later!

hey mom, so this week was crazy, my new comp came out with me,  but i did not know him for most of the mtc. his name is elder neilsen, he is from utah. we are greenie-busting each other! we are the only two elders in cincinnati! we have all of downtown, and all of the outside ghetto! it is crazy we walk down the street and always smell weed, and hear gunshots and hear the f word. we see almost no white people. we have to ride the buses because we have no car and we live 20 mins outside of our area. so yeah, we have to ride the bus everywhere we go, even to get into our area. the buses are super confusing to me, i am trying to figure out how they all work. 

 

we have a few gators, i don't know much about them yet, i will tell you about them next week. although we found a few new this week! i love the new ward. the bishop is a great guy, he already had me speak on sunday! everyone loved my talk, but i thought it was crap hahaha. the ward mission leader is awesome too, he was one of those 18 month missionaries and he takes the work very seriously, which i love! 

 

elder neilsen is a great guy, we get along really well, and we like to talk about hunting and lifting hahaha. we will probably still be friends after the mission at this rate. he is a farm boy, he farms cattle for steaks, so he has that farm boy strength hahaha. i am still in the same zone, so i see elder heumann when we have meetings and stuff. but anyway, yesterday i had the impression to talk to this guy who was out raking his leaves. we were needing 3 more lessons to hit our goals, so we went and talked to him and he is an awesome guy named b-- we are going back to teach him. we also found a new gator the day i came out, it is nice to see so many people to talk to all the time.

 

yep, dad's mission story really did hit home for sure, i knew when i read it, that it must have been an impression since dad doesn't tell too many mission stories hahaha. thanks for the prayers, i definitely feel them. yes, in my talk i did tell a small joke hahaha.  i have known elder nielsen since the last 2 days in the mtc when we had an infield orientation, i met him and he has been in my zone the whole time, so yeah we were both excited to be comps. Jordan Bell served this exact area, he is in my area book, hahaha. yeah, ask him for referrals for us or something hahaha, he is a legend out here. all the older missionaries know him and i tell them i know him and even spoke at his farewell. hahaha

 

 

I have pics to send, but the computers at our church, don't have a slot to put the card in, i will send them later. i have a few of really great view of all of cincinnati and our apartment. 

well i have to go now, it was great to hear from you. oh yeah, i will probably buy one of these cool suits from jc penny for like 70 bucks if i can find one on clearance, just wanted to let you know.  it was great to hear from you, i love you guys so  much and i pray for you daily, keep up the hard work! talk to you later! you will probably get some pics next week! love you mom!

Elder Sedlacek's first transfer, and tanning a squirrel hide

And we thought we had lots of leaves to rake every year.....

 

Hi Mom!

hey, you did use my pot! i knew you would use it eventually! thanks for sending the pic of it with the meatballs in it. were the meatballs good? how did the pot work? 

 

anyway, i have some big news, I AM GETTING TRANSFERRED AND ELDER HEUMANN IS STAYING!!! he will be here for 9 months now! now, i just have to pack up all my stuff and hope i get a good area and companion. 

 

this week went by slowly, unfortunately. here is the excerpt from dad's email about the lessons this week: it was a slow week for lessons and finding new people. we barely made our lesson standards this week and it really sucked hahaha. we taught that kid named B****** a few times, we read the Book of Mormon with him and i asked him in the middle of the lesson how he was feeling? he recognized that he was feeling peaceful and i told him it was the holy ghost. we are just trying to get him to read on his own. same goes with RD, he is really struggling to read the Book of Mormon, but he loves coming to church. we had an awesome miracle with a new investigator though. we went to A****'s, the less active we are working with, and one of his friends was there. the friend swore up and down that A**** called us over because he was there, which is not what happened. he left the area of the room when we taught A****, but halfway through he started to move closer to us, and then asked if he could join in. now he is interested in learning more! that was just the awesome miracle that we needed. we had been having a rough day, and i was a little trunky just because we had no one to see. they either did not answer or we had just seen them the day before, so it was really nice to see that Heavenly Father was still there, and the verse in D&C 84:88 had come true. 

