Hey Mom,

This week has been good. I'm with a new missionary again. he has only been out three months so it seems like I will be carrying a lot of the load, He isn't too comfortable with teaching or talking to people yet so I'm going to try to shut up for once (I seem to talk a lot these days.. Strange I know) So he can get more practice teaching. He is really shy too so it's easy for me to just keep talking because he is perfectly fine in just sitting in silence and not saying anything. I ended up in a city called Warren, out by PA. So there are some hills here instead of just straight flat. There are a lot more trees here too. My new address is 2922 Dunstan Drive NW Warren OH, 44485. I'm not sure how long I will be here but My hopes aren't for 6 months again. It was fun being in Perrysburg for that long, but 4.5 is a better amount of time. I also hope to be able to help Elder Furtney enough so that he will be capable to train here soon. I guess we'll see what happens.

It's a small ward here. I would have guessed it to be a branch. I think it's only a phase two building. So no pews, a basketball hoop hangs in the chapel, no foyer, etc. Very small. Maybe just a bit bigger than the building in St. Mary's. There are more less-active/inactive people here in this ward though than I have ever seen. So hopefully we will be able to get in to teach a lot of these people and get them back to church. I've done a lot of Less-active work on my mission so I look forward to being able to have a lot to do here. The Bishop, along with the ward, from what I can tell aren't very missionary minded so we are starting to work with them more to help them gain that mindset and hopefully we will be able to be blessed with a lot of people to teach so they can see that we are out working hard and so they will trust us more and become more willing to help us out with things.

We don't have to do anything today. So it's cool. It allows us to have more of a p-day. But, they moved our weekly meeting to tonight so we don't get the entire day off. Oh well. I think this transfer is going to be really neat where I'm going to have to help my district a lot. (granted there are only four of us...) Mainly because My comp. only has three months, the other one only has 4.5 and the last one is brand new getting trained. So it's a really young group that I'm going to be working with.

It's good though that you have to go to the adult classes. sometimes they are interesting... but it's okay, I get bored in my sunday school classes too, mainly because I have to go to gospel essentials so it's the same things that we teach, just more of a basic setting.

I have one set of shoes that has a hole in the heel. It's really small, I thought about getting it replaced but it's not too bad yet so I don't know if they will or not. I'm not too worried about it. I will though when It starts to snow and I get my foot wet because of the hole. Maybe I will send you a picture of it and so you can see what they have to say? Everything else is doing fine for now. I have a few Suit pants that may need to be replaced in the coming months, but they are good right now.

I'm trying to eat a lot healthier, so I have been trying to lay off of the sugars and stuff and I have almost completely stopped drinking soda. I will have a drink every now and then but that's it.

The community here is a lot poorer than all of my other areas as far as I can remember. The majority of the people work at the steel mills so they are union guys and don't get paid too much. There a ton of black people. (all of my areas have been predominately white...) :/ Everyone we have talked to though seems a lot more receptive and somewhat dependable, comparing to the ghetto people of east Toledo. So, I'm excited to be able to work here. The economy here is really bad so everything is kind of trashed because no one can afford to really keep things nice. But no real ghetto from what I have seen.

It's getting cold now too. I'm not really looking forward to it. Now that I'm on the other side of the lake we will get more of a wind-chill and when it snows, more of it. Also, with the winter you never see the sun, not ever. So that's a total drag. I hope to be able to get busy enough to where we aren't outside too much. Just inside teaching a ton of people and baptizing/reactivating. It will be sweet if you ask me.

last night we went to go see a less-active in hopes to teach about missionary work and to receive a refferral, but it went a way I never would have guessed. We asked a question and she just went on about all of the horrible things that she has had to go through with her children and late husband. I had no Idea what to do. I was just thinking, what on earth are we going to share with this sister to help her? I started to pray fervently asking the Lord that we might be able to minister to this sister, and I got nothing. So we just listened and listened for probably half an hour. without really saying a thing. Finally, as I was continuing to pray I was told to open my scriptures and search, I had no Idea what I was going to share. Finally I came across Helaman 6: 35-37 which, if I said the right one, talks about missionary work! I was like woah... Umm we haven't talked about missionary work in forever! But the spirit prompted so I read it. When I had finished reading it to her she wrote it down and her countanance changed. I still have no idea how that applied to her, but God knows and it was evident that his had was shown because Elder Furtney and I don't really know what happened. It was really neat.

Just thought I would share that... anyways... all is good

I'm doing great!

Love ya!

--
Elder Michael Stone.

