Derrick’s Handwritten Letter (10.25.14)

 So I’ve not done a very good job at writing home on a regular basis, but I will try and remember what has happened. I will start at transfers.

I have a new companion that is about to hit his year mark and have a birthday. He is from Kansas and A LOT different than me. For real…we don’t have anything in common. We both like totally different things. He loves to sit and read. He describes his dream night as being a dark room with a lamp, quiet, with a good book for the entire night. That’s his dream party. So you can say we are very opposite, but the weird thing is, we get along. We are not best friends or anything…. we just do work and do what missionaries do. A lot of times he’ll just pull out his iPad and just read whatever; mostly the Ensigns. It is only us in the apartment so it is very quiet most of the time.

We were just covering my Grove 2^nd Ward for a week, then the Mission President decided to give us another ward to cover. So for the past few weeks we have been doing that. It is good to do this because it keeps us busy.

I do feel different than the day I left. I found a new sense of excitement for the future and mostly the gospel.  We have so much! We can’t just keep it to ourselves. I can’t imagine how terrible life would be not knowing where I came from or where I am going. Life would be pretty pointless. With the gospel we have the answers. Before I believed…or thought I did. I thought I had faith until I read from PMG. Faith leads to action. The greatest way to show our faith and gratitude is to share it with others. Joseph Smith said, “After all that is said and done, the greatest thing we can do is that of sharing the gospel!!” The greatest thing we can do is share the gospel.

I have been reading and looking for signs of the second coming. Things are going to get a lot worse before that happens, but it is soon. The world is going to get much worse, and it is our job to reach out and find those who need peace and comfort. We have it, and when we share it we show gratitude and we are blessing them more than they can imagine. When we think of each other and brother and sister, you can’t help but want to bring all we can onto the “The ‘Ol Ship, Zion.” I loved that talk! Share your light.

Before my mission, my eyes were as open as and Asian. Being out here and being able to see how simple the gospel is, you are always serving someone. No man can serve two masters. “What way do you face?” Every decision brings you closer to someone. You don’t have to walk where Jesus walked....you need to walk how he walked. We can all do that wherever we are. We can stand up for truth.

I never imagined how much people watch us. They study us. Everyone here knows a few Mormons and they watch them. Always be doing things that you wouldn’t mind if someone else was watching you. To help myself get humble when things are not going well, or how I hoped, I tried to ask myself, “How can I help myself grow from this?” Instead of blaming others or the situation. The Lord has a plan for all of us.

I know this letter is all over the place, but there is so much to say and write. One of the main things we do out here is to go to the members and present the Family Mission Plan. It is four steps and helps families help their friends. It is amazing.

     1) Brainstorm: For 5 minutes, write down all the people that could benefit from the

        gospel.

     2) Select 2-3 Names from the list. Do so with prayer.

     3) Write down goals for those few people. The goals could be as simple as invite that

          person over for dinner, etc.

     4) Repeat.

Most people want to help us out, but they don’t know how. Success from this:

     The other day we had a ward party. The Bishop invited their neighbors to come to the party. It was a Chili Cook-off. So the Bishop invited them to make some Chili. They accepted this offer and came. It was super awesome. But the next night we went back over to the Bishop’s to pump up our bike tire and we asked him about them. We decided to go over and ask the neighbor how he made the chili and stuff. P.S. He took 2^nd place. He invited me and my companion in and gave us two chilis. The 2^nd hottest chilis in the world…no joke! HE had to special order them, We talked for like and hour and set up a time to come back Wednesday. That just tripled our teaching pool! All from one invite.

The greatest way to show that we are grateful for God, Christ, and the gospel is by sharing it. That is true. The Church is true, the Book is Blue, and that is that. I love to share what I have with others.

Side Notes:

     I love getting ties and beef jerky. They are awesome.

     I love getting pictures.

     I would totally love for more handwritten letters.

     Who are you forwarding my weekly mail to?