 

so i have some more good news--the mission puts out some faith scriptures on blue flashcards that we memorize, there are like 17-20 of them, and if you memorize them all and pass them off, you get a cool OCM pin that goes on your jacket. i got them memorized after having made a personal goal with pres.porter to have them done by the end of this transfer (which ends today), so i will pass them off tomorrow at transfer meeting and get the pin! heck yeah!!! 

 

i have no idea what my A1C was because they don't have a diabetes doctor at this Batesville clinic. they just did the blood test, it took like 15 mins and then another half hour to do all the info, hahahaha that was really funny to me how the lady was like, this is not an emergency, did you freak out at first? hahaha it was really weird to have you on the line and me right there, I could hear you! thank you though for getting the info! i will have to ask for my results from sis porter or something. 

 

that is awesome about mia's play, tell her great job for me! and the same for the sacrament, i am glad that helped for you, it really helps for me! and yes, a member told us yesterday at church, that is so crazy about the gay marriage issue, i know it is for the children's benefit, but the world will not see that, they will probably give us so much backlash hahaha. anyway, what is going on in your neck of the woods?

 

Mom: Yep, I used your pot. It worked well. The meatball recipe was a new one, Brown Sugar meatballs. They were a little spicy and sweet, and I liked them a lot.

Augh! I wish you knew your A1C!! You should probably just call Sister W to find out, she would probably know more than Sister Porter, since she is the nurse. I hope they sent it to Dr. Lindsay. Yes, it was good the lady said, “This is not an emergency.” Because then I could breathe a sigh of relief! Although with the call coming from “Batesville” on the caller ID, I thought it was most likely going to be a member or something, so I didn’t freak out much.

 

That is a great miracle you had! And great job on memorizing all those scriptures!!

 

So, no idea where you are going? That is crazy. Jake always knew beforehand. Do you need supplies? How much do you have left? 

 

Elder Sed: right now i am doing good on supplies still, i still have about 3 boxes of sites and cartridges, and i am good on strips, so i think you will have my address before i need anything hahaha but yes, i have no idea where i am going, so yeah i have the butterflies hahahaha

 

Mom: I do not know how you have 3 boxes of sites! Are you changing it every three days? It would have to be a miracle if you are and you have that many! 

 

Try not to have the butterflies too much! Wherever you are going, it is where HF wants. Remember your blessing where it says you will have angels all around you. I know they will be there as you transfer. 

 

Elder Sed: hahahaha, i don't know, i am changing my site about every three days, i don't know how i have so many. i will try not to be too nervous--it is very important to remember that Heavenly Father is always involved. and this just in, Elder H is training again! i have a "brother!" hahaha!

well, have i got a story for you, this week i was on exchanges with a farm kid from cedar city, and we wanted to find a dead squirrel to tan the hide and so over the course of the day we found a freshly killed squirrel that a  hawk dropped right in front of us! no kiddding! and we took it home and skinned it at lunch, and now he is tanning the hide hahaha so now i can do taxidermy! hahahaha

Mom: Well, that is hilarious that you had a squirrel dropped right in front of you. I still think it’s crazy, you tanning squirrel hides. 

 

Elder Sed: i have to go in a few. thank you so much for emailing with me today and keeping me updated! is there anything else, madre?

 

Mom: Nothing else. We're so proud of you! Keep up the good, hard work! 

 

Elder Sed: i have to go now, i love you guys so much, thanks for all you do! talk to you later!

-elder sedlacek

 

I have been out three months!

This leaf dwarfs the one he sent a picture of a couple weeks back, and part of it is broken off!

Hi mom! so this week has gone by super slow, but fast, can't explain it. i am glad you liked the pic from zone conference! it was an awesome one! Zone conference was about the sacrament, and also how we can get LA's and our investigators to church. Pres. Porter is going to be a general authority, i can see it now. he taught us how the sacrament can renew every single covenant we ever make, even temple covenants. i thought that was amazing, so in sacrament meeting i tried to really focus on feeling those same things as i did when i first went to the temple, and it worked! it was so cool to be able to feel that in the chapel. 

