Everyone still asks me how old I am.

 

Mom,

i am glad you liked the letters! how did sarah like hers hahaha?! the baptism went well! before a baptism, we set up the chairs, fill the font, and all that other stuff with the scheduling and the program. it takes up a lot of time. he had to go under twice, and we witnessed the baptism because F**** wanted his neighbor to baptize him rather than us, but we are allowed to in this mission! we confirmed him yesterday at church, and that went well! 

 

other than that it has been a slow week...ugh. This place is "milked dry" as we always say. everyone here has talked to the missionaries before and they don't usually like to listen, haha. let's just say we got a few doors slammed on  us yesterday hahaha. we really need new investigators really badly! we did commit R*** and G***** to baptism. G***** is a girl who never comes to church no matter what we do,  but the baptism will not be for a while anyway, because her dad wants to see it.  _____ wants to be baptized, but his mom won't cut the cord--he is mid-twenties but she still rules his life. hopefully we can soften his mom's heart. we took him on a chapel tour and he really liked it and also wants to come to church but his mom won't really let him. other than that it was a really slow week. we basically just 225'd the whole town again since we didn't have the car. one of the APs really likes me, so he is giving me his bike for free! he is an awesome guy! 

 

hopefully you can get the car replaced, but you never know with insurance haha. tell Bro R that i still remember that! {telling him that diabetes was "a blessing"} he told everyone of the leaders what i said that night in the cabin, and i over heard them, and i was just like "well it's true!" he is such an awesome guy. he taught me so much, he is able to teach so well, he would bring the spirit so strong! he really helped prep me for my mission, i am sure the other guys can say the same! tell him thanks for me, if you would? thanks. but yeah that is the basis for what is going on with me hahaha. just pray for us to find more solid investigators.

 

Mom: When will you find out about transfers?

 

well we get the transfer calls Monday mornings, then leave the next day! so you will probably know by our next email. wait to send more test strips till after that, i think i will have enough! so it would be fine. if you could send me my John Bytheway CD that is on my desk in my room, that would be awesome! and any treat would be good! although I have a lot of candy as you know hahaha. 

 

Mom: What is 225ing? Jake & Jeff don't even know...

 

2-2-5 ing is when you go to a less active's house, or a former investigator or potential investigator, and knock that door, two doors to the right, two doors to the left, and then 5 other doors on the other side of the street. we do that as our "tracting" since we aren't actually allowed to tract. 

everyone still asks me how old i am and they guess 15 or 16 usually. that's good if you think i look a little older hahaha. by the way, if you find a suit that is navy blue, i would love to have it! i need another suit for winter, since we can only wear suits, not  just slacks and a sweater. 

i have to go now, thanks for emailing me! it's nice to hear from all of you guys! have a great week! i love you all so much! talk to you later!

 

It will all work out, I can promise that!

Elder Jared's rendition of the Plan of Salvation.

 

thanks dad, for the updates! that really sucks about the car wreck! i am glad no one got hurt! this week has gone by so fast! the weeks are already flying by! F**** is going to be baptized on the 18th! this Friday, when i first taught him, after we left i said, "he is getting baptized this transfer!"  lo and behold! that was cool. Dad, there are so many more hunters out here than Utah--it's crazy, they all drive trucks down here! outside of Batesville is some rich people, but other than that, it's all people who barely make it, it's sad. i still have yet to see the huge cornfields, that is in northern Indiana, so hopefully i will go there! it would be cool!  thank you so much for all you do, I know it's a lot, i love you Dad! keep up the good, hard work! and good job with the yard work!

Mom, i sent some letters, but they got sent back because of size, so i fixed it and they should get there soon! i am sorry about the car wreck! glad no one got hurt! it will all work out, i can promise that! 

 

i had my first exchange this week with one of the Zone leaders. we went to Norwood Ohio. it is the hood of Cincinnati! it was crazy but i have some fun stories now for later. that was fun, the Zone leader complemented my teaching, he said it was good. 

 

this week has gone by fast! although we only met with 2 investigators, because they all had work! it sucked, but we talked to a lot of LAs and did a lot of 225ing. it was just a slow teaching week, and we are purging our teaching pool again. hopefully we find some more 'gators we can really teach. on Saturday was our social media split, so if you look up #ohiocincinnatimission you will find some picks of me doing service and lessons. we did a service project with Bishop P and he complemented my work ethic! that doesn't happen, he is a very intense man! he is a nice guy though. we met a really interesting guy this week and that gave me some good stories too, hahaha.

elder h is getting better, i started setting more of an example. F****'s baptism is this Friday, it was moved up one day.  i am excited, he is growing a lot! it's cool to see! he is such an awesome guy! my blood sugars are doing well, i am being blessed, it is awesome. how is everybody else at home? i am just doing the same old missionary routine, trying to share the gospel.

 

one of the crazy things i saw in Norwood was a guy who had a turban on his head, a huge robe on that went from his shoulder to the ground, and he was holding a Bible in his right hand, holding it out above his head, and a shepherd's crook that was as tall as he was in the other hand! he was shouting stuff i couldn't hear because we were in the car! today we are going to the creation museum for free with our district, it should be fun.

 

i have to go in 5 mins, thanks for talking with me! it's good to hear about how everyone is doing, tell them i love all you guys and keep up the hard work! can you send me those trek picks for next week?

 

Hard work pays off, that's for sure.

