Elder Vogan-The Excellent Adventure

FINAL EMAIL

2011-07-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

Mon, 18 Jul 2011

Mom,

You sure are right about having all sorts of emotions. No tears, but it feels like something is swimming around in my stomach. I know what to expect, but I anticipate it will be a much happier experience than last time I came home.. haha. And to let you know, the past 6 weeks of journaling have been my best by far. So I'll always remember the miracles and struggles of a missionary in his final transfer. I think it has helped my focus knowing I'd be accounting for each day, and I committed to be completely honest in writing exactly what's going on. It will be so nice to be able to keep in touch with anyone I want to out here. Missionaries are a little tougher to keep in touch with though. But yeah, I feel bad for Dad and the missionaries of his generation. I can't imagine how it would be to leave the mission without being able to say, "Cool, I'll talk to you later. You can add me on Facebook." haha. It's awesome to hear that Girls Camp went great! And I can't wait to see my cute little one year-old Charli when I get home!

This past week went well! We had dinner with that new investigator Dean and his roommate Josh on Wednesday, and that was awesome! They made us a nice steak dinner. As we spoke of the Gospel, the Spirit was very strong. When Elder Wonnacott shared the story of Joseph Smith from the sincerity of his own testimony, they both acknowledged the intensity of the Spirit at that point and they knew it was true. Josh said, "Wow, good job at that part!" Elder Wonnacott said, "It's not me making you feel that way." And Josh said, "I know, I'm talking to the Spirit." Haha, so funny and cool. Even though Dean has acknowledged the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and of the testimony of Joseph Smith, his anti-organized religion and born again Christian ideas that he holds onto so strongly prevented him from keeping any more commitments than to read and pray. That night though, he gained a stronger witness initially than many of the people whom I taught and helped prepare to be baptized. Josh on the other hand loved everything, and almost seemed like he was dragging us to the font. But then he didn't show up at church or answer our calls yesterday.. hmm, we'll be stopping by tonight to see what's up.

We also met a new investigator on Saturday who actually does have a baptism date now! His name is Allen. He was living in California where one of his friends was a strong member of the church. He continually invited Allen to attend church and church activities, but he always declined. He finally said, "You know what, I'm heading out to Wisconsin for work where I won't know anyone. When I'm out there, if I see any of your missionaries around, I'll holler." Well, shortly after he arrived, he hopped on a bus, and there, out of probably 200,000 people who live in the Green Bay area (that may be a high estimate), were the Hmong elders right by the door of the bus. He didn't want to be a liar, so he talked to them. They gave him a mormon.org card with our phone number on it. After spending a little while on the website, he gave us a call and we met with him that night. The lesson wasn't standard by any means, but was exactly what he needed. We set a goal with him to be baptized on Aug 13th, and he is very excited for that. He came to church yesterday and loved it. He was very open and excited to participate. So yeah, never underestimate the power in inviting your friends to church and activities! And don't give up after one try either!

So yeah, it's been good. The next couple days are packed with all the little things that come with leaving your area and transfer week, but I'll continue to be a full-time servant to the end.

My mission has been the time of my life! It has been the "adventure" that I expected, but also in many ways I hadn't expected. I know that the adventure won't end on Thursday when I am home, but it will just change locations. I have become such a better person as I've had this time to get outside myself and feel the Spirit's influence in such a huge degree helping me make corrections and become better, all so that I can be better as a servant of Jesus Christ in helping others to receive what will make them most happy in this life. I have an unshakable testimony of this Gospel. It's true. I have grown so close to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and that relationship is the greatest blessing I have experienced from serving a mission. I love Wisconsin! I love the people here. These people will be dear to me throughout the rest of my life.

I will see you soon!
Love,

Elder Vogan

VISITING BEAUTIFUL DOOR COUNTY

2011-07-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

Mon, 11 Jul 2011

Family,

Yeah, I heard about that crazy dust storm in AZ! That must have been intense. I heard that a lot of people had problems with the sand coming into their houses. Did that happen at home?

It feels somewhat like I just barely emailed you, but on the other hand a lot has happened since Tuesday. Our work has improved this past week, even with the schedule shift from the holiday and with zone conferences. Zone conference was awesome! We did our "visualization" vision training, and now with Elder Oaks' talk from conference, we had more doctrine to pull from and it went well. We spent a couple days up in Door County (if you look at the map of WI, it's the penninsula that extends to the northeast). It is so beautiful up there. There is a branch that we cover, but until now, we haven't had much opportunity to get up there. I will attach a picture though of the sunset - it doesn't even look real. We were asked to speak in church on Sunday there, and it went really well. Elder Wonnacott and I took the whole meeting, and we completely followed the Spirit. We had hardly a vague idea of what we would speak on beforehand, but surprisingly, as we relied on the Spirit to give us what to say, I was more confident and comfortable than I would have been even completely prepared. Really cool experience. Elder Wonnacott's talk blew my mind, and everyone came up to us after the meeting thanking us for the words that they needed to hear (even some with tears in their eyes) Last night, we found a couple new people that want us to teach them and they invited us over for dinner and a lesson on Wednesday, so we are really excited about that! Well, I am glad Dad had a safe and enjoyable trip! And I hope everything goes well and is fun with girls camp this week!

I love you!

Elder Vogan

ABSOLUTELY SPOILED ON MY BIRTHDAY!

2011-07-11T10:05:00.001-07:00

Tue, 5 Jul 2011

Mom,

I'm glad to hear the family is doing well, and I am very excited for the late-summer plans! Hopefully Whitney has a wonderful birthday today!

This week was way intense, and it was probably the longest week of my whole mission! I'm not sure what made it that way, but Elder Wonnacott agrees. I was absolutely spoiled on my birthday. Spoiled rotten. I was taken out to breakfast by the Snyder brothers who are out installing security systems here. Three families got together and threw me a birthday lunch barbeque and decorated and got me a present. It was awesome! Then we went to one of the funnest service activities I've ever taken part in: Green Bay has a huge farmer's market downtown where they block off the main street for a few blocks and a lot of booths are set up vending different things. There were some elderly folks from a care home that wanted to get out and walk around at the market, so we volunteered to help. Two of the people in wheelchairs who were set to come decided not to, so instead, Elder Wonnacott and I got to walk with a cute little 92 year-old lady named Claire, each holding one of her hands. We had alot of people smile and say nice things to us and about us as we walked past, and some people who we didn't know were even taking pictures. It was funny! My little birthday date. After that we had a really spiritual lesson with a guy who ordered a bible online from us. I won't go into detail here because it was a very sacred experience. After that.. we went to the church where Sister Finnegan "needed to talk with us about something" at the church, and she brought in a platter of cupcakes all decorated. Right afterwards, the sisters gave me their awesome present: four of my favorite protein bars with some coupons for free smoothies (not cheap). Then lastly, we headed to the Huntley's - an amazing non-member family who love the missionaries. I share a birthday with their son, Noah, so they invited us to share it with them! It was great. They also got me a present and a nice card. So, yes, I was definitely taken care of! Such a good day!

The rest of the week went really well. We have been working hard and finding new people to teach. 3 of the less-active members we have been working with came to church on Sunday, and the testimony meeting was a good one! No crazy stories or anything, just simple, humble truth. Our fourth of July was a blast! We had a really good day, and we had another door of opportunity open with the family that had the party we went to. They told us we can come by anytime and we will always be welcome. Very nice people! This week is zone conference, so we are looking forward to that! There is always that let down after a holiday or crazy week, but we are working to keep full focus and determination! (Your prayers are appreciated!)

I love you! Have a great week!

Elder Vogan

WELCOMING PEOPLE TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD

2011-07-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

Mon, 27 Jun 2011

Mom!

It's great to hear from you! That is so cool that Jordan got the Priesthood and that he is taking it seriously! I think like a lot of the responsibilities and ordinances we take part in in the Gospel, it's given to us before we understand it's significance and duty completely. What a cool letter about the trek too! I did get your letter; thank you so much! I loved the pictures, and the Subway card will be very helpful this week.. (the end of the month we are always low on money and food). That will be fun for you and Dad to go to girls camp with Hannah's group. I will for sure pray for Megan.

This week was full of activities. Tuesday to Wednesday morning I got to go down on exchanges to Manitowoc and work down there. We did alot of good stuff! I helped the missionary I was with find a couple new people to teach, who I used to teach when I was there, and now they have three new baptism dates! April and Angela were two that Elder Lester and I worked with who were not ready to commit to change, but I guess over the last year and a half their hearts have been made softer. It's amazing to see that happen! Thursday, we had a cool experience: we went to visit a referral we received (the next door neighbor, recently moved in, to one of our members). As she answered the door, during our intitial greeting, she was analyzing our tags intently and suspiciously. It is a very common way that people who are not interested answer the door. Just as she was saying that it really wasn't a good time for us to be there, I said "okay, we just heard from your neighbor that you were recently moved in and just wanted to make sure that you had a church to go to and that you felt welcome here in the neighborhood." I don't remember ever welcoming someone to their own neighborhood before, but she was touched by our kind gesture, and she then openned up to us and started asking questions about where we were from and what we did. We ended up talking to her for more than an hour about the Gospel. The members that referred us will be having us over for dinner on Thursday, and they will be inviting her to come too!

Friday was leadership training in Oshkosh, and that was very good and spirit-filled. I have a greater desire now to look every person I meet in the eyes, non-members and even members too, and tell them sincerely what I know to be true. Because I do know it, and that testimony can have such an effect on people. Saturday, we got to help with the Family Fun Run, which is a sponsered 5k that funds scholarships and is an awesome activity that is done annually. Our church here in Green Bay always hosts it, and the announcer for it always talks up the Church like crazy throughout the event for our kindness and generosity. Elder Wonnacott and I were in charge of helping the kids stretch out and run their 1/2 mile race. We had to lead the way. I was worried about it with my bad knee and in our proselyting clothes, but I made it! It actually felt good to run. It was a really good event, a lot of people participated. Yesterday, we had two of the less-active families that we have been working with come to church (but without their non-member spouses :/) We were really excited about that. It is taking us awhile to find new people to teach that will progress! I don't remember ever having this problem my whole mission, but I guess every missionary needs to have these kind of lows. I won't be able to expect to see any baptisms here before I leave, but I can prepare them for after that. And those getting baptized in Manitowoc still bring me that great joy, and they are scheduled for the 16th of July! We are looking forward to a fun-filled P-day today!

Talk to you soon! Love,

Elder Vogan

MEETING ELDER QUNETIN L. COOK

2011-07-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2011

Family,

Hope you had a wonderful day yesterday, Dad! Hopefully the family spoiled you and told you how much we all appreciate everything you do! Thank you for raising me right, and helping me to be where I am now doing the greatest thing I've ever done! I love you!

So, this week ended with one of the missions greatest meetings ever! We had five general authorities come visit the mission, and this was the first time since before I've been in the field that the whole mission gathered together for a mission conference. Presiding was Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve (with his wife), and also visiting were Elder Hallstrom (Pres. of 70), Elder Arden (newly called 70 from last conference), Bishop Edgely (Pres. Bishopric), and Elder Ward (of the 70). As all the missionaries were gathered in the chapel in Neenah, and as we become reverent before they all arrived, the Spirit was very strong. Elder and Sister Cook's plane flight was running late, so we began the meeting without them and Elder Ward, who was there to pick them up. We they walked in, we all stood, and that Spirit in the room seemed to double. It was such a testimony that he is truly who we claim him to be, a chosen Apostle of the Lord, having the same authority that Christ gave to the Apostles when He was in Jerusalem.

The meeting was amazing, and everyone got so much out of it. It was funny afterward when we got everyone together for a mission picture with all the general authorities. We had 5 or 6 levels in front of the stage. Missionaries on the ground, chairs, standing behind the chairs, sitting on the stage, standing behind them on the stage, and then standing on chairs on the stage. It was intense, and I'm excited to see how the picture turned out.

Otherwise, the work is going good! We have 2 new part-member families we've started teaching. One is from Peru, so she said our next appointment can be a dinner and she will let us help her make some authentic peruvian comida - ceviche and green spaghetti. We are excited. The non-member dad is American or else we'd have to pass them on to the Spanish elders. All the investigators we have been working with here are either progressing very slowly, or we passed them off to the Sisters, or they dropped us. The mission has its ups and downs. If we get sad or even devastated, it means we love and care about these people (like we should), but if we get discouraged, it means we are losing faith and effectiveness. It is a hard balance, but you learn it after two years!

Well I do love you! I hope everyone has a great week!
Love,

Elder Vogan

TRACTING SUCCESS, BUT REFERRALS ARE STILL BETTER

2011-06-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

Mon. June 13, 2011

Mom,

Hope you had a great week in Mexico, and hopefully nothing crazy happened at home when you were away! I still have not got the pictures from graduation, but I assume that might be because you were gone this last week and haven't sent them yet. I had a couple questions this week: What is the recipe for making chicken pot pie? There is a family here who has a tradition for each missionary leaving the area to make them dinner. They provide the ingredients. When they found out I'd be leaving in July they are already anticipating what I'll make for them. Also, the bike Dad sent out to me to use is still at the Du Charmes home in Milwaukee.. I have used it only once or twice very early on in my mission. I am planning on calling them and figuring out something. Would you like me to box it up and send it back home? Would you like me to try and sell it? If so, what's the minimum offer? I know it was an expensive bike. Maybe I can leave it a little longer and take a road trip out here with Jordan and pick it up? (If that's okay with the Du Charmes) It costs quite a bit to ship, especially if we will just be turning around and sending it to Jordan's mission. Besides, Britney Sigman, a girl I taught and was baptized shortly after I left Rapids will be going through the temple in late July and she asked if I'd be able to come for that. So yeah, just something I've thought about.

But anyway, getting away from the "trunky" thoughts, we had a really good week this week. Elder Wonnacott and I have been working hard and are starting to see good things. There is a fresh feeling here now, with Elder Wonnacott brand new and me only here six weeks, we have new vision and fire. We have been stopping by and getting to know the members better, and between Saturday and Sunday, we received eight referrals - it was awesome! Many of which came without our solicitation. I rekindled my testimony of tracting yesterday as well. I have been much more of one to have a place to go and then just talking to everyone we pass by or see outside. I have everyone added in my gps from our area book, every member and anyone who has ever been recorded to have shown interest in the gospel. So, usually with time when we don't have appointments we would go to one of those people and then contact around where they live, giving us a reason to be in the neighborhood. Of course when we were walking somewhere we'd follow promptings to knock random doors, but I haven't been one to pick a neighborhood and straight up tract it. But, one of our referrals we received was from members who didn't want us to say they sent them. They told us they were really nice and lived the Word of Wisdom already, but the members didn't want them to feel like they "sicked" us on them. So we ended up tracting for a little while where that referral lived, and it went well! We ended up teaching the father of that family, he took a pamphlet and said he'd be interested in us coming back! The family who referred us was way happy to hear that. I came to the conclusion that even though it is shown to be one of the least effective ways for us to work, it should still be included often in the plans. It keeps the spirits up and makes you feel like a missionary. (And almost all the cool mission stories come from tracting). In the 45 minutes we were in the area, 4 people openned the door and 3 out of the 4 allowed us to teach them. 2 said we could come back. I lost interest in tracting before because although we can teach alot of lessons doing it, the people we found didn't usually progress too far. When a member refers the missionary or it's a part-member family, it's crazy how much more and faster the people progress. So, do missionary work! Hopefully this member family will jump in and invite them over for some lessons with us as they continue to learn.

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Hope you all have a wonderful week! And hopefully I at least receive one email from someone before I get off the computer today..

Love,

Elder Vogan

A NEW COMP--ELDER WANNACOTT

2011-06-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

Mon. June 6, 2011

Hello family,
Mazatlan huh? I bet that will be a fun week for you! And hopefully things are well at home with Megan during that time! Jordan will definitely be working for his money this week. So, yeah, this week is transfers - my companion is shipping back home and going right back to heavy labor working asphalt with his dad until Fall, then he'll be at Snow College. He'll leave to Milwaukee Wednesday and flight out Thursday morning. It's been alot of fun serving with Elder Peckham; he and I will keep in touch for sure! My new companion will be Elder Wannacott. He's awesome! It's interesting, I've been his zone leader for at least a little while in every area he's served in, and now I get to train him up! He is from bountiful, UT, but he has also lived in Germany for many years because his dad is a military doctor on the base in Ramstein. He actually knew Elder Turney who was also from that base in Germany. Pretty crazy!

That's awesome to hear about your missionary efforts at home; keep it up! This week went well for us. It seemed to fly by pretty quick. We had a nice family, the Le Clouxs, come to church yesterday, and hopefully they felt the Spirit and will continue progressing. I think the mom came more to be respectful to Elder Peckham, it being his last Sunday. But the kids loved church. I'm loving the ward here more and more. We always have those families in each of the areas that really support and love us missionaries, and I have enjoyed the relationships I have out here. One family, the Robertsons, jumped right on that family missionary plan, and they will been spending alot of time with us today. They will be hanging out with us during our P-Day activities and then tonight they are puting together a bon fire activity and inviting all of their non-member friends to come and ask questions about the church. The two oldest daughters have said they'd like to serve missions, so hopefully these experiences keep encouraging that! Today will be fun though. The four or five sets of missionaries here in Green Bay will all be eating at this awesome restaurant called the Pancake Place for lunch and then playing a game called speedball or crazyball at the church(I will have to teach the youth down there when I get home, it's alot of fun).

I am not excited for Elder Peckham to leave, but I am excited for freshness and change. It's always a good time to re-evaluate and recommit our efforts and set good goals. I will let you know how it's going next week! Have fun!

Love,

Elder Vogan

OUR MISSIONARY PROGRAM-COOLEST THINGS EVER!

2011-06-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

Tue, 31 May 2011

Mom,
You are such a good match maker! Haha, I can't say I remember who that girl is.. [maybe you could send a picture with the graduation pics ;)] That is awesome to hear I might not need any surgery when I get home. If not though, I am hoping my knee will heal someday. It's been almost a year and I still can't run for very long or squat too well. I am capable with all the things I need to do, but you know how much I love sports. Well congrats to Jordan for graduating high school! I look forward to seeing the pictures - I'm not sure about my address, but you can send it through the office 5651 Broad St. Ste. 1 Greendale, WI 53129. The kids out here still have another week, and they are all as excited as you sound. We had such a fun Memorial Day yesterday, probably among the most fun days of my whole mission! There is a family in the ward who has a get-together where hundreds of people go to their home every year, and they always have the missionaries. Tons of food and games and nice people. They had water balloons too, so we left a little bit wet. That is nuts that Jordan will be putting his papers in before I'm home! Hopefully things work out for Jared to have a good environment in California and keep up on his growth and missionary preparation. Hopefully things start working for Hannah to get stronger. She needs to eat some more protein and take her vitamins so she's not so fragile!

So, the week we had been anticipating since I got here happened at church on Sunday. We had our missionary program, in which we distributed the outlines for the family mission plans. They are the coolest things ever. They are less than half a page size and lamenated with magnets on the back to hang on the fridge. There is velchro on the side for a dry-erase marker to stick onto it, which came with it. It gives a place for the family to set a goal each month for what they want to do to improve their missionary efforts. The ward council is excited about it and has plans for follow up and to keep it going through home teaching and in the opening exercises of priesthood and relief society. The sacrament meeting included talks by the bishop, a recent convert couple who were just sealed in the temple last week, another recent convert, the ward mission leader, and the stake president. It went really well!

We taught so many people last week, it even surpised us as week added up our numbers on Sunday. We have been just going out and teaching everyone we meet. We have three people who have said they would be baptized, but so far only one of the three seems serious about it. We are just doing our best to be diligent and searching for those people whom God has prepared. Really though, God has been preparing everyone we talk to in different ways, but some are just more ready and willing to accept it at this time. I swear, some of the craziest people I have ever met live here in Green Bay. These Packer fans are nuts!

It's crazy that Elder Peckham is heading out to go home next week! He is doing good though not getting "trunky". I tease him a little bit though, so that probably doesn't help. We have some good plans for this last week together.

Well I hope everyone has a great week! I will have the Miller family in my prayers and fast this week. You will hear from me again next Monday!

Love,
Elder Vogan

MIRACLES HAPPEN!!

2011-06-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

Mon. May 23, 2011

Miracles happen! So according to my MRI, my ACL is fine, which is completely against what I or the doctor out here thought. What is torn though is my posterior meniscus (I didn't know that existed), and my patellar tendon is partially torn. I will need surgery when I return home, but it will only be a scope with a couple weeks recovery, rather than that 3+ month recovery. The doctor out here says that my patellar tendon will heal on its own. So I am really happy about that. Hopefully I can have the surgery after our trip instead of before. (Try to book it closer to the 21st.) I looked at BYU and can't see anything about tuition payments, so you don't need to worry about that.

Well enough of these "home" conversations and to the work. Things are going fairly well here. We are patiently working with our investigators, although none have a set date to be baptized at this point. We are just unleashing a new ward mission plan, which we are excited about. Some of the members in the ward council seem a bit reluctant to set goals or make plans for the missionary effort, but others are excited about it. I know that as those members start working towards their own family goals and following up with the members in their auxiliary stewardships, we will see a huge boost to the work in this area. I hope the family at home has some goals to do missionary work this summer!

I can't think of anything else specifically to tell you about this week. I love you and am grateful for your prayers!

Love,
Elder Vogan

THE SPIRIT OF TEMPLE SQUARE

2011-05-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

Mon, 16 May 2011
Mom,
What a great email to read from you this week! Thanks for being my "wingman" Mom, that will be fun to take her on a date. It is always cool and crazy to hear the news of all the weddings happening. I didn't even know Krystina was engaged, but that's awesome to hear! I also love to hear about the people leaving for their missions and hearing about their mission calls! It's great to hear about Jordan and Taylor. They'll both be able to speak Spanish together afterward, so that will be fun. I'll have my MRI on Wednesday at noon, but I'm going to just be praying for a miracle and maybe it will reattach itself and I won't need another surgery. So you can go ahead and schedule a fun vacation, I will much rather do that, and I am completely capable. Also, I have already been registered for my classes at BYU for a month or so, so I'm good to go! That's not fun that you were sick, but I'm glad you are feeling better now! So cool about Hannah's repelling story too!

This week had it's ups and downs. We found a family to teach and two of them committed to be baptized. They were preparing, along with two other girls we were teaching, to be baptized on the 4th of June. That would have been a big day! And it would have been great for Elder Peckham to be here for that - that's his last Saturday in the mission. None of them came to church though. We will need to help them prepare for a later baptism date now to help them understand the importance of church attendance as part of that baptismal covenant. So that was disappointing. We do have a lot of good work happening. We are teaching people like crazy, and we are working on being patient in finding the prepared people we know are here. Right now, it seems the people like us and will listen to us, but they do not keep commitments or take the gospel as serious as they need to.

