Here in Hoosier land it is cold, then hot, then freeze-your-skin-off-cold!

About to enjoy some white tail deer meat.

All bundled up for those 21 degree, 90% humidity days.

hey Dad, it has been a pretty decent week this week. we did not see a whole lot of success, but we did find someone new. on Tuesday, we had a referral come in for a Bible, so we had a member drive us out since it was in the middle of nowhere hahaha. but the lady, P, wanted a Bible to give to her friend. we gave it to her and chatted for a bit, and we got onto a gospel topic and then bam, she said something that triggered an impression to share a certain scripture with her, so we shared a scripture  from the Book of Mormon, and she loved it. that was super cool! she owns a business and said she would call us for another appointment. that is not ideal as you know, but we will see what happens i guess.

as for the other investigators, we did see B, he had finally read a little bit, but still didn't make it to church. SD we saw last night and he had not read, so we had a commitment lesson with him. we will see what happens. if he reads, then we will continue with him. the W family just about came to church but the mom was feeling ill. they are also struggling to read, so we have read a bit with them lately also. there is a less active family, the B family, and they have been getting back in contact with us, and  they will be coming to church. they did not make it yesterday because of car trouble. satan is the worst! hahaha.

there was not a lot new this week, unfortunately. everyone is struggling to keep their commitments, and we are doing all we can to find. it is just not working out like we hoped. we were planning the other night, and i was thinking silently, "what am i doing wrong, Heavenly Father?" and i felt an assuring feeling for a moment and then bam! a media referral came in. so it IS working for us to ask literally everyone we see for referrals. eventually the work will take off, we just have to hold faithful.

we have noticed the Book of Mormon supply is behind too hahaha, they are in very short supply for us haha. i bet that was super fun to help with all those service projects Dad, i wish we had more service projects to do ourselves.

yep, it has been cold and windy the past few days, but today is warm enough for just a sweater. that is the way it goes here in Hoosier land, cold then hot, then freeze-your-skin-off cold! haha

sounds like you had a busy Sunday, we always have PEC or ward council each week at 7:30 am. sounds like you gave a pretty good lesson today too, that was what we talked about as well. that stinks the teams lost, come on! hahaha i guess your Cowgirls do know how to play football after all! did they wear their tough makeup? hahaha just kidding Dad hahaha!

thank you for that thought Dad. i really like that, we are all out there searching with lights and looking under rocks--it's the latter days, it won't be easy. but that is what makes us stronger, if we can search hard enough and long enough, and follow the Spirit, we will find those needing rescue. we may find some along the path that don't want to be helped, but eventually they will and they will remember the times that God has reached out to them, and they will gain a testimony of God's love for them. all things testify of Christ, we just have to have the faith to look for those and find them. i too, can testify that Jesus is the Christ and this is His gospel, He is in charge.

thank you for raising me right Dad! it was great to hear from you again, i hope you enjoy your fave pie on Thanksgiving, have a great day! love you Dad! talk to you later!

-Elder Sedlacek

hey Mom, so it has been a good week. it's always a good week hahaha. i did get the package from you, thank you so much! i am good on all other supplies, and i thought of stuff for the Christmas package. can you see if you can get me more of those Dickies slacks i wear? mine are gonna wear out soon, i can't believe they lasted this long anyway hahaha. they have to be the 30/30 slim strait, or they will not fit. the other regular 30/30 are too big, i tried them hahaha.

i got an A1c taken the other day, i should get the results soon. oh, and there is a senior Sister in my district who takes pics of us, look on her Facebook for pics of me. the week went ok, but we did not hit our 20 lessons, which was sad. we did all we could though, i am just tired of things not working out. we have exhausted our area book, and so it's tough to find people with nothing to go off of. i wrote about the 'gators to Dad, and that pretty much sums up all that happened.

a funny story--we did meet this super old guy, he had a DUI cause he rides a scooter, we call them "Deweys" cause they are driven by people who got their licenses taken away from too many DUIs. he was the typical Hoosier, he had all the signature hick sayings and we could hardly understand him. it was super funny to me. i love Hoosiers, they are crazy funny. 

those service projects must be fun, we are in need of doing service but no one lets us help. i am actually emailing Elder P lately, he sounds like he is still adjusting? but maybe not, because training takes some time to get used to. a greenie breaker will help him out. 

i do remember the trees at our old house! that is funny they got rid of the fence and stuff.  congrats on the writing Mom, i bet it is fun to write all that stuff. that is what you love hahaha. we got special permission to watch the Cokeville Miracle with the W family, and man, that movie had me tearing up at the end! me and Elder Nelson are such babies with that stuff hahaha.

