Some people think they can discourage us, but they are wrong

hey Dad, so this was a pretty good week as well. it absolutely FLEW by! by the end of the week we had 7 people committed to coming to church and we had followed up with them throughout the week. then Saturday night took a turn for the worse, every single person did not come because of bad stuff happening--one even had their apartment flood. we started getting texts as soon as Saturday night telling us who would not be able to make it. we only had the eternigators at church, and that is awesome, but we had only about half of those people who had accepted dates for baptism. they just needed to come to church to be on date. it was tough, but that only means the miracles are coming soon! 

so we found a few new people this week. one of which is M. she is 18, living with her boyfriend and is a very solid investigator. we found her on Monday night and had taught her the restoration on Wednesday. she really liked the lesson, and even had tears in her eyes. she was way excited to come to church, but hers was the apartment that flooded, so she was not able. we will get her next week though. we gave a few commitment lessons as well this week, those are always tough, they are commonly known as "drop lessons", they decide if you drop people or not. sadly we have not really "dropped" J & A, but they have one more shot to come to church without any help. 

it is tough to stop teaching the people you love and can see so much potential in! all the rest of the investigators are doing pretty well, we just have to get them to church for pete's sake hahahaha. you would think that living in the top of the Bible belt, it would be easy to get people to church, but not so. that is way cool you got to go see the Utes play already, do you have tickets for the season? you must have gotten up pretty early to get those chores done, that is awesome. good work Dad. that is good you are doing well at work, saving lots of money hahaha. 

that is a lot of rain for Utah, that is crazy, hahhahaha, i am going to be like a fish out of water when I step off that plane hahahaha, "water! water!" hahaha. The lesson on the gold plates must have been a cool lesson, they really must have kept such good care of the plates to have them last that long and not tarnish. the Lord definitely protected the plates. it is truly amazing to see how the Nephites only recorded 1/100th of what happened to them, and yet to see how that small portion testifies of Christ so well--think about the other 99 parts. that is way cool you got to go to the temple on Thursday, we should be going soon as a mission, i am excited. don't sweat it about the sports update, whatever you have is fine by me. thanks for the all the other awesome updates you give me though, they are always awesome. 

that talk you shared was awesome, he came to speak with Elder Neil L Anderson when he visited this mission, he is a cool guy. I took some pretty diligent notes during his talk. it seems like I am always wanting to find better ways to remember the Savior at all times and to always have him on our lips. we can't ever let ourselves go through a gospel discussion and not testify of the Savior. all things are possible through Him and because of Him, we must always include Him. I am so grateful for the mission that i have served so far, it has been tough, but it has been the greatest blessing in my life. I know that because of the Savior i am still out here serving and I can continue to serve and help bless others' lives. it is a great opportunity to be able to defend the faith and the Savior every single day, it is awesome! I love you Dad, it was great to hear from you. thanks for being an awesome Dad! talk to you later! love you! have a great week!

-Elder Sedlacek

hey Mom, this was a good week. i wrote a lot about what happened with church in Dad's email. as for the rest of the week, we had found a few new people to teach who seem pretty nice. i wrote about one of them, M, in Dad's email. M shows a lot of promise, that is for sure. 

the best thing that happened this week? hmm...that is actually a tough question. we had a lot of miracles this week as usual, but it was probably teaching M the Restoration, or teaching another investigator, L, the restoration as well. he is really excited to be baptized and thanked God in his prayer at the end of the lesson for "guiding him to Mormonism." when we recited the first vision, he was acting like he had heard it before and was just smiling and super happy. then he said he was feeling the spirit and described it to us. that was sick! 

the most challenging thing was probably not having any of those people who had accepted dates for baptism come to church. that was tough. it was also really funny--we were 225-ing a referral and we bumped into this guy who had supposedly been a missionary for another church. we approached him and he just let out this huge sigh. he then just looked back to what he was doing. we started asking him if he would be interested and he just said, "NEVER." we said "do you know anyone who could use this message?" and he was just like "NO," and so we were like, "well hey, have a nice day sir." he immediately replied with "You have a bad one!" we got back to the car and just started laughing. it is so funny when people do that to us! hahaha they think they can discourage us, but they are wrong. hahaha 

that is crazy, you had a busy week then huh? good job Mom, you got a lot done. that is awesome. i am excited to meet my nephew! maybe we will get to Skype with him if he is born in time. that is way funny about Elder Hale looking like a native. i figured he would--that dude tans like nobody's business. that is good he is doing so great. 