There is a man named Rick who we are teaching, and he is awesome. He was a very well-to-do dentist, but after many years of work and after his four children were all grown and out of the house, his license was taken from him because he refused to do mercury fillings. He ended up broke and bankrupt. Trying to make a little money for he and his wife to live on, he traveled out West to a business opportunity event in Utah. He and a group of people visited temple square, and he thought it was beautiful. As they were leaving and walking out of the gates, he felt an empty feeling. He stopped, while his friends walked ahead, and he stepped back in through the gate and felt the Spirit very strong. He stepped out again and it left. After doing that a couple times and being amazed, he went to the nice sister missionaries and asked, "Why do I feel different in here than I do out there?" Rick is very logical and analytical, but he knows what he felt. He got in touch with the missionaries out here, and they have been teaching him for quite awhile now. His hold-ups are that he has never been one to make quick decisions - likes to think things through, his wife is against him joining the church, he is a faithful usher and a big part of the church he goes to, and he feels like he will lose a lot of the close friends that he has (he has some who are anti-Mormon). He told us on Thursday, after we asked what he was waiting for, that he doesn't know why he is waiting. He says he has just been expecting things to fall into place, almost waiting for it to be an easy and comfortable choice to be baptized. We explained that nothing that is truly worth it in life comes easy and that as this is the true Church of Jesus Christ, the devil will tempt and distract him from what he should do. He sincerely rededicated himself to focusing on what the Lord wants for him to do. It's so obvious to us how much God wants Rick in His church, but we need to help him see that. He will be such an asset to the ward here, and we believe that will open up the door for his wife and family to be taught the Gospel as well.

Thank you for all your love, prayers and support! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

2011-05-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

Mon. 5/9/11
Mom,

I hope you had a wonderful Mothers' Day! It was great to talk to you! Since I talked to you yesterday, there isn't much to tell you.

Thank you for your prayers and support. I love you!

Elder Vogan

Ps. I emailed Dr. Sharpe the information for the doctor I'm visiting here, so he should be able to get the MRI results.

MY FIRST REAL P-DAY IN 3 MONTHS!!

2011-05-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

Mom,

Wow, that's terrible that you got some of your things stolen! Hopefully they do something about your complaint. And that's really cool to hear about Hannah's volleyball game - MVP!! That's exciting that I get to call on Sunday. I will call around that time that you suggested. Yeah, that was fun and unnexpected seeing Brady at the airport while we were waiting for the new missionaries! I though he was going to be in Milwaukee on Monday, so that was really cool! It was really funny just saying "hey, what's up! How's it going!.. alright see ya later!" President Jones didn't know who he was, and so after he walked away, I just said, "yeah, he's my cousin."

Things are going great here in Green Bay! The weather is warming up a bit, and everything is so green again! I new a couple people here already just from being around in the mission, and from being in Manitowoc, which is in the same stake. I got really close to the bishop and his family while I was in Manitowoc, and now he is in the stake presidency, so I'll be seeing him fairly often. My new companion, Elder Peckham, is awesome! He is from a small town near Ephraim and Nephi in Utah. Really cool guy and easy to get along with. He is in his last transfer, but he isn't trunky at all. It's awesome to go out and work and teach, both being experienced. We are working on our teaching pool right now, and we are starting to get members involved. We've talked with our bishop and ward mission leader and we are scheduled to have a sacrament meeting all centered around presenting the ward mission plan. We will have the stake president there and well, and he will be supporting and sharing the stake mission plan and how our plan will fit into that. A lot of thought and effort is going into this, so we are really excited.

Today will be fun! My first real P-day in more than 3 months! I hope you enjoy your trip, and I hope everything is well at home!

Love,
Elder Vogan

GREEN BAY NEXT TRANSFER

2011-05-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

Family,
Happy Easter! I hope it was wonderful! I'm glad to hear things are going well at home, and it was good to hear about your talk in church, Mom. I love Elder Wirthlin's talk as well. That's something that every missionary should remember, that after being diligent in our work, we should have the attitude of "Come what may, and love it." Great to hear about Jordan's mission papers as well! Thank you so much for the Easter package! I love it!

I am getting transferred to Green Bay, so that's exciting! It will be a good area to finish my mission. I knew I was to be transferred since the beginning of April, so it's not a new idea for me. Green Bay is a good area, and I already know people up there, so things will be good! I finished up my time here on a wonderful note and the best Easter weekend I hoped for - Colleen was baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday in church! She had been meeting with missionaries for about 9 months, and during that time has gained a strong testimony of the Gospel. She is a naturally skeptical person, and somewhat stubborn, but when the Spirit influences and converts a person like that, "stubbornness" turns to "steadfastness". She is already a great asset to the single's ward. Many of the members didn't even know she hadn't been baptized yet. She is just beaming now and so happy!

The time here has been good, and I have grown just as I anticipated. I am definitely more humble, patient, loving, and much more sensitive to and trusting in the Spirit. It is definitely a real power and influence that we should always to seeking for and feeling in our lives. I know it's so easy to lose our "hope" and our eternal perspective when we are caught up with life and the day to day activities - I remember that from being home before. I can't believe how fast you can forget and slacken, just by not remembering to do the simple things everyday. I'm grateful for that experience, so now I know what to prepare for when I go home for real.

Well, I love each of you. I am grateful for your love, prayers, and support. And I hope you all have a wonderful week, especially Mom and Dad in Cancun!

Love,
Elder Vogan

EASTER ZONE CONFERENCES

2011-04-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

Mom,

Okay, I'll be looking for the package and the pants! Thank you! I'm glad to hear things went pretty well this week for the family; Happy Birthday tomorrow for Kyle! That's really cool to hear about Jared's talk in church yesterday - Wow, I will try my best to live up to what he said about me. I'm so excited for Jared and Jordan to go on missions; it is the best experience! The reason sometimes it seems like I ignore questions or comments about home is because I don't want to think too much about coming home, I love it so much here. How awesome to hear that Charli is starting to crawl and pull herself up on things! I bet she's growing up a really cute little toddler. Speaking of which, I haven't seen any pictures of her since I left - maybe that's something to put in my box..? I hope there isn't anything too serious with Dad's knee. That's no fun.

This was a great week! Work-wise, we hardly did anything in our own area because it was zone conference week. We had zone conferences throughout the mission Tuesday through Friday, and they were the best zone conferences I remember going to. The training we did for each included an Easter egg hunt, and that got everyone involved. It was about finding new people to teach: "He that diligently seeketh shall find..." (1 Ne. 10:19) In order to get to each conference, we woke up really early each day to travel, so I am still a bit exhausted. After each, we spent time with elders from the zones where the conferences were held. Wednesday we were in Wisconsin Rapids and Friday and Saturday we got to spend time in Manitowoc. It was great to be back to those areas and see the people I love from those areas. Colleen was interviewed for baptism Friday night, and she is good to good for this Saturday! It is looking like I will be transferred a week from this Thursday. I'd be good to stay or leave - wherever the Lord wants me. President Jones doesn't want to have assistants "die" (go home) in that responsibility, and usually a one transfer area at the end of the mission isn't a good thing either.

I really can't think of anything else to tell you besides that things are going great here, and I love you! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

GLORIA GOT BAPTIZED!!

2011-04-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 Dad, I didn't get a letter from Mom yet, so I'll just reply to yours this week. Yes, he said the actual "F" bomb, haha. Definitely a classic teaching appointment. Thank you for your nice comments as well! And thank you for the money in my account - I only have one and a half suits that I have to wear (I forgot one of my suit's pants at home when I came back), so I might spend a lot of that money today on a new suit. Mens Wearhouse is having a "buy one, get one free" deal on suits and Elder Lester really needs one too. So, I hope that's alright! And congrats to Jason on the quick engagement! No, I won't be competing with anyone to see how fast I can get married when I get home. I do look forward to it though. My went was awesome! Gloria from Wausau got baptized! I feel like if that was the only thing I got to be a part of in coming back on my mission, I would be worth it. Elder Lester and I were scheduled to be on exchanges with the Wausau zone leaders anyway that day, so I worked out perfectly for us to be up there for it. She asked Elder Lester to baptize her, and the Spirit was very strong during it. We all had tears in our eyes when he stated her name as part of the ordinance. She has good friends in the ward from the Relief Society now, so that has really helped in her conversion. So after all those ups and downs, from discontinuing teaching her to having her call wanting to be taught - she finally had an experience that impressed her so much that she'll never be able to deny the divinity of the Book of Mormon, no matter what other concerns might come up. On one of her "down" days, the elders were teaching her from the Book of Mormon, and because she was not open, she help up her Bible and said, "I have a Bible! I have a Bible! I don't need any other bible!" After testifying, the elders saw her hardened heart, and they told her that she should call them again if she wanted to learn from them. The next day started out terrible, and she was feeling horrible. Even after being "dropped", the Lord guided her to read in the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi chapter 29."And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible." And not only the words from the page that were almost her exact words the night previous, but the feelings in her heart chastened her intensely, and she knew she had made a mistake. She still doesn't know or understand everything, but through these experiences, she opened her heart to what her Heavenly Father wanted, and she knew she was supposed to be baptized. So, a former devout anti-Mormon is now a member of the Church! She told me, "Elder Vogan, the only reason I'm doing this is because the Lord told me that's what He wanted me to do. The same voice that has guided and directed me throughout my life, told me that I needed to do this." And it definitely wasn't easy for her! But I'm glad I got to be here for it. Since her confirmation, she has felt the peace we promised her and a greater abundance of the Spirit. I can't wait to her about her experience going to the temple! We had a great week otherwise. We were able to teach many lessons, and seek to find more people to teach. We have zone conferences this week, so that will be really busy. Tomorrow through Friday, we will be driving to different parts of Wisconsin for them. One of them will actually be in Wisconsin Rapids, and after our conference in Green Bay, we will get to spend the rest of the day in Manitowoc! It will be great going back to areas I've served. Well, that's all I have for this week. I hope all of you have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Vogan

HE WAS SO EXCITED, HE DIDN'T KNOW HE HAD SWORN

2011-04-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

Mon, 4 Apr 2011 09:51:38 My family, I am really glad to hear that things are going well at home! I had a weird nagging feeling on Thursday night that something bad happened at home, so I was hoping that was just to help me remember how much I love my family and to express that: Dad, I am grateful for how much you love and support me as a missionary and family. For all of your effort to teach us righteously and provide for our needs. Mom, thank you for loving and serving us so much, even while I seemed so ungrateful. You are an angel. Whitney, I am so happy for you to be the cute mom you are. Thank you for being such a great big sister. I am excited to see Charli on her first birthday! And I am grateful for the wonderful father Kyle is and for the humor he has brought to the family. Jordan, you are my best friend. I am excited for all that you are doing to improve, and I'm excited to hang out with you again this summer. Hannah, I love you. It's so fun to see how much you are growing up through your emails and to hear about the fun you are having. And I'm grateful for Megan and the blessing she is in our family, to help us enjoy to small things and to grow in patience. And Jared, you are basically part of the family too now. You are awesome. Thanks for helping Jordan stay out of trouble. Overall, I had a very good week! Conference was amazing! There are too many good talks to say which were my favorites, but Elder Oaks, Elder Robbins, and President Uchtdorf from priesthood stick out in my mind and I took many notes through those talks. It sounds like I need to get married pretty quick when I get home, huh? We had an excellent zone leader council training on Friday about "finding", and the missionaries are getting excited. The weather warming up a little bit helps that too. Speaking of weather, 100 degrees is intense! We are just excited to be able to take off our coats. Our investigators are doing well. We had an awesome exchange with the Green Bay elders after zone leader council in which we were able to invite 2 people to be baptized, and they accepted. We also found 3 new investigators with them for them to teach. 2 of them were a nice couple who actually fed us dinner! They even had caffeine-free mountain dew. Who knew there was such a thing? One of the guys we invited to be baptized responded just the way the people responded in Mosiah 18:10-11. He literally clapped his hands for joy at the idea of having the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Except, instead of saying, "This is the desire of my heart!" he said, "@#$% Yeah!" So that was pretty classic. Haha. He was so excited, he didn't know he had sworn. Before that, he kept telling us that there was a presence or a spirit in the room, and it reminded him of an experience he had had several years earlier, which originally brought him to know God. Well the office sisters are anxious to get on the computer now, so I'll close this week's letter by once again saying that I love you so much! I love the Gospel and am so humbled to have it in my life and to have the amazing opportunity of sharing it with my brothers and sisters here in Wisconsin. I'll talk to you next week! Love, Elder Vogan

"I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES...."

2011-03-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

Mon. 3/28/11 Family, It's always great to hear from you each week, although the weeks are going by way too fast. I don't even want to think about you already having my flight plans, I just got back out here! But yeah, I can just fly again, it would be a really long drive. I'll need to have some money in my account in July to pay to ship my bike home and souvenirs I want to keep. That's great to hear that you are going back to school, Mom! (By the way, I never mentioned what I decided I'd major in: Physiology and Developmental Biology. When I read that as an option for a major, I got excited, so I'm going with it. I can go almost every direction I've considered with that degree.) And good to hear Dad has a lot of work lined up for the week! I'll be praying that Megan feels better soon and that no one else gets sick. 106 degrees is scary high.. What a great week this week! We had a specialized training for all the sister missionaries in the mission and that was a lot of fun to be a part of. We got to sing "As Sisters in Zion" - one of my favorites. We also even got a Cuddly Cousins stuffed animal from one of the sisters who did a training! All my expectations of a sisters conference were met. Haha. It was really one of the most spiritual trainings I've been apart of though, which is probably because of their greater maturity and love. Also, we had a great day on Wednesday: We taught two sisters, Tia and Takira. We had a member bring them down to the church and we had a chapel tour lesson with them. We had originally planned to teach them about the Plan of Salvation, but we couldn't seem to start into that. The Spirit was there and lead us to teach about Jesus Christ. At one point, we walked into the chapel, and talked about the Sacrament meeting being the most important meeting in the Church. Our member, Richard, started to bear his testimony of the hymns, and as he did so, I picked up one of the hymnals and flipped it open to show them. I flipped right to "I know that My Redeemer Lives". I felt impressed to ask Tia how she felt about the Savior, and she confessed she wasn't sure she believed in Him. I then read the first verse, and the feeling when I read "..My hungry soul to feed" was intense. I knew for sure at that time that she was hungry, and that she felt like something was missing in her life. And I told her of that, and each of us testified of how her void would be filled by the Gospel and through developing her relationship with Christ through prayer and repentance. When we got to the baptism font, we discussed what it means to be baptized, and we invited both of them to prepare for that day (April 16th), and they accepted that date and commitment. Both of them were at church yesterday and loved it! We also taught a young Hmong single adult girl who had been less active, and she came to church yesterday as well! Also yesterday, the two other people we are teaching who are preparing for baptism (Akilah and Colleen) both made it to church as well! Akilah had driven 18 hours straight coming home from a vacation in Florida, and she still made the decision to come to church despite how incredibly tired she was, and that she was an hour drive from church. She loved it and felt very comfortable. We have a lesson to see her today with our friend Jared from the ward. So there's some highlights from the week! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Vogan

TRANSFER DUTIES--ALL WENT WELL

2011-03-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011
Family,
This past week was intense, but everything is going great for us! Having Elder Cottle transfer so soon, I was a little bit anxious for how transfers would go and all the other "beginning of the transfer duties". He was very in control and on top of everything, so I wasn't sure I knew how to do all the tasks, but all went well! Elder Lester is a fast learner too, and he's starting to get the hang of the different things we do.

Wisconsin is starting to thaw! We can hardly see any snow down where we are, and we had our first non-freezing rain of the year yesterday. It looks like Spring is almost here! Not quite 80's yet though. That's nice you were able to go to Las Sendas ward and be there for Austin Maxwell's homecoming. And it's great to hear things are going well at home!

This transfer we got in some amazing new missionaries. We take out the new missionaries to teach people on the streets nearby the University of Wisconsin campus here in Milwaukee, and we have two new missionaries assigned to speak Hmong who are incredible. They cleared "the bar" by a long shot. Contacting with them, they didn't seem at all like new missionaries in the way they taught, but they had the excitement and fire of a new, "green" missionary, and they were actually jogging to catch up to talk to people. It's easy to tell when a missionary understands and has a testimony of the Gospel, and how much love he has, by how urgent he is to share it with those around him. It was really motivating to see them work, and I'm excited to see the miracles they perform out here.

Well I love you! I hope you have a wonderful week, and I hope you fill your days with not the "good" or "better" things, but the "best" things.

Love,
Elder Vogan

ELDER LESTER AGAIN--THIRD TIMES A CHARM!

2011-03-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 09:20:50 -
Family,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY, MOM! I'm glad that you had a good birthday!

I did have a good week! It's good to hear that things are going well there! 80's now huh? We are happy with the high 30's and 40's that we've been getting.. haha. That's great to hear about the missionary success that you are able to see with the Tibbetts' friend and Dad's former assistant. The Gospel is true, and the blessing affixed to helping others to find it is a joy and satisfaction that comes from nothing else. I am so happy and humbled to be serving a mission, and words can't describe how grateful I am that I am able to be here right now.

I did get the apartment contract sent in on Saturday. The fax machine here in the office said that it was failing to send, so I scanned it to the computer and emailed it to MaryAnn. It would be great if you, Mom, can verify that it was received. Thank you! You don't need to worry about my knee; I'm doing great. I can even jog and do leg workouts. I still may get another MRI before I come home just to be sure though. Tucker's gone.. can't say I'm surprised in the least bit.. haha. (If you look at my past email when you were first considering it.) It's great to hear about Hannah and Jordan and there volleyball success! I do hope that I get to see some footage of them playing. That's funny to hear about Jordan's fan club; I bet that was awesome for him.

Things were good this week. Elder Lester is down in the office with us today. He's my new companion! Again! Three times the charm, I guess. But I'm really excited! Out of 130 missionaries, it's amazing that I could serve with someone more than once or twice. But he would be my choice of my companions to be with multiple times. It was awesome serving with Elder Cottle. I learned a lot from him, and I will miss him. He'll be heading to Wausau to replace Elder Lester on Wednesday. When we went to pick up Elder Lester, they had an appointment with Gloria set up. The same day that Elder Lester found out that he'd be transferring down, before he ever tried to contact her to say "good bye", she called and asked for the missionaries to come teach her again. She said that since she dismissed the missionaries, they had been weighing heavily on her heart, and she had felt very depressed and sad about every aspect of her life. So, we had five missionaries and a member with us in her home on Saturday. It was a wonderful experience with the Spirit with discernment and inspiration. I knew, through the Spirit, that behind all her little hold-ups and road blocks that keep her from progressing and being baptized, the only real thing keeping her from it, is her fear of what her family and other people will think of her if she joined the Church. It's amazing how debilitating this type of pride is, and how much it can keep people from progressing. I think most of us need to battle and get past that fear in our lives.

Other than that experience, we had a pretty busy week. We had a leadership training on Friday, and we participated in the singles ward talent show doing a skit. It was really funny. We have really been promoting the new mormon.org site to members, so I'll encourage all of you at home to check it out and create a profile as well. I'll be working on my own hopefully today. This week will be busy too, with transfers and all the new and departing missionary meetings. I like busy weeks though. It will be crazy with Elder Cottle leaving so soon, so now I'll be responsible for everything going on and to help Elder Lester learn the ropes.

Thank you for your love and support! Have a good week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

TWO PEOPLE PREPARING FOR BAPTISM

2011-03-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2011

Mom,
I did get the oranges, and they do taste delicious! That was the right amount that you sent too; none will go bad. You can go ahead and sign me up for the room with Brady. Even if I do need surgery again, recovery for meniscus surgery is only a few weeks, so I'll still be good to go in September. I'll be released July 21st.

It's good to hear things are going well! (Aside from the usual trouble-makers) I hope things get figured out with Megan and Tucker. It's good to hear about Jordan's volleyballin'; please keep updating me on how that is going! And I love to hear about Hannah too!

This past week was good. We have two people preparing for baptism, but neither will be before April. Akilah is a new investigator, and we had a great lesson with her last Monday. We brought Matt with us, who was confirmed in church the day before. He was able to look her in the eyes and testify of the gift and power of the Holy Ghost. He told her, "I know this is true because I know how I felt yesterday before my confirmation, and I know how I've felt since." Matt is an example of how to "receive the Holy Ghost". During and after the lesson, he talked about how he felt like he was teaching himself - Akilah was responding and feeling the same way he did as he was just starting to be taught. We taught her about the Restoration of the Priesthood, and we ended up giving her a priesthood blessing, which we don't usually do during a first lesson. No two lessons are ever the same because everyone's needs are so different. So, at the end of the lesson, despite her fears and anxieties of praying aloud, we knelt and she offered a sweet, sincere prayer. It was answered as the Spirit filled the room, and she felt a peace that she had never felt before and wished she could always feel. She knew it was right and she needed to be baptized.

We also had two trainings this week, one for the Hmong elders and one for the zone leaders. They went well. During our zone leader council, we put our personal training skills to use and did a fun role play for them. We also had two exchanges with both Milwaukee zone leaders.

Thank you for your love and prayers of support. I love you!

Elder Vogan

MATT WILKE'S BAPTISM--AMAZING!!

2011-03-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

Mon. 28 Feb, 2011

Family,
I hope everyone had a good week! So to answer you questions about where I live; no one lives in the office. The mission office is just a nice unit located above a bank. We live a 6 or 7 minute drive away in a shared apartment with two other missionaries. Elder Carter and Elder Jones are awesome! I took Elder Jones out contacting on his first day four weeks ago or so. President and Sister Jones live in the mission home, which is also a few blocks away. We don't always have to be in the office. We come when we have things to do, but the only time we are required to come is Sunday night. We do stop in probably 4 or 5 times a week and work on things, just when we decide we need to. That's great to hear that Megan is kinda potty trained. I hope that can be completely true soon!

Matt Wilke was baptized on Saturday and confirmed Sunday in church. I was an amazing experience with a huge turn out. He was more blown away by anyone at how many people had come to support him. It was such a spiritual meeting, definitely up there with the most spiritual baptisms of my mission. I know that is because of his complete trust in the Lord (humility) and his sincerity. He wasn't doing it for anyone but his Heavenly Father. From the first time we taught him, we could tell he was taking the seriously - as it should be. Sometimes, I don't think people realize the magnitude that a baptism has, but Matt did. He had questions, but no road blocks. As we taught him and invited him to keep commitments and commandments, he thoughtfully and sincerely committed himself and stuck to it. He experienced the power of the Atonement through true repentance, and he was excited to show the fruit of that that on Saturday by being baptized.

Gloria felt like she was starting to get too attached to the missionaries, so she decided that she wanted to take a break. She didn't want her relationship with them to influence her decisions. She will be praying a lot about everything during her time without them and seek God's will for what she should do. I was initially sad to hear about it, but I feel good about that now, as the missionaries there feel. She's been so high and so low, back and forth, she needs to be able to make a firm decision.

It was good to work with Elder Cottle without any trainings or exchanges this week. We were supposed to have a zone leader council on Friday, but President Jones had to go to the hospital for intense kidney stone pain. He has six in each kidney, so he is still dealing with that now. But even with that, he rescheduled the meeting for this Thursday. This week, we do have meetings and exchanges, but our major goal will be to get back into contact with former investigators and find new people to teach. We want to keep helping all these people that we know are willing to accept the Gospel, and we've already seen many of those people this year.

Thank you for your love and support! I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

BAPTISMS, TESTIMONIES & TRAININGS

2011-02-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:46:31
Dad,
I didn't get a message from Mom yet, so I'll reply my "weekly email" to you instead of her this week. It's really exciting to hear all the cool things going on at home: you going to girls camp, haha, your spring vacation, Jordan's dominating volleyball skills, Hannah's playing time and improvements in volleyball as well (it will be awesome after I'm home and my knee's well enough to play with them), and your busy week with appointments. Randy will be in my prayers. That's pretty scary, but I'm glad he's in good spirits. I hope everything else went well for the family!