Derrick's Letter 10.20.14

Response To Family Letter to Derrick:

Jet skiing?? What the?!?! Tubing.....Boating.... LUCKY!! (Napolean—haha!)

Haha! Nancy having to read...she likes to do that!  That’s good. I do remember cram reading a lot.

MEG!!! SWEEEEEETTTTT!! Thats what I am talking about! You didn’t have the best record, but you still won! Heck yeah!!!!

AGI!!!!! (Agathe) Hahaha… Having to sleep on the chair? You are older, so you should have just kicked some serious butt to get a good sleeping place haha. Tubing is the best, and that tube is one of the best I have ever ridden! Loved it!!! I am not a fan on "plays."

DAD. There is a lot that happens in the next few months. I am super happy to hear that your back is not hurting!! Did you get in the water?? Haha!

MOM: Yeah, Conference is like the best thing ever for personal revelation. If you watch it with a question and listen, you will get an answer for sure!!!!! Happend to me and to everyone I talk to. Charity is like the toughest one though. I, for sure, have a lot of improvement there!!!. When you are having a question it is amazing how the Lord opens your eyes and shows you He is already prepared to teach you!! His hand is, for sure, in this work more than we can comprehend.

One thing, will you tell Brinne to study the patience part of PMG.

Goodness, I wrote her, and it might just take a few weeks. When I get a letter, the next P day I write back. Ha!

REGULAR LETTER:

So, I am in the library this time. That means pictures, but horrible writing and shorter letters.

Yesterday was the best. Now that I am covering 2 wards I go to 6 hours of church, plus meetings and all that. Was totally sweet though!!. We got an investigator to church and got a referral from a member. Went over to the referral and now have a lesson set up for Wednesday!!! I am in a rich area in our mission. I am in the slowest zone in the mission, and I am in the slowest area in the zone.... just my luck. So every teaching opportunity is the best!!!! And  I look forward to them every time!!!! We are starting to see great improvement in the ward, and I am getting excited to be here!!!! I know you want pics, so I will send a few. I carry my camera everywhere, but I always forget to take pics. But the sunsets here every night are the best ever! Like no joke… there are no mountains, so it is the entire sky different colors and stuff! Crazy Cool!!!

I type like a half-baked sissy, so this letter will be vague and short. Sorry. I will send the pics on different emails these computers are weird!

PICS:

1-Took that pic this morning starting to cool down!! Feels great. Ha! 

2- Now that the other Elder moved out I can modify my bed to how I want it .

               3 matteresses!! OHHH BABY!!!!

3- This is from the first package!!! Ties and jerky… that is all ya need!! Thank you!!!!!

4-Had to take a selfie with the best tie ever!! Love it! Definitely my favorite tie I have. Thank you!!!

Things are slow...

So, to get to the question about why I don't email consistently at the same time every Monday is because last Monday, on p-day, we had to clean. And our apartment was super nasty! We were sweating and cleaning for three and a half hours. That was really nasty, so now we can email more regularly about 12 o'clock. Today, we went and got haircuts and then went to the church to email on the iPad because the library is closed for Columbus Day.

The whole time I was watching “Meet the Mormons” I always thought of you and dad and about what you would be thinking when you saw the different things. Like, maybe the Navy football coach… that would be so cool! And I knew you guys would be crying about the last one when the mom found the church and sent her son off on the mission to South Africa. I knew you guys would get really touched by that. (This was going to have very little punctuation, also, because it's on my iPad again. yay yay!) All the proceeds of the movie will be donated to the American Red Cross, and it will help spread the news about what we believe a little bit more so that people will be more open when missionaries knock on their door and come in contact with them. This'll be a great missionary opportunity for everyone. So, invite all less-actives and non-members to go see it. It is a great opportunity. The church has spent a lot of money to have this out there, so invite all you can to go to this movie.