i really like that analogy for women and the priesthood. i might have to use that some day, thanks. it is true, we do everything because of the priesthood. i am so grateful to be able to use that power. it is truly amazing to be able to bless people who are sick or need comfort. you truly can feel the love that Heavenly Father has for those individuals when you give blessings--it is amazing. that must have been a great lesson. 

if you could mail me some strips this week before transfers next week, that would be great! thanks Mom! that is so cool A.P. got his call! that will be such a cool mission, he is going to love it. the people from that area who live here all have such a strong faith in the Savior, it is sweet. 

i am excited to Skype on Mother's Day. today we realized this next transfer is President Porter's last. i have 3 months til my year mark, and we get to Skype very soon. time is going by way too fast, it is ridiculous! well, that is what i have for this week, how you doin?

Mom: I am doing great! What are you doing for p-day today?

we are heading to Dayton and touring a Masonic temple with the Zone Leaders. it should be fun. i have to go in a minute, is there anything else Madre?

Mom: Do you need anything else besides strips and lithium batteries? 

nope, i am good on everything else. well, i have to go now Mom. thanks for emailing me! i can't wait to Skype with you guys! have a great week, i love you Mom! talk to you later!

-Elder Sedlacek

I have learned to avoid contention at all costs. I know that is the opposite of how I used to be haha

hey dad, so this has been a great week. we beat about half of our goals and we had a lot of grace to help us do it. we went on exchanges twice, so i stayed here both times and took over the area. that was fun, especially since it was for two days in a row hahaha. elder sutton came back and said, "I haven't slept here since Tuesday," and it was now Friday night! 

as you probably know we have about three investigators who could be baptized at any time; however, because of difficult family circumstances, it seems pretty bleak that they will be baptized this transfer. we have been fasting and praying to hit our goal of baptisms for this transfer, but we have no idea how we will hit it. I do know that if we trust in the Lord things will happen. all of our other investigators did not come to church this week, so the ones that did accept the date of May 7th cannot be baptized then. so we have been fasting a little bit hahaha. 

we had a pretty trying week--we even met an anti Christ. that is the fourth person this transfer who has tried to anti us in some way; two of them just this week. we are doing well though. we are working with a few less actives: DB, the B family, and a few others. they are all pretty tough nuts to crack, but they are good people. they are the ones who have been offended in the past in some way, so they just need to feel loved and listened to. 

What you said is true about reactivations--they are just as good as baptisms. i have had two or three reactivations so far. 

hey, that is cool you got a new computer, i bet it runs pretty sweet. that is awesome. so you still have the old computer running? 

hahahaha you finally had to mow the lawn then? we have been mowing lawns here for weeks! hahaha since like early March and late Feb hahaha. Utah folk are the ones with dormant lawns in the winter hahah. just kidding Dad haha. 

I bet that was fun to go fishing with Jake, and dang that is a lot of fish you caught. you bet your boosh hog {Mom: No idea what "boosh hog" means!} i will be goin there when I get back. that is way cool. it's fish fry time haha. 

that is too bad that the Jazz lost, darn it. that is crazy, so many earth quakes, i haven't heard about a single one of them. being on a mission is like being in a special bubble where you only see the bad stuff immediately around you, but you don't know anything about anywhere 50 miles away! hahaha you are also surrounded by the spirit all the time to add to it hahaha. 

the stake pres. has asked all the members to join a service site called Just Serve, look it up, justserve.org. it would make for some good FHE's.  Elder Holland's talk was one of my favorites from conference, it was really good. We can really rely on the Lord, we cannot allow our selves to get discouraged when things seem rough and when we don't experience what we want. we have to remember that the Lord is in charge and He is watching out for us. the Lord has his own timing and we have to be grateful for the blessings we receive. i know this church is true, we are coming into the last days and this gospel will  guide us along as we follow the Savior's teachings and as we live the gospel. I know that we can be examples to the world and as we let our lights shine others will see it and will follow along. thanks for emailing me dad, your support means so much to me, it means a lot! i love hearing from you dad. i love you! have a great week, i will talk to you later!