My week was awesome! It ended on a great note with our investigator Erik getting baptized and confirmed this weekend! He was one that was slowly progressing for several months. He'd come to church pretty much every week; you'd see him sitting in the back with his girlfriend with his baseball hat on. (That's something that is being addressed.) But he was finally ready to make the commitment, and he knew it was true, so he was baptized. His mom came down from where she lived in Fon Du Lac, a couple hours away, and she enjoyed being there for the ordinance.

Matt Wilke is still going as strong as ever! His baptism is set for this weekend, and he has everything set up for it - his program, baptism record, people coming. It was announced in Sacrament meeting yesterday as well, so even more people will be there. On the second day of our 3-day mission leadership training this week, he was helping the ward with preparing lunch for us, and we were surprised to see him there. Even he wasn't planning on being there beforehand. Elder Cottle and I were assigned to do a training about the Book of Mormon's role in conversion, and so we asked Matt if he'd be comfortable sharing his testimony with the group about how the Book of Mormon had helped him in preparing for his baptism. That was inspired. He bore a wonderful, sincere testimony to the group, and the Spirit filled the room. He was a little nervous at first, being in front of so many missionaries, but he told us later that everything he said just came to him as he was speaking. What a cool experience! All the missionaries were blown away by how prepared he is after only investigating for 3 weeks. Fortunately, our trainings had little more than a vague direction of where we wanted to go with each topic, so we were able to adapt to that opportunity. All the trainings were awesome though. We just "treasured up" in our minds the doctrines and principles of the topics, and then we let the Spirit guide as we asked questions that opened up discussion and participation from the leaders. We directed two trainings on each of the 3 days and were responsible for conducting the meetings.

So yeah, those trainings took up a lot of time, energy, and attention this week. We were still able to see several people in the evenings. Colleen will most likely be the next person baptized here after Matt. She just needs to change her living situation. She has a strong testimony, and she loves church, so after she gets that taken care of she can finally make that sacred covenant with her Heavenly Father and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which she is really looking forward to.

I was able to talk with Elder Lester last night as he was reporting numbers, and he told me about Gloria's progress. She is still one of the people most dear to my heart, so I am always anxious to hear about her. So Saturday and Sunday, her progress stopped as she was taught about the true nature of God. Her walls went back up, and she didn't want to remember the answers she had received. Elder Lester's reaction to her response to the lesson would usually be a quick and wise combat, but he had the feeling he just needed to love her. So he didn't rebuttal her response at all, just expressed love. While they were here in Milwaukee for the 3-day training, she started having a really bad day. Her son was being really mean to her, and she was feeling really overwhelmed. The Spirit directly told her, "If you read from the Book of Mormon, you will have comfort." She struggled with that prompting for a bit, but finally submitted. She was guided to read Ether 12, which was amazing in bringing her comfort. After that, she was impressed that she needed to read chapter 3 as well, which speaks of Christ appearing. It helped her understand Christ had a spirit body before coming to Earth, and that our Heavenly Father has a body of flesh and bone. Before, she completely rejected that concept, but with the Spirit's guiding comfort, she knows that it is true now, and it is no longer a concern. She told the missionaries at the next appointment, "before I was just too prideful and rebellious to listen to Elder Lester, so God had to tell me through His scriptures." She is still preparing for her baptism! After all these experiences, she, and all those who are there to teach her, will have powerful and unshakable testimonies. I know mine has been strengthened through her experiences.

I hope everyone has another great week! I love you!

Elder Vogan

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

2011-02-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

Mon, 14 Feb 2011
Mom,
I feel bad that you didn't get your email from me last week! Hopefully it sends today right away. I'm really exciting about Jared receiving his Patriarchal blessing; I'm sure that was an awesome experience for him! I hope the Tucker situation gets figured out and Megan settles down. I'll be looking for the oranges! Thank you so much for the nice Valentine with the Subway card! That will help greatly with my intention to be healthy.

I'm still getting adjusted to the new area and responsibilities, and this past week didn't really help that effort. I was on exchanges with zone leaders from the Appleton and Wausau zones, and I was in their areas. So, I was away from Milwaukee from Tuesday through Saturday. It was nice to be back in Wausau so soon and be able to teach Gloria especially. While I was there, she received a direct answer to her prayer about whether the Book of Mormon is true and if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. It was an awesome experience. She had "walls" preventing her from being open enough to receive an answer that direct before. The office work comes really naturally to me though - dealing with calls, numbers, emails, and spreadsheets. Reminds me a bit of my job before the mission. My companion will be leaving after this transfer, so I need to be on top of everything else before then. Our greatest focus will be for me to really know the area here in Milwaukee and all those we teach, since our first priority is to maintain a "model area" for the rest of the mission. Today, our focus will be on the 3-day leadership training this week, Tuesday through Thursday.

Our area here is doing well. We have baptisms scheduled during the next two weekends: Erik and Matt. I still haven't been able to teach Erik at all, but he is doing well and will be baptized this Saturday! He gave his girlfriend the boot this past week to move out, and we will be helping her move some things today. Matt is awesome! I have never met anyone so humble, teachable and prepared. After teaching about prophets and the commandments on Saturday, Elder Cottle said, "Well Matt, we've now taught you everything you need to learn in preparing for your baptism" And he replied, "Yeah, everything except for tithing." Haha, Elder Cottle completely forgot that we hadn't taught that yet, but Matt was on top of it. He even had a tithing slip and envelope that he pulled out as he reminded us. He really could be baptized this Saturday, but he's already told everyone from all over the state that it will be the 26th. He's such a great example.

Speaking of Elder Cottle, I never really told you about him. He is from Brigham City, UT. He is the oldest of 3 siblings, very organized - almost OCD, very diligent and obedient, excellent teaching, high expectations of himself and the work, loves to give trainings (very administrative). He was a bodybuilder back home - took second place in a competition for his weight class in all the northwestern states. He is very spiritual and sensitive to the Spirit. He'll be going home in June, and he's planning on attending UVU and getting married really quick. He'll be very successful and have very high callings in the Church. It's definitely a privilege to serve with him.

And speaking of school, I don't know when or how I'll find out if I am accepted to BYU. I would love to room with Brady and those guys, but I'm not sure when I'll know.

Well Happy Valentine's Day! I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

GO PACK GO! PACKERS WIN SUPER BOWL!

2011-02-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

Sun 2/13/11 9:24 PM
It's good to get your emails this week! I am glad everyone is doing well.. except for Tucker.. I'll answer your questions first: I do pretty well at writing in my journal I think, but I can improve. A lot of missionaries out here love their separated scriptures, so I think Jordan would do fine with those. The smaller size ones are nice if you are considering exchanging them. If Jordan and Jared want to study, have them study from Preach My Gospel and do the activities that they are able to do. Also, it's strongly encouraged that missionaries have read The Book of Mormon at least once before coming out, and it would be great for them to read D&C, Pearl of Great Price, and the New Testament through as well, if they can. It would be great for you to send more oranges! Maybe half the amount as last time would be awesome. Just send them right to the mission office: 5651 Broad St. Ste 1 Greendale, WI 53129. I don't know when I'll know of my acceptance to BYU, but I'm looking forward to finding out. I'm way excited for Jared to get his Patriarchal Blessing! That will be an awesome experience for him. That's very sad to hear about Pam. Wow.

This week has gone really fast. Go Pack Go! The Packers winning the Super Bowl should be a positive thing for our proselyting efforts. Everyone will be so happy, they'll all invite us in! We weren't really exposed to the Super Bowl hype at all. We actually weren't even permitted as missionaries to be out at all from 4:00 PM on yesterday. We had to come to the office, so that was our exception. But anyway, this past week was very eventful. Monday, we had about a half hour of P-day, and that will probably be how it will be today. We had to prepare for the new missionaries that came in on Tuesday. We had two great lessons that day with Matt Wilke (the one we set the baptism date with at church last week) and Colleen. Matt is doing awesome! I haven't seen someone so prepared in humility and faith. He is willing to do whatever we ask him, and even more. He committed himself to read 2-3 chapters a day from the Book of Mormon (the first time we met with him), and he has actually been reading even more than that. He heard about institute on Thursday, and he attended even though we weren't able to make it. He feels the Spirit's confirming comfort when he prays to know if the things we are teaching him are true. He was there in the chapel a half hour before church even started yesterday. We can't really expect anything more. Every answer he gives to our questions just blows us away because of his understanding. Colleen on the other hand has been taught by the missionaries here for a few months now, and her pride is causing her to stumble. She is proud of her stubbornness. It's a big road block that she is working to overcome. She must be able to rely on another person, or she will never truly be able to accept the grace provided by Jesus Christ through His Gospel.

So, those are two of the major investigators we are working with right now. Tuesday went well with the new missionaries. We got to take a couple of them out contacting on the university campus in Milwaukee, and everyone was very open and nice, so it was a great experience for them. One of them, Elder Jones, is a BYU offensive lineman, and he lives with us and his trainer in our apartment. It was cool to be able to interview each of them and be a part of the process of pairing them with their trainers. Tuesday night, the biggest blizzard of the year hit. It was intense! Most of the mission didn't get hit like we did, so we went ahead with transfers. It was a very stressful day worrying about training the new missionaries and trainers and sending them off, and then figuring out how everything else would work in the storm. It took a tole on me, so I was really excited to get to sleep that night, but I couldn't! I had chills/fever, headache, and sore throat all night. I tried to start out the day like a hero, but could hardly stand for very long. I found out that night, after deciding to go in, that I had a pretty bad case of strep throat. They gave me prescriptions, and my symptoms settled down pretty quick, but I wasn't able to go to the leadership meeting on Friday because I was contagious. My companion had to do all the trainings on his own. But now I'm better! I've never went from so bad to so good so fast.

So there is my week! I hope everything goes well for the family this week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

ELDER VOGAN-ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT!

2011-01-31T20:05:00.000-08:00

Mon 1/31/11 9:14 AM
So, I told you I was going to be transferred. President Jones called me on Wednesday and asked if I would serve as one of his assistants! What an opportunity to serve, and what a growing experience that will be for me. I was sure Elder Lester would have been the one called. So Elder Lyons and Elder Cottle drove out to Wausau and spent the night with us there Saturday night, and we drove back to Milwaukee yesterday morning for their meetings. The first people I saw were all the people from the Muskego Lakes ward! The DuCharmes seemed pretty surprised to see me, and we were invited to eat breakfast with them today. We have tons of trainings lined up for this month; the schedule looks pretty intense. We will have another 4 day long training in a couple weeks, which Elder Cottle and I will have a huge part in - we'll pretty much run it. Tomorrow, the new missionaries come in, and we'll be picking them up from the airport and taking them out contacting. We will also be interviewing them, assigning trainers, training the trainers, and sending them off. It's cool to be a part of everything, and it's very humbling to now be one of the "model missionaries". The singles ward we are over is incredible! I couldn't believe how great the meetings were. Everyone who had assignments to speak or teach was very prepared and inspired, and everyone is so nice and so great at fellowshipping. We had a guy who is the son of a member from another ward just show up for church. He loved it and says he wants to prepare to be baptized, so we set a date for that to happen (2/26) right there in the chapel after the combined priesthood and relief society meeting got out. We have a set appointment with him today at 2:00. During the Sunday services, a new member was confirmed, and one from two weeks before received the priesthood. It was awesome to be there, and I'm excited to help keep it going! It really is a model ward and a model area; if only every ward was like that. If family wards worked like that, there wouldn't just be individuals coming to the church, but families.

Well, we have a lot on the agenda, so I need to get going. But just so you know, while I'm in the office, I will be able to receive emails on Sunday nights. I won't be replying till about this time on Mondays though. Well I hope everything keeps going well at home! It was awesome to hear from Hannah and Jordan this week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

A GUIDED AND SPIRITUAL LESSON

2011-01-31T20:00:00.000-08:00

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:33:38 :
Family,

Thank you Mom for the letter! This on't be a long letter at all because I used all my online time with my BYU application. But it was a good week. I'm glad to hear things are going well, and that Dad's business is going good too. We had another exchange this week, this time I went to Marshfield for two days with Elder Trusty. That went well, but they don't have the teaching pool we do in Wausau, so we worked alot on building that up. Only so much you can do in two days though. The highlight of the week for me was Gloria again. She didn't come to church because of her anxieties and some obstacles she hit. But she did call us right at the end of our meetings, and she asked us to visit her. We scrambled to find someone who was willing to miss some of the Packers game to come with us, but Brother Yang was willing. Right when we got there, after opening with a prayer, I got the strongest feeling to be really bold with her reminding her of the spiritual experiences she had experienced answering her prayers and helping her know that what we have taught and invited her to do was of the Lord. As my love for her and the Spirit filled me, I said things that were not prepared but that she needed. She was actually planning to drop us right when we got there; to tell us she no longer wanted us to come over. She chose to pray to ask what she should do, and she was told she could not dismiss us. It was intense. The whole lesson was very guided and spiritual.

Well, that's all I have time for. Hope everyone has a great week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

THE 'VISION' TRAINING PROGRAM

2011-01-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

Mon. 1/19/11
Hi family,

Hope everyone had a great week! Ours went pretty well. We had a really intense district meeting on Wednesday. I'm not sure if I told you about our "vision" training last week, but we did it again for the other district, and it was a whole different experience. It started off a little bit rocky, maybe because people were coming in and leaving for interviews with President Jones, but it was still pretty good. We taught about the importance of having a vision/goal to work toward, and how to make it effective, inspired, and inspiring. But unlike the rocky beginning, when we started the visualization (all the missionaries close their eyes and visualize what I say), missionaries were really having inspired visions come to there minds and the Spirit in the room was really strong. Because a couple people missed it, we decided to do it twice, and it was even more intense the second time. The assistants were there, and during it, they were both grabbing their notebooks and writing like crazy the things they learned. One missionary was very emotional even as he shared the sacred experience he had. It was a really cool experience.

The rest of the week was good too. We had exchanges from Wednesday to Thursday with the assistants and one of the district leaders, and we had leadership training on Friday. I'm constantly learning, and I love it. Missions are awesome! I'm excited for whatever the Lord has in store for me this week, all those I'll get to teach and serve. I hope all of you enjoy your week as well!

Love,

Elder Vogan

I LOVE THE WORK! I'M SO HAPPY TO BE OUT HERE!

2011-01-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

Mon. 1/3/11
Happy New Years! Happy Birthday Dad! and Happy Birthday to Hannah in a couple of days! From Dad's email, it sounds like things are going really well at home. I'm glad you found your key's, Mom. I got the box of oranges, thank you!

This week has gone really well for us here in Wausau. The ward here is very missionary-minded, and we were able to teach quite a few lessons, bringing members with us. We've also started doing "family mission plans" with a few different families, and they all seem to be excited. Andra Andrews continues to progress in here knowledge and faith, and she continues to prepare for her baptism this Friday. We've been keeping daily contact with her and having simple lessons with her several times a week, and it's really been helping her. Since she committed firmly to keep the Word of Wisdom two Saturdays ago, she hasn't picked up a cigarette or drank any coffee. She almost missed church this week. As she, her daughter, and her daughters family were getting in the car ready to go, on one of the coldest days since I've been back out here, the car door wouldn't close. It must have been frozen or something..? But as we looked around for them during the beginning of sacrament meeting and not seeing them, we checked the phone and they had called several times. The message they left, Andra's daughter was in tears, they asked if there was any way someone could help. So we asked one of our recent convert members we were sitting by, and he was willing to go with us to pick them up. We couldn't drive them in our car. But yeah, so it worked out! I'm just glad we decided to check the phone. And now we are excited for Friday!

This week, Elder Lester and I will be giving 2 trainings - 1 at Elder Lokboj's district meeting on "vision", and 1 for zone conference, which is this Thursday. It will be my first time conducting for a zone conference as well, so that should be good.

I love the work! I'm so happy to be out here!

Love you!
Elder Vogan

A VISIT FROM PRESIDENT & SISTER JONES

2010-12-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

Mon, 27 Dec 2010
Yeah, I don't have much to talk about either. Everyone we could have expected to come to church this week came! Actually, even some people we didn't expect - it was awesome!

Tonight, President and Sister Jones will be coming out to our apartment to plan with us, and then tomorrow they'll be spending the whole day with us. I look forward to seeing them in teaching situations - that will be cool. We have a lesson set up with Sister Andrews (who has a baptism date for the 7th), and I am confident she and Sister Jones will hit it off.

And yeah, to answer your question, Mom, Elder Lester was at BYU before his mission. So yeah, he was excited to hear I am applying there.

Great, I'll be looking for those oranges this week! Thank you!

Love,
Elder Vogan

IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK!!!

2010-12-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

2010/12/20
Mom,It's great to be back! I really know even more now than before, when I was sent home and released, how much power is given to us as set apart missionaries. I knew when I was leaving the mission that I wanted to come back, and I knew when I was at home that I wanted to come back, but I needed really understand how much I missed it until I got back. Walking through the airport towards the baggage claim and seeing President and Sister Jones, Elder Cottle and Elder Lyons all waiting for me smiling, I felt so glad and excited to be back. The next thing that happened after I said "Hi" to them, one of the people I taught in Manitowoc stopped me and was really excited to see me. She told me she had moved and so I got her information so that the missionaries could start visiting her again. She was she to update me on her progress with quitting smoking.

I was able to go over to the Du Charme's and eat a late lunch and pick up my stuff. It was great to see them, and I'm glad they were able to tell you where I am now and who I'm with! It's awesome to be back with Elder Lester! He's even more of a powerhouse than he was before. But yeah, so after that I went and spent the rest of the evening teaching with the assistants and we stayed at the mission home. Wednesday was conveniently transfer day. (I thought it wasn't for a couple weeks, but I guess the mission wanted the departing missionaries to be home for Christmas).

So I knew ice would be something to be careful with, and I wore my brace, but I still ended up slipping right before leaving Milwaukee and landing right on my knee... nothing a brace can do about that. The whole church parking lot was frozen over with ice, so it dangerous for anyone, and my weak knee made me even more vulnerable. I was really worried throughout my trip because I was in a lot of pain, and I was having similar symptoms that I had when it was torn. The next day was even worse, at one point, my knee even felt like it was locking up. We stopped by a store, and I got some things to put on my shoes to prevent me from slipping again. Anyway, I was starting to feel like I might be turning around and heading back home again, but after a blessing from Elder Lester, I'm doing much better. I am only telling you this so that you will pray for my knee to be healed without me having to go back home.

The work is going well here! Right now we are living with the Hmong elders, so there are 4 of us in a cozy little apartment. They have like 10 people preparing for baptism, so they are working really well. We have a few people we are working with right now: Andra, Mike, and Gloria. Most of the work has been with less-active members recently though. Andra has a baptism date for the first week in January, and we almost set one with Gloria in an amazingly spiritual lesson we had with her this morning. It was funny, she started the lesson by saying that she "knew" she didn't need anything except the Bible and that she would never be a member of our church, but by the end she was considering baptism and saying, "Aw man, I never saw myself as a Mormon." She's had a lot of problems in her life, but she's also been incredibly blessed with so many gifts and so much faith and sincerity.

I would love some oranges! Merry Christmas! I will plan on calling around 2:00 pm our time.

Love, Elder Vogan

Surgery - The Road to Recovery

2010-09-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well since I'm home personally typing this entry, it won't take the email format that the past entries have. This is an interesting missionary experience. I'm lying here on my living room couch, recovering from this injury just as I have done several times throughout my accident-prone life. With Mom's encouragement, I decided that I would update my blog during this period where I am laid up and healing, so that I don't lose focus of the goal I have to return to the mission field.

Since being home, I've heard a few different negative statistics about the number of missionaries who return to the mission field after being released for medical purposes, and I am beginning to see how that happens so easily. It's definitely been a shock to my system to change my lifestyle from one having the mantle of an "Elder", living with higher purpose and much higher standards, to being thrown back into the world, released from my calling, feeling as if I have hardly any meaningful purpose while I'm home, and feeling much less of the Spirit in my daily activites.

The way I feel I need to keep from feeling this way is by giving myself a meaningful purpose each day. It's been difficult since the surgery Wednesday to focus on anything for too long, being on all these pain killers.. (I hope this entry is making sense!) But as I create meaningful goals and plans to work on each day, I can feel some satisfaction that comes from improvement, even if it is only small. Mission life was so structured with goals and plans and accountibility. Applying that as much as possible to my "inter-missionary" life will hopefully bring back that feeling of purpose that I miss!

- Taylor

~MISSION INTERMISSION~

2010-09-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

Haha I would LOVE Filibertos, but I'm not sure I'll have the appetite. This "ordeal" definitely has been interesting to say the least. I've been pretty anxious about everything too. Not the surgery as much as going home before I expected to, and not being able to see our investigators progress. I'll definitely be doing all I can to get back out as soon as possible. I talked to a knee surgeon from the ward here, and he told me that the usual recovery time is 3 1/2 to 4 months - so I might still be home for the holidays! But yeah, no one needs to worry about me being in bad shape or in pain or anything. It is a little bit uncomfortable, but I've been walking around on it for more than a month now, and it's been fine. I did just get a really cool brace this morning too to help with stability. I do understand why they are taking these procautions, and I am very comforted that I'll be able to come back out. That was a big worry of mine. I'm not sure whether or not I'll be released as a missionary during that time. The last two missionaries who went home were released, and they are both coming back out. To make sure that I come back out, I'm leaving most of my things at the Du Charme's house, so now I HAVE TO come back.

I do miss you very much, and I am excited to see you! I am excited for all of the reasons everyone said! I told the elders here that I'm coming back out with an 8-pack, so I hope Jordan and Dad hold me to it! It's funny too, I might be keeping in touch with a couple of our investigators over facebook, so I can still teach the gospel while I'm at home.

But yeah, I'll tell you more of the spiratual events of this past week when I see you tomorrow!

Love,

Elder Vogan

MISSION DEPARTMENT TO DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS???

2010-08-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/30/10 9:43 AM

So, no emails from you yet, but hopefully I'll see some come in by the time I'm done typing this one! Mom, I have a gift in the mail for you that was given to me from an investigator of ours.. so, be looking out for it. I hope everyone is well and happy at home!

So, first I'll start with the news you're probably wondering about most - about my knee. So, I got the results on Thursday and my meniscus has a pretty bad buckle tear and my ACL is "partial to completely" torn as well. So... I'll need surgery on it sometime. The doctor's recommendation was to have surgery as soon as possible, but he also understood how important the missionary work is to me and gave me another option: to get a sports brace to wear till I finish my mission and then get surgery at home. He said there was possibility of further damage if I did that, but it's not cancer, so if I didn't run, jump, skip or hop, it shouldn't be terrible. He said it would be pointless to do anything with it surgically unless I was fixing all of it at the same time. So, I immediately ordered the brace as soon as I heard that option. But then, when I told President and Sister Jones about it, they said I really didn't have much choice in it, and the mission department would be the ones to decide what happens.. Sorry Mom, I know you told me when I was a kid, "no more injuries". But thank you for your prayers. I'm really calm and comforted about everything, and I'm pretty much pain-free - even while walking on it. I am confident that that comes from the prayers in my behalf.

But yeah, besides that, this week was still crazy! We had our 4-day long training here in Milwaukee Tuesday thru Friday. It went well, but it was exhausting. We had to do this as part of implementing new curriculum in the mission from the MTC, so all the leaders and trainers from the mission were invited. Elder Klc who was in the MTC with me got to stay at our apartment during the nights, so that was cool. We would have our training each day from 9-4 and then afterward we'd go to our areas and do missionary work. Since Elder Klc's area was too far away, he just came and worked in our area. My training on Friday morning went pretty well. I trained for 40 min. on helping others make and keep commitments.

