November 2, 2009

Well, family,

It sounds like y'all's holiday was great! Mine was as well, we had a ward trunk or treat and I was able to meet a few more people from the ward that I hadn't yet. We also entered in the Chili contest and won the prize of: Chili that puts hair on your chest! I think it was meant to be a compliment, but everyone actually really liked it and Sis. S***** (who is like our mom out here... she's incredible) even asked me for the recipe. Me and her were having a show-down to see who would win and we both ended up getting different prizes. We spent the rest of the night at the S*****'s playing Phase 10 and passing out candy. I almost taught a lesson to some trick or treaters but decided that I'd let them off easy.

I am absolutely loving this ward. They really trust us and really want to be involved in helping us find people to teach. We've been used and scheduled by them a lot this week. We spoke and sang in combined young men's meeting and seminary this morning and have been asked to speak on Wednesday night at their new PMG/Mission Prep classes. It's a super great youth group and we're going to get them involved in inviting. One of my favorite members that I've met this week is Sister L****. I'm not sure if I mentioned but she's from Centerville and is the older sister of Jessica Miller. Anyway, she lives super close to us and is incredibly missionary minded and gave us two referrals, she's great! Also is Bro. B********, he's one of our 2 ward mission leaders and he's one of the kindest most loving men in the ward.

Things with investigators are going great, we found three new investigators this week (well kinda found, they were really given to us) one of which has a baptismal date for two weeks. His name is W******** P******* and he is a Part-Member situation. He was taught in Florida and went to church there and just barely moved up here so we've started teaching him. He was really already planning on being baptized so it really hasn't been as rewarding as finding your own. But still a great experience teaching him. Another investigator is J***** M****. He's 77 years old and very familiar with the church, mostly because he has family that are members, attended BYU and gone on missions but also because he LOVES the BYU channel (which he unfortunately just lost when he switched to Comcast). He's been sick this week and his wife has been dodging the missionaries so we went over with Sis. S***** and delivered some Homemade chicken noodle soup and finally met her. She was nice, but I think she's heard too much from her Baptist church, J***** said she'd been asking him questions, so hopefully she'll allow us to teach her. He pretty much knows it's true and is ready to make the change, he just wants to make sure that it's true, because he doesn't want to switch religions anymore. However, he doesn't want to switch without his wife so either we have to 1) convince her to listen 2) get him to be an example to her OR 3) have her pass away and do work for the dead (just kidding... we don't pray for those things, even though J. Golden Kimball mentioned that that's the only way he thinks we'll convert the South). Then there's L*****, he's from Ghana and he lives just downstairs. We're teaching him about the BOM and hoping to help him gain a testimony of it. He is an incredibly spiritual man and he's felt that God has saved him from some things in his life for a great purpose. He currently goes to an African Church in Atlanta, he fasts every Saturday because it was the day he was born, and just finished what he told us was a 2 week fast.... so he definitely won't have a problem with obeying the law of the fast ;) We're trying to get him to church and help him gain a testimony of the BOM, because once that falls into place, everything is SO much easier. Last of the investigators that I'll talk about is Steve C*****. He's a very nice man he has two high school aged kids and lost his wife back in June. He lives next to two members and was super impressed at how members of the church were the first ones to reach out to him. So this Sunday, we went to church with him so he would come to church with us. Boy, was it an experience. He goes to a huge mega-church called Browns Bridge. It is an auditorium church that has 3 different campuses. It's a whole production too. It really was like a mini amusement park. There's a place for the kids that's like a Sesame Street thing and then teenagers have a hang out crib. And then the main sermon (3 different packed sessions probably making thousands of dollars a session) which was started out by a comedian guy who was kinda dorky singing songs like Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 and 'Working at the Car Wash' Then we had a Coldplay/5 for Fighting/Counting Crows type band who lead us in 3 spiritual rock songs complete with full band, an impressive array of lights (basically a light show) and some actually really nice lyrics. Then was collection and I can only imagine how much they make to run a place like that, all though, they actually have a lot of volunteers who help out too. Then was the main sermon. The series they're on is" @ work. Where they talked about the purpose of work, how it was instituted be God, and the message was really really nice. The think I thought was weird is that the pastor was broadcast from another campus and they broadcast it so it looked like he was on the stage as a creepy 3-D holograph, cool technology but kind freaky too. Well, everyone there was in real casual clothes and we were in our suits. It was kinda funny and super interesting to be able to smile and wave at people.