Right now we’re just trying to get a lot more people to investigate the church. We’re trying to invite all our members to go see “Meet the

Mormons” and get the word out there. Right now work is pretty slow. We’re just trying to Street contact everyone we see outside. It's crazy because people are actually starting to come out a lot more. In the summer you'll never see anyone outside, but now you see a few people every once in a while. To go up to people is weird because I'm actually kind of liking to go up and get to know people; just talk. It's not something I would normally do, but the Lord is really helping me with church and stuff.

Today, we’re going to go get a car wash for the car that we got because the Elders before us never cleaned it at all. So that's going to just be a fine time.

Weather is getting to be really nice now. It might get up to 90, but it's mostly in the 80s all day. Feels super good to just be biking in or walking a lot better than 100! This is the time when people actually like to live in Arizona. This is why people live in Arizona--- for this weather---from about now till the end of May it will be about 70° to 80 all the time.

The other day we were walking and we saw this guy walking home. He was a black fellow. We found out his name was Derek and he spells it like me DER R I CK. That's the right way to spell it. He says he just got out of prison here in Arizona and had parole in Arizona. He was from California and has tattoos were all up and down his arm. He's African-American but said that he's super interested in learning. He says he's learned the difference between LDS and FLDS from his girlfriend so he knows a little bit about it, but weren’t able to go over there. We are able to call or text him next Saturday when he's off of work. We caught him walking home from work, so hopefully we’re able to teach him. He's super interested…at least that is what it sounded like from my perspective. So by the next email we will contact him and I'll have a lot more information on that for you guys. Other than that, we’re going to have a lesson with Marie. She's been meeting with missionaries for three years now. So with the new ward we are going to take one of the new converts from the Grove first word that we converted. He was Catholic before and Marie's Catholic now, so on Thursday we’re going to go over and have a lesson and hopefully he has something to say that really touches her, and we'll see what happens.

The ward members that we've met in both wards are really awesome super into missionary work, and they try to, at least most of them, they try to get to know their neighbors and try to share the gospel.  Right now they're mostly planting seeds, and hopefully will see the road to us being able to teach him, but the work right now, as far as teaching, is pretty slow. Work is definitely run by the Lord, out here on a mission, because we ran into one of our recent convert’s dad. (Which he was super happy to give us water.) I had no idea that he even lived around here. For the recent convert he has a mission call. He will be leaving to California on November 5… on his birthday… he’s super excited.  We were able to talk to his dad for maybe a half an hour. He actually threw out his back. In Arizona you have to cut your lawn really short and reseed it for the normal time of the year, and so we're going to be able to serve him and do that for him.

We, also, were able to do that for another recent convert family when we were on exchanges. Most people around here are really nice and will talk to you, but on occasion you will get the profanity and door slamming in your face. Those are pretty fun. Most of the time it makes me laugh. It's just sad to see that people are so willing to settle for less than their potential. I can see how the gospel will really help them in their lives.

Oh, sad story:

So, the family that we were teaching…Robert… I sent you a picture of him. We could contact or text Robert, but he would always have an excuse not to meet with us. I thought, for the longest time, for the last 20 days

or so, that he was just trying to avoid us. But we ran into him today.

He was on his way and in a rush, but he saw me and pulled over for a second. We talked to him on Friday for maybe one minute or 30 seconds. It turns out that Carrie is now in a mental institution and had taken everything from him. Now he only has a mattress, or a bed in his room, and that's all. He said it was pretty sad and kind of scary. He said it happened about a week and a half to two weeks ago. She freaked out and took everything. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but he said that his life is turned upside down right now. So I'm going to have to just try to pray and pray and pray for Carrie, and hopefully will find out more of the situation. Right now it's really not looking too good. We got word that we were able to go to the Phoenix open house for the new Temple. We could go up there one time with an investigator, and we were really planning on going with Robert, but things are not looking very good at all for that right now. It's really sad, and I hope we are able to get in contact with him again and catch up and see more of the situation. Things are not looking good at all for them.

Looking forward to meeting with Derrick pretty soon here within the next week. That'll be really cool. And I hope he's going to move sooner.