-Just got your emails-

Yeah things are going really well with Elder Turney. He is from Germany. He lived his whole life on a US military base there. His dad works for the Department of Defense "civilian". He is a school teacher there. His mom is from Guam, so he has an interesting heritage that members/non-members love to talk with him about. He actually came out with Elder Radle, and he'll be going home mid-November. It's interesting, there are 4 missionaries in our mission who grew up in Germany, and all four are in our little zone.

That's sad to hear about Meggie's toe! I hope you can figure out what's going on with her soon, so that she doesn't keep hurting herself. I'll definitely be praying for her. It's also interesting to hear about my new ward. I am also glad they changed the name to something more masculine. Congrats to Annie with the new baby! And to Grandma Nan! And good luck to Hannah with her first game!

Not too much to tell you this week about investigators. So, I won't. I love you and I'll talk to you next week! (or before then, if I'm given any new critical information)

Love,

Elder Vogan

MRI TODAY--RESULTS ON THURSDAY

2010-08-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/23/10 10:09 AM
Hello!
Yeah, I had my MRI this morning, and I'll know more about it on Thursday at my follow up appointment. There is a chance that my ACL was torn too, which would be alot worse if that was true. That would be too long of a recovery to stay out here if that was the case. If I only need to have a scope, that's just a two week recovery, and I don't think I'd be sent home over that. Thank you for your prayers and for putting my name in the temple. I know whatever happens is what's supposed to happen. Right now I am fine though. I can walk around on it without much pain, with just a little limp. So don't worry too much. Oh and it's my left knee, not the right.

That's cool to hear that school is back in session and everything's going well! I look forward to seeing pictures of Dad's deer next week! And way cool about Matthew Gallego's mission call! Do you keep in touch pretty well with people from the Las Sendas ward? Yeah, Elder Turney is my new companion, and things are going well. We are working hard and staying focussed, so that's sweet. Going from Elder Radle to Elder Turney is definitely going from one extreme to another. My new companion describes himself as a micro-manager and somewhat robotic. I feel like I'm pretty much right in between those two. It's good though, we are a lot more prepared for our days and our appointments now. And he keeps me good on my "diet".

This week is going to be pretty nuts. All of the leaders and trainers from our mission will be in Milwaukee from Tuesday thru Friday for a 4-day leadership meeting. It will be pretty intense. I get to teach part of the conference on Friday, so that will be fun. It's good for us to have it here in Milwaukee so that we can still work in our own area in the evenings, and it doesn't get neglected.

The guy I think I mentioned in my email last week who loves the Osmonds came to church yesterday, along with 5 other investigators! Things seem to be really picking up out here. Mike seems to be shady though. We are pretty sure he is getting baptized so that he can marry Marie Osmond. No joke...

I can't think of anything else to write about this week, so I'll talk to you next week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

KNEE TROUBLE

2010-08-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/16/10 10:50 AM
Hello,
Another fun-filled week passes by. We recently found out about transfers and my companion, Elder Radle, will be leaving, and I'll get to train a new zone leader here. I know who it is that is coming, Elder Tourney. Oh, something new, I have an appointment to go to the ortho doctor because I hurt my knee pretty bad. The walk-in doctor I went to on Saturday said I "blew [my] meniscus". I originally hurt it three weeks ago playing basketball with the big group of missionaries, and then I finished it off on Friday night playing soccer - yeah, that was dumb. So, Thursday I will hopefully get an MRI so they can know for sure. It's a little be stressful, but we've been able to still work; and I got a blessing, so I'm doing my best to have faith/patience. It's just a little scary knowing that 2 or 3 missionaries have gone home early in the last 2 months because of knee problems... but that won't be me, I still have work to do. I'll keep you updated on it though.

So, This week we had exchanges every day. Tuesday and Wednesday I was with this really funny missionary named Elder Trusty, and we did a lot of good work. Before the exchange, he said that he and his companion were feeling "burnt out" from tracting. At the end of our exchange, he loved it. He learned how and set goals to be more real when he talks to and invites people to learn about the Gospel. He said our exchange was one of the best times he ever had doing that, and we were able to find a lot of people for those missionaries to teach during that time. We had some time to work in our area too and had a lot of good things happen. We dedicated two houses for different members of a part-member family. They were supposed to be at church yesterday but didn't come. We also met this girl named Tyshema who was way sweet. At first she didn't show too much interest in what we were teaching, but when we asked her if she would like us to teach her more, she said "yes". So we sat down right there with her in her front yard and taught her the whole lesson of the Restoration and committed her to baptism. We found out later in the lesson that she had actually been praying that she could find a book or people to teach her more about Jesus Christ. So, when we introduced the Book of Mormon as "another testament of Jesus Christ", she was excited. She wasn't at church either, so we don't know how solid her baptism date really is yet. Thursday and Friday we went with the Spanish missionaries and I went with Elder Cook from Mesa, AZ. He was actually really good friends with Sam Kerby too, which is crazy. But we also had a great exchange. My spanish got pretty good, and I was able to teach during lessons, and I even said a prayer at the end of our first lesson with a new investigator we found. That was intense. Since Friday night was my knee problem, Saturday alot of my day was spent at the doctor. We did finish the night well though. There was a guy named Mike who randomly called us and wanted to talk to us about setting up his baptism. That was sweet, and so during our lesson with him, we made sure he was willing to change his life to meet the standards that the Lord has set for us to be worthy and happy, and then we set a baptism date with him. Our only concern right now is his obsession with the Osmonds, especially Marie. He has pictures and dolls of Marie Osmond everywhere, and some framed of him hugging her with her autograph. We need to make sure he's not doing this for her. haha

Well, congratulations to Hannah! I can't wait to see some pictures of her playing in the games. And good luck with everything else going on! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

"MIRACLE WORKING"

2010-08-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/09/10 9:19 AM
Another week gone by. I got your card on Saturday with the cute pictures of little Charli and Tucker! That was awesome. I'm Whitney and Kyle are great parents! My mouth started watering when you talked about getting peach melba shakes from Jacob Lake - man, that will be a tough tradition to break. Good luck, Hannah! I will pray for the volleyball tryouts. Crazy that school starts again already, which means summer will be over before we know it. The green Wisconsin summers are nice except for the misquitos and humidity, but I do love the fall season here - all the misquitos die and trees get really colorful. That was fun to hear about Mom's reunion.

Last time I wrote you, our zone was probably at its lowest point ever, but I'm glad to say that things went alot better this week. Hopefully that means that the worst is behind us and it will just be an upward trend from here. It's weird though, at our most recent leadership meeting on Friday, we were talking and the whole mission felt what our zone felt last week - like a dark cloud over the mission. We seem to be coming out of it now. That Friday meeting was definitely the best meeting since President Jones has been here, so hopefully they continue to be great and motivating. After that, attitudes changed and miracles happened.

I had another sweet exchange with Elder Heyte (sp?). I tell him he's a miracle worker because every time we work together awesome things happen. We exchanged right after our leadership training and within the next couple hours we had a great lesson with a part-member/less-active family and we found 2 new really interested potential investigators - Kim and Jake. Jake didn't know that there were any Mormons in Wisconsin, and he had never seen missionaries here before. He had been really curious about our church, mostly because he really likes everything Glenn Beck says about faith and he's LDS. He doesn't claim to be any complete faith. He says he's a 'hybrid' because he was raised Catholic, but he doesn't believe in praying to saints. When we told him where our church was, it blew his mind because its only a few blocks away from his house. He thought our church was a non-denominational church. So, he said he would come to a service, but we didn't see him there yesterday.

Saturday, early afternoon, we were driving toward the area we wanted to see people, and decided to plug in my gps an address for a semi-less-active, part-member lady who I had never been by to visit. Our timing couldn't have been more perfect. Her brother (very prepared for the gospel) and her son (very less-active, but very ready to come back) were downstairs moving and reorganizing a lot of heavy stuff, and they really needed help but they hadn't called anyone. So, we felt good to be there to help, but then as Sister Fisher was getting us water, she told us that our timing was even better than we thought. A few days before she had gotten her eyes dilated and they never returned to normal, and she really wanted a blessing because of that and other things. She had been talking to friends and family members, asking them to pray for her, and she told them that she would be calling "the Elders of the Church, like it says in the Bible that we should do". But we beat her to it, and it overwhelmed her to tears because she knew that God loved her and was aware of her. We were able to teach her brother about what blessings are and then give Sister Fisher a blessing. After finishing our work, we had an awesome spirit-filled lesson in which her brother, Greg, and her son, Joe, committed to come to church. They both came and Joe brought his 5 year-old daughter who loved it! They are going to have us over for more lessons and feed us a BBQ dinner next time!

After that lesson, Heyte said, "The Spirit's thick as mud in there", and we went to our next appointment. On the way, I decided that I really needed to go to the bathroom, so we went to a gas station. When we were about to leave, the people that we were about to see were there getting drinks. They had already moved to a new house, and if we hadn't seen them then, and they had not let us follow them, it would have taken a really long time to find out where they moved. We all gave credit to the Lord for that working out. And now the oldest sister in the family, Khadijah (cool name, huh), has a date to be baptized on the first week of September, and her fiance will probably be baptized with her. They asked us for pass-along cards of the temples and of Jesus to hang in their apartment, and they loved the idea of being sealed together there as a family.

So there's some cool stories I was excited to tell you about this week! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

MEETINGS WITH PRESIDENT JONES

2010-08-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/02/10 9:01 AM
Wow, congrats to Jordan Burr! What a cool mission call! Hope all goes well with Jordan Vogan's wisdom teeth. It went really smooth for me, except that my stomach was sensitive to the codine in my pain medication. It's always cool to hear about little Charli, and I can't wait to get your letter with the pictures of her!

My week was really busy and pretty eventful, but not much to say at the same time. We had two district meetings, interviews, stake presidency MCM with President Jones, and a really long leadership training. All that, along with working with other missionaries, took up most of our time this week, but we still managed to teach several solid lessons in our area too.

Our mission, or at least our zone, seems to be in a rut right now, and that isn't fun. It might be because of the new change with President Jones coming in, and the new focus that he brought with him. It seems like most missionaries are a lot less focussed and missionary work isn't the number 1 priority like it has been to most of missionaries I've worked with throughout my mission. I don't know if our zone has ever reported teaching less lessons and working with less people than we did this week. It was really bad. In our whole zone, only one person that we are working with is preparing for baptism. Elder Radle and I are working to correct this and motivate everyone to work better, especially the district leaders who can pump up their districts in district meeting.
I apologize for my bummer email this week; next week's will be better!

Love you,

Elder Vogan

I'M AN UNCLE!

2010-07-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

Mon 7/26/10 9:10 AM
Man, I'm excited! It was great to hear that everything went great, and it was awesome to see the pictures of little Charli! Congrats Whitney and Kyle!

Well, we didn't have to rescue anyone this week, but we were able to help out a lot with water damage and flooding. As you guys heard, there was a huge storm and a lot of flooding in Milwaukee Thursday night. It was intense. A tornado touched down just West of us in Waukesha, and people were abandoning their vehicles because the water was too high to drive. One guy even got his Escalade eaten! A sink hole opened up on one of the roads, and the guy driving got sucked down 20 feet in the ground. The guy was alright. It is cool to see how much the members of the Church step up when people are in need. Probably the biggest areas of disaster were right in our area. As you drive up and down most of the streets that were hit harder, people have all of their carpet and furniture out on the curb to get taken to the dump. It's sad too because alot of those areas were people who couldn't really afford to throw too much stuff out. Everyone seems to have an optimistic attitude about it though. We had a river in the streets by our apartment in Sussex about 2 feet deep or so, but fortunately, our apartment is a lot higher than the street, so there was no damage that we personally had to deal with.

For the work, it was another week of one exchange after another here, so we only taught a few lessons in our own area. Things are going pretty well though with what we are doing. We had a great lesson with Patty and her member neighbors, and hopefully that lesson will help her get past her stubborness so she can pray and figure out that this is true. We need to find more investigators who will progress.

Well, I really can't think of anything else to write about. Today is going to be fun! The assistants are going to pick up us and two other companionships from our zone, and we are going down to Milwaukee South to play some basketball at the church down there.

Well thank you so much for writing, and for your love, prayers and support! I'll talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Vogan

"ANOTHER WEEK"

2010-07-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

Mon 7/19/10 8:41 AM
Hey family,
Still no baby.. it reminds me of waiting for my mission call! Well, it sounds like I'll hear about it next week then! That story about Megan was intense. Wow, poor little girl! I hope everything heals well without infection. (Megan put a fish hook through her lip)

This past week for us was pretty crazy as well. We only spent two of the days in our area, and the rest of the time was with other missionaries on exchanges. I got to go with Elder Stevens (the one I trained) on Tuesday! It happened to be his birthday too, so I spoiled him a little like a "dad" does, and bought him some gelado. He is working in Waukesha only 5 miles North of the Du Charmes house, so he's even closer to them than I am. They said something awhile ago about picking us up and taking us out to lunch sometime. Thursday, we went out to South Milwaukee and worked with the Spanish elders. The one I worked with, Elder Tolman, is scheming to get President to switch me to Spanish speaking. We are going home the same day, so we were thinking if that happened, our "dying" wish would be to serve together for our last transfer(s). So, that was a good day, and we found a group of people to teach by jumping in a 'ghetto ball' game with them and playing for a bit. Friday was zone conference, and there was a lot of changes that took place. President Jones brought out a new focus and things to emphasize from what he learned in the MTC trainings he had. We are doing a lot more roll playing now than ever. I kind of enjoy roll playing, but most of the other missionaries hate it. But yeah, alot of practice, evaluation, and re-practicing.

That night we were also on exchanges and stayed overnight in city area. And Saturday was pretty nuts. One of the craziest exchanges of my mission. (right next to my drunk Peter exchange). It was just one thing after another, and I don't even remember the order things happened. But one of the first things, we had the nicest young lady (20-22 or so) come up to Elder Hyte and me asking all these sincere questions. She is about to have her first baby, and she is about to get married and she knows she needs what we have. And she told us all this before we even really told her much of our message. Right when we were about to get her information and keep teaching her, this big, drunk, crack-head guy who just came up and grabbed our arms and said he needed help with whatever (people are always asking us for money). Raven, the nice girl, was still standing there waiting for us to teach her, but Satan sent this dude to get in the way, so we didn't get her information, but she does have our card so hopefully she'll call. We had a really good feeling about her. Then, after that we were kind of turned around (you know how I am with directions, and Elder Hyte is a brand new missionary), so we just kept walking and busing to where we thought was towards our next appointment. Through our journey we just kept teaching people one after another, it was a teach-a-thon. We found out we had done one big circle around the city, and we ended up back where we were at one time three hours later, and a guy who saw us the first time wondering, yelled to us the second time we happened to be there, and we taught him and he wants to learn more. Then when we were teaching a big group of very 'believing' black people, they wanted us to pray with them, so we held hands and prayed in a huge circle right outside with people passing by. Another drunk guy later called after us, and ran up to meet us, we were expecting him to ask for money too, but instead he told us that he was a member from Scottsdale and Queen Creek, and he served a mission in Brazil, and he was out here now way off the path. He warned us never to move to Milwaukee to live. Then, as we were heading home, we missed our bus that comes only every 25 minutes, so we decided to just start walking in the relative direction of home, and when we decided to stop walking and sit down at a bus stop, within 30 seconds, a car pulled over on the side of the road and a 'born again' Christian guy got out and walked across the street to condemn us. We just bore our testimonies that we do believe in Christ despite what he and his religion chose to believe. After he got a bit shifty and decided to "cast the devil out of us in the name of Christ". It was pretty blasphemous. We just looked at him after he did that, and asked him if we could do anything for him to help him out. He just walked back to his car saying, "I won't say 'God speed' but I will say good-bye". Haha, we just looked at each other and said, "That was weird."

So, there's my story for this week!

Love you,

Elder Vogan

RUNNING A 5K WITH WHITE SHIRTS, TIES, NAME TAGS AND GYM SHORTS

2010-07-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

Mon 7/12/10 9:43 AM
Still no baby?! Dang, well I will be anxiously awaiting my next week's emails. That is so sad to hear about Porter Dixon and Sister Miller. Those families will definitely be in my prayers.
I'm glad to hear that Jordan did well on his talk and that last week's story fit right in! I think the maggot detail makes it more interesting too. Well I didn't have anything new like that to talk about this week. But this past week has been really crazy. On Friday, we had zone leader council with our new mission president, and we learned a lot about the new things he will be implementing. There will definitely be a lot of change. Instead of having zone conferences and interviews with President every transfer, it will now only be 4 times a year. But now, we will have 3 zone leader councils each transfer instead of 1. So, it seems like a lot more responsibility falls on our shoulders for the success of the missionaries in our zones. President Jones also told us that he is planning to hold a 4 day mission leadership training in August to teach the leaders and trainers about our new way of doing things. So that's going to be pretty crazy.

Something cool that we did this week was on Thursday evening, we ran a 5k race with one of our investigators and a member. It started right at dusk, and we ran in downtown Milwaukee. It was awesome! The city blocked off the streets that our route was on, and we ran with a couple thousand people. We went in our white shirts, ties, and name tags and then our gym shorts and running shoes so that people could recognize us as missionaries, and many people did. I can't tell you how many people cheered for us as we ran by saying, "Yay, go tie guys!" and stuff like that. It was funny too, going along with Milwaukee tradition, next to the water stands sitting there for us while we were running, there were also beer stands. So, some the runners would run right past the waters and buy a beer to drink while they kept running. It was pretty funny to us. And right at the end of the race, by the finish line, the streets were filled with all the people that ran, and also tons of people who didn't run, and there was a party in the streets. We didn't stay too long, but it was cool having members from different wards around Milwaukee stop us and say hi to us. And our investigator, Patti, and the member, Sister Tyson, thought it was way cool that we came. We hope to keep doing stuff like that.

Well, that's all the interesting news for this week. I will look forward to seeing pictures of little Charli next week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

"WE HELPED SAVE A GUY'S LIFE"

2010-07-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

Wed 7/07/10 2:55 PM
Happy Fourth of July and Happy Birthday, Whitney! I was really anxious this week to hear if Whitney had her baby yet, but I guess I'll get to be anxious for another week. Since the Fourth was Sunday, holiday schedule rolled over to Monday, so none of the libraries were open. And yesterday was just really busy, so today we get to email! Thank you so much for the nice birthday card! And thank you Dad for the birthday money - I was able to stock up pretty good on my protein and vitamins and we had a fun couple of times going out to eat. We haven't gone to Chili's yet, but next time we don't have a dinner appointment, we might do that.

Our week has been pretty crazy. Last Monday, later after we emailed, we helped save a guy's life. So, we decided to go out with the missionaries serving in downtown Milwaukee, and we went to a not so well-known beach to play football and hang out. After being there for a bit, we decided to venture through some brush and trees up the beach towards a more public beach. On the way, we were walking through people's private beaches who had their backyards up against Lake Michigan. As we were walking towards a big, concrete, look-out structure covered with graffiti, we saw a guy laying half in and half out of the water. Elder Radle is the one who saw him while a couple of other missionaries walked right past without seeing him laying there. We immediately called 911 and led the fireman and EMT's to the scene when they got to the house who's backyard we were in. It looked like the guy had fallen off the top of the rock structure onto the rocky beach, and he had been laying there for probably 2 days, in shock, hypothermia, with broken bones, and with maggetts eating his skin. He was still conscious though when we found him, so that was good. Since it was a private beach, we are almost positive he would have died soon if we had not decided to walk that way. After he was loaded up and taken up to the street where he was life-flighted, there were news crews there to interview us. We all just let Elder Radle do it, since he was the one who found the guy. So that's another cool mission story to remember. I'm glad we were able to be led to that guy before it was too late.

It is interesting to have President Barrett gone and to have a new mission president - President Jones. I'm not sure what to think yet, but I'm confident he'll do well. Fourth of July for us was sweet! (actually celebrated on the 3rd here) We went to the beach with a semi-recent-convert, part-member family and had a fun BBQ. We set up some beach chairs in the sand and watch the fireworks. Sunday went well too. Angela (lady we found at the bus stop) was at church and loved it, and we also had Patti there. She has been to church several times, but she is just hard to set up times to teach.

But yeah, everything else is going well here! Thank you for your prayers, and I'll be praying for you guys - especially Whitney!

Love,

Elder Vogan

BIRTHDAY WISHES FOR A 21 YEAR OLD

2010-06-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

Mon 6/28/10 9:18 AM
Hey,
Thank you for the birthday wishes! And for the money, Dad! I will be looking for the card too! That's awesome to hear about Jordan's leadership skills and studliness - no surprise at all! I hope Whitney keeps doing well and that EFY goes well for Hannah!

This last week was pretty crazy for us. We were really low on miles, so we've been living with the city elders on the lake front - really cool area. It's been a little cramped though living in a studio apartment with four of us. We have our car parked and we have just been busing to the people on the east side of our area. There are hardly any buses that run on the west side, and most of the people that we see live on the east side. We were able to spend a lot more time working in our area this week. We actually found a new investigator and set a date with her during our first lesson with her this week. Her name is Angela, and we met her at a bus stop. So that was cool. Also, since we were already living with other missionaries, we had plenty of time to do exchanges with them and the two other sets of missionaries in the downtown city area. Also, preparing for President Barrett to leave and mission tour with our new mission president is crazy. President and Sister Jones fly in to Wisconsin tomorrow evening and President and Sister Barrett leave Wednesday morning. We will get to meet President Jones on Wednesday at mission tour!

Mom, you asked if I like being zone leader more than district leader. It's alot different. Zone leader is definitely a bigger responsibility, and so far we have had to deal with some 'drama' from some missionaries in this area that i never had to as district leader. The area where I was district leader - Rapids - was a nice area, and the district didn't have many problems at all. This zone that we are in is known to always have problems with disobedience of missionaries and companion struggles. President is counting on Elder Radle and I to clean it up. I can see why there are problems here. There are so many distractions in the city, and there are so many ways to be disobedient, so many ways to lose focus on what we are here to do. So to answer your question, it does depend on the area where we serve, but i like being zone leader because it forces me to grow and improve even more so i can be an example and help the missionaries in my stewardship. It's not something i aspire to though.

But thank you again for the emails! I'm glad Father's Day went well last week, Dad! (I hope you got my card). I'm excited to go eat some cheesecake factory for my birthday! And then go to GNC and buy some protein!

I love you!
Elder Vogan

MATCHING TIES

2010-06-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

CIRCUIT TRAINING THE RELIEF SOCIETY SISTERS

2010-06-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

Mon 6/21/10 9:36 AM
Family,
Everything is going great here in Milwaukee! We had a lot going on last week with exchanges and leadership meeting on Friday. We are doing well with helping other missionaries on exchanges, but we feel like we are lacking a bit in our own area. So, our goal now is to find that balance of giving diligent and effective help to the other areas and still spending time in our area finding and teaching. We are also focusing on building stronger relationships with the ward members, especially auxiliary leaders. The relief society activity that we helped out with on Tuesday was great for building our relationships. That was the activity that they had me teach and train everyone on exercising with things at home. We went in the cultural hall and had a circuit for all the women and some of the young women who came too. A lot more people were there than expected too - probably 35 or 40. It was a lot of fun!