Well, that's only ONE of the other churches we went to this week. We also had the opportunity on Tuesday to go to a Holliness church's Bible Study. Have Greg fill you in on what a Holliness church believes but basically their big things are: Speaking in tongues, Grace of God, Praise God and Being filled with the Spirit. It's an all African American church and we were referred to as their "white friends" (even Elder Mensah who's from Ghana). Well, as we walked in the Lord's Prayer was being recited, which then turned into shouts of Hallelujah's and Glory to God, just a side note, if you ever attend a church like this, it is improper to stop and gather your thoughts or to even have moment when you're not speaking. If there is going to be a pause fill it with a Hallalujah, Glory to God, Amen. Okay, back to the story. After the Lord's Prayer/Praise fest we sang 'I've got a friend is Jesus' a classic negro spiritual. And then Elder Mortenson and I were invited to sing 'I Know That My Redeemer Lives' it was a very spiritual experience and as we walked down to our seats were clapped for, our hands were shook... we were basically celebrities. Well, the part of the Bible we talked about was Ephesians 4... lucky us. Well, we all went around and talked about promises of the Lord. Most everyone just said why they loved Jesus that week but it came time for our turn and the Zone Leaders talked about 'One Lord, One Faith and One Baptism. Then, we were running out of time, but I was able to stand up and share with them the promise that Moroni makes to us at the end of the Book of Mormon. I bore them my testimony that our churches are coming together (something the pastor had said earlier because we were there) and extended an invitation for a free Book of Mormon to anyone who desired to know if what we were saying is true. Well, we left and didn't get to talk to people after but I found out a few days later that Pastor Earl requested a Book of Mormon and one other person from the congregation. Pastor Earl's brother is a deacon in their church and he may have a baptismal date soon, we'll see. Anyway, all of this is in the Sugar Hill area so I'll let you know how that goes.

Love,

Elder Davies

October 26, 2009

Family,

Happy Halloween, have an extra doughnut for me! And take pictures of the kids in their costumes, I'd love to have some of those!

Well, it's been a good week, learning the area and all of that. We also had Zone Conference and President King really stressed obedience and informed us that the church is beginning to move towards a 4 week transfer cycle and if they decide on it, it will be implemented in June. So we will be preparing for that and will begin to have interviews and Zone Conferences on a monthly basis. It's all very exciting and not certain yet, but it puts a lot of stress on the Mission President's, however the church feels it will increase productivity and so if that's it, then we'll go forward with it.

We had a baptism of a 10 year old Part Member boy on Saturday, they've been working with him for about a year and he's finally decided to be baptized along with his 8 year old little sister.

This week, as we were biking to go and make some visits, we stopped on the side of the road because there was a turtle! That's right, a live turtle just chillin on the sidewalk! Well, being the good missionaries we are, we took a little break and had a photo shoot (pictures to follow). It was great and Elder Mortenson was upset that I wouldn't let him take it home! Later on we saw a flattened road kill turtle on the side of the road, and even though it was a different road Elder Mortenson tried to give me a hard time and said that I killed our little turtle friend!

Well, this ward is absolutely great! We've really gained their trust and they're ready to start praying to find and invite! After all, PMG Ch. 9, Pres. Hinckley's quote reminds us that "everyone who is familiar with the work know that there is a better way" (than knocking doors). So as soon as that program is alive and well, things will start to move a little smoother here. My most spiritual experience this week was with our Bishop. He's a great man, reminds me a lot of Elder Bednar. He's extremely loving and caring and so ready to move this work along. We had a meeting with him yesterday morning with one of our ward mission leaders and he gave us a commission to have 2 more people baptized by the end of 30 days. It can and will be done! He called us later that night, right before our lights went out and just spoke some incredible words of wisdom and told us that we have a spirit about us that has gained the trust of the ward so that they will invite they're friends to learn more about this work. We have their trust, now all we have to do is work to create the miracle and acknowledge that God is the actual author of it.

