January 1, 2024 Hey everyone long time no see. I'm doing pretty well out here in Roseburg. My previous companion just left for Springfield and my new comp, Elder Bousfield, is awesome. He's a huge metal head (loves rock) and I am facing endless waves of nostalgia as he plays some of my favorite songs on the guitar and drums. He's pretty good too. Anyway long story short holidays are always rough on the mission. Not a whole lot of people want to random guys to visit their family when the festivities are going but luckily I'm not sick and my companion isn't sick so it could be worse.  Our friends are progressing really well, we are teaching 5ish people and I'm getting a lot better with teaching English. The English class is growing slowly and a couple of them want to come to church! Woo hoo! This year has gone by in a blur, I have learned so much. It's become so much easier to see the good in all things. It is amazing to see God working in the lives of everyo...

 November 13, 2023 I'm back! No clue how long it's been since I last wrote an email so it's time to drop the biggest and most vague update on all that I've been doing in Ashland. I just hit 6 months here, I know the wards very well and luckily they are both super awesome. Ashland has some cracked members who are always down to help teach and refer a friend to teach. They all are very knowledgeable in the gospel and I find myself learning more from them than I teach. The YSA is one of my favorites. There are so many goofy goobers here, a lot of returned missionaries that really want to help us out, and they are some of the most inspired people ever. Who knew a bunch of 18-30 year olds could know so much.  During my time here we have been working really hard on getting people from the region to come to church with us and join in on some of the activities. We've actually been having a bit of success with that. We've been meeting with a lot of those that aren't ...

 September 18, 2023 It's been a hot minute since I wrote to all of you, not a ton has happened, but a lot has changed. First off, I got a new companion his name is Elder Mitchell. He's from Idaho, loves roping, and is coming to the close of his time here in the mission. As a bonus we also have another companionship living with us and this is the most rambunctious group of elders I've ever been with. They are all a bunch of goobers. After 9:00 we are playing card games, bullying the new missionary (not really), and making fun of all the wacky people in Ashland. With the new Elders living here we are able to focus a lot more on the YSA, so we have been visiting all the YSA aged members in the 2 stakes (areas) we cover it's been pretty good but not a lot of success yet, sadly most of them are away at college or enlisted. We will track them down eventually, I've gotten pretty good at Facebook stalking, thank you search bar. Ok here's a couple of the crazy/funny even...

 July 31, 2023 Sorry, I keep doing this 😂 July has been a great month. I'm 20 now, that's wack. Sadie keeps talking about how it's weird to tell people she has an older brother that's living away from home who's 20. I still feel way less mature than what I thought someone my age would be. Definitely still a kid. Thank you to everyone who reached out, I am incredibly sorry I responded to none of you. I promise I read your emails and enjoy them. Updates on the work! I'm still here in Ashland, we are working a lot with the members here and in the YSA. It has been a miracle to have people in both wards who are so passionate about the gospel and sharing it with others. We have one older guy who we visit weekly, he goes by Knucklehead. He is hilarious, tells the same 5 stories every time. When we see him at church he is telling others those same stories. It's so much fun. He is also amazing at sharing the Gospel. He is out in the park doing his scripture studies,...

 July 3, 2023 OK so sorry this one took foreeeeeeeeeeeeever. I promise I'm alive and happy as always. I can't remember if I ever updated you all about transfers. I am in Ashland now and I'm over the YSA (as of 4 weeks ago). It's a blast. It's so cool having so many members to work with and work with some awesome people my age. We get to go to FHE which is just a bunch of activities with the young single adult ward which are fun if we don't have to travel far or they are watching a movie (which we can't really do either) Who do we teach you may be asking? No clue Apparently when I came in they all ghosted us or weren't interested and the few that they were teaching did not care to change so we had to drop them. So we start from scratch! That was and still is definitely hard, but we have a couple new friends. Christopher is a bit crazy, but is interested in learning about the book of Mormon so that's cool. We also got a friend Ryan who's got a bunc...

 May 29, 2023 What's up everyone! Long time no see... again haha. It's definitely a struggle to get these out sometimes. Not too much for general updates. Met a few new people but not much progress being made. Our friend Zoraida is doing pretty well. sadly she can never make it to church but she is willing to learn and with some help from our members itll be awesome. Cool Story! So to start off as my grandma always says, "Don't do drugs" so we are driving down the road and we see an old lady scooting around in her wheelchair. Not too unusual, but then we realize she is scooting around with her feet. Think about that for a moment. She the proceeds to ingest more drugs and curse at the world as she scoots past 50 mph traffic. so much fun. Then we got to see a pirate man who is marooned in Eugene Oregon. Quite a normal day for me. Zone Conference and MLC were fun, i got to sing so if you watch the Oregon Eugene departing devotional i'll be front and center not...