I am excited to hear about Whitney! I'm sure everyone is getting ready for the new addition. That's cool to hear about Breann and Ben's wedding and everyone going to it. I hope everyone is doing well. I heard from Preston, and that was really good. I'll be sure to write Chantell either today or tomorrow. For my birthday, you don't need to send anything. I might use my home account to buy some new shirts and socks.

Thank you for everything! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

"WHO ARE THOSE GUYS? WHY DOES SHE WANT A PICTURE WITH THEM?"

2010-06-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Mon 6/14/10 11:25 AM
Mom,
I am glad things are well and that you enjoyed Girls Camp! It's also awesome to hear about Jordan's friend, Pete. That will be a great experience for Jordan to be a missionary to him. He mentioned his name once in his last letter to me, but he didn't tell me anything about him. I'm glad Megan has a good routine for the summer that let's you relax a little. (hopefully)

This past week went pretty okay. Nothing really too new to talk about. We were able to get to know alot of the members this week, and we are working with them to have appointments at their houses and take them on splits and stuff. We had a pretty fun exchange this weekend again in the city. The Blue Angels were having a three-day air show on the waterfront on Lake Michigan, and there were thousands of people there from all over. We were able to talk to alot of people. On Saturday, the fog was too thick for the jets to fly, but most of the people still hung around by the beach. We took a break to skip some rocks (which we found out was a great 'finding' activity). While we were doing that, this really cute girl came up and asked to get her picture taken with us. She was a recent convert from North Carolina, and she was just down for the day, and she loves missionaries. So she got a picture with us on her camera, and then I got a picture with my camera too. haha. It was great though because then the hundreds of people who saw that are thinkin', "What, who are those guys? Why did she want a picture with them?"

Another cool thing, I found out yesterday that all went well in Wisconsin Rapids with Britney and Joe! They were both baptized and had great support from the ward! That was so good to hear. I'm going to send them a card.

Well, I really can't think of much else to write. So, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

THE CITY IS SWEET!

2010-06-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

Mon 6/07/10 9:35 AM
Hello family,
So, I didn't hear from anyone this week on my email, so hopefully all is well! I did get the awesome package you sent. Thank you so much for the good music! I'm eating the candy slowly but surely. I have to be more hardcore than ever on my diet now to support Elder Radle with his weight loss goals. He started his mission at 310 lbs. and now he is down to 276 lbs. I told him that he'll have a six-pack before we are done together, so hopefully we will stay together more than 6 weeks or he'll be losing a lot of weight really fast. Just with me, so far, he's lost about 15 lbs. And so now, because someone from the Relief Society found out I used to do a little bit of personal training, they are going to have me teach a workout class for the Relief Society activity next Tuesday. Haha, that will be fun.

The City is sweet! I feel like this area is a big reason why I was called to this mission. It is really fun, and almost too easy to find people to teach and come to church here. The ward is awesome too. Most of the ward is filled with young couples and families from out west here to work for Kohl's at headquarters or at medical school at UWM. So, most of the men in the ward are young return missionaries still excited about missionary work. At church this week, we had two awesome guys come: Khalid and Kartone. They are both in their early 20's. We actually set a baptism date with Khalid last week, and Kartone may end up being baptized the same day: July 3rd. Kartone was planning to just stay for sacrament meeting, but he loved it so much that he cancelled his plans and stayed for "one more". And then after the second class, which he liked even better, he chose to stay for the whole thing. They both felt the Spirit as strong as I know anyone has felt it. During the last hour, Elder Radle and I chose just to teach them in the foyer and we realized even more how much they enjoyed it. They have both grown up in the roughest part of Milwaukee. Khalid's brother even got shot a few years back to protect his sister. He got shot in the throught, so he is paralized now. But during our meeting with them, they were talking about how baptism is a really serious thing, and if they do that they can't go back to their old way of life. If you can imagine Ludacris (Kartone) bearing testimony about following Christ, that's exactly how it seemed. It was the coolest thing ever! Because Kartone knows how serious a covenant is with God, he didn't want to say for sure that he will be baptized yet, but as he continues to be exposed to that Spirit of our message, I know he will be. He even said a really great, sincere prayer after our gospel principles class that blew Khalid's mind. We were all surprised that he even came to church.

But yeah, I think that's it for this week, because the other elders are waiting on me. But I love you, and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Elder Vogan

IF YOU DON'T LOVE ELDER RADLE....

2010-06-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

Wed 6/02/10 12:54 PM
Hello,
I couldn't write on Monday because of the holiday, and yesterday was really booked, but we made time for emailing today! Those pictures of Elder Molano were awesome! He looks really good! I'll probably get the package at zone conference. Transfers went well; I'm still adjusting to the new area. Yeah, right when we got in town, we got to see the Kabitzkes and the DuCharmes! It was sweet. When I was there, I felt like I hadn't ever left, except for the fact that Brandon and Tyler had each grown at least a couple inches. Zone Leader duties actually used to be less work than district leader until a couple months ago when President Barrett felt inspired that we need to be out of our areas working with other missionaries 50% of the time. So, now we spend just as much time with the missionaries as the district leaders, but our area of responsibility is bigger. Elder Radle and I are over two districts for this zone. Instead of being responsible for training missionaries every week at district meeting, we are assigned to give only one training a transfer at zone conference. We do attend district meetings and help the district leaders with whatever they need though. Our main goal is to help the district leaders to be solid, so they can progress the work within the districts. This assignment was less intimidating to me than training and being the district leader.

Something cool now is that one of the district leaders is Elder Stevens - the missionary I trained! Yesterday, we went on a three-way exchange with Elder Stevens' area and one of the areas in his district, Lake Michigan. Elder Radle stayed in Elder Stevens' area with his companion, and he and I went to Lake Michigan. It was like old times working together. We did a lot of good work in Lake Michigan too - taught 8-9 lessons and found 5 or 6 people who said they would like to learn more. The exchange was only for 3 hours during the afternoon too! I was awesome.

We've done two other exchanges as well since I've been here. Friday, we went to the beach in downtown Milwaukee and played soccer with a bunch of "hood figures". haha. It was a lot of fun. President likes us to get out there and be seen, and play sports as a finding activity. The City Elders have done really well with that already, finding a few new investigators through sports. The day after that, we did the same thing, but we played streetball basketball in a cage court. That day was such good work for us. We spent the whole day in the city inviting and teaching everyone we saw. There were so many people out and about that we didn't need to knock on any doors to talk to people. It was Elder Radle, me, and one of the assistants. All you have to do in the city for people to talk to you is to ask if they love Jesus. They all answer the same way, and they all want us to teach them.

My companion bio: Elder Greg Radle; just turned 22; from North Ogden, UT; I served right next to him during my first transfer while he was in the office; since the office, he has served as zone leader in different areas throughout the mission; he wants to be a pharmacist when he grows up (something I might do too..?); he likes working out, and I told him that I'll help him get a six pack by the end of the time I am serving with him; he wants to go to Utah State; likes hunting and long walks on the beach; goes home in December; he snow shoed up Lewis peak once; he likes to snow board; he is an awesome guy and an awesome companion; very easy to get along with; in the words of President Barrett, "If you don't love Elder Radle, you can just get out of America."

Well, that's it. Good luck with summer, girls camp, the new cute puppy, and good luck to Whitney with the baby!

Love,

Elder Vogan

CASSIE WILLS BAPTISM

2010-06-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

ZONE LEADER & TRANSFER THIS WEEK

2010-05-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

Mon 5/24/10 10:16 AM
Happy Monday!
Haha, what did Sister Swearingen write on facebook? But yeah it's true; I will be transferring to Sussex/Parkway (Milwaukee North Stake), and I will be serving as zone leader with Elder Radle. That should be awesome - I love Elder Radle! Do you remember that picture of me carrying that really big guy from the beginning of my mission? That's Elder Radle. Being zone leader should be a good growing experience for me too. Milwaukee North is the most condensed zone and stake with members in the mission (more members per capita), so I imagine I'll be spending less time in cars and more time outside this summer. Elder Quinney will be staying in Rapids for at least one more transfer - lucky. Two transfers wasn't enough time to spend here. I'll be having my last dinner at the Swearingen's tonight. Something cool is that on Wednesday, the night before transfers, 2 of our investigator families (The Sigmans and the Gundersons) are going to have a going away dinner party for me. We are going to have a traditional Wisconsin cookout with burgers and brats, and cake and brownies!

That puppie is really cute. How old is he? I think Sully would be a good name. I can just imagine Megan saying, "So-ley". It's great to here about all the awesome things going on: the baby shower, the temple dedication, the Suns, and the shows. No one is following basketball that we talk to out here, so the only updates I get are from you. I'm glad Whitney is getting so spoiled with love!

So, the work has still been going great! We taught Cassie's brother, Ryan, but not her dad. We were going to set a baptism date with Ryan, but we chose not too yet because of his severe dislexia and less-accountable-ness. We feel like Bishop would need to okay that one. If Cassie's dad was also getting baptized with him, I would feel better about it too. Britney and Joe Sigman are still really solid! I'm sad that I won't be here for their baptism. They came to church again this week and loved it. The ward has done so well with fellowshipping them at activities they've been to that they fit right in and already feel comfortable. They follow through with every commitment right when we extend each one to them. One lesson this week, we left kind of a lot for them to read, and they had it all read that night before they said prayers together and went to bed. This is the kind of missionary work I love to be a part of!

Well, I will talk to you next week, and I'll let you know how I'm settling in to Milwaukee!

Love,

Elder Vogan

CASSIE'S BAPTISM WAS AWESOME!

2010-05-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

Mon 5/17/10 11:40 AM
Hello,
Thank you for your prayers! I know they helped us this week. Cassie's baptism went awesome! She had so much support from family, friends, and members. She said her dad will probably want to take the lessons and join the Church too! Preston visited! That sounds like it was a fun time. I bet he had a lot of awesome stories to share with you. Crazy that dad got to visit Elder Molano! That is really cool how that all worked out. I'm glad you liked the movies! Yeah, I guess I am a tease, huh? haha.

But yeah, our week was really awesome! We taught a lot of lessons, found 4 new people to teach, and set 2 more baptism dates with a young couple: Joe and Britney. (See my email to President Barrett for more details on that story). Everything just seemed to work our perfectly with them. They were definitely prepared to receive the gospel. They quit drinking and smoking already awhile ago after having their son, J.J. (Joseph Jr.).

Well, I spent most of my time writing to President - Sorry! But I hope everyone has an awesome week, and I will pray that Megan will stay out of trouble.

Love,

Elder Vogan

GREAT TALKING TO YOU YESTERDAY

2010-05-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

Mon 5/10/10 10:13 AM
Hi family!
It was awesome to talk to you last night! Now I don't have much to say. I hope you enjoy those movies tonight! I think you guys will think they are pretty funny. Thank you for your prayers for our investigators and struggling members!

Today, we are planning on going down to Adams/Friendship and meeting up with the missionaries down there to have a BBQ and go hiking. Cody has a friend down there, so he's excited. He went to prom with her. So, he's driving us.

But yeah, thank you again for everything, and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Vogan

COPIES OF THE BOOK OF MORMON DISAPPEAR

2010-05-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

Mon 5/03/10 11:24 AM
Hello!
I am excited for Sunday at 5PM your time, when I get to talk to you! Congrats to Hannah with her dance concert; I wish I could've been there! And I am glad Jordan got the letter I sent. It's easier to correspond more meaningfully when I sit down and handwrite, rather than emailing where I don't have a ton of time to write. So yeah, I will take some time to write Hannah a letter too. I am excited to hear about how her patriarchal blessing goes! I hope her experience strengthens her as much as mine did for me.
This past week went pretty well. We continue to teach tons of lessons, and they seem to just be falling into our laps. More than half the people we contact for the first time will allow us to at least share a simple lesson with them. It's funny, every time I refill my backpack with copies of the Book of Mormon, they disappear. haha.

We are still working with Cassie alot; our most progressing investigator. We are still waiting on her mom, but she is confident that her mom will soon be supportive of her desire. Her dang relatives keep telling her garbage about the Church though, and she seems to be an easily swayed person. But her dad looks at it logically as something that will at least give his daughter something good to do with her life. We still haven't been able to meet her family yet, but hopefully we can this week.

Well I really can't think of anything else to write. I love the Gospel and I love my mission. I know that the things we teach are true, and the Gospel is real. It's not just something interesting to talk about, but it is something that everyone must choose to live in order to have true happiness in families and in life. It brings clarity and perspective that nothing else can. Sorry I don't share my testimony with you enough.

Hope you all have a wonderful week, and I'll talk to you on Sunday!

Love,

Elder Vogan

WE ALL NEED OUR 'OWN' RESTORATION

2010-04-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

Mon 4/26/10 11:01 AM
Hey family,
Yes, I got the package; Thank you so much! The pictures were awesome! I can't wait to see Whitney's cute little baby in a couple months! I am sad to hear that you guys had some sicknesses last week. I hope everyone is over that, especially Jordan and Hannah with their "big weeks".

That's awesome that Nyal is reporting soon to the MTC! He is going to the same mission as the three elders I roomed with in the MTC: Elder Butikofer, Elder Duthie, and Elder Cranney. That's crazy to hear that everyone is leaving Las Sendas. I hope none of the families were too devastated by it. "Come what may and love it" is all we can do, after all we can do. Hmm, I don't know if you should get a dog... I'm pretty sure I know what the outcome would be. (Megan eats dog poop) Although I have grown to like Labs out here. It seems like everyone has one of those in Wisconsin. Haha yeah, Mandy and Saige told me that they added Jordan on Facebook. They are both really cool. Mandy is Cody's younger sister.

But yeah, this week went really well! We had zone conference on Wednesday, and that, of course, was uplifting and motivating. We learned about each investigator needing their own "restoration". They each need their James 1:5 and they each need their sacred grove. And ultimately, they each need to kneel humbly, and sincerely pray with a desire to know and to do what God wants them to do. So, we had a training from President Barrett and setting the stage so that our investigators will pray. It was sweet.

Cassie Wills (Star and Eli's friend) is still progressing well. Mid-last week her parents told her that they had changed their minds, and that she would have to wait to be baptized until she was 18. But then on Sunday, after hearing that she told the young womens class that she may be getting baptized on the 8th of May, we asked her about it. She said that her dad had changed his mind and would convince her mom to let her be baptized if she can show that she is doing it for the right reasons, and not just because Star and Eli were baptized. So that's where we are at with her. We actually have two other girls (Stephanie and Tanisha) in that same boat: wanting to be baptized with parents unwilling to give permission.

So that's pretty much it for the week! I look forward to hearing from you next week!

Love,

Elder Vogan

AWESOME WEEK!

2010-04-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

Mon 4/19/10 10:31 AM
Hello family,
Yes, Elijah's baptism went great! Everything worked out perfectly, and the Spirit was very strong throughout the service. The Swearingens were in charge of the music, and that added alot to the spirit of the meeting. Cody led, Sister Swearingen was the pianist, and Mandy sang a great musical number between my and Elder Quinney's talks. Many people came to support Eli, and we had a nice potluck dinner after it was over. The confirmation on Sunday went great as well.

One cool thing that happened the morning of the baptism: As we walked into Star and Eli's apartment, they had a friend over (Cassie), and the first thing that she said to us was, "I want to join too!" Elder Quinney was caught off guard, and he looked at me, and we both said, "Okay, sweet." haha. She is 16 years old and has already asked for permission from her parents if she could learn from us and be baptized. We are trying to expand the circle and include the rest of her family in the lessons as well. We asked her why she decided that she wanted to join, and she said it was because of the way she has seen Star's life change, because she is so much happier now. And she has also seen the changes that Eli was making in his life to prepare for his baptism, and she wanted it too. Interesting though, is that she is mostly the friend of Star and Eli's sister, Rea, who hasn't been that interested in the Gospel. So, we told Rea that if she decided that she did want to learn, that she could be baptized on the same day as her best friend. She didn't commit to anything yet, but hopefully she will choose to do that! Right now, Cassie's baptism is scheduled for May 8th.

The rest of the week also went well! We were able to teach a lot of really good lessons, and things just seemed to fall in place, for the most part, for us this week.

Thank you for sending that package; I look forward to receiving it! Happy Birthday, Kyle! Hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Elder Vogan

"FUTURE MISSIONARY" BADGE FOR ELI

2010-04-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

Mon 4/12/10 11:32 AM
Happy Birthday Megan! I will be sending her something today hopefully. Well it's always good to hear from you, and I'm glad things are going well! That was an awesome story about Jordan's volleyball game! Wow, I wish I could've seen it! We did get to eat tuna cassorole like two days after she talked to you about it. And it tasted just like home! haha. You can send oranges if it is convenient for you.

Well this week went really well for us too. We found out that both Elder Quinney and I will be staying for another transfer, so that will be good. We will be able to celebrate our year mark together! We had a lot going on this week. We went down for a baptism for a lady named Tammy on Friday, and we brought Eli and Star with us. She is from the area right south of us. And afterward, President Barrett was there, so he was able to have a really good (long) interview with Eli. Eli has been so motivated ever since. It also helped that he came with us and the ward on a trip to the St. Paul temple on Saturday. He could go in, but he spent a lot of time studying scriptures in the waiting room, and he walked around the grounds with others who didn't go in. The Khang family was sealed on Saturday, so they had family members come that didn't go in the temple. It was so cool to see a family sealed together. The Khangs are a Hmong family, and they were baptized a year ago, and they have 3 young daughters. During that, Star was able to go on with another group of people (who she didn't know, but she didn't care) and she did baptisms for the first time. It was a really fun trip for everyone. After we took pictures and left the temple grounds, we went to an LDS bookstore, and Eli bought a "future missionary" name tag, which he wore the rest of the day Saturday and to church on Sunday. I asked the lady at the counter if she sold too many of those to non-members, and she said that was her first time.

So, after Eli's interview from the zone leaders on Thursday, he will be set to go for his baptism on Saturday. Please keep praying for him though, and thank you for what you have done already! We have been doing a "seminary" type thing with Eli and Star each day in the mornings, so we have been seeing them at least once a day for a couple weeks now, and they love it. Star's little girl, Dezaray (Ray Ray) is the cutest little 15 month old girl, and she gets really excited to run and shake our hands when we go over. And she will throw a fit if we don't shake her hand before we leave.

So that's about I'll I will write for this week! Talk to you next week!

Love you!

Elder Vogan

HAPPY EASTER!

2010-04-05T15:49:00.001-07:00

Mon 4/05/10 2:36 PM
Happy Easter!
Yes, I also loved conference this weekend! It was one of the best that I remember, and it went so fast! That is really cool that the family did that question thing before it; that is actually what we told the people we are working with that they should do. It was very interesting how close the topics were this conference, with the emphasis on the family and especially parenting. They aren't assigned topics or anything, so it strengthens my testimony of their inspired calling and helping us to know for sure what the Lord wants us to know. As missionaries (at least my companion and I), we will be sure to focus our message even more on the importance of home and the family. I think my favorite talk(s) this conference were between President Uchtdorf's and President Eyring's priesthood session talks. But there were a lot of other great talks, so it's hard to choose. When we heard Elder Perry talk about coming to Milwaukee, we indeed did high five and cheer. haha. We haven't gotten to watch the last session yet, but we are planning to do that for FHE at the Swearingen's tonight. (We were at their non-member family's easter dinner yesterday afternoon.) So I haven't heard the story yet about the Forests.

Haha, yeah that is weird that my 'hump day' is coming up. A year used to seem like a long time..? Well, I am having the time of my life, so I'm glad I still have another year to go. (Although I do really miss my family!) If you want to send me a package, you should send it to the mission home, just in case I get transferred next week.- Hopefully I won't be going yet, but who knows. Haha, Sister Swearingen told me yesterday that she was being my advocate in getting more packages from home.. haha. So for this package, hmm, you could send mints... and maybe a couple snickers and reese's.. or for healthy stuff, you could send out some protein bars/powder... cd's would be great if you want to (efy music is good).. I don't know, random things are fun too.

So other than conference, last week went really well for us too! We taught quite a few lessons, and Cody Swearingen was with us during most of the week. One of the zone leaders even gave him a blank name tag, which he wears now when he comes out with us. He loves tracting too, so we've taken him with us a couple times. His neighbors right behind his house are actually pretty interested. The are engaged and about to have their first baby, so they are in a position where they are starting to think about spiritual and important things.

Eli is doing really well also. He watched all 5 sessions of conference, with the help of the good ward members we have. He told us many times that the messages he heard changed his life, and he talked alot about how great the weekend was. The thing we are working with him now to do is helping him apply the things he is learning. He is definitely going through a true repentance process, but I'm not sure how real the gospel is to him yet. He talks kind of abstractly about it. But he is definitely on track for his baptism on the 17th. Just please keep praying for him.

We also found some people that live near a part-member family we teach who were way open, and they even accepted baptism commitments for the 1st of May. (Shona, Billy, Jen, Roxy, and Don) They have a lot to change and a long road before they can be baptized, but if they are as sincere and exercise the faith they need to, it will happen.

So that's about all I'll write today. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love you,

Elder Vogan

NEW FRIENDS--THE SWEARINGENS

2010-03-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

Mon 3/29/10 2:11 PM
Family,
I loved the emails this week! I don't have too much time to write today, so it won't be too long. That is really cool that grandma is talking to Elder Molano! I got a really nice card from the Burrs and Irishs this week, and that made my day. Also, I wanted to thank dad for replenishing my account last week, I had to dip in it last week a bit. I am glad that Whitney's tests turned out okay!

This week was great! Our highlight had to be Eli bearing one of the most awesome testimonies yesterday I've ever heard. I was a little worried as to what he would say when he got up and walked to the pulpit, but it was perfect! He made his sister, Star, cry. It was also great because then the members came up to him to meet him after sacrament meeting. We actually took Cody Swearingen with us to teach Eli and Star on Saturday, and that lesson went very well. Cody is an awesome teacher, and he will be a great missionary. We are actually spending our day with him today for P-day, and he is with us here at the library right now. Very cool guy, and the Swearingens are such a fun family, so I'm glad you guys are facebook buddies now.

Well, that's it for this week!

Love,

Elder Vogan

THINGS ARE ROLLING IN WI RAPIDS

2010-03-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Mon 3/22/10 11:47 AM
Hi family,
I am feeling perfect right now, so no need to worry - it was just a 24 hour flu; Tuesday morning I was up early and ready to go. I'm glad you got my package. Yeah, when I was packing to come to Rapids and decided to buy a box and send home anything I won't need out here. Haha, that is really funny about Megan and the cheesehead! That is a suvenier from when I took the tour at Lambeau Field. Mom and Jordan can "take care of" my glasses while I'm away. I still have the other ones I bought before the mission out here.

That's awesome to hear about all the missionaries going out! Man, soon that will be Jordan Vogan getting his call too! Also, I got a very cute card from the young women in the ward there - Thank you, Hannah! and tell the girls and Sister Jasper thank you as well!

Work is going very well here! Star is a 20 year-old single mother who was baptized two weeks before I got here, and she is the most solid new member ever. Her 19 year-old brother, Eli(Elijah), came home on Thursday from being away, and she called us that afternoon to have us come over and teach him that night. He now has a baptism date for April 17th! He is nearly as solid as she is, but he has some things he needs to overcome before then. He is very genuine and sincere though, and he knows already that what we have taught him is true. So, it has been good teaching him, and we will teach him again tonight.

We have also been really strengthening our relationship with the members here, and they love us. So, hopefully that will help them to trust us and give us referrals, and teach with us. Our other investigators that I talked about before are about where they were at last time I wrote about them :/. We are workin though.

