This week was a really fun week!  I'll go through the highlights:

1.  We found some really cool and promising investigators that hopefully we will be meeting with in the next few days.

2.  Cindy is still doing really well and we've been having several lessons with her and she really enjoys church!  She came to church this Sunday and she seems to already have some friends in Relief Society.

3.  We had an exchange with some of the other elders in my district and it went really well.  We were able to find some new people and have a good time while they stayed up here with us.

4.  We had interviews with President Orton which was pretty average.

5.  We have had some really good correlation meetings with our ward.  Our ward mission leader and assistant ward mission leader are super awesome and help us out a lot.  We've also had some really good dinners with some awesome families in our ward!

6.  By far the best part of the week was that the Book of Mormon play came to Eugene Tuesday-Sunday. There were thousands of people who came to see it.  So we got to go to the theater and hand out Books of Mormon to everyone when they left so they could read the real thing after seeing the play (which isn't very accurate lol)  So Elder Johnson and I got to go several times and it was a lot of fun.  We passed out a little over 3000 Books of Mormon this week!!  It was kind of funny because people would want us to sign their Book of Mormon and a lot of them would take pictures with us.  There were definitely a good amount of people who were not fond of us at all but there were a lot who were open to it and thought it was awesome!

7.  Another cool thing happened to us on the bus.  We take the bus around since we don't have a car so its always interesting.  This week i got on the bus and somebody called my name.  I looked back and saw a girl I had taught in Eugene almost 2 years ago.  Jade was a girl the Elder Falatea and I taught.  She was going to baptized but after we left it ended up not working out for some reason.  I got to catch up with her and get her information.  She lives right outside of our area so I took one of the Elders that are in that area to the lesson with her so she could get set up with them.  She has totally started following a bunch of the commandments in the past year and she wants to be and is ready to be baptized.  We were able to set up a date for her and she was really excited!

I think those were all the cool parts of this week.  It was a good one and hopefully this next week will be even better!
Stay Solid

This week has been another one full of finding and teaching people.  So throughout the week we've been able to find a lot of new people to meet with.  We have spent a good amount of time tracting and contacting new people.  We've also had quite a few good lessons.  Cindy is one of our investigators we found on Elder Johnson's first day and she is doing really well!  She's been coming to church the past couple of weeks and is fitting in the ward really well!  She also came to church yesterday and she will most likely be baptized in the next month or so!  This ward hasn't had a convert baptism in several years and so most of the ward members are stoked that we have several people coming to church and we are going to have some new members soon.  It's good to have a ward that is excited for the work that we have been doing!

Friday I taught district meeting and that was focused on commitments and the people we are teaching.  

We also got some bus passes so we've been using that to get around which is good but it can also be really interesting when Elder Johnson and I accidentally take the wrong bus.  LOL  

My studies have been good.  I'm in the New Testament mainly.  I'm getting through D&C also and the Book of Mormon.  I really like reading the New Testament though because it's a look at the primitive church that Christ set up and it's interesting to see that and see the church now today.

I do want to say that I'm grateful for President Monson and all that he did to serve.  What an amazing man who not only was a prophet of God but one of the most kind, loving and selfless examples that today's world has been given.  President Nelson is amazing as well and I'm stoked to see him as the leader and guide for us her on earth.
Stay Solid
love sawyer

Hey! This weekend has turned out to be super good actually! 

So transfers happened on Tuesday (which feels like a year ago) and I got Elder Johnson who's been out like 3 months.  He's super funny actually and it's been really fun with him this past week.  I think this transfer is going to go really well.  

So Tuesday I spent the day with Elder Anderson (who was my previous companion in Corvallis) while i waited for Elder Johnson to get here.  

Wednesday and Thursday Elder Johnson and I just did as much work as we could.  Luckily, we found Cindy on Wednesday.  We sat down and taught her a full lesson and she said she already believes the Book of Mormon is true and knows that she needs to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized.  So it was a great lesson!  We set a date for her to be baptized and she said she would do all she needed to prepare.

Friday I taught District Meeting which went well.  My district seems like it could do alright if we work hard.  

Saturday was the best day of the week by far.  Elder Anderson and I got to go back to Corvallis to see Sydney get baptized!  She was a girl we found on OSU campus and taught for several weeks before we got transferred.  It was so crazy to see how far she has come since then.  Even though it was sad we couldn't have been there through the whole process, I'm glad that we were able to be part of her baptism.  It was so cool to see her and the other YSA members up there!

