This week had some interesting experiences – most of it was pretty good though.
We had a wonderful exchange with our Zone Leaders. I got to go to Covington and be with Elder Fisk. And we got to knock some pretty rich areas. Which is something that our mission is trying to focus more on now and using to find those good Christian families who are ready to hear the Gospel.
We had a very interesting interaction over WhatsApp with a lady who was trying to find a previous missionary and who thought we were that missionary.
Met with our amazing friend Shane again and found out that he had found some anti church literature and doesn’t want to be baptized anymore. However, he still wants to understand more and continue meeting with us so that’s a relief.
We had a wonderful meal with the family that came to church last Sunday and taught them about the Plan of Salvation which they really enjoyed. Then we invited them to come to church again, and they came and loved it!
Don’t worry, guys, I’m alive. I haven’t emailed since Halloween and now its almost Thanksgiving. In the past three weeks a lot has happened! In chronological order I:
Got sick
A minor cold and headache
Put two people on date for baptism
An amazing miracle, we invited them to church on a weekday to give them a small tour and a lesson and they brought up baptism themselves
Dug out weeds and roots with an axe
Had Elder Marsh’s alter ego Elder Rage show up
Had some members dress us up as 6 and 7 for Halloween
They really wanted to embarrass their kids!
had a wonderful trunk or treat with the other Ward that shares our building
We gave out little cards that said Jesus loves you and came home with an entire box of candy Elder Marsh said he didn’t like any of the candy so I ate it all
hit a car breaking my phone
Elder Marsh was driving and I acted like he hit me by laying on the hood but my pants were tight so when I laid on the hood my phone crunched. The screen cracked but not the screen protector!
Had zone P-day
We played ultimate Frisbee and I got a concussion because I ran into my teammate. I was also kneed in the shin by another teammate.
Recovered from my concussion
We called the mission nurse and she diagnosed me with a minor concussion and told me to rest for a day
Barely got a lesson with a teaching friend
An amazing miracle where we parked far away from our teaching friends house and when we knocked he wasn’t there but as we were walking to our car he pulled up and told us he could have a lesson
Had an awesome time at Bishops Storehouse
I was assigned to see if any of the potatoes were bad. They said if they smell like dirt they’re good and I’ll know if I smell a bad one. The bad one would destroy my nose and sense of smell. I didn’t get any bad potatoes.
Had an awesome lesson with a guy that is a 45 minute drive away
He had already read the Book of Mormon but had lost his previous one so we gave him a new one
Returned to my baby area
Had an exchange with Amite when we had some good lessons
Had Zone Conference with Elder Cavalcante (pronounced kava-conch-ay)
I went on throughout the week through Zoom but the biggest thing I learned was that God doesn’t follow your rules He follows His and by study and prayer we can start to understand those rules.
Got a new phone
Since I broke my old one the office gave me a new one after Zone Conference but I’ve forgotten my password that I used for messenger and Facebook so I haven’t been able to communicate with other missionaries very easily.
I did Spanish work
Me and Elder Marsh knocked on a door and a lady answered the door and said she only understood a little English so we asked he if she knew Spanish and if she wanted to grow closer to God. She said yes so we gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon that I had carried in my bag for three transfers and connected her with the Spanish sisters.
Lost contact with our two friends on date
Their number stopped working and their address didn’t exist so pray for them please!
Put another teaching friend on date
We’ve been teaching Shane ever since I got here and he really wants to know everything so we invited him to come to church and he came and saw our primary program. He really likes our beliefs and has committed to come to church every Sunday before his baptism.
Had a family just show up to church
At church a family who just likes to visit different churches each week stopped by and came to ours and really enjoyed it and we connected over homeschooling
So, overall a pretty fun filled 3 weeks oh, I almost forgot! Nevermind, I’ll tell y’all next month it’ll be more exciting then.
Well ladies and gents, exciting news! I’ve been transferred once again! Slightly sad to leave Elder Witbeck and New Iberia, but Elder Witbeck is training so that’s exciting. I have been moved to Mandeville to greenie break Elder Marsh.
One of the best things about Mandeville is that I can finally say that Elder Ward has now served in a ward! It only took 10 months! I thought that I would only be in a ward at the end of my mission. Elder Marsh is awesome! I really think he is a “W” companion in disguise.
It is very interesting to serve in Mandeville since it is in the same District as Amite which is where I started my mission. I went on exchanges here and served around here before, so I sometimes get déjà vu when we’re traveling through the area.
We had an amazing lesson with one of our teaching friends that took almost two hours. He wasn’t ready to come to church yet he said but he believes in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and wants to learn all he can.
