6-24-13

Family,

FYI my new address is:

7011 E 13th st. N.

Wichita, KS 67206

So DON'T send any more mail to the independence address because I won't get it. And a missionary with no mail is a sad missionary. I saw the picture that Mom sent me of Pennie and realize how old she is. I see dogs here (including wiener dogs) that are still young and brown faced so looking at Pennie is weird. But anyways the broadcast yesterday was super awesome! Seeing all those missionaries singing was sweet! Just think, that was me a year ago! So this is the second mission president's seminar in a row that I was able to watch. I attended last year in person at the MTC gym (the room is named M-1). I'll get into it here in my big letter. But let me tell you about my week. It was one of the most memorable weeks of my mission thus far. 

On Monday we decided to be more obedient than we have been and go to Wellington to shop instead of shopping on Fridays. We also scheduled an appointment to change the oil in our car for today. We taught one lesson that night to a couple we helped move some stuff for down in Caldwell a couple of weeks ago. They go to another church but welcomed us in. They also accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon and said they'd read it. So yay! That was pretty much the extent of our day. Tuesday was the big day. We woke up at 5 to leave at 6:30 (you know how long it takes me to get ready in the morning. Especially that early in the morning). We were to be at the Derby stake center (the new mission office) at 7:30. We got a mini tour of the new mission office and took some pictures with President Keyes. We also saw the new mission home just a few miles from the mission office. It's a super nice home and big too. President Bell will be arriving this Friday. After the tours, pictures, and a few words from president Keyes, we were off to Liberty on the Charter buses. Having experience with many car trips to Provo from SD, the drive felt like nothing and we arrived. They had reserved the whole temple for this special day, getting special permission from Salt Lake to do so. I checked my temple recommend in to a guy from the Fleming Park ward, Brother Phelps. It was good to see him again. After waiting for everyone to check in, I was the first one up the stairs and into a locker to change into my whites. We had a wonderful endowment session. Every single seat was full. Is it a new thing that the church is separating  the telestial and terrestrial rooms? I feel like that's the trend in new temples. But maybe that's just me. This temple only had 1 endowment room, I'm pretty sure. But I loved feeling the spirit of the Lord's house again. It's been a little under a year since I was able to go into the Lord's house. It was a great experience being in the celestial room with President and Sister Keyes and so many missionaries, exceeding the amount of persons allowed in this one room. I will never forget that sight. After changing, we went to the Liberty stake center for about an hour of singing and testimonies. The sisters from the Independence visitor's center came and sang the new Kansas, Wichita mission song, written by a missionary in the Independence side. The spirit was so so so so so strong. Elder Dansie (not to embarrass him) was a waterfall of tears. President and Sister Keyes were crying like crazy, and the rest of the missionaries made an encore of sniffs. Then the sisters sang "God be with you 'til we meet again." Again, tears were flowing. After testimonies from the newly called AP's Elder Taylor and Elder Stratton, we all loaded on the buses and departed. We saw president and Sister Keyes on the sidewalk waving and crying while doing so. We drove through Salina and down to Wichita on the way back, the super long way. It was awesome to be able to speak to the Wamego Elders that are serving there now. A lot has changed since I've been there. We got down to Wichita at 11:30. I tell you what, I was tired. It was an hour after my bedtime and we still had to drive home. The AP's then told us to sleep at the Auburn Hill's basement that they live in. So we obeyed (good thing too because it was getting super stormy out there) and slept in our church clothes with no toothbrush or mouth-guard or anything on a couch that curves, making it quite uncomfortable. We got permission from our mission president that we could sleep in the next morning. I fell asleep after 12:30 and slept until 7:30 the next morning. We wanted to get home and shower and stuff. It was a great trip and probably the best memory I have on my mission thus far. Later, we got back to the daily grind. We met this former investigator who said he's "taking a break" from religion for a while. I thought that was interesting how he said that. But that was the extent of our day. I fell asleep before 10:50 that night and didn't wake up once, which never ever happens, until 6:30. I was dead tired (I mean DEAD tired) for the next 3 hours or so. I feel better now, thankfully. That day was pretty uneventful, other than us walking around all day. So let's just skip to Friday, shall we? It wasn't too much of an eventful day either. But we did get some high-potential investigators. I hope they start investigating because they will need the gospel. Saturday was a pretty blah day too. It being wheat harvest season, Caldwell was a town with a hustle and bustle of farm equipment and trucks. It's kind of cool to see those columbines cut the wheat. Did you know Kansas produces the most wheat out of any state in the US, therefore the world? And did you know that Sumner county (the county I'm in) produces the most wheat out of any county in the state? It's true. We drive by a lot of bread on our way to certain places. We went out to South Haven that day too. I've never been out there because it's so far away. But it was cool to be able to meet some people too. Most of them, seemingly, aren't interested. But we met this one lady that lives in Wellington  that seemed pretty interested. Hopefully we can catch her and tie her down so that she can listen to our message. Sunday was another great day. We used no miles yesterday so anytime you can do that, that makes it a pretty darn good day. We had ward conference so President Williams, the Wichita stake President, came to ward council. He seems like a really great man. He gave some great insight on how to bring back less active individuals by talking about the savior and His mission. He also spoke in sacrament meeting talking about the same thing. He was talking by the spirit, we could all tell even though he had an Ipad, he was just going by what we needed to hear. What a talented speaker that is. We also had our monthly potluck after church which comprised of pulled pork. It was quite good. After walking around in the heat and proselyting for the next couple of hours, it was time to return back to the church for the broadcast. Not many people showed up for it. But I absolutely loved the broadcast. It was such a wake-up call to our ward leaders here to get a ward mission plan going and a ward mission leader called. When it was talking about the ward down in Oklahoma and how they were getting 2-4 member presents per week, that's exactly what we're getting right now. Hopefully we can get the ward involved enough to be granted some miracles. It will be a great day when a member is excited to show us their friend they brought to church with them. The spirit of God was there and we were very happy to be able to be touched by it. The whole night, I felt like the people of King Benjamin who said that they believed all of his words. I just didn't have a tent to point to the temple. Well, this was an amazing week and I am glad to be a representative of Jesus Christ at this time bringing the world His truth one person at a time. Let me know if you have any questions about my week or something to the point.

Sounds like you had a busy week this week. Now that school AND work is out, it's time to partay, right? Thanks for the pictures of the geodes. I probably should've known that but whatever. Wow! That's so cool that Jaromy along with a couple others got home from their missions! I bet they're happy. Is he going to Montana as a set apart missionary or just him? You never told me if the Hepworths were moving back in or not. From the looks of it, it sounded like they were. Keep up the member missionary work everybody! I hope y'all have a great week and bring many souls unto Christ. Love you!

Elder Sutherland

PS: "Patrick, may I take your order?!"

"I'll have a...uhhhh.....*snore*"

Snap snap snap; "Patrick, go be stupid somewhere else."

"Uh uh uh, Mr. Squidward."

"The ceiling is right, Squidward. You're not a very good employee."

"Ugh. Fine. May I take your order?!"

...

"Squidward, just remember: POOP."

"Patrick, may I suggest you order a Krabby Patty"

"Good idea, Squidward. One Krabby Patty please."

Sigh. "Is that for here or to go? DOH!"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh............"

Smash smash smash smash.

"It's all right, Mr. Squidward. We'll sheck on these 2 later."

Sorry, Cody for slaughtering that quote. I just remember the part where Patrick says the ceiling is right. That's one classic episode.