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...

May 15, 2023 I'm doing awesome don't worry, missionary life is just trucking along. Time is flying by, and I'm continuing to study like a mad man! The past few weeks have been relatively uneventful, playing basketball a ton, not teaching anyone new lately, but we finally got back in contact with quite a few of them! The boys from Nicaragua are still a little dodgy, but it looks like some of the others we didn't have a ton of contact with are still down to learn. Our friend Felipe was on date for the 11th but sadly that fell through. We were able to give our friend Alexis a blessing and meet with him for the first time in months. We actually did meet one new person her name is Stephanie, and she is a caretaker of some men with mental illness. She is so cool she just wants to know all about missionary work, and we got to teach her a bit, I have never had someone say yest to reading the Book of Mormon so excitedly!  I've been able to give a couple blessings lately and ...

 April 24, 2023 So many goals, so much to do, so little time. Haha trying to get better at documenting the mission so here is one of my legendary emails! Been a rough few weeks, all planned lessons have canceled and our good friends aren't ever available for some reason. But my eyes have been opened and it's time to Rise and Find! So we have just been going at it and talking to tons of people on Facebook and trying to get stuff set up. Teaching a ton online and just trying to meet the people where they are at. We've been getting quite a but of success but most of the good ones live outside of our mission 😭 Lately I've just been studying on how to be a better teacher and listener. It's a grind but I know where I want to improve I got a goal I just gotta do it. Studies are great and I am studying more than I ever did in school so that's cool.  Final words for the week: To all those preparing for missions or even just thinking about it. It's worth it, all the ...

April 12, 2023 Hey everyone! It's been an awesome 2 weeks but also quite a few very hard days. But here's the run down. We had general Conference last week and us and the other English Elders camped out in the church and watched it together. Look at the pictures to see our epic set up. It was fun to have all the food and couches brought in and just feel the spirit as we listen to the prophets and apostles. Our prophet really focused on being a peacemaker and doing our best to control what we say. It's very easy to hurt people with words, poor jokes, and back handed complements. We want to try to do all we can to speak well of everyone and keep our poise. Definitely rough to do but it's been so cool to see my thoughts on others change as I strive to do this.  Sadly my good friend Jairo got cold feet about getting baptized on Thursday and we got a text saying he wasnt going to come to the interview. Which was sad because he is definitely ready and he has such a sincere te...