Mandeville is very different from New Iberia because in New Iberia we had a ton of referrals who we had to visit so we had to drive a lot. While here in Mandeville we don’t have many referrals and go knocking much more often. One of the silliest things about knocking on doors is that many people ask how old we are. I always ask them to guess how old I am and the guesses have ranged from 12 years old to 19 years old with the most common guess being 16 years old. I must have some very youthful features.
A lot of stuff has happened in the past two weeks, hasn’t there?! We had the passing of of our beloved Prophet, President Nelson, General Conference, I had Zone Conference, and many more stuff!
So, General Conference. It was some busy days for me and Elder Witbeck. We helped a member move in for the Saturday Morning session, we had lunch with the second councilor for the Saturday Afternoon session, and we watched the Saturday evening session with Mama Pat. For Sunday we watched both sessions at the Branch President’s house and had some lessons in between sessions.
Most every missionaries’ favorite talks in this mission were “The Eternal Gift of Testimony” by Kevin G. Brown and “The Good News Recipe” by John D. Amos for a variety of reasons. Elder Amos mentioned that he was from Opelousas which is less than an hour away from where we live in New Iberia and is in my mission. The coolest thing is that he was the last mission president of my mission. One of my favorite parts from Elder Brown’s talk was that he mentioned that a testimony is not temporary. When we have our experiences with God they are added to our testimony and those experiences will always be with us.
The day before Zone Conference me and Elder Witbeck had the opportunity to go through the temple! It was a wonderful experience and it prepared us spiritually for Zone Conference as well.
Zone Conference was awesome, I got to see some familiar faces and catch up a little bit. we had a bunch of good presentations and some missionaries gave their gospel home testimonies to and by the end of it a lot of people were tearing up. The spirit was felt strongly in the chapel that day.
A funny experience from the past week was at the Gumbo festival where as we walked down Main Street to get there at the first stall that we see someone waves us down so we walk over and find out that they are members from Shreveport which is four hours away and one of two places in Louisiana that we don’t cover in my mission. (the other is Lake Charles) They gave us some good Gumbo.
One other thing I did that I thought was funny was that I built a fence by ziptieing it to another fence. It was interesting but it was to make sure that the member’s dogs didn’t go through the fence.
I’ll end with probably my favorite quote from conference from B. Corey Cuvelier. “You can count the number of seeds from one apple, but you can not count the number of apples from one seed.” This quote struck me because you can count how much service you do, the number of times you smile at people, and how often you talk about church. But you can never count the number of lives you change by just being a disciple of Christ. You are literally life-changing.
Alright my friends, family, acquaintances, and others that will read this! I’ve been having a blast with Elder Witbeck. We have been trying to meet with every member in the Branch! Also yes, they pronounce “eaux” as o sound.
last day with Elder Wight
We drove up to this one member’s house way out in the boonies to see if they really existed, because earlier in the day we had tried to visit some inactive members but their houses were abandoned and destroyed, and when we knocked on the day she came out and basically shouted “Elders! It’s been so long, I’ve missed you guys coming to visit me!” It was a fun experience and in a few weeks she said she would be able to come to church.
I suppose I should explain the picture of the microwave from last week. Elder Witbeck found a huge clump of dryer lint and because as missionaries we are warned dryer lint is a fire hazard we decided to set it on fire in the microwave. We also decided to get some mood lighting for the apartment.
I went on exchanges with Elder Thomas and it was really fun, we found some cool signs as well as doing some fun service.
Elder Witbeck got some cool cowboy boots for his birthday and I’ll be sure to add a photo of them next email.
I don’t know when this email will send since I am having some internet issues but first I have to apologize for not sending an email last week. I know that you all are understanding and some of you may know that there are not enough chapters in the Lord of the Rings to send an email with a chapter name on it every week for two years. However, if I add the title of the Hobbit and its chapters I’ll have a little over 50 chapters left to title my emails. Still not enough to send an email every week but if I miss one here and there, there will be just enough. And if I am really good at sending an email every week I can just start sending chapters of the Silmarillion!
Now with that out of the way we can look back to the past two weeks…
At the beginning of last week I went on exchanges in Morgan City with Elder Fatiaki. Morgan City doesn’t have a washer and dryer so they do laundry at a member’s house. So we had to stop by the members house throughout the day to switch laundry and one of the times we stopped by, the member asked if we could help them with some technology they had. Since this member wasn’t very good at technology.
I have to interrupt the story here to thank my dad for letting me watch and explaining what he was doing when I was younger as he helped others with their computer problems.
So I helped this member make some shortcuts for some of the apps on their computer, connect their computer to the printer, their phone to the printer, and the phone and computer to each other. The member really needed the help and I was the only one who could help, so I know that exchanges are an amazing experience because on exchanges somebody’s life is going to be altered for good! That person may be you, your companion, or someone who you meet randomly on the street!