Well I love you, and I will especially keep Whit and Charli in my prayers, so let me know how that is going in my next email! Have a great week!

Elder Vogan

ZONE CONFERENCE WITH ELDER CHRISTOPHERSON

2010-03-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

Tue 3/16/10 9:55 AM
Hello,
Sorry I didn't write yesterday; I wasn't feeling well, so we didn't make it to the library. Yeah, it was sad to see Elder Caldwell leave! I was with him at zone conference, and President had him bear his testimony before leaving. That caught me way off guard because he hadn't said anything about that to me before then. But yes, that situation is very sad. Now I'll want to make it to the Caldwell family reunions.

I'm glad you are all together somewhat enjoying your spring break! This past week for us was awesome! On Wednesday we had zone conference, as I briefly mentioned, and we learned a lot about how to be more effective missionaries in helping our investigators keep their commitments. It was held right at our building in Rapids, which was nice not having to drive long distance like usual. We got to do that on Saturday though, when we drove out to Neenah and had a meeting with Elder Christopherson at the building there. It was good to be able to shake his hand and to hear his inspired words that will help our mission specifically. After that meeting, we came back and did a lot of good work, finding two new investigators and several potential investigators Saturday evening. The thing that really seemed to help people is to focus on how repentance (and the ability to change) is an opportunity rather than a burden. When people internalize and understand that, they admit like Greg (one of our new investigators), "Wow, thank you guys for doin' this. I really do need to change and get my act together." He admited that he had felt the Spirit prompt him to do things a couple times in his life, and he chose to ignore those feelings because he was scared. When he understood that it was bad that he did that, he put his head down and experienced "godly sorrow".

We are working with three teenaged kids (Angel, Ausin, and Tenisha), and they are the closest to baptism of everyone we are teaching. Their hold-up is their parents not allowing them to be baptized. So, we are just continuing to work with them and pray for their parents.

Well, hope you have a fun week, and I will talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Vogan

DISTRICT LEADER RESPONSIBILITIES & SUCH

2010-03-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

Mon 3/08/10 2:49 PM
Transfers did go well. And yes, I did get the pictures! Holy man, JVo is a beast! I know I was never that big. Man, I'm glad I didn't bully him too much growing up, or I would be scared to come home! As district leader, I am "responsible for the physical and spiritual needs of each of the missionaries in the district". There are four companionships in the district: 6 elders (me, Quinney, Starks, Johnson, Warr, and Krous) and an older couple, the Pyrahs. I have to keep a good relationship with each companionship by calling them periodically throughout the week to see how they are doing, and I report afterword to the zone leaders. On Sundays, the other missionaries report and account for their "numbers" throughout the week, and they update me on their investigators' progress and other concerns. I am responsible for training the missionaries during district meetings, doing companionship exchanges, and I will attend leadership training midway throughout the transfer. So, yeah, I think that covers it.

Elder Quinney is a funny guy. I told you before that he was in my district in the MTC. He is from Las Vegas, NV, and he loves mechanics - especially working on cars. He is a good singer and plays the piano a little better than I do. He loves to work hard, and expects to be perfectly obedient. And we are enjoying our time together so far.

It's awesome to hear about Dad's baptism going well! And that's also awesome that Elder Oaks came to stake conference down there! He is actually coming to Milwaukee in a few weeks as well. We are also having a missionary conference with Elder Christopherson on Saturday morning!

This past week went well, but not as well for the work. One of the big things I don't like about transfers is leaving behind all of the investigators we had doing well, and then coming to a new place where I have to build new relationships with the investigators and members. Unfortunately, our teaching pool here is very small compared to Manitowoc, so we will be spending more time "finding" than teaching. Right now a major goal we have is to get our area book up-to-date, and find some people to teach as we go through and call/stop by potential and former investigators.

I hope you have another great week!

Love,

Elder Vogan

TRANSFER/DISTRICT LEADER COMING THIS WEEK

2010-03-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

Mon 3/01/10 9:54 AM
Happy New Week,Well, this transfer is coming to an end already, and I found out that I am being transferred. Most people don't find out where they are going until tomorrow, but I found out last night from president Barrett that I am going to Wisconsin Rapids to be the new district leader there! It will be good to have more responsibility. Every time I start to feel really confident and good about myself and the work, I either get transferred or get a new challenge - in this case, I get both. It will be good, and I know I'll grow from it. My new companion will be Elder Quinney who was in my district at the MTC, so that will be fun. He is an outgoing guy, who can be off-the-wall at times, but he is a dedicated and obedient missionary, so we'll do work. I'm bummed though that I won't be here for the baptisms and that I only got to be with Elder Lester for one transfer. He is such a good missionary and teacher!

This past week was fun and fruitful. We had two Hmong volleyball nights on Thursday and Friday evening because Thao Yang's younger brother was coming home from his mission Saturday night, and the Yang's had a lot of family in town. We a had a sign-up sheet for those who came, if they wanted to learn more about the church, and we had a dvd about President Monson playing in the hallway. It is a great finding activity. I learned how to spike really well by a couple of the really good volleyball players, so I am excited to play with Jordan and Hannah when I get home!

We had 7 investigators, and 9 total non-members come to church yesterday - another great week! Sister Lee and her family are loving coming to church. The girls are making good friends, and Sister Lee is feeling loved by the Relief Society. For some reason though, Sister Lee said that she doesn't want the girls to be baptized until August.. (What?!) We aren't taking it too seriously though. I think it will happen within the next 6 weeks with Bishop Jones and Elder Yang's help. The girls are ready NOW.

Sacrament Meeting yesterday was really good - Elder Yang's homecoming. He actually served in Sacramento, and he knew Elder Molano! He is a spiritual giant and a very humble guy. His mom gave a talk and testimony in Hmong and he translated for her, and then he gave his talk. It was a very spiritual meeting. We had Britney Matzen with us at church, and it was her first time there. And she was crying the whole time because the Spirit touched her so much; maybe even more than everyone else. She is the girl who had cancer with the Greenfield's daughter, and I called Sister Greenfield and told her about it this morning. Britney stayed for all 3 hours and loved it. She learned a lot and made friends with some of the young women too. Now we(they) just need to help the rest of the family come.

Thank you for forwarding "vogatron"s (Uncle Mike or Uncle Jim?) message! I really liked that story! Something along those lines happened this week too when we were teaching Mary Jane White. We were teaching her 'Faith in Jesus Christ', and I had this analogy come to me when I was teaching, "When people say, 'Show me a miracle and THEN I'll believe' is like saying, 'Make me lose weight, and THEN I'll do the diet' - faith precedes the miracle." All of us at the lesson laughed and thought that was a good analogy.

Well, that's it for this week. I will tell you all about my new area and companion next week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

TEACHING BY THE SPIRIT

2010-02-25T09:07:00.000-08:00

Mon 2/22/10 10:36 AM
Hello!It is awesome to hear about all the people getting mission calls and leaving on their missions! The work is moving forward pretty well here. We had 9 non-members at sacrament meeting between the two units, Chilton and Manitowoc, yesterday! Sister Lee's whole family finally made it to church this week! So that was 5 non-member/investigators right there. It was another awesome week for lessons for us, too. We have been doing really well with being even more open with everyone we meet. Our higher level of boldness is encouraging our faith, while it is our faith that gives us boldness in the first place. It's interesting how often principles and attributes do that in the gospel and in life.

We found 3 new investigators who actually know the Greenfield family from my last area. (Muskego) When I left there to be transfered, they told me about this family who they were friends with (there daughters fought cancer at the same time together). Since I've been in Manitowoc, we have tried to meet with their family, but there was always something going on, and our rescheduled appointments never worked out. Finally, we were able to teach the daughters and one of their friends the Restoration, and they accepted copies of the Book of Mormon as well as the commitment to read and pray about it. Hopefully they will progress, attend church, gain a testimony, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and be sealed together as an Eternal family in the temple! They could use that in their lives.

Cole Miller has been progressing well, and he attended all three meetings yesterday, for the first time in his life. He did, however, have to postpone his baptism date until the end of March. (Hopefully I'm still here) This isn't bad for us because it will give us more time to help him and his family understand that the commitment to be baptized includes the commitment to attend church weekly, and not just the necessary 3 consecutive times before his baptism. Although we have taught that, we aren't sure that the family completely understands it.

We also had some good lessons yesterday. One in particular, I knew 100% that the Spirit was working through me as I taught. It is awesome when that happens because it is almost like I can "sit back" and listen to and think about the things I am saying. I feel like I am being taught as much as the people we are actually teaching. Not too mention, the people we are teaching can feel the Spirit stronger when that happens.

Anyway, I am glad everything is well at home! And that is very exciting that Dad will be the one baptizing is former assistant! Thank you for your prayers, and I will talk to you next week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

CHRIST IS CHARITY

2010-02-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

Sat 2/20/10 10:01 PM
After years of investigating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Smotherman was finally baptized on January 24th! It was a spiritual and emotional rollarcoaster, but with the help of President Barrett and ward leaders, we were able to help Sister Smotherman make this wonderful covenant with her Heavenly Father and move forward toward her true goal of being sealed in the temple to her husband and son. She has a great testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel.
- Elder Vogan and Elder Lester

2010-02-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

HAPPY VALENTINES!!

2010-02-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

Mon 2/15/10 9:09 AM
Thank you for the nice Valentine's Day card! I didn't think I would get anything. I loved hearing about Dad's assistant; that is really awesome! I hope everyone's week went well!

This week went pretty well for us. We had a lot of non-members/investigators at church yesterday - 6 people came. And we were able to involve the members of Manitowoc and Chilton in our teaching alot more this week as well. Throughout my mission, coordinating lessons with members hasn't ever really been a strong point for me, but I know if we do it, we will be more successful. I hope Jordan is taking opportunities to go out with the missionaries! I know I regret not going out with them before my mission. Elder Lester talks about going out with them all the time, and everyone can tell because he is so much more prepared and such a great teacher - especially for only being out 4 months.

It's kinda sad thinking that we would have had three baptisms on Saturday and confirmations yesterday, if only the three sisters could get to church. We feel like they are ready, but it is their mom who isn't ready for them to be baptized. I think she, like alot of people, feels like her daughters need to know and understand every little thing about the gospel before they can be baptized. And we do our best to help our investigators be prepared to make that covenant of being baptized. The real learning comes after the baptism though.

Well, love you! Have a great week!

Elder vogan

WINTER ISN'T SO BAD

2010-02-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Mon 2/08/10 9:08 AM
Well, I actually didn't get anything from Mom yet this week, but maybe by the time I'm done writing this email I'll get something like other times when that has happened. Haha, yeah that was an icicle from off the roof of the church building. And it was even bigger before part of it broke off! This winter hasn't been too bad at all. And people were trying to make me worried about it... Maybe next winter will bring more of the winter I was expecting.

Haha, Elder Caldwell is funny! We got a couple calls from other Elders in other areas telling us that President had used our messages at zone conference too. Now there is some expectation from those missionaries expecting to hear about more baptisms from our area. (Which is good for me. Whatever adds motivation) That Hmong family that had the three girls commiting to be baptized was not the same family that gave me the Hmong name, but they are really cool. An issue did arise with them yesterday when they didn't come to church. Their mom, who is a member, decided to take them to Sheboygan for a birthday party Saturday night, and they decided not to come home for church. We told the girls that in order to be baptized on the 13th they would have to show their commitment by coming to church, so we are pretty sure we will be pushing the date until we can see that they do actually desire to be baptized. They are old enough to make that choice, and we are disappointed that their mom wasn't more helpful because she knew they should have been at church. But who knows, maybe we will be surprised to hear that they went to church in Sheboygan.

Good luck with the hunting draw, and congratulations to Jordan! Who's the lucky girl? I hope you guys have an awesome week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

MORE BAPTISM DATES SET

2010-02-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

Mon 2/01/10 4:58 PM
It is always good to hear from you guys! The oranges are doing great for us. We still have at least 3/4 box left, so you won't have to worry about sending any more out anytime soon. I found that Donny Osmond jacket at the Senior Center where we do service on Wednesdays. I told the lady there that you were in love with him, and she told me I should take it for you, Mom.

Well this week went very well for us! We had a really motivating and encouraging zone conference on Tuesday, and right afterward, we came home and set a baptism date with this hispanic guy named John. He is a very sincere and nice guy, around 18 years old, but he is really hard to stay in touch with. Hopefully we can see him more this week, so that he can make his date. The next day, we visited the part-member Laotion/Hmong family I have written about before, and two of the girls (Nicole and Angel) commited to be baptized as well on the 13th! They are really excited to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Their older sister, Hope, told us that she also wanted to be baptized with them when we were over two days later! And their father, Sang Thong, said that after he sees his girls be baptized and as he learns more, he will also do the same.

So, we are really excited about the work here! Please continue to pray for our success and that we will continue to have faith that all will go work out well. And pray for Cole, Angel, Nicole, Hope, and John. Thank you so much!Talk to you next week.

Love,
Elder Vogan

Ps. Today for P-day we are going up to Green Bay to tour Lambeau Stadium with everyone in our zone! It should be a lot of fun.

NEW COMP-ELDER LESTER, NEW MEMBER-SISTER SMOTHERMAN

2010-01-25T12:57:00.000-08:00

Mon 1/25/10 12:46 PM
It was good to get a couple more emails this week than usual! Thanks Hannah and Whitney! Those pictures of pretty lady Megan were really cute!

Congrats on the success with the diet, Mom and Dad! I am glad to hear that it worked well for you. The oranges are perfect and delicious! Thank you! And I am glad to hear Dad's seminars are going better as well!

My new companion, Elder Lester, is a stud missionary! He definitely lives up to the hype, haha. I have already learned so much from him, and we get along really well. He grew up in South Carolina in a part-member family. He and his mom are the only active members. He has only been out for 3 months, but he seems like he could be ready to go home. I am excited to see how much success we will have together!

That's good that you got Sister Wilson's email. The Wilsons are awesome! So the story of our "secret" baptism... (It probably won't have the same impact it had for us, since you guys thought she would be baptized the whole time, but it's still cool) : So, Tuesday afternoon, we had Sister Smotherman's interview, and she was solid and ready to go until the very end when she denied to her daughter that she was getting baptized on Saturday. We were really confused and thought she might just not have wanted to have her daughter there or something. So, that night and the next day we tried to call and get that straight that it was going to be on Saturday (because that is why our district leader came all the way down from Green Bay to interview her that week). They didn't answer, so I was getting pretty anxious about it. Finally, Brother Smotherman called and said that because of his recent knee surgery, the doctor didn't want him to get his knee wet or put any weight on it, so they chose to push the date. And they decided that Feb. 20th would be good. I said, "Wow, a whole month out?" And it was their choice, so that was the decision.

So we went throughout the rest of the week, until Sunday afternoon at 4:30, thinking that she was not going to be baptized until (at least) the 20th of February. We had lunch after church with Bishop Jones and his family and talked a little bit about what was going on with Sister Smotherman, and Bishop said he wanted to come with us to our next visit with her. When he drove us back to our car, which was at the church, I asked him if he wanted to go visit them only with us, or if he would go without us first. And he said, "Ya know, maybe I'll just stop by right now." So, two hours later we got a message from him that said, "Call me back as soon as possible... Meet me at the church at 7:30 tonight. Sister Smotherman is going to be baptized tonight... Don't tell anyone this is happening. I repeat, don't tell anyone... until then just pray that everything works out smoothly. And afterwards you can go back to your apartment and shout for joy." So we got that message and were like, "Holy man, I can't believe it". But we couldn't say anything around our dinner hosts, so we just kept it inside till we got in the car to leave. We found out from Bishop that the real reason for postponing the date was anxiety and not wanting to be the center of attention or in front of large groups. (we kinda knew that already though) So, it happened! with us, Bishop and Sister Jones and their youngest daughter, and the Smothermans with their son, Dillon. And we went to the Wilson's to celebrate. (Bishop told us that it wasn't as big of a deal about telling people after the babtism).

So, I hope you felt some of the rollercoaster we felt from this story. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Vogan

BAPTISM SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY

2010-01-18T20:53:00.000-08:00

Mon 1/18/10 12:13 PM
Hey family! Another pretty good week has past fast. Yes, I am for sure staying in Two Rivers, Manitowoc, and Chilton for at least one more transfer. Elder Roberts will be leaving on Thursday, and from a sneak-peak email from President Barrett, he found out that he gets to go to Madison - which is where he has been wanting to serve his entire mission. I would love to serve there as well. So yeah, you can send the package directly to Two Rivers. Thank you!

Other than transfers, our biggest excitement is Sister Smotherman's baptism this Saturday! She doesn't want it to be big at all; she isn't comfortable in front of crowds. But nevertheless, it will be awesome! We will have her program put together really soon, and our district leader, Elder Eastman, will be coming down tomorrow to interview her! Thank you for your prayers, and please continue those!

Nate hasn't made any progress at all since before I spoke to you on Christmas. In fact, we actually haven't seen him since at a week and a half ago... I thought I'd update you on that though, since I know you knew about him.

Other than that, all that I can think that is worth sharing is that we have a few more 'future new members' that we are trying diligently to work with: Cole, Jessica, and Sister Li's family - Sang Thong, Nicole, Hope, and Angel. If President is right with what he told me in my email today, my new campanion and I will work together well and be able to help these people and others to progress well and help them make that choice to be baptized and have all the joy that comes from that.

Love you! Have a great week! Hope your voice gets better, Dad!

Elder Vogan

OFF TO A GREAT START IN 2010

2010-01-12T13:07:00.000-08:00

Mon 1/11/10 9:54 AM
Hello! Yeah, when I heard about the Cardinals and Packers playing, I had to represent the Cardinals. It was actually a good topic starter, so that I could tell them I was from AZ and here on a mission. Luckily, no one that we went to had the game on yesterday or I might have been tempted to watch some of it! Yeah, it is crazy to hear that Elder Kent will been home so soon! I bet his family is really excited, huh?

Our Ward mission leader actually told us that he is giving us his home gym on Wednesday night! It is a legit home gym with everything I could need, and we are helping him bring it over in a couple days - i am way excited! I guess they decided to buy a Bowflex, so they don't need the other one anymore.

Well this past week was really really good: 36 lessons taught, found 8 new investigators, and set one more baptism date with a girl named Jessica! Grandma told me that more success would flow after the holidays, and that was definitely true! Sister Louise Smotherman is still on track for baptism on the 23rd, but please keep her in your prayers. This will be the first baptism in more than a year for both of our areas here.

Thank you for your love and prayers. I miss you!

Love,

Elder Vogan

EXTREME MISSIONARY RESOLUTIONS

2010-01-12T13:01:00.000-08:00

Mon 1/04/10 10:17 AM
Thank you for your email this week! I really liked hearing about the updates from my friends back home. It sounds like things will be completely different when I come home, hearing about how much things have already changed in the little time I’ve been out. If you get a chance, tell Breann and Andrea “Congratulations!” from me. And yeah, I am really excited to be an uncle too! It will be awesome to come home and meet my new little 9 month old niece or nephew! Good luck with the new diet! I am really interested in hearing about how that goes for you guys. And I am excited for the oranges to come as well!

So the most exciting thing for me that we did this past week was set some awesome, extreme missionary resolutions. I’ve always liked setting goals, and these are even better than goals. We are treating it almost like a covenant, so that we “have to” do it. We basically did what missionaries are supposed to do with setting weekly goals for lessons that we will teach, people that we will set baptism dates with, etc., but on top of that, we set “minimums” for what we have to do each day or week in order to push us to always be working well and effectively. And things like baptisms and baptism dates are not under our control for the most part, but the things we do have control over, we have committed to improve. This will be awesome to see things pick up out here after our increased efforts.

We did set another baptism date on Saturday with this 11 year-old kid named Cole. He is part of a less-active family, but they are really encouraging him to make the choice to be baptized. The only thing is with him, though, is that we aren’t going to baptize someone into inactivity. The whole family would need to commit to come back to church and be active, or else Cole would need to commit to coming and have some other members pick him up and bring him to church.

Nate is still where he was when I last talked to you about him. We have been able to go over and teach him, but no progress has been made yet. Louise Smotherman is still on track to be baptized on January 23rd, and we will be meeting with her this evening to make sure everything is still going well and encourage her.

So that is pretty much the main news for this week. The holidays were fun, but I’m glad they are over, so now we can get back to doing effective missionary work, and I can lose the weight I have put on. (I have actually already lost 4.5 lbs since Friday, so that’s great.) I love you very much, and I hope you have a happy and successful week!

Elder Vogan

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2010-01-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

Mon 12/28/09 9:30 AM
It was great to talk to everyone and hear that everyone is doing well! I had a fun Christmas out here. I am excited about Whitney's 'baby alive'! Haha, that really was a surprise!

Well the warm weather was gone the day after I talked to you, and it has snowed a pretty good amount since then. We were in the Chilton area all day long, so we were planning on coming home to a big load to shovel. But cool enough, a young couple who live next door to us were already working on it for us! They said they had shoveled both of our driveways twice already during the day. They were really nice to do that for us. And we finished helping them with what was left.

Well that was only a few days ago that I spoke to you, so not too much has happened in that time. The coolest thing was that we were able to teach Emily Kufner's parents again on Saturday evening. She is the girl who recently was baptized down in Texas, and she is having us teach her parents, Tom and Pat. *You told me on the phone that you pray for the people that we teach, so please include Tom and Pat Kufner in those prayers - That they will take the things we teach to heart and have the sincere desire to know if it's true. Emily doesn't want anything more in life than for her family to accept the gospel as well.*

Well thank you again for the Christmas presents this year! I love everything. I hope you all have a great rest of your winter "break"!

Love,

Elder Vogan

MERRY CHRISTMAS--MAY WE FOLLOW 'THE SHEPHERD' & WORSHIP 'THE KING'

2010-01-12T12:52:00.000-08:00

Mon 12/21/09 10:38 AM
Thank you for the Christmas presents! We were able to light up a third of our front window with those lights, and next to our tree it looks pretty good, haha. I only opened the fudge, the photo album, and whatever wasn’t wrapped. So, I’ll have some other presents to open on Christmas morning. Yeah, I do get to call you! I don’t want to call too early because I don’t want to make you miss the annual Christmas breakfast. So, I’ll plan on calling between noon and 1 pm Wisconsin time. Hopefully that will be good for you. If not, I will try some cell phones.

Our zone conference on Wednesday went really well and was really uplifting. The rest of our week went pretty well. We had exchanges Wednesday night to Thursday night, and I was with Elder Sharrah spending time up in Green Bay. He is a Spanish missionary, so I had a chance to brush up on my espanol. It was fun, and we had some really cool appointments. We also spent some time on UWGB’s campus with the sister missionaries and some other elders from Green Bay letting people know about the LDSSA institute group and handing out hot chocolate and cookies. That was a lot of fun. On Saturday night, we went caroling with some members of the Chilton branch and handed out copies of Mister Kruger’s Christmas. That was a fun experience, even though we weren’t out too long doing it. It felt like straight out of a Christmas movie, walking in snow while it’s snowing on our heads and singing to people. Afterward, we went back to our (former) branch mission leader’s house and ate cookies and drank hot cocoa. We just got a brand new branch mission leader on Sunday, and he will do a good job, so we are excited.

Well something I learned at zone conference I will finish by telling you. Isn’t it interesting that shepherds in their fields were told about the birth of the Son of God, who would be The Great Shepherd. And isn’t it also interesting that great kings from the East would travel great distances to present gifts to the baby who would be the greatest of all, the King of Kings. As we celebrate this Christmas season, let us follow our Shepherd and worship our King!