 

i had a few exchanges with the DL in lawrenceberg (Elder Bayly), and i took over this area for a day with my ZL (Elder Lemeux) he is so funny and it was a lot of fun. we got a lot of work done though; we found this old investigator who had been taught but fell through the cracks or dropped--i don't know--but he answered the door when we were 225ing and immediately invited us in! it was crazy! we taught him about the Book of Mormon and addressed his concerns. then with E. Bayly, we had a huge miracle. we were not going to hit our goals for the day so we sat down and said a prayer to help us, and i immediately felt a very clear direction to walk, and we quickly found a promising 'gator that wants to be baptized! 

 

i just pasted all that from dad's email hahaha. but yeah, when i was with Elder Lemeux, we found a couple three gators, all from 225ing. we also picked up a new gator, who had been taught before, B******. he is a teenage, and we have known him for a while, but he just recently gained interest again. we gave him a church tour and taught him about the restoration and he said he would be baptized if he finds out this church is true. he is solid. 

 

this week, the ward had a trunk or treat and dinner that we went to, it was fun. i got several beanie babies (the stuffed animals) that a brother was handing out hahaha. they had a TON. i got a few of my favorite hunting animals including bears haha. there is a guy in our ward that told me he would have us over and let us try squirrel haha. oh yeah, my most favorite food here is Cincy chili, there are several restaurants that have it, and it tastes pretty good. other than that they just eat what we eat in Utah, although some people like to eat the massive squirrels they have here, they are literally everywhere, and huge!

 

Indiana is a crazy place. Bro. P told me the other day, that i have completely lost my "Utah twang" and i am picking up the accent here. i will have to show you how they talk here when we skype. 

 

thank you so much for the package! and yes i do like baby ruths, but you got close with the fave candy, it is actually three musketeers haha but they are way similar, just one has nuts hahaha. Sis. C showed us your facebook page hahaha and i saw the posts with the blog, it looks really nice! thanks for running that. i am still good on pump supplies, and i need to talk to the mission nurse to set up the a1c, this week. that is good about church and all the stuff going on, thank you for all the updates mama!

 

Mom: I am glad you like the blog. I would like to try and change the url though, to sedlacekscalledtoserve. Don't forget your A1C--Dr. L needs to see it before he can sign off on you driving.

 

that would be a cool new url! but yeah it looks really nice. i will get the a1c set up asap, i was busy with exchanges all week and meetings and trainings hahaha. i will probably have to call sister w {mission nurse} tomorrow or tonight. i tried to talk to sister porter about it, but she directed me to sister w since she woud know about that stuff, she is supposed to call me apparently, but i will call her.

 

oh yeah i am probably going to go on exchanges with elder cox, a lawerenceberg elder this week, the one that tans squirrel hides in the apartment, he is going to teach me how.

 

Mom: Learn to tan squirrels on your mission?! I never expected that. 

 

yeah, hahaha! it's going to be fun. i got some carving blocks last p-day, i am carving an elephant, that is the ear in the pics i sent.

 

that maple leaf is literally twice the size of the other one i sent! it is a foot wide! and the top part is broken off!

 

Mom: That leaf is enormous! We don't see leaves like that in Utah. So, what did you do on Halloween?

 

we had to be in by 7pm and we read a talk, i listened to it twice. it was faith in Jesus Christ by Gene R Cook. it is on lds.org--it is really good! i also did a mini work out. also, we were allowed to go to bed at 9:30! it was so nice to get 2 hours extra sleep. although i woke up at 5:30 am the next day and was ready to get out of bed hahaha! is there anything else i need to know, madre?

Mom: No, I don't think there is anything else. You DON'T need pump supplies yet? Are you sure?

 

yep, don't need them just yet, i will let you know, thank you! thanks for all you do! i love you guys so much! keep up the good work, and have a great week! i have been out 3 months! love you guys!