God loves all his beloved children. he is saddened by how the world is going right now, but he trusts each of us to make the right decisions and to follow through with his teachings and the gospel. i am so thankful to be a part of this glorious work. it is hard, and we are not seeing all the success we desire right now, but the Lord will bless us for our efforts and make small things become great! thank you for all you do Mom, it means so much! i love you Mom!

well got to go now, thanks for everything! i love you all so much! have a great Thanksgiving, i will see if they can send pics for yah! talk to you later!

-Elder Sedlacek

Being transferred teaches me to be patient with myself.

Emails from Monday, March 30th. 

Hey Mama,

I am doing great! I will be emailing from Milton-Freewater about this time, I would suspect. We email from the church clerk's office because there is literally nowhere else haha. Milton is pretty dang small hahaha. It's really weird for me to be going from a place the size of Kennewick to here. It was honestly kinda of a culture shock, but the people here seem to be pretty nice. 

Thanks for sending me a package! Glad the box got to you guys all safe and sound. I really didn't want to lose the stuff in there. Yep, the temple envelope was made by Mama Splatts. She is awesome! I loved living in her house. It's like the coveted spot in the whole mission, and I got to spend 6 months there. Lucky me huh?

Yep, I wore down those shoes haha. Believe it or not I will have two more pairs of shoes like that when I get home. I have a really nice pair of new shoes that I picked up at goodwill in Kennewick that I will wear @ home.

I didn't remember that Elder J served here a while ago, but now that you mention it I do remember him saying that he served here.

I am DL here over lots of sisters haha. I have 6 sisters, and three other Elders in my district. It's been really fun though, because they are all good missionaries. I am really looking forward to serving them this transfer! I really love to feel the love the Savior has for all his children, including missionaries in my district, so any chance I have to feel more of the Savior's love, it's amazing!

Elder G is a really great missionary. He is super humble and willing to learn. He is just awesome! Willing to work hard and everything. He doesn't really know much about what to do and all that, so it's kinda like I am training him at the moment, but it's good. If I get to help him like that, it's fine with me. I remember when I got Elder R, he was kinda the same way. He didn't have that much confidence, but by the end of our companionship he was doing GREAT! It's nice to help the younger missionaries out. I really enjoy it.

So I live in an apartment with us and 2 Spanish-speaking Elders. It's a pretty nice place. I was kinda nervous when I found out it was a four-man but it's turned out really awesome! They are all great missionaries!

Oregon is super weird haha. Just a dumb law they have is that we can't pump our own gas. They have people that do it for you. You can't even get out of the car to help them. But the good news is that I AM IN A CAR!!!!! It's super nice to finally be back in a driving area haha. It's been a long time. It had been such a long time since I had drove last that it was weird driving again but I am used to it now. We have the car to ourselves. The Elders we live with walk. They have a tiny area.

It is different to be in Oregon but it seems really nice. My area covers some other small towns, like Athena. We also have a small town of Weston. My district covers Pendleton, too, so I went down there this week to do a baptism interview. That looks like a cool place.

 Utes lost!!!! Oh no!!!!

Whaz up Dad,

I am doing great! I have really liked Milton-Freewater so far. It's a pretty nice place. The people here are super. It's just a typical small town environment I am sure I will have the chance to meet lots of interesting people.

The ward is really really huge, but a big percentage don't come. President Ware always tells me to go catch the ward on fire whenever I get transferred, so that's what I am trying to do. I fasted yesterday to know what to do, and I felt like we needed to have our Bishop study Preach My Gospel ch 13. So he is going to read over that and we are going to have a discussion of how to apply it to the ward. It's amazing how much I have learned on my mission. I have learned what helps and what doesn't, so I am just doing what I know worked, and we will see how things improve. I would assume this ward will be my dying area so I'm going to make the best of it!

