Missionary Christmas

Hola-

I got your Christmas package and I opened it, thank you for the giant Reeses and candy! I really loved all of the personal letters that you sent as well. We had our mission party on Friday and it was cool. We had good talents and we participated by doing a skit. It was a missionary parody of The District, John Tanner and Only a Stonecutter. We didn't really have time to practice but people said we did good!

This week was pretty good. My companion is doing good and we are getting along well. This week we found a lot but didn't teach much. None of our investigators came to church and we almost had to drop one of our investigators.

Anyways, I love all of you!

Elder Reisner

Last transfer!

Dear family and friends-

 

I didn't get transferred!  I'm staying right here yay! My companion did get transferred he went to Pomona. My new companions name is Elder Giddens. He is the new District Leader they called for this area. They want me to train him to be a District Leader. He has been on the mission for 9 months.

 

If you have a letter or card that you want to send for my birthday or Christmas just sent it to the mission office. I actually forgot that my birthday is this month! HA HA!! I think the Mission President sent the new address to dad.

 

I heard that the Mission President e-mailed all the missionary parents about Christmas. I bet that lots of Elders got a bunch of inappropriate items last year which is pretty sad. I will definitely pray for dad's speedy recovery.

 

Let's see this last week we found 3 new investigators like in 2 days! But then the rest of the week we didn't really find or teach. We were able to get all our recent converts ready to receive the Priesthood so that was pretty cool!! We also are having a lot of member present lessons. We have an awesome Ward Mission Leader and an awesome ward and well that's really it! The new investigators we found look good. They are a few brothers and a lady who has cancer. She has a fear of churches though so we'll see what we can do there.

 

How's the Christmas Season at home? It's like 50's and 40's over here and I'm FREEZING!!! I think I'm really sensitive to the cold now!

 

Love, Elder Reisner

What a Thanksgiving!

Dear Mom-

All is well in Zion. Love, Elder Reisner :-)  (Imagine my surprise when this was the only e-mail I thought I was getting this week!)

HAHA just kidding! I am really tired so this e-mail may not be so long but to answer your questions;  Our investigators are doing good except we had to drop some people. The lost dog people have fell off the radar. Yes, both hermanos got baptized last week and we confirmed them on Sunday! My favorite family that we baptized last month are still good. I can't ever leave them! When I do I will cry for reals! I don't want to Skype you for Christmas because you'll see me a month after. (That has been changed and he will be Skyping us for Christmas!)  Transfers are this week so we will see what happens. This will be my last transfer.

This last week we found some cool people. We found a family that actually speak Spanish! The missionaries were teaching them a year and a half ago and they are basically members. We just need to help them follow through with the important ordinances! We also found a single guy and he is really cool! He said he would go to church with us on Sunday but unfortunately he didn't show up.

So the family that we baptized we get to still work with them once a week. Our single brother that was just baptized we are working with twice a week. I am glad that we still have the opportunity to have contact with them and help nurture their testimonies.

I ate three Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday! Unfortunately after the second dinner I threw up so the third one was really hard to go down! It wasn't too fun. Now we are entering the tamale season which I love!

In the area that we are in now we are just walking instead of biking or busing because our area is small. It's fun to talk to all the weird people and we found a house that had a guard goose! It was funny!! We just are doing really good. We have a new ward mission leader and ward missionaries so that's pretty cool.

That's pretty much it for this week.

Love, Elder Reisner

Baptizing monthly

Hola to my family and friends!

I am well as we say in Spanish mas o menos but don't worry I will get better it's been a good and bad week.  Our single brother got baptized!!  It was a really great service!! We also remembered to take some pictures so don't worry. There was another hermano that wanted to be baptized that night as well and asked me if I would baptize him. I was really excited to do it for him but then he didn't show up. I found out later there was a big miscommunication so he will have to get baptized later.

The Zone Conference was awesome and I learned so many good things, like talking to everyone and just believe in baptizing monthly. Also that we need to teach shorter lessons and not overwhelm people with too much information too soon! It was just an exciting conference! It was my last one though so I was really sad about that. 

