Mon 7/06/09 9:10 AM
Well today will be the shortest email yet, I think. We have plans to go out to downtown Milwaukee and eat at this place called The Safehouse with the other Elders pretty soon. It's a "secret" restaurant hidden in an allyway and you need to have a password to get in and stuff - I hear its pretty cool. I apologize for not writing you back after your last letters, Hannah and Jordan, it's really difficult to find time to write letters if we are exactly obedient in following the schedule - which we are really trying to do. I really enjoyed the birthday package! And the bread is still good; I actually had some last night - thank you Mom! The Du Charmes and Elder Vance love it too, and Mike Moore had some when he came over and also really liked it. And Hannah, that pop-up book is awesome! Haha I don't even know how you were able to do it. I have it taped up on my wall above my desk. We've been listening to the cd's too, thanks for those!
This week, we had zone conference again, and it went really well - really motivating. Friday, the 3rd, we went to this lakeside picnic/party by the lake and watched a firework show. And then on Saturday, we went out to a couple of parades for different cities, and then we went to that fair and went on rides and watched fireworks. The people we were with both of these nights were mostly not members of the Church, so we might have an opportunity to teach some of them more than we did. It was a really fun week, and we invited a lot of different people to let us teach them. It's crazy how many people think we are either Jehovah's Witnesses or FBI agents, haha. Well, I gotta get going, but I love you! And tell Megan I love her and miss her too! Thank you for all the emails this week, that was awesome!
-Elder Vogan
Monday, July 6, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
DINNER WITH THE KEIRS
Fri. 7/3/09
Hi Amy,
The Elders came over for dinner last night. It was nice to see them again. I'm sorry to say, it's been a few weeks. But, in that time they both sure have grown spiritually. Elder Vogan is growing into a wonderful missionary. Elder Vance is a great trainer/teacher. They make an amazing companionship!
From your blog, I got the feeling that Elder Vogan may play the piano, so I asked him. He said he knows Stairway to Heaven. I even happen to have the music...so Elder Vogan played while Elder Vance sang - very nice voice. I told them they should sing and play for sacrament meeting...a different song of course.
We had shishkabob for dinner and the fruit pizza for dessert - only I made a flag out of it instead. As soon as Elder Vance saw it, he put his hand on his heart:) Silly guys.
Hope you enjoy the pictures! By the way, we were talking about the best things to get from home and both Elders agreed that getting photos from home is a great gift. So, there's hint for you. What we do with Zak is he bought an extra memory card for his camera and he sends one home at a time on occasion with pictures. Not sure what kind of camera Elder Vogan has, but there's another idea.
Take care and Happy 4th!
Leslie
Hi Amy,
The Elders came over for dinner last night. It was nice to see them again. I'm sorry to say, it's been a few weeks. But, in that time they both sure have grown spiritually. Elder Vogan is growing into a wonderful missionary. Elder Vance is a great trainer/teacher. They make an amazing companionship!
From your blog, I got the feeling that Elder Vogan may play the piano, so I asked him. He said he knows Stairway to Heaven. I even happen to have the music...so Elder Vogan played while Elder Vance sang - very nice voice. I told them they should sing and play for sacrament meeting...a different song of course.
We had shishkabob for dinner and the fruit pizza for dessert - only I made a flag out of it instead. As soon as Elder Vance saw it, he put his hand on his heart:) Silly guys.
Hope you enjoy the pictures! By the way, we were talking about the best things to get from home and both Elders agreed that getting photos from home is a great gift. So, there's hint for you. What we do with Zak is he bought an extra memory card for his camera and he sends one home at a time on occasion with pictures. Not sure what kind of camera Elder Vogan has, but there's another idea.
Take care and Happy 4th!
Leslie
Monday, June 29, 2009
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELDER VOGAN, DEAR!!!
Mon 6/29/09 2:07 PM
Thank you for your B-Day wishes! The package that hasn't come yet, but I'll probably get it later today. Thank you for that too! I'm up to 68 push ups, so I guess that means I've been out for 68 days. It's good to hear the update for the family, so that I know you guys are doing alright. Oh and I got a knock knock joke for Jordan, "knock knock... Acai (ah sigh ee)... acai yesterday walkin' your dog.. mhmmh." Haha he'll probably be the only one besides Elder Vance and Jordan Bailey who'll think that's funny.
Anyway, this week was a good one. It was really hot most of the days though; it felt much worse than AZ too because of the humidity. But today it feels good, Happy Birthday to me! It will be perfect for playing football in a little while. A couple major highlights were with Doug and Nate.
