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

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  April 27, 2015

Area:  North Little Rock, Arkansas

Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Salamancas,

We had a pretty interesting week, here are some highlights-

We had dinner with a lovely Hawaiian woman, Sister Kircowski, who runs the Primary. Living with her is Sister Jackson, a four foot two German woman about eighty years old. She told us about how when she was a little girl she was baptized, but her parents told her nothing of the gospel so that she wouldn't accidentally blab about it to the SS. She remembered hearing a man shouting on the radio and tried to ask Mother why that man was shouting, and she was shushed, having to wait till they were home for her question to be answered. "That is our Fuhrer, don't say anything." Mother explained. She remembered Jewish people being rounded up onto traincars and going away. Later when she came to America people would ask her what she knew about what happened. She didn't know anything and when it was explained and shown to her she realized that's where they were taking her neighbors.

We went to meet someone one day and ended up running into Joe, a guy Elder Reed met with Elder Johnston during an exchange. I had not met him and he was pretty out of it, but was telling us to come back another day. We said a prayer with him and during it he draped his arm around Elder Reed as he gave the prayer.

I found some powerful salsa in a missionary apartment we closed down. It was delicious.

We are making excellent progress with one of our investigators, Dwayne. Last night we taught him the first half of The Plan of Salvation with a senior missionary couple, the Cheney's. Pray for Dwayne, that he continues to make excellent progress and receives powerful answers to his prayers.

-Elder North

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  April 20, 2015

Area:  North Little Rock, Arkansas

Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Otters,

First full week here serving with Elder Reed in the office. Most exciting news is that one of our new investigators came to church! Dwayne and two of his young kids, he seems very excited and we will be speaking with him and his fiance more in the coming week. We've got a few other investigators between our chores.

One of the major things we did last week was update the contact list of the Mission and update all the Missionary phones. We wrote up the list and put it on one phone, then placed it on a blank phone. From there we double checked it and were able to have two phones with all the contacts. We had the missionaries delete their contacts so we could give them the right list. We ended up having to drive to Memphis at the last second to go handle that last meeting because the phones quit on the Assistants, who we had tried to instruct on how to do it themselves. 

For P-Day last week we did a little touring of Little Rock, riding a trolley and visiting the Heifer center. Many cow puns were uddered.

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  April 13, 2015

Area:  North Little Rock, Arkansas

Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Frankenstiens,

I am now serving in North Little Rock with Elder Reed! He is from Murray Utah. He's been out one transfer less than me and it is fantastic!

Our calling and are is unique, we are what is called "The Office Elders", or "The Moving Elders". We close apartments, get people furniture, help run the Mission Office and do whatever else the Mission President needs done offhand that he doesn't give to the Assistants. It is a time consuming job as we still do all we can to proselyte and teach the gospel at any opportunity.

This may be my final area and I look forward to it very much! I have a unique calling and an excellent companion.

-Elder North