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
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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
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'
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
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
Monday, December 14, 2009
WINTER WONDERLAND, INDEED
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
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
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
STAYING IN MANITOWOC AND PLANNING FOR SNOW
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
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
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
SIX BIG THANKSGIVING MEALS--READY FOR SNOW!
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
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
Saturday, November 28, 2009
"TOOJ KUB HANG"--A NEW HMONG NAME
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)