Doug is a 54 year-old biker dude, who now works as a private investigator, and he was only a potential investigator of the Church before last Tuesday. Before he would usually just carry on casual conversation with us when we would stop by, but we didn't really teach him too much. But on Tuesday, he was really open, and we were able to have a really good lesson with him. He was curious about our quad combo scriptures, and he really liked the footnotes, bible dictionary, and maps that we have; so after we left he went online and bought a set and a case from the Chicago distribution center. It was crazy when we heard about that the next day when he called us. We met with him again on Friday and Saturday, and he even came to church with us on Sunday. He really enjoyed the talks that were given (and they were really good), but he thought that our hymns are way too slow. He thinks they should be double time. Since he was dressed a little less formal, people noticed him, and the members of the ward were really nice and friendly in welcoming him. In the gospel principles class, he participated more than alot of people in the room too, which I thought was cool. He told a few people that he would be coming again next week. And he wanted us to come by again on Tuesday (tomorrow), so we are excited for that.
Nate set a new baptism date, but this time it is for sure, for sure. He even announced it during the second and third meetings, so that is really cool. We weren't too sure if we would even be here to see him baptized. He's already working with his girlfriend's family in setting up his baptism. Also, it was cool to see him meet and talk to Doug a little bit at church and to hear him tell Doug to "follow my lead". They actually have a lot in common too, so we will try to bring Nate with us to teach him soon.
One last thing I'll tell you about: On Wednesday, we were invited to eat dinner with a less active/part member family, and they took us to have a picnic at the beach of Muskego Lake. Every Wednesday night they have a cool ski show where local ski teams put on a show for the community each week. It was really fun. We also ate with this family's neighbors who aren't members, and they were really cool. After dinner, we played soccer with all their middle school to high school aged kids. It was cool. They are having us again on the Fourth of July to go ride rollercoaters, I can't wait!
Okay well that's it for this week! I'm glad to hear about Whitney and her trainer! And I'm glad Megan still remembers who I am! I'll be looking for that package! Thanks again!
Love you! Elder Vogan
Thank you for your B-Day wishes! The package that hasn't come yet, but I'll probably get it later today. Thank you for that too! I'm up to 68 push ups, so I guess that means I've been out for 68 days. It's good to hear the update for the family, so that I know you guys are doing alright. Oh and I got a knock knock joke for Jordan, "knock knock... Acai (ah sigh ee)... acai yesterday walkin' your dog.. mhmmh." Haha he'll probably be the only one besides Elder Vance and Jordan Bailey who'll think that's funny.
Anyway, this week was a good one. It was really hot most of the days though; it felt much worse than AZ too because of the humidity. But today it feels good, Happy Birthday to me! It will be perfect for playing football in a little while. A couple major highlights were with Doug and Nate.
Doug is a 54 year-old biker dude, who now works as a private investigator, and he was only a potential investigator of the Church before last Tuesday. Before he would usually just carry on casual conversation with us when we would stop by, but we didn't really teach him too much. But on Tuesday, he was really open, and we were able to have a really good lesson with him. He was curious about our quad combo scriptures, and he really liked the footnotes, bible dictionary, and maps that we have; so after we left he went online and bought a set and a case from the Chicago distribution center. It was crazy when we heard about that the next day when he called us. We met with him again on Friday and Saturday, and he even came to church with us on Sunday. He really enjoyed the talks that were given (and they were really good), but he thought that our hymns are way too slow. He thinks they should be double time. Since he was dressed a little less formal, people noticed him, and the members of the ward were really nice and friendly in welcoming him. In the gospel principles class, he participated more than alot of people in the room too, which I thought was cool. He told a few people that he would be coming again next week. And he wanted us to come by again on Tuesday (tomorrow), so we are excited for that.
Nate set a new baptism date, but this time it is for sure, for sure. He even announced it during the second and third meetings, so that is really cool. We weren't too sure if we would even be here to see him baptized. He's already working with his girlfriend's family in setting up his baptism. Also, it was cool to see him meet and talk to Doug a little bit at church and to hear him tell Doug to "follow my lead". They actually have a lot in common too, so we will try to bring Nate with us to teach him soon.
One last thing I'll tell you about: On Wednesday, we were invited to eat dinner with a less active/part member family, and they took us to have a picnic at the beach of Muskego Lake. Every Wednesday night they have a cool ski show where local ski teams put on a show for the community each week. It was really fun. We also ate with this family's neighbors who aren't members, and they were really cool. After dinner, we played soccer with all their middle school to high school aged kids. It was cool. They are having us again on the Fourth of July to go ride rollercoaters, I can't wait!
Okay well that's it for this week! I'm glad to hear about Whitney and her trainer! And I'm glad Megan still remembers who I am! I'll be looking for that package! Thanks again!