We had DC on a Friday because we had our PPI’s which was interesting but I really enjoyed it because President Smuin is a cool dude. He gave me and Elder Wight a mission to find something for him so I’ll tell you guys if we find it.
I cut my own hair this week because I felt like the sides were getting long (and because mom commented on it) but I think it turned out pretty good but I may have someone else cut the back because I cant see back there.
So, I have spent 9 months in the south and this week was my first time visiting a Waffle House and I gotta say, it was pretty good, I enjoyed it!
For P-Day this week we went to Top Golf so that was pretty cool and did pretty well. In the two games we played I got first and second which was good considering it was my first time.
While we were at Walmart we ran into a guy that Elder Wight had met before in a previous transfer that believed that he traveled to different planets. It was a really weird conversation.
Transfer news dropped so we found out that Elder Wight is Leaving to the area of Bastrop/Monroe and I am getting another “W” companion Elder Witbeck!
May the Wind be in your sails And the Currents in your favor May Luck be with you And your fortunes be bright May the Light of Christ be in your heart And the Power of God in your efforts (Especially you Elder Walker! Congrats)
This week went by pretty fast! We had Zone Conference and my Zone Conference is pretty unique because it is the only Zone Conference where three Zones come together for Zone Conference; Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, and New Orleans zones. The rest of the mission does it with only two zones.
We have been working on our relations with the members of our branch but we still have to do other missionary work so we can’t visit every active member but we’ve found that just randomly stopping by can really brighten up someone’s day.
I gave a talk on Sunday in the branch, right in front of the Stake President. I thought that it was pretty good because I was able to add some things to it mid-way through from my personal studies.
For P-Day we went down to Morgan City with the district to the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. While there I did not see Shrimp nor Petroleum but I did see some cool stalls selling all sorts of stuff and fun carnival rides.
This week has probably been one of the hardest I’ve had in the mission. But it feels so good to have done it. I’ll dispense with the usual day by day format for no reason whatsoever so if y’all hate it, email me with your complaints.
So it turns out that sickness that I mentioned in the previous email might have been Covid. I continued to be sick all throughout this week until around Friday. I contacted our mission nurse on Tuesday and told her what was happening and she said it was either a small cold or Covid. I did not lose my sense of taste or smell so we don’t really know, but I am recovered now.
We had the funniest thing happen this week. We decided to stop by and see if a teaching friend we hadn’t seen in a while was home and after we knocked on his door twice we were going to leave. As we were headed back to the car he walked out from behind his house a greeted us! As we were talking and catching up with him, another dude approached us and our teaching friend introduced him as his son that was living with him. We asked if he was interested in coming to church and he said he was. Then his wife walked out and we asked her the same thing and she said she had been waiting for somewhere to go to church this entire time! After that, another person walked out and our teaching friend introduced him as another one of his sons and we asked him if he wanted to come to church as well. He did and so did his wife! So from just stopping by one of our teaching friends to catch up we we’re able to invite 4 of his family members to come to church! Fast forwarding to Sunday. We had 11 of our teaching friends come to church which was astounding because in the previous weeks. We had maybe 1 or 2 show up!
The Lord multiplies our efforts! Even though I was sick for most of the week, we were able to get so much missionary work done.
For a spiritual thought I was inspired to explain my favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon. Ether 12:30 (no not 12:27 you doctrinal mastery nerds)
For the brother of Jared said unto the mountain Zerin, Remove—and it was removed. And if he had not had faith it would not have moved; wherefore thou workest after men have faith.
I love the scripture because it is one of the few instances in the scriptures where a mountain is actually moved. But the real reason this is my favorite scripture is for the second part, because when we do not have faith, we don’t recognize or strive for many miracles. But after we have faith, we are able to access the infinite power and countless miracles God has in store for us.
Farewell until next week and May the Power of God be in your efforts.
I’ve been pretty sick this past week, but we set inspired goals and hit them all which was super cool. We have a few people we are going to put on a date and people have been coming to church! Faith and the Atonement have been some things that have been recurring quite frequently these past two weeks. Catch you next week!
A really short one this week, Because I’ve been having too much fun. I will recap it in the next email…
Well… I guess I can give a quick run down of the new area, it’s very exciting. I got bashed twice in the first three days, won both of them, and got a dinner appointment with a Jehovah’s Witness to talk more. Elder Wight is really awesome. He’s only been serving for 4 months. He’s pretty new but really good at teaching. He’s had some awesome previous companions that taught him a lot.
Elder Zachary Ward 