Letter for 8Mar17:

I've been trying to keep busy. This week we ate with our investigator Juniper and met her family and husband. We ate chili and played cards with there Oldest (ALEX age 6) and spoke with her about life in general and talked about church. Juniper Fed all 4 of us and will be coming to church this week.

As far as anything else goes, we have been knocking doors, went to check out our new area, and looked at what our new apartment is going to look like. We will be out in nowheresville. All it is out there is farm land. If you drive out towards meridian Idaho where there is just open fields and farm. its pretty much what it looks like. Its 15 miles or more of nothing in any direction. There are two small towns we will be working out of mainly. Mccordsville and Fortville. Its almost the equivalent of driving west on ustick till the farm lands.

I also called up Victoria our recent converts in white river and spoke with her for a bit! Ill send ya some pictures. Love you guys

Some bullet points since I haven't updated Davis' blog much since November:

• He has been a district leader for a few months and seems to really enjoy it.
• He was sick for a long time with a cold, but eventually got over it.
• They woke up to a massive leak coming through the kitchen light.  The pipe in the apartment above them broke.  The fire department came to turn off the water main.
•  He gets to do a ride along with the fire department every three weeks because his companion is a fireman and needs to keep his hours up for certification.
• Davis will come home May 9^th!

    This video of Davis messing with his companion made us laugh:

Other pictures:

Chopping wood

The plane

"Potato face"

Hottest wings  

Baptisms!  Yay!

This week was great We baptized Victoria, Titi, and Ola! They were Confirmed on Sunday and are so happy to be members of this church. Titi Is pumped to get home to Nigeria and start teaching her family and friends about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and how it came through a Modern day prophet! How cool is that!  Other than that we havent had much going on. After the Baptism Victoria bore her testimony of Jesus Christ and his gospel. It was powerful and moving. 

I love you guys! Take care this week. 

Here is a picture of Victoria, Titi, and Ola 

And my Companion and I eating Valveta that was given to us at the beginning of Elder Allred's mission. We swore that we wouldn't eat it unless we had baptized someone. It was mainly a joke that we took seriously

10/17/16:
Hey Fam. Its been a good week. We met with the Nigerian family multiple times this week bringing them to a baptism and catching the rest of their family up with all the things we teach them. The Grandmother Titi is the one who came to church this week with her grandchildren Ola And I have no Idea how to spell her brothers name. But the Grandmother just came to visit Victoria from Nigeria and Victoria gave her a Book of Mormon and told her to read it. So we have been teaching her and she had told us how much she has changed. She told us her son is a pastor in Africa and she is going to give him a Book of Mormon and she is going to have him change too. She is working towards being baptized. So as we teach them Victoria, Ola, Titi will be Baptized then their Son and the Husband Bayo will hopefully sit in on a lesson as well. 

Wondm will be continuing to meet with us and we are going to bring an Ethiopian friend that comes to church to help teach him. We have been working on being very obedient  and we have seen The Lords hand in our life! Its been awesome I believe your prayers are heard and will be answered!!!! Of course be it his will! 

Beat to Teach and Pitbull:

here are some things I forgot to mention. Played Getto B ball or as we call it Beat to teach. They were all cool! My team won. 

Then we went to go check out some potential Investigators and this Pit bull ran up to us and slapped into my comps window without me knowing. I opened my door and the Fart hopped into our car like he wanted a ride! Luckily he was a sweet dog. Later his owner came was looking for him and I helped chase him down. and the Dog wouldnt come to his owner so I stopped and the Dog stopped and I slapped my knees and told him to come here. and He GALLOPED to me hahaha and jumped right into my arms. so I held the dog till His owner came and Got him.

A wonderful week!

 This week was great! We worked hard and had much success with talking with our Ethiopian friend Wondm. We invited Wondm to church AND HE CAME!!!!!!!! IT WAS SO GREAT! He couldnt stay for the entire time so before he left we took him around the church and ran into a member in our ward who just so happened to be from the same country as Wondm! They spoke in their native language for a while and then parted ways and we continued to go around the church. As we worked our way around we came to the painting of John the Baptist and spoke about baptism. He told us he will get baptized but he wants to read more. He seems to be in Alma 45 right now! He does so much research when we arent there, then when we meet him he has great questions! He says "So many people say the Mormons are weird, but I enjoy what they do and how you work." He enjoyed sacrament meeting and is going to bring his wife and kid next week! 

   My companion and I have been praying for a miracle and working hard, then on Sunday we had a surprise visit at church from a Lady named Victoria! We had been trying to get in contact with her since she moved to Indiana. Victoria and her Family have been wanting to be baptized but lost contact with missionaries! She came up to the other Elders in our ward and poked em on the chest and said "WE NEED MISSIONARIES" so we received the correct contact information and we will be starting to meet with her on Tuesday. I am so grateful for miracles in this modern day. I am so grateful for the opportunity to give up a small time of my life to serve in Indiana. I can not describe the many wonderful things that have happened in my life since May 6th 2015. It hasnt always been easy but I am grateful for that. 

I love all of you   

Hey whats up! I am now in White River training Elder Allred who is pretty cool! He's from Gilbert Arizona he is 18 he is as old as my brother! The new area is slightly familiar because Tafuna brought me here when he was training me so I knew a few members already! Its not really a place where its at all safe to bike so we walk!