Merry Christmas,

Elder Vogan

WINTER WONDERLAND, INDEED

2009-12-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

Mon 12/14/09 11:26 AM
Hello,
Yeah, this week was a new experience for me! I actually really enjoyed getting snow dumped on us. Tuesday was when the blizzard hit, and it snowed all night long and through a lot of Wednesday as well. We weren’t hit quite as bad as people further from the lake, but we still got a good 10-12 inches of snow. And that was plenty to get us shoveling. Wednesday morning we woke up with the power out and the house really cold. It went out at about the time we went to bed, and it turned back on about 30 minutes after we woke up, so that worked out well. Then we decided to start shoveling first thing, and helped 3 of our neighbors shovel their driveways as well. In total, we spent more than 5 hours shoveling throughout the day. We had 3 people from the ward call for us to help, and some of their neighbors as well. I enjoyed it, and it was a great workout. If it snowed like that every week, I would get pretty ripped. I’m sure Grandma Sharon had even more fun than we did, though. She wrote me and said that she got two feet of snow and went two days without power! Wow, that would be intense. I’m sure Elder Molano will write about that to his family.

That’s good to hear that you got an offer on the Las Sendas house, finally! Hope everything works out with that! I didn’t get your Christmas packages yet because the office is holding them until zone conference on Wednesday. So, maybe I should have just had you send them directly to me… oh well, I’ll learn patience. I hope I get one of the family Christmas letters that you are sending out!

To answer your question, Dad, I don’t hear too often what is going on in my last area, but I do know that Ralph’s daughter (“heart-attack guy’s daughter”) stopped investigating because of her husband. I still think things will work out in the future with her. And Ralph and Cheryl took a copy of the Book of Mormon from me and said they would attend church before I left, but I’m not sure if anything more happened with them.

Well, it might be the weather, or the season, but the work is slowing a bit in the area. We are doing our best to change that, but this past week wasn’t the best. Hopefully, zone conference this week will give us the push of faith and new skills to help things pick back up. A lot of the people who we thought would be progressing for different reasons haven’t been. We still have Nate with a baptism date, so at least that is working out. We will make this week better.

Hope you continue to have a wonderful Christmas season!

Love you!
Elder Vogan

STAYING IN MANITOWOC AND PLANNING FOR SNOW

2009-12-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

Re: Hello!‏
Mon 12/07/09 4:25 PM
Hello! Yes, we got our first real snow this past week, and I was pretty excited! Almost all of it has melted now, but there is supposed to be a huge storm coming our way these next two days which will pour 6 or more inches. Shoveling will be a good workout. Haha. It has been really cold though; I can’t imagine how it will be when it gets down to sub-zero temperatures. I’m glad to hear that you guys have had good Christmas parties already this year! And I am looking foreward to those Christmas packages! If you want to send some oranges, that would be awesome! Our address is: 801 Columbus St. Two Rivers, WI 54241.

On Saturday, we found out that Elder Roberts and I are both staying in Manitowoc, so that’s cool. We are still working hard and teaching a lot of lessons, but I can’t really think of anything really new to tell you about this past week. We have been teaching this lady named Jamie and bringing one of the sisters from the ward to teach her with us, and that seems really promising. She did not make it to church yesterday though, which was a bummer. Last night, we came up to Green Bay to watch the First Presidency’s Chistmas message, and then we stayed the night with our district leader and his companion and spent our P-day here. (That’s why I’m emailing so late). There is a big group of missionaries all serving really close by, and Roberts and I are like the outcasts serving far away from everyone. Haha, but it is fun when we get a chance to come up here. We had this huge going away breakfast for the missionaries who are going home on Friday, and we played some basketball and some played a board game. We might spend the night again here tonght if we can, since we will need to come back up for district meeting anyway. I learned that one of the zone leaders from Green Bay will be transfering down and serving in Muskego Lakes, so I am way excited about that. They had to pull Stevens and his companion out and put the zone leaders in there, since that area needed a car. So, now that area is being taken care of by some of the best missionaries in the mission!

Well, I hope this email wasn’t too short and pointless. Thank you for your emails this week! I love you and will talk to you in another week!

Elder Vogan

SIX BIG THANKSGIVING MEALS--READY FOR SNOW!

2009-12-02T20:51:00.000-08:00

Mon 11/30/09 9:30 AM
Well, I hope your Thanksgiving went well with all of the activities that you had planned! We've been eating like pigs since Thursday. We ended up getting fed two dinners on Thursday, two dinners on Friday, and a buffet lunch on Saturday, and a big dinner last night. The weird thing is that I actually lost a pound..? Maybe my body burned all the calories just trying to digest it all. It was cool going from hardly even getting fed by anyone, to this.

I am looking forward to the Christmas season here. In downtown Manitowoc, they have already decked out the main street with Christmas lights and stuff. When it starts snowing, those streets will look like a winter-wonderland! It is weird that it sill hasn't snowed here, at least that's what people are saying. I am looking foreward to the first snow.

This past week went pretty well with the work here. We taught more people and found more people to teach than last week, and we set a baptism date with one of our main progressing investigators, Nate. We have just had to wait for him to get married to the lady he lives with, so it will be a week after that, on January 31. Hopefully I'm still here when that happens! Zoua's date will be postponed once we see her again, since she hasn't made it to church yet. She found out she was pregnant last week, and she has been too sick to meet with us.

Yesterday, Elder Roberts and I spoke in Sacrament meeting about members' role in missionary work, and that went really well. Hopefully the members will apply what we taught. I would send you my talk, but I went about this talk in a different way. I gathered some quotes and other material, and I spent my personal studies last week learning about the topic. In the days leading up to my talk, I prayed that I would have the faith and humility necessary for the Spirit to direct my talk. And in the days leading up to it, this approach was much more stressful not being organized or feeling as prepared as I do when I have my whole talk written out, but on the actual day of my talk, I was completely calm and confident. It was a really cool experience. When I got up to speak, my whole talk was laid out for me as if I had it completely prepared beforehand. And this was through seeking to teach by the Spirit.

Well, that's it for this week! I love you guys, and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Vogan

"TOOJ KUB HANG"--A NEW HMONG NAME

2009-11-28T19:22:00.000-08:00

Mon 11/23/09 1:32 PM
Happy Thanksgiving week family! This week’s emails were really good; I really enjoyed reading them. For Thanksgiving, we are having dinner with a less-active member of the ward and his family. I guess he has the missionaries over every year, so that will be fun. We might have another dinner on Friday as well. I hope we can play volleyball at ours too! Man, it sounds like your Thanksgiving will be a lot of fun! Congrats to Jordan getting asked to the dance! It’s good to hear that he and Sara are still friends after all these years. And I want pictures of Megan on the horse! And Jordan’s beard! Haha.

For Christmas, all the things you suggested sound really good – especially the fudge. (I haven’t eaten lunch yet). Also, I haven’t bought any warm winter socks yet, so if you want to throw those in with everything, that would be good. Or else I could just buy them. But yeah, the best part of getting mail/packages is the package itself. Coming home and seeing that we got something in the mail is the best.

My journal writing is decent. It consists on my daily planners, my study journal, my pictures and videos that I take (every now and then), my emails to you and the President, and my actual journal, which I write in every week. I know I should write more in there, but it’s really tough to do. By the end of the day I’m so tired that if there is any extra time after cleaning up, planning and getting ready for bed, I crash a little earlier and get an extra couple minutes of sleep that night. That is really cool though what the stake is doing. I am going to apply that more to how I study in the mornings.

It was really cool to hear about Dad’s trip to Chicago! I really liked those stories. We both drive the car now, but I think my companion during the winter will probably take over most of the time if he is from somewhere with snow. I’m not too worried about it though if I am senior companion and am the designated driver. I think I’ll figure it out soon enough.

This was another good week. We found some more new people and set a baptism date! We did more contacting this week than I’ve ever done in a week. I’d much rather be teaching lessons. Zoua Yang is the person we set a date with. She is one of the daughters of the Hmong family we found. They are all really sincere and seem like they all will accept our message. Missionaries out here get Hmong names and I got one from them: “Tooj Kub Hang”. “Tooj Kub” means solid gold, or solid block of gold, and Hang is their last name. They named me that, so I can be like a brother to them. Also, this week we got a call from a lady who was just baptized in Dallas, TX, and she wants us to teach her parents who live in our area. We will be visiting with them later this week, while she is here for Thanksgiving.

Well, I love you. Happy Thanksgiving again. And I will talk to you next week!

Elder Vogan

KNOCKED 4 DOORS--TAUGHT 3 GREAT LESSONS

2009-11-28T19:15:00.000-08:00

Mon 11/16/09 11:32 AM
Hey family,I am glad to hear that everyone is healing from their sicknesses and heartaches, and it’s good to hear about all the fun things that will be happening this week! That’s cool that Dad is going to Chicago for a training, that’s like a two and a half hour drive from here. So, he’ll be able to see how it is climate-wise out here. That will be good for you to send out some pictures of the family to me. Elder Robberts wants to know what my family looks like, and I don’t have any pictures. And I’m still working on getting some pictures to send you guys too.

This was another great week, and in many ways even better! We didn’t get quite as many lessons as last week, but we were able to find several more new people that want to investigate the Church. We found 10 new investigators this week total, and several of those came from finding families who want to learn more. On Saturday we were planning on contacting some new people to see if they would be interested in our message, and we ended up only knocking on 4 doors because we were able to teach 3 great lessons.

The first door was a Chaplin for Salvation Army, and he was awesome and spent at least a half hour talking with us and encouraging us in what we are doing. He said he would call us if he heard of any service that we could help with. The next door pleasantly declined our invitation. And then both the next two doors were families who invited us in, wanting us to teach them. The first of the two was a large Hmong (Asian) family, and they asked us at the end of our lesson to pray for their home because they were seeing ghosts and feeling evil spirits. So, we dedicated their home for them. Three of the kids said they really wanted to come to church with us, but when we went there the next day, nobody answered the door. The second of the two I was actually a little bit weary of knocking on because it said “no soliciting” and “no trespassing, trespassers will be shot…” on the door. And even though we aren’t soliciting, those people tend to be angrier with us than doors without those signs. But it ended up being the nicest family who had already had contact with missionaries and members of the church, and they were excited to invite us in. The two daughters, Christine and Angela, came to church with us the next day, but the mom couldn’t because she had to work.

We met another nice young family yesterday evening as well who wanted us to come back and teach them this evening at 7:00. So, if you would like to pray for us to teach well tonight and that it can be a successful lesson, we would appreciate it.

Well, I’m out of time. So, I love you, and I will talk to you next week!

-Elder Vogan

KEY TO SOLVING LIFE'S PROBLLEMS--THE ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST

2009-11-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

Mon 11/09/09 1:39 PM
Well, I just got booted from the computer here at the library after writing a really good email, so hopefully it will still be pretty good for you. We had a really great week this week here in Manitowoc, Wisconsin! Both the weather here and the work we were able to do were awesome! For the past few days, it’s been surprisingly warm – up to 70 even on Saturday. I guess that’ll give me a little more time to grab a few more things for winter, like gloves and ear muffs. Mom, you can just send my letters and surprise packages to the Mission office. That’s where they prefer to have us tell people to send things. Just in case I get transferred or something, nothing will get lost.

I apologize for not giving you more details about my companion last week: his name is Addam Robberts, 20 years-old, Alpine, UT, graduated in 2007, went to a year of college at BYU, he has a cute sister, major is mechanical engineering, musical/guitar/songwriter, dated a redhead before his mission, he is 5’9 – 5’10, average/thin build, hazel or brown eyes (he says they change), he is somewhat preppy in style, he is not too athletic, easy to get along with, has been out for about 17 months.I will be sending home pictures and such hopefully soon, when I take some.

That’s sweet to hear about Jackson’s mission call! Stateside missions are the best, I’m convinced. Chris is already coming home, that is pretty crazy. I’m sure time flies even faster for missionaries! Missions are the best! I have learned so much out here and have grown so much in my knowledge, faith, and personality. It’s an awesome feeling to know that I can teach people the key to solving all of life’s problems and healing all pain – through the application of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That topic cannot be studied too much. I have been in so many situations and lessons in which I personally have no idea what the person is going through, but I am confident in showing them the way and promising them that whatever that thing is, it can be made right. Just to be able to take these two years to get out of “my world” and to be able to have the happiness of others as my top priority is an awesome experience!

And this week is one of those weeks that make it worth it. We were teaching one lesson right on top of another all week long, inviting all those we come across without fear, and with loving boldness. I am feeling like I’m settling into my new area(s) now, and I am getting to know many of the active members.

Well I don’t want to get “booted” again, so I will send this before that happens.
Thank you for your prayers, and I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Vogan

ELDER ZAK KEIR'S WELCOME HOME PARY

2009-11-03T08:54:00.001-08:00

DETERMINED TO WORK HARD WITH ELDER ROBERTS IN MANITOWOK

2009-11-03T08:37:00.000-08:00

Mon 11/02/09 11:37 AM
Thank you for your emails this week! Everything is going well here in Manitowok. It is a beautiful city, and our apartment is probably one of the nicest in our mission – 5 minute walk from Lake Michigan. Our apartment is in Two Rivers, but includes Manitowok and Chilton, and all the little towns in between. (big area) So, we still have a car – luckily. I was actually very… displeased when I heard that Muskego got their car taken. Those are my investigators that that is hurting. Elder Stevens and Johnson won’t be able to see them as often anymore, but hopefully all will still work out okay. And if there are any baptisms down there, I will hear about them, and there is a slight possibility that I would be able to attend.

That is awesome to hear about Scott Tibbetts’ mission call! Wow, that will be a great experience in Thailand. Yes, thank you for the extra money from home for winter gear! I do have that credit card that I can use, but Dad I am not sure if you changed the address for where the bill will be sent, or do you still check the Las Sendas’ mail box too? That’s great that the nice, retired people are giving you business!

That’s crazy about all the sickness going around! I think there was a case or two of swine flu among the missionaries out here, and there are several other people out here who say they are just getting over it. I sure hope Megs gets better soon! And hopefully Kyle does too. It is cool to hear about your Halloween parties and costumes! It sounds like it was fun. We dressed up as “normal people” and deep cleaned our house all day, since we aren’t allowed to work on holloween. I hope Jasmine gives the Book of Mormon a fair chance; let me know if she does! And also let me know how Megan likes riding the horses. Haha, I can just imagine it will be fun for you to watch her do that.

I’m settling in pretty well to the new area so far. Elder Roberts and I have worked well together this past week, and we have determination to work hard and do some good here. There are a lot of part-member families who are very nice to us and who we are working with. So, we should be seeing those people progress well. Our goal now is also to find and teach families too, so that will be fun.

Well, I need to wrap it up here. So, I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,
Elder Vogan

TRANSFER TO TWO RIVERS

2009-10-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

Mon 10/26/09 8:29 AM
Thank you for writing this week Hannah! I didn't get anything from anyone else, so you will be getting my weekly email. I am really glad to hear that you are having such a good time in orchestra; that should help you want to practice on your own so Mom doesn't have to nag you to do it, huh? Man, that rockband booth at the tailgate party sounds like alot of fun! I hope everything else is going well for you and for the family! I heard Megan tried to run away last week. Sounds just like back when we used to live there, and Megan would do that. Scary!

Yes, I am leaving Muskego Lakes tomorrow :/. I was expecting it, but it's been a bummer. I am going up to Two Rivers (pronounced "trivvers" and the place where the ice cream sundae was invented), which is south of Green Bay, and in the Green Bay zone. I'm sure Packers' season will be fun up there! Maybe I'll even get to go to a game. My companion will be Elder Roberts who used to serve with Elder Caldwell when he was in Brookfield. We used to do service with them at the food pantry, so I know him pretty well already. Elder Johnson served right next to us in Oak Creek, and he is coming to replace me. Elder Stevens is excited about that because they get along well. Thank you guys for sending out my ipod! It got here just in time so I can have some good stuff to listen to before I go far from the office. Yesterday in church, Bishop Fannon told the ward that I was leaving and asked me to get up and bear my testimony - that was a surprise! It made it easy on me, so I didn't have to tell everyone individually.

On Saturday, we were invited to Zak Keir's "welcome home" party. That was a very good opportunity for us to teach Zak's friends and family who weren't members. They were all asking us questions, and Sister Keir would point us out to everyone and say, "Look, those guys are doing what Zak did!" It was a really good time! Some of the most tasty chicken I have ever had, and an awesome bon fire. Also what was crazy was seeing Zak's pictures of when he was in Mesa, and seeing him in a couple of them next to Justin Miller (Kyle's brother)! That was cool.

Today should be an awesome last P-day here. We are planning on going to the Sprecher's brewery/factory, which is the best root beer ever. I haven't been yet, but I've heard it's 3 dollars for a tour with unlimited root beer!

So yeah, that's what's goin' on here. I hope you all have a great week, and I will tell you about my new area next week!

Love, Elder Vogan

AN AWESOME WEEK WITH NEW INVESTIGATORS

2009-10-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Mon 10/19/09 9:50 AM
You know, what's funny is it seems like alot of the "Wisconsin-ites" are even colder than I am. I am not going to lie though, I do keep my hands in my pockets while we are tracting because they get pretty cold, and outside sand volleyball isn't quite as fun as it was a month ago, but some people out on the streets already have on their heavy snow gear. Everyone that I talk to, who knows I haven't experienced a cold winter, is sure to do what they can to scare me - and sometimes it works. Last week I bought some long underwear, thick gloves, a zip up hoodie, and a sweater vest; and today I might buy some more stuff.

That's cool that Sister Little will be going out to Mesa and will be able to meet Mom and maybe the family. She had me write a letter for Mom that she could hand-deliver. I couldn't really think of much to say on the spot, so hopefully it is still worthwhile. I think it will be fun for you guys though.

I'm glad to her that you have a lot of people signed up for the seminars. I wonder what the chances would be that I knew one of the snow birds that go? Haha, that would be another crazy connection if something like that happened. And with that Mexico thing, I will remember to pray for your decision with that too.

Well this past week was awesome! Friday turned out to be a day of one thing after another, and we taught 9 lessons that day - 26 for the week. That day I was also able to meet the daughter (Katie) of the man who had the heart attack awhile back. She is being taught by the Oak Creek Elders and is on track to be baptized on 11/14! And another cool thing about that was that she was able to give me her parents' information so that I could contact them! I didn't think that there was any way for me to get in contact with them, but I was definitely blessed to be able to see them on Saturday. They live in our ward boundaries not too far away from the Littles. Both Katie and her parents (Ralph and Cheryl) had alot of emotions when I talked with them, and Ralph and Cheryl are going to have us over for dinner at their house on Sunday. We are working to see if Elder Vance can get permission to come down too because they really want to see him again too. Maybe since it's such a cool story President will let him come.

Our prayers for new investigators to teach are being answered these past two weeks. We had 3 last week and 2 more this week. Maureen was someone we started teaching last week, and she has a baptism (goal) date for the 14th of Nov. that we set with her on Friday. Our 3 "most taught" investigators Doug, Steve, and Zak are still in our teaching pool. Doug is pluggin' along - came to church, and back excited to learn, but Steve and Zak seem to be in a slump. Steve still doesn't return our calls, but we taught him twice last week and is still fairly interested, just lazy I guess. And Zak is a "cool" highschool kid, so that gets in the way. His two sisters are being taught by the Sister missionaries, and they are both still doing pretty good.

Well I hope this longer email this week makes up for some of the past few shorter ones! I love you and thank you for all that you have done for me!

-Elder Vogan

GETTING COLDER--TIME TO BUY GLOVES, HATS, SWEATERS AND LONG-JOHNS

2009-10-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

Mon 10/12/09 9:17 AM
Family, Wow, it sounds like you guys are having an awesome time! I hope Jordan has a Happy Birthday! Man, I sure want to go out and check out that place in a couple years. Definitely let me know how it goes with that guy's potential business opportunity. I wish I knew exactly how much is in my bank account, so I don't overdraft... Today is going to be our shopping day because I need gloves, hats, sweaters, long underwear, socks, and maybe boots. It is starting to get pretty cold- 30's and 40's during the day. With the ipod, you don't need to worry about headphones or anything, but the computer usb cord would be helpful. There is an itunes account on one of the office computers with a bunch of really good talks, firesides, and music, so I want to have that before I get transferred far from the office.

Well we finished off the bread and have half a jar of jam left. The Du Charmes like that as much as I do! This week went pretty well. Almost all of our "numbers" for the week were really good.. except for the most important ones. Both of our baptism dates are canceled, and we haven't been able to set a new date with Doug yet. Steve started to get an attitude near the end of last week: he chose not to come to conference last weekend, and since then he hasn't been calling us back after we call or seem like he cares at all anymore. It's hard not to get discouraged when that happens. So, we are going to be giving him a break for at least a week, unless he decides to call us.

Zak also decided to "jump off the wagon". And we are realizing that is because it really has been just like a wagon ride for him towards his baptism, and he is not showing his commitment. He chose not to come to church yesterday, and he told his mom he didn't want to do it anymore. The Sisters stopped by yesterday before church and told me about that, and it knocked the air out of me. It's really tough when all we do is care about these people and spend so much time planning for them to help them be happier. But we spent some time with Zak and his family last night after church, and it is still hopeful but not as soon as were thought.

Doug is finally seeing a need for him to truly repent and have a change of heart before he can be baptized. And I am actually more happy to wait for him to pray about a date that he believes he can be ready for, than to set another one that would not be as sturdy.

We had a really good week with lessons and referrals though, on the bright side. And we actually found three new investigators to add to our teaching pool! To of them were referred to us by Sister Kabitzke (Rich's wife). It was a really cool experience. We went to both referrals, one right after another, and both said they would be interested in learning more and set up a time for us to visit them and their families this week. We will be teaching Maureen and her family tonight. She is very promising because she attended Rich's baptism and loved it, and she seems very humble and teachable.

Well I have 10 minutes before my session will close to write President. I hope you guys continue to have a great vacation, and a safe one as well! Love you

Elder Vogan

"LOVE" IS THE MESSAGE FROM GENERAL CONFERENCE

2009-10-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

Mon 10/05/09 4:51 PM
Hey Mom, I apologize, this will be a much shorter email than normal because we are in a hurry tonight. But yeah, thank you so much for the awesome package with all the great goodies! That jam and bread is delicious as always. And it was really cool to have the Thompsons deliver it for you. They took us to lunch at Taco Bell on Friday. Yes, general conference was a blast! A lot of powerful stuff spoken. Alot about "love" it seemed, so that's a big thing I'll be taking from it. Man, you guys are going to Mazatlan? I'm sure that will be a lot of fun! But yeah, that work is moving along. Steve and Doug both did not attend any of conference though, which was a bummer. I heard alot of great things they both could have benefited from. Zak watched some, as well as this other investigator we just began talking to, named Paul. He is an interesting person... I will tell you more next week about it!

Love you! Elder Vogan

MICE BUILDING NESTS IN THE CAR!

2009-10-05T17:36:00.000-07:00

Mon 9/28/09 9:05 AM
Wow, those are some awesome pictures, Dad! Congrats on the elk! I wish I could help you eat some of it. That's crazy that all those people are getting married; I kinda wonder who won't be when I get home, haha. I haven't received anything from Julie Moore, but I do think it's fun talking to her dad alot out here. He actually walked by us as we were teaching Steve outside on the grass in front of the church, and we asked him to bear his testimony, and that was really cool. Yeah, I talked to the Thompson's son on Sunday about the package, and I gave him our number and everything so we can meet up when it comes. I am excited for it! We have some awesome dinner roles that I am not eating too because I know how good they'll be with that jam.