So this week we spent most of it just talking to a bunch of people, finding new people to teach and getting our brother ready for baptism. It was funny though I role played with him how to do the baptism. I told him that I needed to say a prayer before he went under the water and then he said a prayer it was funny!

How's everyone doing over there? What did you learn this week? For Christmas or my birthday I would love to get a hand written letter from anybody who would like to send one to me. If you need my address just ask my mom!!

Love,

Elder Reisner

Happily engaged in the work too busy to write!

Dear family and friends-

 

The couple that we found last week and went to church with us we didn't get to have any contact with them this week. They said they are really busy but we are going to try and go by tonight so we'll see what happens.  

 

The single guy we have been working with is ready to get baptized this Sunday!! It's so awesome!! My camera took a trip down the stairs so it is a good thing that you bought an extended warranty on it. I will try and send it home this week and make sure I buy a disposable camera to take pictures at his baptism!! 

 

This last week we taught a lot more but we didn't find and its because we've been pretty prideful and not trusting in the Lord as much as we should. 

 

Tomorrow is Zone Conference and I am really excited about that!! The bishop in my ward told me that he had a dream about me. He said that I was going to work in the church administration offices so that was cool. I really like him he's really missionary minded!

 

I don't have a lot to write about this week but I hope everyone is doing well!

Love, Elder Reisner

Finding with a dog = great contact!!

Hi everyone!

 

I had a really awesome week! We had an interesting experience we were contacting a referral that we got and all of the sudden this dog comes up to us. So we looked around to try and figure out who he belongs to. We decided to use finding its owner as an icebreaker while we were knocking on doors. We had no luck finding anyone or the dogs owner. We were just going to leave the dog when all of the sudden this lady comes up to us and told us that the dog wasn't going to leave us alone. She told us that when she lived in Mexico her job was to find homes for lost pets. So she helped us find a place to put the dog and then we got talking with her and she said for us to come back the next day! So we did and we thought she was single but when we called her husband answered. He said they could still do the appointment. We taught them an amazing restoration lesson and the spirit was so strong! We invited them to be baptized and they said yes! Oh and get this they said they would come to church on Sunday but all Latinos say yes just to not look bad. But we confirmed with them Saturday night and Sunday and then they came to church! It was awesome!! 

 

So with the Relief Society activity we had last week our area didn't get any referrals but there were a lot for some of the other areas and so that's OK. 

 

I didn't teach the English class this week because we taught the family. We may have to drop our sister investigator because she still cancels all the time and hasn't been to church. The brother that we are working with came to church with us. Things are looking good for his baptism November 24th! We are going to baptize monthly now I am so excited! :-) 

 

On Thanksgiving we will be playing soccer and eating a TON of food! It will be good though and I always look forward to spending time with members and making good contacts when we play soccer!  

 

Also this week we had to speak on Sunday. Every second Sunday they want the missionaries to give a talk. Well nobody was assigned so they said OK now it's time for the missionaries to speak and nobody went up. Then they said missionaries? So I got up with Elder Nielsen and said some words. I had no idea what to say so I really had to be guided by the spirit. Hopefully it was good! Haha anyways I hope you all have a great week!

 

Elder Reisner

Members and Missionaries Working Together!

Hello Everyone!

 

I am doing pretty well. It has been an up and down week. Our recent convert family are still good. They couldn't come to church because their car broke down but they are working on it!  

 

We didn't have English class this last week because we also had a Halloween activity with cute kids and cute costumes! We also had this HUGE Relief Society activity that we had to set up for. It was a lot of work!! The activity was good - we did a play and we sang "Called to Serve" also all of the Hermanas were supposed to bring referrals and investigators and a lot of them did!! So that was really cool!! We have a lot of work ahead!  

 

We are working with a new guy. He hasn't been to church yet but I think he will soon. He is very interested in progressing in the gospel! The single sister that we have been working with kept cancelling on us this week which is always super frustrating. We also taught a man who is pretty staunch Catholic he was a little different and I am not sure that he wants us to teach him anymore but we will see what happens!

 

I can't believe it is November already! All the members are telling me that I am super close to going home but I don't want to think about that right now or at all!!

 

That's pretty much it for this week.

Love, Elder Reisner