Sunday was good as well because Cindy came to church and really enjoyed it!  She said she feels like she's at home here which is great to hear.  The area I'm in now seems to be getting better and it's great to see the results of the work we did in Corvallis.  I've also been grateful I've been able to have some really good studies lately.  I've been able to get through a lot of the New Testament and learn a lot.  It's crazy to me that its 2018 already but it's been a good start to the new year!
Love y'all
Stay Solid

This week went by really quickly and I feel like Christmas was at least a  month ago!  It was great to start the week off though with a good Christmas on Monday!  Being able to talk to family always makes you happier so Monday was a good start to the week.  We also watched a movie and had a great Christmas dinner with a family in our ward.  

Most of the week after that was a lot of tracting and making contact with people we have taught before.  Luckily we were able to find quite a few new people and made contact with some we haven't been able to get a hold of for a while.  

On Saturday we were able to have quite a few lessons, so that was good!  Other than that, there wasn't much excitement this week.  

I have to read a lot every day to accomplish my goal of reading the New Testament, the Doctrine & Covenants and the Book of Mormon again before I go home so that's keeping me busy at least.  Oh, and also, transfers are tomorrow and I'm staying here and getting a new companion so that's almost exciting!

Love you all,
Stay Solid

This week was freakin cold!!  Well it was cold for me which probably isn't all that cold for a lot of other people.  lol  Luckily it didn't rain a lot this week but it was very frosty and a little windy.  

This week we were able to teach some good lessons and contact quite a few people. We also had interviews with our mission president which were good.  Not very eventful or exciting but they are usually good.  

We were able to go out to dinner with the Sharps from Grants Pass and it was awesome to see them again.  It's awesome to be able to see the great people from my past areas that helped us so much!

Also, we had our ward Christmas party so we got to have dinner and be with a lot of the people in the ward. I'm still trying to meet everyone and I forgot how hard it can be when you aren't in a YSA ward where you see most of the kids every day.  

On Sunday both Elder Vuki and I gave talks in sacrament meeting.  I spoke on the gifts that God has given us and i think it went pretty well.  It definitely helped me to stop and think about what I have to be thankful for during this season.  

Sunday night we went around as a zone and caroled to people which was actually pretty cool even though I don't love singing!  It was cool to see families together at the door listening and enjoying the Christmas season together!  

Other than all that, I hope everyone is doing well down there with all the fires and I hope y'all are enjoying the Christmas season with the fam!  Love you all!

Stay Solid
Sawyer

 

As you know I was transferred last week to Springfield which is right by Eugene.  I'm now a District Leader serving with Elder Vuki.  It is so frustrating to leave Corvallis when Elder Anderson and I had so many people we were teaching and that were progressing. The worst part is that Elder Anderson is being transferred too.  We put in so much work just to turn it over to two other missionaries.    But i guess its whatever!

This week was a long week but we got a lot done.  We had a challenge to find new people to teach so we did a lot of texting.  Most of the good areas to talk to people are about 2 miles away so there was a lot of walking too.  We were able to find some cool new people to teach and some of them seemed really sincere. 

One of the girls that we teach also had her baby this week.  Her husband asked us to come to the hospital and give her a blessing which was cool to be blue to do.  Hopefully we will be able to get some exciting stuff going on here pretty soon.  

We also had the nativity festival Friday through Sunday so we got to go to that and take some of our investigators.  

It's definitely getting colder here and the rainy season is definitely coming in so we try to stay dry as much as possible.  Most of the time though, it's not possible.  haha

I taught District Meeting again this week as usual and it went pretty well.  It's good to see not only our area getting better already but our whole district.  It's good to have the Christmas Season here again.  Hope everyone has a great week and has an opportunity to serve someone around them!

Stay Solid
Love Sawyer

This week was interesting.  Here are a few highlights--

At the beginning of the week Elder Anderson and I went to a cool pumpkin carving Halloween themed FHE.  

We also had a leadership meeting where we found out we are now able to use Facebook, which includes messaging family and friends from back home about our purpose.  So that's a big difference that we can use Facebook and even talk to some of you back home.  

We also had zone conference with our zone and the Eugene zone.  It was a really good meeting.  President Cropped and President Lowery are some of my favorite teachers and they both had really good segments.  

Through the rest of the week Elder Anderson and I were able to teach a lot of our investigators!  We have some really solid people and some really cool people to teach.  It's a lot of fun teaching here on campus because there are a lot of cool fun people.  We also found several new people to teach this past week so hopefully we will be able to have some more great lessons this week.  We had a couple people come to church this past Sunday also and it's good to see them enjoy the classes.  Our zone is also doing super well!!  We have a lot of people to teach and we are consistently finding a lot of new people to teach.  

Transfers come up in 2 weeks and we'll see what happens until then!  Wish me luck going into another Oregon winter....I'm gonna try to make it through!

Love you guys
stay solid