It is starting to get a little cooler here. Today, we had to take in our car because a couple days ago, when we started the car, the 'check engine' light and traction control things were messed up. So after we dropped it off at the dealership, we decided to walk to the stake center to play basketball, and I was getting pretty cold. We found out just a little bit ago that it was messed up because some mice got into the engine in the night and decided to start building a nest with our car parts. They chewed through the fuel injectors and stuff, so we will be without a car for about a week while they wait for the parts. So it will be interesting to see how we can make it to all the appointments we have set up for the week..

We set two baptism dates with Steve and Zak this past week, which both seem pretty good. Steve didn't think we would be up for going to the Catholic church that he grew up going to, but we went with him yesterday, and that was an interesting experience. I have been to a few different churches since I've been out here, and it's always cool to see the similarities and differences of what different people believe. We met with Zak a couple times this week, and for a fourteen year-old guy, he has a much stronger testimony than I thought he had. The only problem with him is that his dad is pretty anti-Mormon and might not consent to his baptism. We had zone conference this week as well, and that is always awesome. It always helps to show us how we can be better and more effective.

Well, this is it for today! I love you and will talk to you soon!

-Elder Vogan

MEETING ELDER CALDWELL--MAY 14, 2009

2009-09-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

A NEW INVESTIGATOR-- 14 YEAR OLD ZAK

2009-09-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Mon 9/21/09 12:11 PM
Hey Mom,
Yup, I am spoiled out here! I have met Kenny Banks at one of the baptisms I went to a couple transfers ago. I can’t remember what ward he was in though, maybe West Allis? But that will be crazy to see the Thompsons, if I do. If you want to send some stuff out with them you can, that would be cheaper. You can put some money in my account, and that will be helpful for when I am shopping for winter clothes. Speaking of accounts, I am still anxious to hear about any Mexbank updates. I’d rather be spending my money than yours. But yeah, we are really looking foreword to getting your jam.

The topic of your talks sounded like a good one. And that’s crazy what happened with Dad’s talk – maybe he just wasn’t supposed to read whatever he was writing in preparation. I’m glad it ended up working out well.

I’m glad Megan is doing better now; although it doesn’t sound to me like she is with how you described her: pale, bruised, and “skinny skinny”. Yeah, I bet it is tough for Jordan having all the youth in the whole stake going to a different school. Hopefully sports will be good for him when he does volleyball and stuff. And yeah, it seems like Hannah is turning into a whole different person now, all confident and stuff. That’s so good! Tyler and Branden Du Charme both think she’s a cutie.

Well this week went pretty well. We began teaching a new investigator, Zak. He is a 14 year-old, who is in a part-member family. The sister missionaries have taught him a little bit, but they think we would be better. And they are still teaching his sisters, Sammi and Kayla. The mom is a member, and she really wants them to be baptized, but the dad is pretty much anti-Mormon, so that’s interesting. The whole family missed church yesterday, though, because Sammi and Zak got really sick.

Doug and Steve are both still progressing slowly. Steve blew off church yesterday for the Packer game, and Doug slept in too late for sacrament but came for the rest. So, we were totally expecting at least three investigators at sacrament meeting, but we got none. That was a bummer, but we did really well with teaching lessons with members this week, which we usually don’t do as well with. We ended up teaching 9 of them. We are excited to be in a new transfer now, and we have set some new goals to help us see more success during these next six weeks. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that this will be my last transfer here, but hopefully I’m wrong!

Thank you for your prayers. Know that I’m praying for you too! I hope Dad does well with the hunt, and that you do well with watching Donny Osmond's dance moves!

Elder Vogan

NEEDING AND LOOKING FORWARD TO NEW INVESTIGATORS

2009-09-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

Mon 9/14/09 10:16 AM
Hi,
Wow, Mom, I almost didn’t get your email this week. When I first logged in, Hannah’s was the only email from home in my inbox, and then myldsmail started getting really bogged down, and we were just about to take off. But we tried it one more time, luckily.

Nope, no baptisms since Rich’s. I’ll be sure to let you know when we have them coming up. We set dates with Doug and Steve a little bit ago, but those were never that solid. We just wanted them to have a goal to work toward. I feel like I don’t need to send photos anymore, since you get so many from facebook now, haha.

However you send me the other Elders’ emails is up to you. Either way is fine.

I’m looking foreword to hearing about and seeing pictures of Dad’s elk when he gets one!

Jordan’s ankle issue doesn’t sound to fun to deal with, but I’m glad to hear he is still working out even with that.

Yes, I would love it if you sent me some of your jam! And if you want to send bread too, that would be awesome.

The work this week went pretty well. We taught more lessons than ever in a week, but we didn’t get any new investigators, which is something we need and are looking foreword to. We got word that Elder Stevens and I will both be staying in the area next transfer, as expected. I’m glad too; I would stay here for my whole mission if I could choose to do that. Transfer day is Friday this week, and we are getting a new sister missionary in the area. Sister Warner will be training her. I can’t think of anything worth writing about from this past week other than that.

Well I love you, and I will write again next week!

Elder Vogan

THE PERFECT SETTING: GET-TOGETHERS--MEET AND EAT

2009-09-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

Tue 9/08/09 11:20 AM
Hi,
Since it was the holiday yesterday, we had to wait till today to write home when the libraries are open. That’s good that you are able to see pictures of what I’m up to from other sources, since I don’t take pictures very often, and I don’t get around to sending pictures home very often. The Littles are an awesome family! We are actually going to their house for dinner tomorrow night. I’m glad to hear that you had a good time in Oregon! That is really scary about Megan; hopefully they can correct whatever is causing that problem. Man, I miss that little girl. Congratulations on your new calling, Mom! That sounds like it will be fun for you.

This past week went pretty well. We have really been working to get in sync with the sisters who serve in the ward with us, Sis. Warner and Sis. Earl, so that we can see more progress and success in this area. Sis. Earl is here while she waits for her visa to go to Madagascar French speaking, but Sis. Warner will be here for a while. They are both really good, so we are lucky to have them.

Saturday was really cool. We got invited to a family/friend get-together with a lady from our ward who is the only member of the church in her entire family. We were able to meet and talk to and even teach many of the people who were there in a more casual setting. It was the perfect setting; if only all the members did something like that and invited us. That’s what our goal is though, for us to be involved in tons of things like that to give us more effective opportunities. We even got invited by a group of the lady’s family members to go to a fair with them on Monday morning, and we all went.

Sunday night we went over to the Keir’s house, and we had a great time talking to “Elder Keir” and Sister Keir. Zack was an awesome missionary, and he was able to really help us in our work. I went from being pretty overwhelmed and less confident about training, to being very confident after a couple great weeks, and now recently, almost back to feeling overwhelmed and less confident again. So, the things Elder Keir talked to us about really helped. We are going over there for dinner tonight.

Yesterday was the big day for our zone. The Milwaukee North Zone challenged us to a game of football. So we made some sweet uniforms with spray paint, and we were decked out ready to play. But we lost.

Well I will talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Vogan

P-DAY: VOLLEYBALL AND BBQ WITH 60 MISSIONARIES

2009-09-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Mon. 8/31/09 12:33 PM
Hey, It’s always good to read your emails! Elder Stevens is adjusting well to the missionary life. He said he expected to be a little home sick, but since we are always doing stuff, he doesn’t even have time to think about that. So that’s good. But yeah, we are having some great experiences together. I am less of a fitness trainer for him than I have been for other Elders because he is very happy with how he is right now, and he isn’t looking to improve anything, but we do exercise together every morning doing push ups, sit ups, and pull ups, and then we play some intense basketball for a little bit. I am up to 93 push ups in a row, even though I should be at 131.. I guess you do hit a wall after awhile. Elder Stevens is doing it to, and he is at 48.

I got to meet Elder Keir briefly yesterday after his homecoming talk. Man, I hope my talk will be half that good when I get home. I am sure he did a lot of good work in Mesa, AZ. I’ll ask him if he knew “Elder Hoyt” if I get the chance. You are making me jealous talking about how nice the pool is, it sounds like it would definitely be fun though. That is really sad about the Skidmore’s baby; I am sorry to hear about that. No, I don’t have contact with Brock yet, but that would be really cool if I could. I am also interested in hearing how Dad’s mine thing goes.

This week was pretty good; not quite as good as last week though. The difference between having a dinner set up for us and not having one is huge. We had dinners almost every day during that really good week we just had, so we can plan for who we would visit in the certain areas we knew we would be in. This past week, we only had one or two dinners planned, so it was tougher planning for most of those days. We had a lot of lessons with Steve and Doug again. Doug came to church again, like usual, but Steve hasn’t come yet. Both Rich and Nate received the priesthood yesterday, and we were able to help with both of those. Today, we have a fun Preparation Day planned, straight from here we are going to President Orne’s house to play volleyball and have a BBQ with our whole zone and some missionaries from other zones. I heard there should be about 60 missionaries there. Lucky for us, President Orne is in our ward, and not too far from where we are now, so we don’t have to worry about car pooling or using too many miles or anything.

I hope you guys have fun in Oregon, and good luck, Dad, with the hunt! I wish I could go! The only thing I might need, Mom, is for you to have Dad check my bank account to make sure I’m doing alright. I’m sure I am, but that is the account that I used to purchase my GPS, so just in case. But I’m not stopping you from sending random packages or letters…

Love you, Elder Vogan

AN INVESTIGATOR HELPS SHARE 'THE WORD'

2009-08-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/24/09 9:41 AM
Congrats on the buck, Dad! Too bad I can’t help you eat any of it. I asked Elder Stevens if he knew any of those people that you asked me about, but he doesn’t think he knows them. He lives pretty close to there, though, at 40th S and 48th W. Man, Jordan’s done with football? Guess he’ll need to get a job then to keep him out of trouble. I’m anxious to hear about the results from the ortho. Haha, that means Doctor Hrasky will have the opportunity to have worked with our whole family now. It sounds like you guys had a fun anniversary! 75 pounds of meat is a lot of protein. Let me know how that goes with the welcome home party!

This last week was awesome – 21 lessons, 11 referrals received from members and non-members, and we set a baptism date with Steve. Since I started training, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed knowing that I didn’t want to start Elder Stevens off on the wrong foot, and I felt like there was more we could have been doing. We have tried not to spend too much time tracting, but we decided that we would commit to knocking on at least 3 to 5 doors or inviting people in the street around each of the places we go, unless we have somewhere we need to get to. And since Thursday, when we committed to that, our lessons per day shot up, and I am feeling much more confident and happy as a trainer.

So, we were able to start teaching Steve again, and he even spent the day with us on Saturday. Whenever we taught him, he would always say, “Aw man, that’s so great that you guys devote so much time to going out and helping people and sharing uplifting messages with everyone. I need to do more things like that.” And since then he started working at a soup kitchen in Milwaukee a few times a week, and we also told him that he should come out with us on Saturday and spend the day with us doing service and sharing “the word” with people. He had a really good time with us, and he said we wants to keep doing that every week. Haha, I’ve never heard of missionaries doing that with their investigators before, but we are. It’s cool too because as we are teaching other people, members and non-members, he is taught indirectly, and sometimes he’ll jump in and help teach and teach himself as he understands more.

Well that’s it for this week. It’s always fun to write home about this, and it’s fun to hear about everything back home!

Love, Elder Vogan

"And please bless that everyone in the world can be baptized like Grandpa..."

2009-08-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/17/09 10:23 AM
Wow, thank you all for emailing this week! I love to get mail/emails, I just wish I had enough time to reply to all of them. Mom, if you mailed me the other missionaries' emails, that would be really cool. Man, I'm sorry to hear about Jordan's leg! I know how that feels.. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be too bad. It's good to hear you are officially settling in now with your record in the Princess Park ward. I hope that is going well for you. So, is Hannah still at Fremont then, or Shepherd? It's crazy that school is already starting again. Out here, I think they have at least a couple more weeks.

This week was Rich Kabitzke’s baptism, and that went very well! Every thing worked out perfectly as planned, and maybe a little better. There were several non-members in attendance as well, which was really cool to see. The Spirit was very strong during the baptism meeting, especially from the time after the baptism to the end. During the reverent time, we sang “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”, and right afterward showed the testimonies of a few of the Apostles from Special Witnesses of Christ. Alyssa (Rich’s step daughter) gave her talk after that, and she was emotional through the whole thing. To finish it off, Alyssa’s 5 year-old son, Kohl, said the closing prayer. In that he prayed, “And please bless that everyone in the world can be baptized like grandpa…” That was the best closing prayer I’ve ever heard at a baptism. After the baptism, the Kabitzkes invited everyone to go to their house for some refreshments and socializing. That was a good opportunity for us to talk to some of the friends and family who came, and it was a more casual setting where they felt comfortable asking us questions about the baptism and the church. Hopefully something more comes of that.

Well I think that's really the only thing I can think to write about. So, thank you for your thoughts and prayers. And let me know if Dad gets anything hunting!

Love You Elder Vogan

AUGUST 2009--VISITING THE KEIRS

2009-08-15T11:15:00.001-07:00

ELDER VOGAN PLAYING A MUSICAL NUMBER

2009-08-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

MOM AND SISTER KEIR EMAIL EACH OTHER

2009-08-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

Thu 8/13/09 4:34 PM
Hi Amy,
So nice to hear from you! I've been meaning to write and send pictures, but got caught up in things. We had the Elders over just before E. Vance left. Then we went on a long weekend to Nauvoo and I've been trying to catch up since then.

Zak gets home in 12 days! Yay! I can't wait. I have to tell you what he wrote in his last e-mail...I hope you don't mind. It just made my day:)

"P.S. You must have been praying for me today because I gave a talk in Zone Development Meeting today and it felt really great. We all felt the Spirit really strong. I made a decision today. Everyone was talking about dating today and I told them that the first girl I was taking out after my mission was going to be my Mom. I said it partially just to make them feel bad about talking about girls, but I ment it. Isn't that going to be fun? :) I love you!"

Elder Vogan told me you just moved...and back to your old house. That's pretty neat! It must be so nice to be "home" again. Our school starts Sept 1st. I just had an interview this afternoon to teach Kindergarten. I feel like it went well, but it's so competitive out here and so few teaching jobs. I just have to trust in the Lord and put it in his hands.

Thanks so much for keeping in touch. I'm looking forward to having Elder Vogan and his new companion for dinner:)

Love,
Leslie

p.s. Elder Vogan played a lovely piece from the Suzanne Cianni music you sent him. I had never heard it before. Beautiful!!!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 4:01 PM
Hi Leslie-
I was just wondering if you got your missionary home yet? I bet you are so excited!! I hope everything is going well for you. It's probably a hectic time of year for you as school will soon resume. We just moved back to our old house that we sold 3 years ago. We are renting it while we hopefully can sell the 'spec' home we have been living in 'temporarily' (for 3 years). We are hoping it will 'show' better when we aren't living in it. My kids started back to school today. They were ready...so was Mom. :D

Best Wishes & Blessings!

Love, Amy

A NEW COMPANION--ELDER STEVENS

2009-08-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/10/09 9:10 AM
The first week with Elder Stevens went pretty well. The only problem so far has been that I have no sense of direction, but that will get better hopefully. Elder Stevens is from West Valley City, UT. He is big into water sports: swimming, water polo, wakeboarding, and everything else behind a boat. He likes the heat, but he is used to the cold. Loves snow boarding and working on cars. He takes quick showers and eats fast, which is important so we can workout together in the mornings. He is easy-going and down to be obedient. He graduated 2008 and will be going into hospital administration.

So this week we have been really thinking about and focusing on finding new people to teach. Right now, our only strong investigators are Rich and Doug, and now I’m wondering if Doug is even that strong. He has a lot to overcome. So we have been thinking of ways to build stronger relationships with the ward members and leaders, and hopefully we will meet some of their friends to teach. We are making it more of a habit to ask everybody for referrals of people we can teach or do service for, and yesterday it worked out well. On our way out the door last night after dinner, we asked Tyler Du Charme if he had any friends who we should stop by and see. I wasn’t really expecting him to give us a name, but he did and when we stopped by, his friend’s mom was very open to us. We taught her the basics of the restoration, and she scheduled an appointment for us to go over next week and teach her again with her family when they were all home. That was pretty awesome! This will be my first time teaching a whole non-member family together. Usually we teach single people or part member families. We told her that we would go to her church with her if she would come to ours, and said, “Oh yeah, of course!”

Rich Kabitzke is really excited for his baptism on Saturday. We heard his testimony last week, and it was really strong, more than I thought. It will be awesome to see that happen! Peter got baptized on the 8th. (The guy who took us to lunch and was drinking awhile ago). Elder McCoy and Marchant were pretty nervous about that, but they gave him a blessing a couple weeks ago, and since then he hasn’t had the slightest desire to drink. We were able to attend the baptism, and I got a picture with him that I will send you.

Well I will talk to you next week. Good luck with everything!

-Elder Vogan

TRAINING

2009-08-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

Mon 8/03/09 10:08 AM
Hey, I am really glad to hear that everything went well with moving back to the old/new house! It will be fun to go home to “home”. Haha, that lady that called Mom is Sister Krommenhoek, who is Sister Keir’s mom. I don’t think it’s cheating at all that these people contact you, but if I find out it is I will let you know.

Well Friday we got the call about transfers from the president, and Elder Vance is transferring out of the area this week. President also told us that we will both be training. I was definitely not expecting that because I still feel brand new. It will be good though and help me to grow faster. Now that I bought a GPS, I can find my way around, haha. So yeah, I’ll only be two transfers older than my trainee, so I’m sure we will both be learning a lot together. We are hoping Elder Vance goes to Brookfield to train because then we will do service together, and we’ll be able to hang out every now and then on P-days. Elder Caldwell told us that he and his companion are both transferring out of Brookfield, so it’s a good possibility.

So that is the big new of the week, but other than that we had a pretty good week. We taught a good number of lessons, and we saw Rich get stronger in his faith. His baptism is pretty much for sure on the 15th. His wife’s son is LDS and he is flying out from Florida to baptize him, and he already has his flight plans and everything. We saw Doug improve too, but we also saw things in his life that he’ll need to work on a bit, so he won’t be baptized this weekend like we had planned with him. Hopefully he’ll be ready within a few weeks. It was funny, the Du Charmes invited Doug to come to dinner at their house last Monday, and during that Brother Du Charme showed him a couple quotes from the book, “Mormon Doctrine”. And since Doug liked it, he went home and bought it that night and had it shipped from Chicago. So now he owns a large print quad scriptures combo, a gospel principles book, a couple of Ensigns, and Mormon Doctrine.

That’s all for this week, so I will let you know about my new companion and everything next week!

Love you! Elder Vogan

MOVING FORWARD

2009-07-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

Mon 7/27/09 9:20 AM
Wow, that’s crazy to think I’ll probably be coming home to the old house I grew up in! Yeah, Sister Du Charme was actually the one who told me that you were moving – I guess she read Hannah’s facebook status last night, haha. That’s funny that they are friends on there. I hope the moving goes well, and I hope it isn’t as stressful as the last one! Yeah, everyone here seems to have some kind of connection with me; it’s weird. Sister Little (we went to the temple with her and her husband), she actually grew up with Danny Beecroft’s mom, Dana. I guess they were even best friends, but they had lost touch with each other. And so when Sister Little went to look me up on facebook, she saw that Danny was one of my friends and was able to get back in touch with his mom. And this week she is down in “the valley” spending some time with her. So that was cool.

But anyway this week went well! The highlight was definitely Nate’s baptism and confirmation on the 25th and 26th. You will see some pictures of that soon, hopefully. Rich Kabitzke had a cool experience this week. His wife is already a member, so the home teachers were over meeting with the family, and they were talking about temple work and genealogy. Before that, Rich didn’t know too much about those things, but he was interested and said he was excited to do some work for his parents and ancestors after he was baptized. And then Sister Kabitzke remembered that Rich’s second cousin was a member, and had a strong feeling that the work for his parents was already done. So, that night they went to the family history center, and they found out that Rich’s dad and that whole side of his family had all the work done back to the 1800’s. They really thought that was cool. Rich is awesome, and he will be baptized by Sister Kabitzke’s son on the 15th of August.

Doug also had a great week. We taught him the Word of Wisdom on Wednesday, and that was a little shaky. He is an alcoholic, smoker, and loves coffee. At the end of the lesson, when we asked him if that was something he was willing to do, he had no problem committing to stop drinking and smoking, but he couldn’t commit to stop coffee. He said it was one of his only pleasures in life. But I know he will soon because he loves most everything about the church, and he attends all the activities and meetings. So we are still hoping on August 8th for him. That’s it for this week.

Love you guys, and good luck with the moving! Elder Vogan

AN AWESOME WEEK!!

2009-07-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

Mon 7/20/09 12:11 PM
Thank you for writing again this week! Man, that fried ice cream sounds good, you should make that again in a couple of years, haha. That's cool that Brock had his farewell; he'll have alot of fun in the Phillapeans for sure. Speaking of Chantell and Brock, I sent letters for them to our address a few weeks ago because I didn't know the Perry's address, did you get those to them? And I did the same thing for Bishop last week.

This week was probably the best week for missionary work of my whole mission! We are really starting to see the payoff for stepping up our efforts to be exactly obedient. We had 3 investigators at church again: Doug, Rich, and Will. And we set two baptism dates with Doug and Rich for August 8th. Both of those seem really solid. And Nate will be baptised this Saturday, so all of this is really cool to see. We also had 20 lessons this week, which is alot better than any of our past weeks. Obedience in just the last week or two has also helped me to love my mission, my companion, and the people here alot more, and I feel like I am learning so much more as well. We committed to "stepping it up" a couple weeks ago in a companion study we had, in which we studied and discussed the relationship of faith and obedience, and the power that comes from obedience. It was definitely the best comp. study I've had, and since then this concept has been our "default lesson" for people we haven't specifically prepared another lesson for. Since we have seen such great things from that lately in our work, we feel like everyone should embrace it, and Elder Vance and I teach it well together.

Well something else new this week was Steve. Steve is a young guy who works at a place called Health Hut, which is owned by two members of the Church, and alot of the youth from the stake work there. So we go there occasionally, and we've talked to Steve before. Steve isn't a member, and lately he's been having a REALLY tough time. I don't want to explain all the details, but a little over a week ago we were told by someone that a young guy named Steve walked into our church because he said he needed to pray. And after the guy explained Steve, we knew it was "Health Hut" Steve. So, last Thursday we went in there to see how he was doing, and he told us he really needed something that would comfort him, and he felt like we could give it to him. When he got off work, we met at our church and taught him in one of the rooms about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and we gave him a Book of Mormon and read some of it with him. Just reading from the Book gave him so much comfort, he didn't want to stop. He just kept wanting to pray and read. He told one of the Single's ward guys who taught with us that we "saved him". We met with him the next day, and he was a little bit better, and we had basically the same lesson from the day before. On Saturday, we decided to fast for him. We haven't seen him since Friday, but we are looking foreward to seeing him today.

Well, on another note, the weather here is really stange. It's been in the high 60's and dry for the past week, which is very strange for the middle of July. Oh, and by the way, Peter ended up going to church, and he is still on for his baptism on August 1st. Haha, crazy.

Well that's it, I'll talk to you next week! Love you Elder Vogan