-Elder Sedlacek

hey mom, so this was a pretty good week. it has been in the 80's all week long, and very humid hahaha, it never dries out here, just gets more and more humid and then dumps a butt load of water on us and repeats itself hahaha. 

sadly, we didn't get to meet with all of our most promising investigators, just due to people not keeping appointments. we did not have the car, so we had to have members take us to some places we can't access without one, but they had to bail on us too due to getting stuck at work and such, it was a tough week for that. we even got kicked out of a trailer park when we were 225-ing L because she bailed on our appointment. this guy just walked up and told us to "hit the road" over and over again, so we could not even explain that we were visiting someone and just asking the neighbors about when she might be back hahahaha. 

on Saturday we rode the bus to the church that morning, and on the way i saw this lady sitting there reading out of the Bible. she was reading James 1:5 out loud to herself, just loud enough that i could hear it, and i was like "no way!" i had just sat down on the bus, so i gave her a card and started talking to her, and she was very interested in learning more. sadly, she doesn't live in our area, so we sent out a referral for her to our STLs {Sister Training Leaders} and they contacted her that day and got her committed to church that night.  she is super solid. it was a pretty cool tender mercy to find her. 

at the church that Saturday there was a child's baptism going on, so while we waited for the other elders we went in and sat down. the spirit was super strong and this particular family, the mom was just baptized and the dad recently reactivated. i realized that as 18 year-old boys, the Lord allows us to be able to strengthen families just like this one and bring them together. it is a huge blessing to be a part of things like that, and i started crying too hahahaha. 

we had interviews with president this week, he told me i am an excellent missionary and a great finder, but i am not bold enough with moving people to their next steps. so he wants me to learn to do that. i really focused on that this week with the exchanges we did and it helped a lot. since {an earlier companion} i have learned to avoid contention at all costs. i know that is the opposite of how i used to be haha. i HATE contention, so i have to just be fearless and loving when i am bold with people. 

that is good that you are getting some nice weather in Utah. that is cool you are helping out at the school, i bet that is fun. hahaha funny Dukey, that crazy dog. that is good he has been being a good boy. 

i am sorry about your cousin's boy {recently diagnosed with T1D}. Diabetes is tough at times, but definitely he will learn a lot from it. he will come closer to his Savior and will learn about his Heavenly Father in a way that only diabetes and trials can teach him. diabetes is a curse and blessing, but Heavenly Father knows he and his parents can handle it. it will make them grow to who God wants them to be, just as he has done with me. 

well i hope the Young Women fundraiser goes well, good luck. that sounds like good church meetings this week. ours was good too, they had me bear my testimony of service in sunday school, and i got to wear my freshly fitting suit. it looks nice, i have grown big enough again that my shoulders are as big if not bigger than they were, so the jacket fits pretty well now. 

In answer to your question, the Book of Mormon became important to me when i was reading it one night back when i was going through those "challenges" in high school and I read Helaman 5:12 and it hit me like a train, that i could read the Book of Mormon and actually get a lot of comfort from it. it was no longer just a book we read to learn about God. it was something that i could turn to for peace and comfort. that is one of the times that changed my view of the Book of Mormon. i know that it is true and that we can come closer to the Savior than by any other book if we read it with an open mind and focus on the message it shares. I love reading it! 

The pictures show my sunburn, and a member took us out in his 1969 AMC Javelin, sick! that car ain't no BOOSH HAWG hahaha! it was pretty fun to ride in. and it turns out humidity makes me burn easier haha. oh, and I am up to 275 pull ups a day. 

mom, in my next package can you send some lithium AA batteries for my pump? i am almost out and they are more expensive here--about 10 bucks for 2! that would be much appreciated, thanks!

okay, i have to go now. thanks for emailing me mom! thanks for all you do. i love you mom, and i love you all, have a great day, and week. talk to you later and remember that deli meat is awesome! Skype you in a few weeks! bye! 