So, the ward is really super affluent, I mean, most people live in gated communities and nice houses. But one man in particular who lives in our ward trumps all of the rest. His name is Hubert Humphrey. You may be familiar with the name, since he's only the richest man in Georgia AND a member of the church. Well, he has a 60,000 square foot castle that has 2 bowling lanes, a movie theater built after Fox Theater, 15 bedrooms, 60 T.V.'s, a 9 hole golf course in the back yard that can be played different ways so that it make up an 18 hole course. And a virtual golf system in the house that has 250 different courses with cameras that analyze your shot (there is only one other in the world and it belongs to Tiger Woods). 2 elevators a cafe and who knows what more! Well, I haven't been in yet and he's selling it soon (either to a Saudi prince of some corporation to use as a vacation resort), but hopefully next P-Day he'll give us a tour, and maybe let us play some golf. He and his wife want to move to a smaller home in the area and once he's done with his next business adventure he wants to serve a mission with his wife.... that's a pretty good indicator of just how well these people do.

Well, I love you all, I will think of you often during this Holiday seasons that are coming up.

Love,

Elder Davies

October 19, 2009

Well, I'm here in the Sharon Springs ward. It is in Cumming Georgia which... is on the other side of Lake Lanier AND in the same stake as my old ward Hamilton Mill. So, the Lord was kind in keeping my transfer fairly close. My new companion is Elder Mortenson, he's been out for a whopping 6 weeks! So together we make 6 months. He's a great guy and I'm excited to be able to work with him, hopefully for more than 1 transfer, unlike all my other companions. The new ward is great, the members are super missionary minded. We have a whole whiteboard in our apartment dedicated wholly to member referrals. Neither of us really know any thing about them, so we'll be asking around. And I've been told by President King that this is the best bishop in the mission and in his opinion, one of the best in the church.... those are pretty big expectations and unfortunately he was sick yesterday, so I've yet to meet him.

In this ward there is a Sister L****... from Centerville. He maiden name: M*****. She is the older sister of Jessica Miller who most of us know as Fauntine. It was so cool! I met her my first night here and we made the connection immediately. She's a super nice lady. Also in our ward in the Mormon version of Michael Scott (from the office), he just happens to be Gospel Essentials teacher... he's great. His wife is pregnant with their 7th and their oldest is 17... kinda like us!

The apartment, it's super nice however, it is at the top and bottom of a hill... let me explain. The beginning of apartment complex is up an HUGE hill. But the apartment is down towards at the bottom of the hill. Kinda giving me a good workout.

Other than that it's been super cold here and I'm just trying to learn the new area. I'm sorry this e-mail hasn't been my best, but I want you to know I love you. I pray for you often.

Love,

Elder Davies

October 12, 2009

It has been a Miracle Week here in the Hamilton Mill ward. We've certainly worked harder than ever, and the Lord has blessed us for our efforts. We have taught R***** a lot this week. Twice with all of his and his fiance's kids there. He's a good, good man. And he will be an incredible priesthood addition to this ward. We have set a date for his baptism and it is January 25th. A week after he and Lorri get married.

So, ready for some more miracles?

This week we had interviews and we had it at a beautiful waterfall called Amicola Falls. While there a recent convert from a ward next to us gave us 2 referrals. One, a less active seminary teacher friend of hers who now drinks and smokes. Second, her son who lives with her ex-husband who says he wants to be baptized. We visited them and the boy wasn't home but the dad was and he's willing to allow us to come over and teach he and his son.

Another miracle: I survived our 50+ mile week of hilly terrain. I've been so so tired, we really have worked our tails off.

Back to spiritual matters. Saturday we met with an past investigator who was never really dropped, but we just didn't get to him when the ward split. His name is R****, he's retired and lives by himself, but he knows his Bible. He actually teaches Bible study classes on various topics and is super nice. He's kinda open minded; he really likes to just talk about our common beliefs and he actually explained to me a lot of what Baptist churches believe, where they come from and he even offered to take us with him to his Bible study classes. He's a Church of God member, but I think we have a good fellowshipper for him. His name is Brother Smith.

A little background on Brother Smith, he was raised in the RLDS religion, he wasn't super active but eventually he started exploring the church and for a long time really really knew more about our church than most members. Well, guess who his great, great grandfather is? That's right Joseph Smith Jr. Anyway, we're excited to take him over there and to hopefully get Ralph to sincerely read and pray about the Book of Mormon.

Well, we got a referral this week from headquarters and the referral said this: M*** - requested: Missionary visits.... he wants to be baptized. Well, we got in contact with him asap and were able to go over there yesterday. It was truly the most remarkable experience of my mission. M*** has been in the army since he was 18, he's 26 now, and he's grown up around members his entire life. He's grown up a 7th day Adventist and his drunk father came in half-way threw the lesson and tried to get me to "convince" him about why we worship on Sunday and not Saturday. Well, not only was he totally drunk, he was actually proving my point of: by their fruits ye shall know them. Anyway, once he left us alone we continued discussing and come to find out that M*** has his own leather bound quad! I mean this is truly the Lord's elect. Well, needless to say the spirit was strong and he has a baptismal date for October 31st. I know, that's incredible quick, but this man has been searching for truth and is so dedicated to living the religion already that we could not deny that the spirit had us set such an early date.