We’ve been looking for some leaders that are really confident. And we are praying that all the companionships will be able to baptize this transfer. They've talk to us and said that we have the members, technology, the area, the vehicles…. we have everything we need to do it, we just have to trust in the Lord and have him help us with that. So we're just resting right now and doing all we can to have him be able to lead us to where we need to go find those hearts that he's opened to receive the gospel.

I'm just gaining more of a testimony every day that this is the only true Church. That is what Jesus Christ set out for us to do. I have a testimony of the priesthood and of all the auxiliaries and of profits with Gen. conference and everything.

We're just trying to do the best we can and do everything. I know that when the Lord feels it's necessary, he'll give us someone to teach, and when he does, hopefully we’re ready and able to teach them exactly how we need to.

I’ve seen the effects of the gospel on families out here. So grateful that I was raised in the gospel because out here you see how the world really gets to families and destroys them, but the gospel really strengthens

families!

Since the elders moved out of our apartment, there are only two of us in there. So my companion and I are able to combine everything. So right now I really want three mattresses…. it's probably not the best for your back…but last night I was super, super tired because we have two wards now. We have six hours of church and it got me so exhausted. I went to bed at 9:00, but when I jumped in bed I laid there for two hours and could not fall asleep. It was ridiculous. Usually I'm out in five minutes. Last night I wasn't, and it was not fun.

Other than that life is good out here.  I hope to see a lot more pictures out here. It was weird to see Nancy kissing a cow, but other than that, it's pretty okay. But more pictures next time.

I am writing a lot longer letters, and it will probably be a more consistent time, but things come up on p-day, and I have to do different things every

day.

So, Love you. And will see you in a long time.

Derrick Has Found A New Friend....SIRI!!!! 10.6.14

Wow! It is so good to see all these pictures from home. I was really a

little bit bummed out to not be able to be home for conference, but it

was so good here. I took like half a notebook of pages and got so much

personal revelation… it was amazing!

This week it was kind of crazy.  Pres. Toone called an emergency transfer, so now me and Elder Christianson live in an apartment all by ourselves. This morning we moved the other two elders out so now we are taking up another ward. So now we have two wards we’re covering. It has more than tripled our area! We do have a car, though. That's going to be really awesome. We still bike a lot, but we will be able to drive in our area.

I love seeing Nancy post on Instagram a picture with her with my sweatshirt on. That really was awesome to see! And I can't wait to see and hear from you all again. I haven't received any letters back from home, so I'm probably not going to hand write you all today.

We are at the church, so now I can use Siri to write my letter. So I can talk out the whole thing… so this letter will be a lot longer than beforeJ!

Elder Christianson and I are going to be alone in our house, so that's going to be really awesome. And we are going to be very, very comfortable.

On Wednesday, we’re going to have interviews and are going to watch “Meet the Mormons.” That's going to be really awesome. I can't wait to see that and be able to see it before everyone else.

For the personal address, it's not like a rule to not give it out. It's just that whenever people move I don't want all the mail to be going there.

So, if it goes to the Mission home it's a lot more safe. It is a little bit slower, for sure. And it’s also so other elders don't get into your mail and stuff like that.

Elder Christiansen and I get along pretty well. We don't have a whole lot in common, but we just are pretty relaxed. We go out and try to work hard and get as much done as possible.

We are, like I said, getting a new area. So now we have like 4 1/2 mi.² , which is two wards! That's going to be really interesting getting all that situated, but with the car a lot of stuff will be a lot better. Everything is going really well right now.

I am on my iPad, so we're hoping to be able to have pictures this week.

But, I did get the ties and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, THEM!!!!!.  In every package there should be two things; jerky and ties. That's all you need as a missionary.

Right now it's pretty awesome. I love getting packages, and emails, and mostly handwritten letters. My favorite thing out here right now is that work is pretty slow, but we're working with our members and trying to get them as focused on missionary work as we can. What we're doing right now is trying to get them to invite people to go watch “Meet the Mormons,” preferably less actives and nonmembers, obviously.