-Elder Sedlacek

If you do the same things, you will get the same results

hey Dad, this was a good week. we didn't find a whole lot of new people this week. we were mainly working on getting our existing investigators to church. we would love to hit our baptism goal for this transfer, but sadly a lot of our people were busy so not a whole lot of them came to church, just the usuals. we had a really powerful lesson with V***** the other day, and we were able to distinguish his need and share what would help him, but we didn't have a lot of time with him so we are going back later this week. he is going to bring his whole family to church! I also had a way strong impression to extend a baptismal date to him of May 7th, so he is going to be working towards that date. since he has not been to church yet, after this week he will be on date if he makes it to church! we got a few referrals this week and we were able to 225 around them because they didn't answer, so we found a family while doing it and that was pretty awesome. there is a new guy who moved into our apartment complex that we helped move in. his gf that he is living with is the sister of a member, so after we and the other elders helped him move in he invited us back to talk to him. it was crazy, he is a welder so he is super strong--we tried to pick up a couch but before we could he came and put it in one arm and hefted it into the storage shed by himself! hahahaha the guy is huge. it was a cold wet week, in fact it is raining right now hahahaha, but luckily we had the car this week so we stayed pretty dry. we are currently trying to work with our less actives, that is what the bishop wants, but what you said is true--if you do the same things you will get the same results. thanks for reminding me of that dad, we will definitely try something new this week. i am glad that bro. A is getting better. that is cool you got to go to the Bees game, hahaha that's just like Mom and Sarah to get bored of it. don't worry dad, you will have guys to hang out with again eventually! hahaha  so the jazz might make the playoffs then? that would be really cool, and i am glad the Reds are doing well, that is super cool. that must have been a good lesson in priesthood, and in Sunday School, that is good. we had our testimony meeting as well, and it was super awesome. the spirit was super strong and a bunch of the members who help us out a lot by coming teaching with us bore their testimonies. i realized that even if lessons with members fall through, we are not only allowing them to receive blessings from coming but we are helping to strengthen their testimony. that was an awesome revelation. it is cool we have even more pioneer ancestry, that is good you got those straitened out. i like those thoughts from conference, that is definitely true we need the temple to help all of God's children to be able to receive salvation. the temple is such a huge blessing, i can't wait to be able to go at least once a week when i get back--looks like you will have some work for me as well hahahaha. the temple truly makes it possible to have eternal families. thanks for your advice Dad, i will definitely try something we haven't tried yet. thank you for your testimony and the thoughts you always share with me to help me. thanks for always being there for me; missions are not easy and it definitely makes a world of difference to have your example and words of advice! well, thanks for emailing me Dad, i  love you! have a great week, talk to you later!

-Elder Sedlacek

hey Mom, so this was a good week. i wrote a lot about it in Dad's email, well a lot for me hahahaha. it it is cool you got to talk to JBell. i am doing great, loving the mission. we had a pretty good week--all was pretty good, just not any of the new people came to church. We did have a miracle, a member girl brought her friend to church that we talked to previously. she lives in our area and she is going to see if her mom is okay with her taking the lessons, so that was super sweet. we were able to get a lot of members out with us this week, and that was awesome! 

wow, your weather has been better than ours, as soon as the suits come off, it goes cold again, although it is still nice to just wear sweaters and stuff. wow, the deer haven't eaten your tulips? they must be sick or something! hahaha that is crazy; i am still not used to seeing almost no deer. i saw one yesterday, and a small coyote as well, a few days ago in a farmer's field, but that has been the most i have seen in weeks! 

elder Sutton and I are are doing well. we get along pretty well and work together well. the most challenging day was probably Wednesday, we had a scary encounter and elder Sutton was freaked out a little bit. i helped him feel better then it was alright. Wednesday was also just a slow day in general, and a less active refused to come teaching with us even though we had such a strong spirit in our lesson and that was the most powerful testifying i have ever done. 

that is cool the Laurels are getting to go to mission prep, that is a useful class. that is good you are staying busy hahaha. that is good Nicole and Jeff are getting stuff for the baby. i am excited to see the pics! haha Jeff probably will ball his eyes out when he's born hahaha, same with Nicole hahaha. that would be cool if he shared Grandpa Sed's birthday. 

that must have been a cool lesson you had in Young Women. that is super cool the spirit was so strong. we taught L*** yesterday, and the spirit was pretty strong when we talked about Joseph Smith and the restoration. i have been studying that a lot lately. JS is really amazing, he definitely was a true prophet of God, i have really strengthened my testimony of that while on my mission. the heavens have truly been opened, i am so grateful for this gospel and all that the Prophet Joseph did to restore it, i know this is all true. well Mom, thanks for emailing this week! 

it was great to hear from you mom, I love you, i love all you guys so much. have a great week and i will talk to you later!

