Letter home From Elder North

Date:  June 15, 2015
Area:  Lakeland, Tennessee
Companion:  Elder Bunderson

Dear Clocks,

We had an excellent lesson on Saturday with a woman named April. We had been trying to get in touch with her for a while and are glad we were finally able to. She had a friend over and together they are definitely interested in learning about the church. Hopefully that interest includes a willingness to pray.

Just earlier we helped a new family move into the Ward.

I've got my letters from the mission informing me that I need to get ready to go home. I suppose when you get to the point that the mission is informing you of how little time you have left that you ought to at least try and look forward to what comes after mission life.

Keep up the good work and I'll be seeing many of you soon. Read the scriptures, because they are the words of Christ.

-Elder North

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  June 8, 2015

Area:  Lakeland, Tennesse

Companion:  Elder Bunderson

 

Dear Rapscallions,

 

We did a number and variety of interesting things this week. We saw the new Angel Moroni get placed on the temple. We got to toot the horn of the old one and then we helped load in the new baptismal font. They had to remove the front doors of the temple and we got it in there, then had to lift it up. We laid it on the railing for the night and came back the next day to help after they had built an A-Frame above and around where the font needed to rest. We pushed it out to the center resting on six boards, hung it from the A-frame by chains and removed the boards. We then lowered it down into place. Pretty crazy, it weighed 1500 pounds! No one was crushed.

 

We performed 2 tests to try and finalize how transfers will be done. I thank Dad for the advice to talk to Stake Technology Specialists, that got us in touch with Brother Day, who knows his stuff and is training Elder Bunderson on it.

 

I see you had a good time in Chicago, good for you! It seems like an exciting place.

 

We are going to have another major meeting on Friday this week with Elder Kopischke, but apparently there will not be a bus like last time...so getting there is going to be fun!

 

Keep praying for the missionary work, but not just for the missionaries, but to recieve and recognize your own chances as well to share the gospel!

 

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Dear Highbloods,

The advent of the iPads is now going to arrive in the mission as of Thursday, where we will likely leave the meeting with them. They already introduced them in the Mission-Wide meeting last week. Elder Bunderson and I may have some specific responsibilities with them on this side of the mission but so far they haven't given us any major, concrete jobs to do.

We'll probably go fishing with a guy and his wife that we met while walking around. That'll be neat.

We don't have a lot of major things going on since we both just got here, but that should start picking up soon. The members feed us absurdly well so we have been meeting with people in the ward each night.

Remember to do your home and visiting teaching!

-Elder North

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  May 25, 2015
Area:  Arlington, Tennessee
Companion:  Elder Bunderson

Dear Cemeteries,

I am serving in Arlington 2, very close to the Lakeland area I served in before. A very interesting thing that happened this week was we had dinner with The Garret family, and Chad Garret was one of Grandpa Terry's Boy scouts! He shared with us how Grandpa would circumvent a Merit badge requirement he considered dangerous. He found the Whole 'air pants balloon' thing for the swimming merit badge to be too dangerous too often and instead would follow the instructions to the letter in such a way that they would not have to do it normally.

Biggest surprise on my Mission? How shockingly slow so many people are, Christian people, to pray. It is the crux of our teaching as everything hinges on the spirit teaching them the truth of the gospel and if they don't pray it's a tough thing for them to find out!

I've become pretty accustomed to talking to new people, the advice Dad gave me before I left helps. People expect missionaries to talk to them and talk to them about their church. No reason not to fulfill their expectation! Act our part and do what we can.

I had served around my new companion before back in Kennett, his name is Elder Bunderson.

Our address is

9345 Triumph Circle

Lakeland TN, 38002 Apartment #203

-Elder North

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  May 18, 2015
Area:  North Little Rock Arkansas
Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Ghouls,

I am being transferred! Onto a new area for my final run. I had an extremely excellent time with Elder Reed here in the office. Dwayne still wants to be baptized and won't be moving away and despite the many things they need us to do we still managed to do a good amount of proselyting.

This week is crazy for the office elders, with at least four days needing to be spent over in Memphis.

I've got to pack and go to a new area for the last time and I probably need to offload some stuff permanently. I've been taking pictures more so I'll come back home with as loaded a camera as possible.

Congratulations to Mikel for preparing for his mission! It will be excellent all around I am sure.

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Dear Cameras,

Had an interesting meal a few days ago. We had decided to go to a Mexican restaurant called Los Nogales. It was a pretty authentic place and look at the menu I decided I'd get two Gorditas. One of the options was called 'tripe'. I had no clue what that was and asked the Waitress. She said she knew, but didn't really know how to explain it and just said plenty of people ordered it. So I got 1 Gordita with Tripe and 1 with Beef Tongue. The Tongue was really bland and tasteless but the Tripe was pretty good! Later I learned it's some stomach lining of cow. I'm fine with that, I'd totally try it again if it's served to me.

Glad to see everybody doing well. Mikel, prepare well for your Mission! It will be over before you know it. See you all too soon!

-Elder North

We got to speak to Elder North yesterday and it was wonderful.  Here is our whole family minus Jered.  We got to talk to him after.  Bryen comes home in about 50 days on June 30th and then his homecoming address will be on July 12, 2015 at 10:10am at our church 2742 West 14400 South, BLUFFDALE, UTAH 84065-5006.  After we will have some food and you will be able to catch up with Bryen at our house.  Would love to see you there.

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  May 4, 2015
Area:  North Little Rock, Arkansas
Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Butlers,

How soon will Mikel get his VISA? Is it all in soon enough so he won't need to be a VISA waiter?

There are a couple tasks we've been given that I cannot talk about until they either are dropped or succeed. We have been taking inventory of what furniture and items the mission has in storage though. We have several places where the mission stores unused boxsprings, mattresses, desks, chairs and many other items.

We continue to find new people to teach though, despite our constantly busy schedule. We will have a packed week this week though, LOADS of things coming and going. We need to close down some apartments, fix some phone issues and take inventory of the Memphis storage unit.

-Elder North