So a week of miracles and beautiful Georgian pictures. Probably the most incredible week of my mission thus far. Well, last night we got calls about transfers. They were going through all of the other districts in our Zone and then they came to us: Gainsville Distirct: Elder Johnson, Elder Campbell and Elder Davies, you're leaving. What!!! I absolutely love this ward. We have just got the ball rolling, just like we had in Lilburn (3 baptisms, maybe 4 there have either happened or are planned from people we had contacted) and now I'm being ripped from the people who I would bike to the ends of the earth for! Well, I don't know where I'm serving, President has asked me to serve as a District Leader and to be honest family, I'm pretty scared.

My knowledge that the Lord lives today, just as he did in Jerusalem is at the up most assurance that it has ever been. It is him in whom I trust, he is my Savior, our Savior and the Savior of all the spirits who dwelt with God. No doubt in my mind there have been angels pushing my pedals over these mountains. The Lord has blessed me with one angel whom I have missed dearly and thought of often in the short four and half months I've been gone. I can stand still and say with the strings of my heart and conscience that He Lives.

I'm sorry to change up the pace on you from my more humorous weeks, but I wished to share that with you. For all of your love and support, I thank you. You are my most prized posses ions,

I love you,

Elder Davies

October 5, 2009

What a joy it is to write you in light of the recent General Conference. It was a very interesting few days as I spent much of it at members homes eating their food, relaxing on their couch and treasuring the words of the Lord through his prophets and apostles. A little missionary heaven break. Before I get to conference let me give you a little recap of this week:

On Wednesday, we had an incredible lesson with R***** about the Plan of Salvation. We went up to the Atonement and didn't talk about death or anything after that. But it was a very spirit filled lesson. He's really starting to feel comfortable with us and ask us questions.... always a good thing. We hope he had a good experience at conference this weekend and that he felt the spirit strongly.

We then biked about 15 miles to our dinner appointment with a less-active/ part-member home. The husband is an incredible chef and we had some good shrimp scampi. We played UNO with the 11 year old and gained his trust. For some reason he has a bad misconception at what Mormons are all about, he's obviously watched WAY too much t.v. Well, we'll try to clear that up and get him and his mom back to church.

The next day we contacted some former investigators and such. We contacted a lady named M*****, she came to the open house that we had a few weeks ago and we finally got in and talked to her. She's an active Baptist, but funnily enough she has defended our church as not being a cult in her former church. She's great, open-minded and long winded... she talked to us for 2 hours! Even when after an hour we told her we needed to go. Well, she doesn't think she can change but she has said she'll read and pray about the Book of Mormon (little does she know the change that that can make!). We also met a man who had formerly investigated the church, and on the records there was no indication to why he had stopped being visited. So we stopped by, and he came outside and I could just tell that he was miserable. He's going through a divorce right now, has 4 kids under the age of 10... I think and is just so sad. We quickly bore him our testimony about the Book of Mormon. The way it can help change your life and told him we'd come back a different day. Our hope is that we can get the ward in there and have them just wrap their arms around him and help him out! That will be a project we'll be shooting to make happen this week.

As for conference. I was in heaven. I loved every minute of it! Favorite talks include: Elder Scott, Elder Oaks, Elder Ballard and of course: Elder Holland! I loved it all a lot!

Well, family I love you. I'm trying to help a man fill out a job application for a trucking company. Hopefully the Book of Mormon in my hand will be his... wish me luck!

Love,

Elder T. Davies

September 28, 2009

First off, I apologize for my understatement last week. I guess we've been having record rains and parts of Atlanta (the interstate on the west side being one of them) are flooding like crazy. Rest assured, we're safe here in Hall/Northern Gwinett county. It's kinda funny, the flooding seems to be mostly just outside our mission boundaries. Which is unfortunate, because we haven't been able to help with the clean-up. However I know that there were several hundred members from some of the surrounding stakes (Sugar Hill, which is mine, included). From what I hear the clean-up was not very well organized and our ward members only ran into one man who would absolutely not let 'Mormons' on his property...even to help him clean out his flooded house. The other interesting report is that there were a fair amount of Jehovah's Witnesses there too! I think that's great, in fact, the other day Elder Christensen and I shared a bathroom with a Jehovah's Witness, he was very nice and very friendly to us.