Hey mom,

The last weeks have been somewhat rough, I guess? If you want to put it that way. We just don't have a single thing going on here in Perrysburg. So we just tract and so there isn't really too much to say when all you do is tract. I am leaving tomorrow though and I will find out where I will be then as well. What I will be doing is the same as I always am. Trying to save souls ;) Thing is of it though, I really have like no clue what to say because there haven't really been any advetures or things to talk about because we have zero investigators currently. So that will be tough for Elder Porter and his new comp, Sucks for them. I Care about it cause I want this area to stay good, but nothing is going on. What will be rough too is in december they are closing the ward building for some remodling. So for three months or so they will have to go to another one down in Bowling Green which is 20 to 30 minutes away for us and we are south of the ward. So it will make it even harder for them to get investigators to church.

That van has lasted a really long time! It's about time that it has gone. But hey, you don't really need to rush to get a new car. You all fit in the Cruiser and how often do you really all drive around together? not too often I would safely assume. Sounds like how the rest of our vacations have gone in the past though. That's pretty rough. I guess dad isn't really going to be able to buy another BMW in the near future eh? haha.

Sounds like a good thing we moved when we did! I'm amazed though at how often that ward still changes, splits and has things added on to it. That's amazing. Wrestling season should be excited for the boys this year though. I'm glad Matthew has decided to do that. Even though he may not do well, it will help him build character, Strength and some confidance. Champions are really good to their boys.

The last few days talking to members it was really interesting and quite humbling to see how much they have appreciated my time. Sometimes as a missionary you somewhat feel like a ghost, or a shadow in the back-ground and no one really knows you or notices you. But I mean I have been here for a good while and I guess I didn't Fully realize the things that have happend and the impact that it has had on the active members. I mean we work with Less-actives and non-members so you know what happens with them and that you have an impact on their lives and that friendship is developed. The active members are not really who you think about that much. so It was nice and humbling, in the largest degree to see how my service to others, and all in as many ways as I could had such a large effect. But I guess that's what happens when the Lord is on your side. Because all of the merits go to Him, Not me. All I tried to do was emulate and become like our savior and act accordingly. So I am in need of great thanks to God for the spirit and blessings he has bestowed on his children here through me and allowing me to take part in his will.

There is more to our purpose here on this earth than most people think. It's amazing.

Love ya!

--
Elder Michael Stone.

Hey mom,

So, I guess I'm going to be getting transferred this next wednesday. Elder Porter was called to train... Interesting, but it will be good for him. And me, I get to leave and my posterity gets to grow. Sweet I know.. haha That's the reason why I'm not e-mailing back until today because our p-day was moved due to the training meeting he had to attend on monday. This week has been good. It's gotten really cold though so not too fun. I'm waiting to pull out my coats but I may have to pull them out sooner than I would like. oh well. I'm curious where I will be, I'm told that I was suggested to leave this side of the state and go back to the other side.

You should make Jenn and Adam help you pay for the basement to get finished, Great Idea... But, I wouldn't put a door there to close off that hall. That would look ugly.. haha my opinion, Is that small third room over there still going to be the weight room? If it's only going to be us three down there they should be fine right? that's enough privacy, it's a fairly large house. But hey, I don't live there currently so I guess I don't really have a say right? ;P

ummm... we are still tracting a lot... We gota Referral from a member, I think I might have told you about this already. but, she has 11 people living in her home and I thing 7 are baptismal age. we finally got in to teach her last sunday and look forward to teaching her again this sunday and setting a baptismal date with her. then we can hopefully work with her family and get them all baptized so this area can remain prosperous and alive for my future posterity ;) I really have no idea what to say... so if you are on currently and would like more let me know and I may stretch some of my random thoughts into more words so you have more to read.

Otherwise, I'll talk to ya tuesday! haha

Love ya!

--
Elder Michael Stone.

Hey Mom,

Bryan is a no go. Haven't seen him in two weeks and we passed him driving the other day and saw him smoking. So, I'm not sure what to do with him. We may just drop him. It's nearly impossible to get a hold of him too because he is basically homeless and doesn't answer his phone. We get out of our car wherever. As long as you don't do anything stupid you will be fine. That Grafiti was actually in a safer part of Toledo. Transfers aren't for another two weeks though.

I can't believe you got Four inches of snow already. That's pretty crazy if you ask me. I can't ever remembering it snowing so early in October. what a bummer. Why hasn't Spanish Fork bought the land yet? That's pretty lame, Dad should just tell them if they dont' buy it he is going to start looking for other people who will... Does it work that way? Probably not, but it's a though haha.