People around here, they don't really know their neighbors. It's really different from Emery county. People around here go from the air-conditioned job, to the air-conditioned car, to the air-conditioned house and that's like all and that's really different. They don't really even know who

their neighbors are, so, as missionaries, were trying to get them to get out and know their neighbors and just be friends with them right now.

I am in a pretty wealthy area so people are less receptive to the Gospel, but, like in general conferences they said that we are "ol ship Zion!!!” And if you're not on the ship, then we will reach our hands out and try to go out and rescue you. So right now we're just trying to get out and

Invite, invite, invite, others to come unto Christ and to get on the ship.

I love Gen. Conference so much. It was so awesome. We were able to go over to a lady named Marie and watch the second session on Saturday.

She was really awesome and wanted to feed us lunch right before, so we got one of our elders that is about to go on a mission in November. He came out with us, and we were able to watch that with her. She's catholic, but she's very open to hear other religions. She doesn't believe that there's just one true church out there, so she just likes what we believe, and she reads the Book of Mormon and everything, but she just doesn't want to commit at all. Her family would disown her. She is about 50 years old, so she can decide to do what she wants, but right now she's pretty settled in her ways. But, she does like to have the missionaries over. It was really awesome.

I love the priesthood session very much! Dad, I'm sorry to hear that your librarian at your school quit. I hope you're able to fill that job and have as little stress as possible on you. I hope things start working out, but it's great to hear that you guys were able to go down the Blanding and celebrate grandma's birthday down there with her. And, also, I'm so happy to see Brielle. It's kind of crazy to see all the things going on without me, but it's super awesome to see. She looks beautiful in her dress, and I hope the best for her. I can't wait to meet the guy again (I can’t remember his name.)

I can't remember if I said this before, but iPads are the best. Everyone knows that you really can't read my writing, and really, neither can I, so iPads just for typing are just super, super, nice. We are able to email like our stats and everything to our zone leaders and district leaders. That’s super nice. And we are able to take notes and everything for conference.

I did take notes on a notebook and I filled it up about half way.  There's so much personal revelation in them. Those men are profits and they are called of God. There's no way to put it in other words. There's no way that they could say what they said without the Spirit and not be called of God. I love Gen. Conference. Like Brinne said, it is like Christmas for missionaries. It is the best. I can't wait for the next one in six months.

I can't believe it was only six months ago that me and Jordan and Daniel were just over watching conference at the Conference Center. That just seemed like a month ago. Time goes so fast out here. I can't believe haven't seen my family, or anything, for two months. It feels like maybe two or three weeks. The MTC seems like a blur, but everything is so worth it.

The Spirit was so strong at conference, and I loved it.

The new area that we are picking up does seem to have quite a bit of potential. There are a few potential investigators that we're going to go see tonight, or at least this week. I'm looking forward to the future, and everything is going great here in the Tempe Arizona Mission.

I love being a Missionary, and can't wait to hear of everyone else in our family that is about to start their mission papers. I can't believe that the Morley family has five missionaries out and contributing to the 88,000 that was reported in general conference. That is so awesome I love to hear about other missionaries. I haven't got any of my cousin’s emails, so if you could, would you just forward those to me or give them to me somehow?

I love being a missionary!!!!! I'm so happy for Hayden and to hear from him in the MTC over in London. That's crazy! I was a little bummed that I was just out of the MTC so I couldn't sing in the choir for general conference. That would've been so cool. I would've loved that, but I'm super glad that I'm out here right now.

Everything is working out pretty well, and we were able to listen to Elder Christofferson a couple weeks ago. I think I wrote this in my last letter, but that was super awesome.

I'm so glad to hear about the family and how well the family is doing right now. I know the teenage years are pretty tough. hahaHahaha

With iPads I will be able to type more than Erica! (She has, like, fingers on steroids!! Hahahaha! I love this Siri for iPads!

When I get responses to handwritten letters I will write you back, but I don't know why Brinne is able to write every night. Look at the White Handbook. It says that we should only right on P-days.