-Elder Sedlacek

The family is a huge gift from God.

hey dad! this was a good week. i loved conference, it was awesome. there were some really good talks. we did get to watch it at the church building, and my favorite session was the priesthood session. it is true--we did the same thing at the same time hahaha. we found a few more people this week. since we didn't have the car, we had to use the bus, which doesn't cover all of our area, so we had to walk a lot and rely on the members for transportation a lot too. on Saturday morning, we had an awesome lesson with the guy (K***) who elder parker and i had found when we had the prompting to give him a pass-along card. we with our ward mission leader before conference and had a super powerful lesson with him. we pointed out the spirit he was feeling after the story of the first vision and he felt it but could not describe it. it was cool. as we were leaving,  he was feeling kind of under the weather with a cold and wanted to go back to sleep, so we left and as we walked out, the JWs walked up to the porch. we just said, "Hey guys, catch you later" and they did not look happy at all hahaha. they meet with him on Saturday mornings, so we just started laughing because he was going back to bed. that was my favorite part of the week other than conference. right now, we are teaching about 25+ lessons a week. it was really sad because our most progressing investigators didn't make it to conference because of work and stuff, so we were pretty bummed out haha. i will write about the two  most solid new we got this week in mom's email. we also had another anti come and talk to us. that is two of them in the last two weeks, we must be doing something right! haha it is starting to amaze me just how much we know about God and His true nature.  I am glad you guys had fun in Moab. I love Libby finding lizards and stuff all the time hahaha. i am glad you had a good time. i bet it was pretty cool to see that Rocky Mountain sheep. the most animals i see around here is a dead raccoon or possum every 100 feet on the side of the road hahaha.  in conference, there was definitely a focus on temples and Lehi's dream a little bit too, and a lot on families. i really liked the talk in priesthood session, i forget who it was, but he talked about being men and standing up to those expectations. i loved Elder Holland's talk too, it was really good, you best believe that his talk is going to end up in one of my mission's pump up videos hahaha. all those new temples will be way cool, thanks for the info! thanks for all the sports stats as well. as usual, thanks for all you do dad! it is nice to be able to hear from you each week, thanks for being such an awesome example to me in showing me how to be a "real man!" thanks for always being there for me as well. I love you dad, have a great week, talk to you later!

-Elder Sedlacek

hey mom! so we had a good week. I loved conference, i wrote a little about it in dad's email. we did get to stay out a little late for the priesthood session, and the ward provided ice cream before it, so i did get my priesthood session treat fix hahahaha.

me and elder sutton get along great, which with my record probably means we won't be together after this transfer, sadly. my favorite part of the week was conference. one of my favorite people was a new investigator we found from a referral--L***. oh my gosh! she is a fun lady who likes to talk about history and tell us stories from her life hahaha. we met her on Friday night.

i have to go back through my notes, but right now it was probably Elder Holland's talk for my fave, but there were some really good ones. i just have to look back through to really decide. i did find a few things i felt like were for me, but i was really focusing on investigators. we also had another referral for some investigators who moved from another ward to ours. supposedly they are infamous eternigators who are young and live together. they are both pretty interesting people hahaha so they were pretty fun to meet. we tried to get them to church, we tried our hardest, but things just didn't work out.

that is super cool that the cincy reds are starting up, sick! that is good you got to avoid all the bad weather when you went to moab. that is cool you got to get all the way up to Delicate arch, i am glad your knee worked out, good job mom! i bet that was fun to be able to go with everyone. i am glad you had a good trip. i will have to try that pizza, it sounds good. i am looking forward to those burgers hahaha.

that is good you had the baby showers, that must really help Jeff & Nicole out. have they named him yet? that is cool everyone was able to come over for conference, i bet that was fun. it was a really good conference for sure, i like all those quotes you liked, thanks mom! i like the Elder Rasband one, that is a good one. that is definitely true, the family is a huge gift from God. i look around, and the family is not always important to everyone out here. it is sad. i am glad i was raised by you and dad to be able to know and learn of such a great family. thanks for raising me right! well, that is pretty much it for this week. 

oh, suit season is over now, and my black suit is done after wearing it every single day for 6 months haha it is down to threads. so i either need to find another suit or tailor that gray one so it'll fit me again. hahaha

well, i have to go now mom. thanks for emailing me as usual. I love you mom, love you all! have a great week! talk to you later!

-Elder Sedlacek