The teaching pool here is alright. We do have an on-date for baptism who is super cool. His name is _____. He's a senior in high school, and is pretty interested in being baptized. He just struggles with coming to church. He is on date for the 25th of April so pray that he can hit that date! I will let you know more about the teaching pool when I know more.

One thing I love about being transferred is that it teaches me to be patient with myself. It's kinda frustrating for me to not know where I am or who so-and-so is, so it's good to just re-focus myself and work on where I know I can improve.

With being called to DL again, I am really realizing the importance of Christ-like love. I mentioned it in my email to mom, but I really love feeling the love of the Savior for all of his children. Being able to serve as a DL just enables me to feel that even more. It's going to be fun.

We had a cool experience yesterday that reminded me of how God leads us to people who are prepared.

So we were in Milton-Freewater and were just trying by people who the missionaries had taught before, and inviting them to take the discussions again. All of a sudden I remembered that we had a referral for a guy way out in a small town called Athena. It's about a 20 min drive to there, and so we went out there to contact that referral. When we got there, the guy that we had wanted to see was outside so we started talking to him. Turns out he wasn't wanting to talk to the missionaries personally, but he intended for us to come up and visit his friend who has been asking about the missionaries. I thought that was kinda interesting, but he gave us his friend's information, and we went to find him since we had already driven up there. When we got to the other guy's house, he wasn't home, but right when we knocked on the door his neighbor pulled up in a car. We started talking to her because that's what we do--we talk to everyone. Turns out she had never seen missionaries before and was interested in learning more about our religion. How cool is that?!?! We have an appointnment with her this Friday so I really hope it goes well. We really need some more YSA investigators, and that is what she would be. I'm super excited for it.

The name of the sister who brought you my package was Sister N. She just lived down the street from us and had asked me if I had anything to send home, so I put together the package of stuff I had inherited. Glad it got home safe. Yea you can bet that I got every last buck out of those shoes that I could. I wore them until they hurt my ankles to walk in them haha. The giant Rubiks cube I can't solve. It's pretty dang hard. It is fun to play with though. I just didn't have room for it, but I wanted to keep it. Another Elder gave it to me when I taught him how to solve the regular one. It's just something that I try to do with my comps. Teach them how to solve a Rubiks cube. I have been pretty good at it too.

It's too bad that the Utes couldn't pull off the win against Duke. I was hoping they would be able to do it. I knew it was going to be tough though. That's exciting that the Jazz are winning now. I was hoping that would happen sooner rather than later.

Good job on work stuff Dadio. Sounds like things are going super well right now.

Sarah driving? Sounds like I need to be praying for the innocent people of Bountiful Utah. haha.

I like your thought on the what and why Dad. Ironically enough, I was thinking about that same thing but only with my investigators. Lots of missionaries get caught up in teaching the what about everything. Over the course of my mission, I have come to realize that it's not the what that is important in the end. It's all about the why. If an investigator understands why we go to church every week, the simple fact of them possibly not wanting to go to church every week isn't going to matter if they truly understand the doctrine behind it. It's really something that Elder Arnold stressed when he visited the mission. Teaching doctrine (the why), and letting the Spirit teach the what. It's pretty cool how it works out like that.

I know that the gospel is true. It is so amazing how it applies to our lives. It makes me SOOOOOOO happy just thinking about it. I really do have such a love for the gospel. I am super pumped to listen to President  Monson this weekend and all the other general authorities. It's going to be SWEET! I know this church is true. I know the Lord loves his children in Washington and Oregon!!!!! It's amazing to feel it. I know Christ lives. I know our Heavenly Father loves and cares for us as his children.

I love you guys! You guys do so much for me. I hope that the vacation down south will be a blast for you guys. I'm sure it will be! 

Love ya Dadio, and all you other hooligans,

-Elder Jake Sedlacek

Praying for miracles

This week I've had two calls from people in Sunnyside, both so grateful for Elder Sedlacek and all he has done for their area. One was from the Bishop's wife and the other was the President of the Columbia River Temple. Both expressed their love of Elder Sedlacek. I am so grateful they took the time! In other news, Elder Sedlacek is struggling some right now with his new companion and could use all the prayers he can get. Please pray for his companion too! 