So.... on to this week's events. We had a very good week. We've identified several part-member families who we'll be trying to get in, serve and gain the trust of in the following week. We're hoping to get them back to church, or at least find a friend in the ward for them. No new investigators this week, but we're finding a lot of Potential Investigators. For some reason all of the Potential Investigators seem to be younger kids. I'm talking that with Part-member families and such there's like 4 or 5 11 year olds that we may have as investigators, it's kinda cool, I'm really learning how to teach simply. (Ask Jordan about John Taylor quote in Ch. 10 of PMG... I'm striving for "true intelligence" as my name-sake has defined it). One such 11 year old is from a Less-Active/Part-Member family. He was super super cold to us when we first met him and wouldn't even really come out and say a prayer with us. So we brought it up in District Meeting and the idea was suggested that we go over and have like a family home evening/game night! We suggested the idea to him and he was super excited, I have to make sure to buy UNO today, he really wanted it. Now the trick is to: 1) Get his mom and his brothers and sisters and HIM to church. 2) Get her to stop smoking and 3) Get the dad to be home so we can teach him too!

R***** S***** is the man who showed up to church on Sunday last week. We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. He accepted everything (I'm not completely sure how much he understood) and has even accepted to be baptized as he comes to know that these things are true! We tried to set a date for the second or third weekend in October but we ran into a catch. The lady/member who we thought was his wife is actually is fiance. So, they have to get married before we can actually baptize him and they're not planning on that until January! So we're hoping that either he'll have a spiritual experience at Conference that will convince him to move it up sooner OR he'll move out and live with his mother who's just down the street. Either way, it is in the Lord's hands and that's how it should be!

I really love this ward, and we're starting to get them more PMG and more involved. One great man in our ward has brought this man and his girlfriend to church!

PAUSE! I just had an incredible experience. So while I've been sitting here typing the guy right across from me has been staring at me. I figured, we'll he doesn't like Mormons and nothing's new. Well, he just came over, asked me what church I was from and asked me if we attend other churches. I told him "Of course we do" Well, he invited me to his church which is a United Methodist Church and I, knowing beforehand that he was going to at least ask me something, had pulled out an Article of Faith pass along card and handed it to him, he said he'd look for me at church. I'm super excited if it doesn't conflict with our time at all and it's a great Building Bridges experience. Something that we're stressing in the ward is to 'Build Bridges' we're reminding people that it's not about converting people, it's about inviting people. It doesn't matter if they come as long as you sincerely and thoughtfully pray and think of people that you can invite to any church function. Anyway, his name was Reverend Scott, he's retired now, and they have a woman pastor. They aren't meeting until Oct. 25th so I'll let you know on the 26th how it went. I'm excited... and a bit nervous.

Back to the story. This couple who's been coming to church has been going through some really rough times. He lost his job and they lost their house and they've been living out of a tent in the woods. Some guys from the ward have been finding odd-jobs around the house that they can pay him for doing. We're hoping that maybe we can teach him sometime this week. We'll see.

I love you all, just as I love Joshua's council to the children of Israel right before he passes away... "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." By the way did you know his father was a Nun? (Okay, so not really, but that was his name... pretty cool huh!)

With greatest love that binds my heartstrings,

Elder Taylor Davies

September 21, 2009

Well, it's been wet here in Georgia, very wet! But the Lord has continued to bless us with miracles. We haven't been almost hit by any cars or fallen into thorny bushes. But we've had some of the best authentic Southern food I've had thus far. I've had fried okra twice! Cornbread twice, Country fried steak, and chicken and dumplings. Along with a Giada Delorentes meal at a members house. It was like the pot roast pasta... so good! Work was good, I continue to love reading the scriptures and even the Old Testament is making a little bit of sense to me. We have a new investigator who came to church with his wife and he's a super nice guy! We're really connecting with this ward and they're starting to trust us with bringing people to church and the bishop really trusts us, which will just help the work progress like crazy! I know I shouldn't say this, because saying so will curse me but, I really hope I get to stay in this ward with this companion for at least one more transfer, I wouldn't even mind until Christmas to be honest! There's great work going on here.

Love,

Elder Davies