Our First day we were walking around and checking out our area and walked up to an abandoned swimming pool with a pub building attached to it. It is all fenced off so we walked up to the fence to get a closer look. well there were two black dudes sitting on the steps and had a Rifle with a scope leaning on the wall haha. They looked at us and were like "what you guys doing?" and I told him we came to check out the abandoned pool! How are you guys doing? they said "We good" and I said alright well have a nice day! and we walked off and my comp as we were walking looked at me and asked "Do we mention the sniper rifle?" I just told him to keep walking and ignore it.

But other than that we have had a lot of success! We work hard and wake up on time! We study when we can and its been great! We had a couple experiences to share so ill start with the first Neighborhood we went to. We knocked on a door and waited for a minute or two and heard the garage door open. I told him this happens alot where they leave right when we knock. So we walked around the corner and saw she wasnt in her car. So we asked if we could give her a card, and she for sure wasnt interested in talking to us. She was upset that we were there but she said sure to taking the card. So we gave here the card and she said ok thanks, and just kinda sat there for a second because I was seeing if my comp would say anything. He didnt so I started the conversation off nice and friendly and immediately she opened up. I forgot to mention when we gave her the card she said she had 2 sick kids. so before she turned around I offered some help if she needed any, and thats when she opened up. We spoke with her for a long while and she was very friendly and waited patiently and a little awkwardly as I waited for my companion to speak haha. But we gave here a Bom and a Restoration pamphlet. Well after her we spoke with another friendly fellow and continued on.

Well we headed to a different street and a mail man drove up to a mail box. I asked him if I could give him personally some mail and he said sure! (this is often what we do if we see mailmen) well when he saw Jesus on the front he took it the wrong way. He said "THATS NOT MAIL" and repeated it several times, so I asked You dont want it? and he looked at me nope thats not mail. he (Looked closely at the name tag) and mumbled "Mormons. LYIN MORMONS! YOUR A LYING MORMON!!! Im a pasture of a church you both need to go and repent you lying Mormons! SHAME ON YOU!" I told him im not lying sorry for offering you a pamphlet. and he replied "You said it was mail! YOUR A LYING MORMON!!" and got all heated, which put me in a bad mood so I replied to him "AND YOUR A MEAN PASTOR HUH!!!!" and walked off. and that made everything even more heated but he said "Both you need to repent Ill pray for you God bless you" I said in return GOD BLESS YOU TOO and he said "YOUR LYING CAUSE YOUR LYING MORMONS" So I just said yup and walked off and ignored him. Well after that we came to a ladies door and my comp knocked and we sat there for a while so I knocked, hitting the loos screen door which then banged against her door right when she opened it. She just sat there staring all angry like with wide eyes. and sat in silence so I said " sorry if that was loud" and she just went off! "IT SOUNDED LIKE SOMEONE WAS GETTING MURDERED OUT HERE! YOU SHOULD BE SORRY HOW CAN YOU REPRESENT JESUS KNOCKING LIKE THAT AND BEING SO DISRESPECTFUL" and after just getting done with the mailman I wasnt happy. all i could say was sorry and she continued to poop herself. So i just interrupted her and said have a good day as she continued to spit venom at us. As we were on our way to more doors I saw the mailman and I waved him over to us. He pulled up and I reached out my hand and apologized for being so harsh to him. He reached out and shook my hand and said "Ok" I told him to have a great day and again apologized and he said God bless both of you a lot more gentle this time. After that we headed home and had the thought to bake some cookies and write an apology to her and give her a book of mormon and a card offering any help if she needed it. As we arrived at her house I had the cookies in our plate in my hand and began walking, little did I know the paper towel the cookies were in slid so easily on the plate, and I spilled 3 of them) OOPS! So we put those to the side and rang her doorbell this time. She didnt answer so we left the note and cookies on her doorstep and went on our way.

Later this week we were knocking in some apartment complexes close to our place and didnt have any luck. So we moved on and I asked my companion which complex he felt we should go! I felt that we should go to the left but I didnt communicate that with him. He said lets go left, so we were there for a while and began knocking with no success and I saw a cool looking pond and wanted to check it out. We arrived at the pond and a voice from behind us asked "What are you guys selling?" We turned around and answered back "We arent selling anything but we are here to talk about Jesus" and we broke out in conversation. Well we began with talking about our missions and what we do and why we do it and she offered some food and said she is a life insurance salesmen. She told us where we should knock doors and where not to knock doors. We offered here some pamphlets and I gave her a choice and she asked if she could have all of them! She wanted to know about many religions and wanted to learn more about ours and to see what the Book of Mormon is all about! Then she told us to go try her neighbors she said "they are old and love Jesus so go talk to em" Then looked at my companion and said "You are being trained arent you? I know cause I train many people in my work" WEll When we went to talk to the Older couple my companion felt like knocking on the other door instead of the one that was recommended, and a man named Wondm answered and was excited to see us. We began speaking about Jesus Christ and his original church and had a great conversation. He then Invited us in and we watched part of Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration up to when Joseph had his experience. We left hiim with a challenge and offered to help him move all of his things inside. Well a few days later he called and was wondering if he could come to our house on his bike or if we could meet somewhere to teach him more and help him with his moving! It was very great to have an experience like the one we had that day! Thats about all I can think of to tell you about!
LOVE YOU GUYS

Here is a picture of Davis and his greenie...