You will have to do a lot of spellcheck because I am talking, and I'm not willing to reread everything. You're probably going to have to piece a lot of stuff together….and there's not going to be a whole lot of punctuation, but even if I was typing it normally, it probably wouldn't have any more punctuation.

It was great to see pictures of Grandma's birthday in Blanding. I love seeing her face! She is so awesome! I'm so glad she's doing well and is healthy now, but that is so awesome. I love her so much! Tell her Happy Birthday from Elder Dawes.

Because I'm covering two wards, I'll be going to six hours of church every Sunday. That will be the best! As a missionary you look forward to meetings, and Sundays, and Mondays are the best days in the whole mission… for me at least!

I have a question, “If I am able to send a letter to London for HJ, would I have to put like three stamps on it? Or how many stamps would I have to use?   I am really wondering that because I don't want to get it sent back and waste a stamp on him. So I will probably wait and hold back on the handwritten letter and sending it off. But if you could, like, handwrite me or email me next week that answer that would be awesome.

I think I'm good with supplies right now. I'm thinking jerky could always be used, but other than that, I'm doing pretty well!

I am gaining a testimony of The Book of Mormon a lot lately. Lately,

I've been able to read a lot of conference talks and a lot of other stuff. I’ve read the missionary library. I've read “My Heritage” and “Our Search for Happiness.” Those were super good, but that's all I was reading. I wasn't reading any of The Book of Mormon, and I did start to feel pretty down, but the day after, I picked up The Book Mormon and I felt so good… and a lot more energized! The missionary spirit goes along with The Book of Mormon and is so inspired. I love to read it.

I'm so grateful for Joseph Smith and all he was able to do it. He was definitely an inspired man and the prophet of the restoration. I'm so grateful for him and all he did for me… especially on the personal revelation that I received in conference. That just confirmed to me that we have prophets today, and they are called as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators!

I really like the analogy of going back 100 years and trying to explain to people about the technology that we have now…phones and stuff. That's how I think of our prophets today. People won't listen, will use logic and everything, and right now they might seem right. But that doesn't matter. The prophets know the future. They are just trying to warn us. All we have to do is head them and listen, and we will be safe. We will hop on the “Old ship, Zion.” This is my testimony, and I'm gaining more every day.

I love being able to study every single Day! Right now I'm trying to read “Jesus the Christ.” I love being able to read deeper doctrine and to strengthen my testimony of Jesus Christ. I love reading histories of the church and everything like that. I love being able to strengthen my testimony by reading Church-approved doctrine.

Sorry for the no punctuation, but you're welcome for the longer letter this time! Ha ha! I love you all, and I want to you to read The Book of Mormon as long as you can this week. I know it will be a testimony builder, but first of all pray and try to receive an answer. As you read, and I know if you do this, and you really want to find an answer to that question you have, you will find it in The Book of Mormon. It is the word of God. It is the most correct book above any other book on earth. And by a reading it you will come closer to Christ than any other book. I know this to be true. The Book of Mormon is the word of God, along with the Bible, as it is translated correctly. I love reading scriptures and building my testimony!

I love you all. Have a good week. I can't wait to hear from you. And get some handwritten letters. I would love to spend more time on my hand writing by writing letters, but if I don't get any then I won't be able to practiceJ!

I love you all! I'm trying to work on my charity for all man… no matter anyone that I see. (Even when people don't treat me or my companion very well.) I still try to love them and not judge them and try to see them how Jesus would see them.

I am trying to work on my Christ-like attributes that have to do with Preach My Gospel. Preach My Gospel is so helpful. As a missionary, I love it. If you guys could all get in that, and just ponder it, and read it, it will help you build your own testimony before you go out. Sharing the gospel is the best feeling you can possibly have!

Love you all, and can't wait to hear from you next week!!!!!

I felt a little bad not being able to send you any pictures… so Elder Christiansen and I just took a quick picture for you. We are going to send it right now. Christianson is from Kansas City. Super awesome. He's been out for about a year now and we are loving it