 

 

 

Hey dad! thanks for all the updates and such on the sports! i had heard about the byu and utah games. a guy from the ward took us out to a town in our area of Indiana known as greenburg, and his name is Brother Max Alley. he grew up in Logan and actually knew Jeff's family and dated Jeff's mom in high shcool hahahaha! that was fun to hear that. thank you for all the updates. we had a zone finding activity in the heart of Cincinnati and that was crazy! i got some of the meanest looks i have ever had there hahahaha! 

it was crazy to see all the gangsters driving around in super nice cars! it was the most crazy place i have ever seen! there is almost all black Americans in the city. we met this homeless man who was probably high {Jared doesn't mean blood sugar, wink}, and he was cat-calling women. i wanted to yell at him at first, but then we talked to him a little and Elder H had a prompting to buy him some ice cream. in the ice cream place, we talked to another guy who asked us questions. we walked around the city, and i got low {now he means blood sugar!}  so i had the idea to stop at these benches. we sat down and started talking to a lady that i am sure will want to know more at some point! it was cool to see my diabetes further the work! i will say more as usual in the general email to mom. have a great day! and i love you dad! have a great week!

Mom, you can read about yesterday in dad's email. it was interesting to say the least.

 

i have had a good week. the week flew by! we found a new investigator, T**, in the library last wednesday, and he wants to know more. we are just having a hard time getting in scheduled lessons with all our investigators because everyone here who will listen to us is struggling to get by and works all the time! it is sad to see. we have a lesson planned tonight with some investigators who stopped us in Walmart. F.C. IS FINALLY GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!! he is on date for Sept 19. he made the decision on his own and before he even told his wife, he told us he was thinking about it. we swore not to tell until he was sure hahaha. i am excited, i love that guy, he is hilarious. he is awesome and he is a 70 years old. 

 

we also found an inactive member and we are going to bring him back. he has been in jail and just got out, he wants to change for the better. inside i was yelling, "you goootttt IT!" we also taught  a kid named RD again, but in a public place. this lady came over and said, "church isn't for me, i'm just spiritual," and RD actually invited her to come to church! it was cool. he still needs to come church, but his Gpa is dying and he is very busy with family, but he wants to come. so yeah i had a pretty decent week. thank you for sending my strips! the steak is really good, thank you! about the prescriptions, i think it will be better if you just mail it to me, because there will always be at least a $10 co pay and i can't afford that. {Mom: Why do I find this a little bit funny? wink}

Pres. Porter totally just mentioned me in a letter to the whole mission! he  quoted me from my letter to him:

 

This is what our mission is about! In one week, Elder Sedlacek was living the Power Triangle: 

 

Sedlacek, Jared Logan
Hi president, I am doing great out here in Batesville. I learned this week about patience, hard work, and obedience. as we strive to be exactly obedient we will be blessed and I have already witnessed that. Hard work pays off and that's for sure. we have worked pretty hard the past few days and we have seen results. even though it can be hard to love your comp, you need to be patient with them and love them anyway, so you can be able to teach with power, and the spirit, and call down grace. I love this gospel so much, I have already witnessed the changes that people go through as they accept its teachings and come closer to Christ. thanks for all that you do, have a great week.

By the way, they will have multiple baptisms this month!

i have to go now, thanks Mom! have a great week and a awesome birthday! i love you guys, thanks for all you do! have a great week!

 

My blood sugars have been amazing lately, I know it's because I'm being blessed.

Thanks Dad! 

It's good to hear about all of your experiences at church and work. 

 

I know that through the atonement we can do anything! It is amazing. Thanks for all the advice that you give me! it really helps to know that both you jake and jeff have all gone through this, it gives me more determination to be the best missionary i can possibly be. i love you too Daddio, thanks for all that you do. again i will answer all those other questions in the general email. have a great week, love you!

Hi Mom! 

So this week went by really fast, the days are slow but weeks fly by! can you believe a month of my mission is almost done!? that is crazy. so we had J's baptism on Saturday and it went really well! every missionary in the whole mission was talking about it. 

 

i have finally found what i need to learn from elder h. he has a vast doctrinal knowledge, and knows how to be a missionary. that is what i need to learn from him. he created a bible death star, which you can ask jake or jeff what that is hahaha. {Mom's note: none of us know what it is! haha} We are going to create a death star of the Book of Mormon and the D&C, since I have been counseled to make the Book of Mormon and D&C my constant companions. 

 

we got four new investigators this week and had to drop a few of the "new" ones because they won't answer.  i personally think one of them might have been drunk haha. it is really hard to get people to commit to church around here because of the strong lutheran, catholic and baptist/Methodist background. we have a few promising investigators though: J****, RD, B*****, K****** (one of our neighbors she is a young mom) and a few new ones that we have not met with yet. of course we still have F**** our "eternigator." he is hilarious, they are like the missionaries' gma and gpa. he just needs to take the leap of faith and get baptized, he has been taught everything and knows it's true, he even comes to church every week.  i think it has something to do with his methodist background. 

 

we have had to purge our teaching pool because people just won't progress. it is very frustrating. i am getting along with elder h though so that is good. we finally found something we can relate with, a very funny story that happened to us, i will tell you another time haha. 

 

the people here are very friendly. we got the car this week and we trade off with the lawerenceberg elders every week. by the way, the car is a 2013 toyota camry, very nice and i get to be the designated driver, it helps me feel a little more normal haha. by the way, i had to buy a GPS this week because you can't get around without them, since it is so flat here. it was $107 with tax.

 

Mom, are you sending my test strips soon? i have a vial and a half left, just to let you know. are you keeping track of those so you know the earliest day you can get them, not to tell you what to do or anything i just don't know exactly how it is working out and you know me, i have to know hahaha.

 

my blood sugars have been amazing lately, i know it's because i am being blessed. it's awesome that for those first few weeks i didn't get above 300! it is a huge blessing. so what is new in your neck of the woods?

 

i love you guys, thanks for emailing with me and for all that you do! keep up the good work and i can definitely feel the prayers. have a great week everyone! love you!

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!