What's up Dad,

This week was awesome and pretty tough at the same time. We had the baptism for Steve on Tuesday right before Elder J left. The baptism was super good, and the most attended baptism I have seen on the mission thus far. It was a super good service, too. Transfer day was super fun. I got to spend some time with other missionaries that I hadn't seen in a while. I took some pictures so that was fun. My new companion though is going to be tough, I can tell you that right now. I am going to have to look for the best in him.

Like I said in the letter, our teaching pool is getting smaller each time we baptize somebody haha. It's a good problem to have. I am just trying to keep up the teaching pool with new investigators so we can keep up the same success. That is another reason why I am stressed out. I want to have the same success and it doesn't look like we can right now. I am just praying for miracles. I am working my hardest to go out everyday and find those people who are ready to hear the gospel. 

Sounds like you did really good on your talk on Sunday, both you and mom. I like the quotes you used so the talk was probably even better. Good job Papa!

I will let you know how a couple of our investigators are doing right now since I don't want to write about them all in the letter. The D family is kinda struggling right now. B has been having back problems and so they didn't come to church. That is the biggest problem with them. They just need to come to church. A lot of our investigators are in the same boat. It was cool though because yesterday E came to church for the first time and she really liked it. I hope she starts progressing super good now that she has come to church. We hope to put her on date this week. Well, that is some of our main investigators at the moment. I will write about the others in a letter hopefully haha. I really enjoyed getting your letter this week also. Thanks for sending me one.

Well, it sounds like you have a pretty busy week this next week so good luck on all that. Enjoy the caucus meeting haha. I bet those are no fun. Thanks for all that you do for me Dad. You're the best! I just want you to know that I look up to you and your example even more when times get tough. I know if you did it, so can I. You're the best! I love ya!

I will try to sit down and write a letter to you guys again today. You should get one this week.

I love you guys! Make sure to pray for our goal of 14 baptisms for my district by April 22nd at 9:00 pm. We need all the prayers we can get to help us out.

-Elder Sedlacek

What's up Mom,

Happy St. Patrick's Day haha! I didn't even realize it was St. Patrick's Day, so I am not wearing any green haha. Hopefully I don't get pinched.

 It was a pretty good week. Transfers was super fun, getting to see some missionaries that I hadn't seen in a while. Getting a new companion was, sadly, a different story. I'm afraid he is going to be a test of my patience. But I am going to learn to love him.

Tuesday we had a baptism for S. It was amazing. Probably the biggest miracle that happened this week. We also had four investigators at church so that was a pretty big miracle too, since we had all the baptisms we haven't had many investigators at church. Hopefully, the number stays up.

Sounds like you had a pretty busy week. The house looks super nice by the way. I like the gray paint even with the carpet. It looks really good. You are right though, this week went by kinda slow for me too. It has just been tough. I am stressed because I want to keep up the success that we have been having, and we are trying to find new investigators to teach because of all the baptisms we have had lately. The district set a goal for 14 baptisms as a district before April 22nd at 9:00pm so be sure to pray for that. Pray for us to have success in that goal. That is one thing we are focusing on--praying specifically for blessings we want to come. It really works too. So when you pray for it, make sure to say 14 baptisms by April 22nd at 9:00pm.

That is a super cool story about Grandpa V. I really like it  every time I hear it. Thanks for sharing it with me again Mama. I think that would have been so cool to be Grandpa in that situation. It would have been amazing.

That is funny about Nicole going and kissing a fish. Was it a hint? haha. I am proud of her haha! I wonder what made her go fishing like that though. Did she just go by herself? Mid life crisis haha.

I am glad that you liked my letter. I really do enjoy seeing the changes that happen. I know I have a much stronger testimony of the gospel now because of my mission. That is one of the biggest changes that have happened, and it's awesome that I still have time left to grow even more. That is why I love the mission.

Thanks for all that you do support me Mama and family. You're awesome. I love you guys!