6-3-13

Family,

This was a pretty good week. The weather has been really nice to us and I am really grateful for that because it was hot the week before, haha! I got a letter from Caitlin and Billy and also another one from Tyler Winston. I thank them for the letters. 

All right, on Monday all we had was a great lesson with one of our most promising investigators. We also had a team-up that was able to come (finally). But that was the extent of our Monday night. It being P-Day, nothing else really happened. Since it was transfer week, we didn't have district meeting on Tuesday. So we went up to Wellington and just had a normal day up there. First we did some service for a less active guy in our ward. (We did like 4-5 hours of service this week and almost stuff every day). He needed help tearing out these trees whose seeds blew over from his neighbor's yard. He had tons of them. The roots were so far down underground that it was going to take all week to get all of these things out! So after tearing out a couple of them, we stopped. We accidentally left some roots in there too. So hopefully they don't grow back. He had 2 options. 1, keep his garden and tear out all the trees or 2, administer poison to his whole garden to kill the trees and everything in it and wait 10 years for it to recover. After realizing that it would take lots of our time and his effort, he decided to do the latter. I got super sweaty from this and it reminded me of doing yard work at home. The trees kind of reminded me of the tree behind the shed. Is the tree still there or did you take it out? So yeah. After changing, I got super tired and we went over to Belle Plaine anyways. Later in the day we had a good lesson with one of our top investigators. She's been struggling to come to church because she stays up all night smoking up a storm and sleeps all day. So that doesn't help. Although we got her all ready to go last Sunday and the member that came and picked her up didn't knock loud enough. So she wasn't there. That night (Tuesday night) we got our transfer calls. Only a total of 46 missionaries in the whole mission were affected by this transfer. And we weren't affected at all. I'm still with Elder Dansie. The only missionaries that were affected by this change in our district was the Auburn Hills Elders. It came kind of at a surprise to them but it happens...just as it did to me in Wamego. Wednesday was another day filled with service. First we had an appointment in Bluff City that fell through. Then we had service with another less active. We were going to help him install a car cover but the wood he didn't have the wood he needed. So he just had us help him install an outdoor shed. He had everything up except the floor and the door. So we just helped with the door on a blustery day in the hundred acre wood. Their neighbors had pet ducks and roosters so it was fun to listen to their cute little noises. It was really rainy that night but I enjoy Kansas storms out here. Later after dinner we talked to this one less active guy that lives in Harper. He told us that he is going to another church with his wife. I was heart-broken as he said that. Why don't people just get it? Moroni told us that there will be many churches these days that will seek to get gain and be proud in their hearts. The state of the world today is quite alarming. On Thursday we had simply EVERYTHING fall through. We did, however, talk to this one less active couple that hates our current Bishop because of money. After scheduling appointments, going down to Anthony, and trying everything we possibly could, dinner with the Leavitt's finally arrived. Later, we saw one of our potential investigators. He has a bad sailor's mouth but enjoys us. I think he's hilarious...not when he swears, just when he talks to his neighbors. His one neighbor ran inside when he saw him approaching with us. But another one of his neighbors was really nice to us and actually turned into one of our newest investigators. He's Mennonite but we shared a little about the Book of Mormon and invited him to read and pray about it to which he agreed. I was also exposed to have him tell us about the NBA Eastern conference finals. I hate it when people tell us about sports. You can talk about the sport but not professional please. That was the extent of our Thursday. Friday we were in Wellington again. We had a good lesson with our recent convert (although she didn't come to church!) and then a little later with another recent convert. We read 2 Nephi 25 with him. Reading that with him really solidified my testimony of the Savior. Isn't it a good one? We went tracting later on and were very successful in finding a couple new investigators. One of which seems very promising. We have an appointment with them tomorrow at 5 so hopefully it goes well. We also taught a couple other people on the same street. It was nice to actually sit down and talk about the gospel to people. Even if they aren't really interested in the gospel, it's nice to plant that seed, you know?

After tracting, we were over to one of our investigators to help her move. She's moving to Midland, Texas with her family. She was going to be baptized for sure had she stayed but she's moving now so we'll hope everything goes well down there in Texas. Mom, are you familiar with Midland at all? I was just wondering. She and her fiancee were looking through their wardrobe when they found this Chargers jersey. He being a huge Raiders fan said chuck it. He got it as a joke back when he lived in California for his birthday. His friend was a big Chargers fan. So lo and behold it ends up in my hands! Even though it's LaDanian Tomlinson, I'll take it. It cost I'm sure like $130 so I'm happy, haha! We helped move her stuff into a storage unit and it all fit!. On Saturday we went down to Caldwell. This is where I saw the Lord's hand working. We were walking through town when we walked past this auction. There was a man on the side of the house which we were walking who was trying to get an organ into the horse trailer of his truck by himself. We offered to help which he gladly accepted. He also needed help putting this fridge and stove in there too. He got all this for probably a total of $12. He was super grateful and his wife offered us like $20 but we refused, of course. There were lots of people there so it was great to have so many eyes see the good that we were doing. Perhaps that will lead to some new investigators. We had several new investigators that we taught that night in Wellington after dinner. Sunday we had nobody at church. We could've sworn we were going to have at least a couple there. But nope. I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday too so, yeah. Ward council was kind of frustrating because we didn't get to give a report on our week and make assignments for this week. We need to do better preparation when it comes to ward council and team-ups anyways. After church, all of our appointments fell through in Harper. But we did have some cool people that we met and look forward to get to know them better along the way. So, yep! That was my week for you.

Does school get out this week? Are you all eager for the summer coming up? How's Pennie? Sorry if I haven't answered some of your questions. I tend to forget sometimes or space out. I was going to ask you to have you ask the missionaries there about something, but I can't remember now. I should've written it down. Are the Hepworth's moving back in? Let me know what's new! Well I hope you have a great week and enjoy your time off of school!

Love,

Elder Sutherland

PS: Last one of these, I promise. Cody can check me on this one because I'm not sure it's 100% correct.

"Well I married my dream girl. I married my dream girl. But she didn't tell me her credit was bad.

So now instead of living in a pleasant suburb, we're living in the basement at her...Mom and Dad's.

For we can't get a loan for a respectable home; all because my girl defaulted on some old credit cards.

So if we'd go to freecreditreport.com, I'd be a happy bachelor with a dog and a yard."