This week went by really fast, I was on a two day exchange up with one of the Zone-leaders and Elder Porter stayed in Perrsyburg with one of the assistants one day and then the next with another zone-leader from another zone. So that was nice, a bit of a break and something to speed up the week. Plus, I didn't have to drive, which was nice and they ended up tracting like six hours those two days that I was gone. That was pretty nice. Especially with how much things have slowed down here. There is a member though who invited her friend to take the discussions so we are excited about that, It's just going to be really hard to meet with her because she has 8 kids. 7 of which are between 12 and 8, and she homeschools them all... I don't know why she would do that, but thats a fairly common thing out here I guess.

We are focusing a little bit on the Less-actives now as well because the original ones we would go see Have become active again or they haven't progressed at all so we have stopped seeing them. There is this one guy who hasn't been to church in years and he stopped going because he got offended by the bishopric when he went through a divorce. we have seen him twice now and the last time we went and saw him we read a few scriptures and he was just like yeah... I should probably just leave what is in the past there and go back to church and so I can make it to the temple. We have been doing that with all of the new less-actives we are teaching is invting them to the temple and to prepare by coming to church. It's been a good success so far. The Temple is very powerful, especially with the spirit of Elijah.

Anyways... It was a quiet week. so nothing really has changed at all. Unfortunatly. Oh well.

Love ya!



--
Elder Michael Stone.

Hey mom,

Conference was great. It was a great amount of flowing revelation. The Spirit of the Lord was there for sure, making every word they said scripture. I'm Curious about the new provo temple, such as; what it will be called, and how big it will be. seeing that the Tabernacle wasn't the biggest, I can't imagine it being a very large temple. It will be nice having that one and then I guess the Payson one had the ground breaking today, that will relieve a lot of pressure off of the Provo Temple. That's cool that Whitney wanted and was able to go down and spend time with you guys. I'm glad there is someone in that family who wants to have a relationship with us. I Guess I did forget to mention that I do e-mail her just about every week. It's been nice. I have actually been able to get to know one of my cousins. Interesting statement right? I even Mentioned to elder Porter that you guys were probably eating too much food during conference... Seems to be a common trend in the Home. I only have one more conference in Ohio...

I don't know what you can do to get grandpa in that house with you. The first step would be finishing the house. Good luck.

So, I'm not exactly sure what it may be. Possibly the Eyes of my understanding opening a bit to be able to understand on a deeper and greater level of what the General Authorities speak. Or, It could be something else. I'm not sure, I was able to take close to 17 pages of notes so I will have a good list to review and remember in the next month before we get the ensign so I can begin to really treasure up the words of the Lord. I'm not sure what Dad told you, but in priesthood, Elder Holland came in as a fire ball and some say rebuked, I say Admonished, us to be better priesthood holders. So on and so forth. It was really quite a great talk. President Packers talk was really good too. Especially the Poem of the old and young crow. Elder Hales didn't look too well either. I hear that he has cancer? this true? He looked so much better last october when He was able to speak. He didn't speak at all last conference so I knew there was something. I just didn't know what. Soon enough I will be able to quote what was said this go around. There are somethings that actaully quite stood out too me. In which I am very grateful. I'm very appreciative for the Technology we have to be able to watch Conference around the world and to be able to go back, listen, watch and read It online.

I think you have told me matthew has decided to wrestle every week for the last month now... I'm sure I won't forget ;P

Luckily, I have previously printed some of my pictures out. So we have some. But I also have a card reader so I can also send some of them via e-mail as well. That's a bit of a bummer though because that was about 6 months of pictures on that card. How many of them were corrupted? Hopefully not too many and a good amount of them can be saved. I am sure to print out the important ones though and the other ones that I like and keep them with me. So, We will have to see what happens. I guess I will start sending some back periodically to you via e-mail.

Last week was so strange. we don't have very many investigators and the ones we do, we weren't able to see at all last week. We have one date set for the 15th, hopefully that will work. we just need to get in touch with the member who has been helping us facillitate our discussions with Bryan Magid. The member has a been a bit awol the last few days. not answering or returning calls or texts. Frustrating. We don't have too much though. But, we are working hard and this next week should go well. I'm going to be on exchanges for two days in a row this week so that should help speed things up. those are always nice to mix it up a bit.

Thanks for looking for those Cds. How long does it take for them to come out?

I can't think of too much else to say... We went to the John Johnson home last monday for P-day. Did I already tell you that? That was cool.

I will attach some pictures from the last week.

Love ya!

--
Elder Michael Stone.