Love you! Elder Vogan
Monday, June 22, 2009
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY
Mon 6/22/09 11:59 AM
I'm glad to hear the Father's Day went well for you, Dad! Yeah, my talk in church went pretty well, except midway through my throat was getting dry, so I was coughing alot. But I will be sending home a couple letters today, one with my talk in it. Jordan, I don't care what you add to the ipod, just don't delete anything. That's crazy that you just barely got that letter from that I wrote a month and a half ago, I wonder why it took so long? Yeah, having the gym down stairs at the Du Charme's has been good, and they even hook me up with a bunch of vitamins and supplements from when their son and daughter worked at a local health food store. It's really nice. And the transfer ends this Wednesday, but as expected, both Elder Vance and I are staying in the Muskego Lakes ward. So that's cool. Oh, and I keep forgetting to say that Brother and Sister Du Charme both do financial planning, and I think they work with the same annuities and investment companies dad does. And another thing that was cool was on Sunday when I met a guy named Mike Moore from the high council in our stake, and he asked me if I was by chance related to any Vogans out in Placerville, CA. And I told him my dad was Jeff Vogan and he grew up there, and he couldn't believe it. He told me to ask my dad if he remembers the guy who used to sit outside the front of the school and read the Book of Mormon, and that was him. I guess he worked with Jim and Laura when they first got married and stuff too. Really small world huh?
Well the highlight of this week was LJ's baptism on Saturday and confirmation yesterday at church! That was cool to see that happen. Elder Vance was asked to baptize him, and his dad confirmed him. I'm sending home a picture that Sister Little took of us at the baptism too. And Nate told us he would be sitting down with his family and picking a baptism date with them last night, so we will be looking foreword to when we hear when that is. We went over to Will and Ashley's apartment last night for dinner, and we had an awesome lesson with them. Alot of the things Will was doubting or not sure about were cleared up, and we could see in his expressions that he was really excited. Ashley has always been the more believing of the two, and I think she might have been doing more of the teaching than Elder Vance or me. Well, when we woke up this morning, we had a text from the member who referred us to them, or them to us, and he had foreworded a text from Will. It was like 8 text pages long saying things like, "I thank God so much that I met you and your family, that you could send the missionaries to us and we could learn how our family can be happy like yours. After the missionaries came over tonight, I really believe that if any church is true, it's Mormon church. It makes so much more sense now." It was a lot longer than that, but that was pretty much what it was saying.
I am having a good time out here; the mission is awesome! I now know what humidity is, it's pretty much like a steam room. Alright well be looking for my letters in the next week or so. Love you! Elder Vogan
I'm glad to hear the Father's Day went well for you, Dad! Yeah, my talk in church went pretty well, except midway through my throat was getting dry, so I was coughing alot. But I will be sending home a couple letters today, one with my talk in it. Jordan, I don't care what you add to the ipod, just don't delete anything. That's crazy that you just barely got that letter from that I wrote a month and a half ago, I wonder why it took so long? Yeah, having the gym down stairs at the Du Charme's has been good, and they even hook me up with a bunch of vitamins and supplements from when their son and daughter worked at a local health food store. It's really nice. And the transfer ends this Wednesday, but as expected, both Elder Vance and I are staying in the Muskego Lakes ward. So that's cool. Oh, and I keep forgetting to say that Brother and Sister Du Charme both do financial planning, and I think they work with the same annuities and investment companies dad does. And another thing that was cool was on Sunday when I met a guy named Mike Moore from the high council in our stake, and he asked me if I was by chance related to any Vogans out in Placerville, CA. And I told him my dad was Jeff Vogan and he grew up there, and he couldn't believe it. He told me to ask my dad if he remembers the guy who used to sit outside the front of the school and read the Book of Mormon, and that was him. I guess he worked with Jim and Laura when they first got married and stuff too. Really small world huh?
Well the highlight of this week was LJ's baptism on Saturday and confirmation yesterday at church! That was cool to see that happen. Elder Vance was asked to baptize him, and his dad confirmed him. I'm sending home a picture that Sister Little took of us at the baptism too. And Nate told us he would be sitting down with his family and picking a baptism date with them last night, so we will be looking foreword to when we hear when that is. We went over to Will and Ashley's apartment last night for dinner, and we had an awesome lesson with them. Alot of the things Will was doubting or not sure about were cleared up, and we could see in his expressions that he was really excited. Ashley has always been the more believing of the two, and I think she might have been doing more of the teaching than Elder Vance or me. Well, when we woke up this morning, we had a text from the member who referred us to them, or them to us, and he had foreworded a text from Will. It was like 8 text pages long saying things like, "I thank God so much that I met you and your family, that you could send the missionaries to us and we could learn how our family can be happy like yours. After the missionaries came over tonight, I really believe that if any church is true, it's Mormon church. It makes so much more sense now." It was a lot longer than that, but that was pretty much what it was saying.
I am having a good time out here; the mission is awesome! I now know what humidity is, it's pretty much like a steam room. Alright well be looking for my letters in the next week or so. Love you! Elder Vogan
Monday, June 15, 2009
THE CHICAGO TEMPLE & A PRIESTHOOD BLESSING
Mon 6/15/09 8:42 AM
Thank you for all the emails this week, I really enjoyed them! I'm sorry that I won't be able to reply to them though because I have really limited time today. So, I will just say, I'm sorry you were sick for awhile, Mom, and I really hope you are doing better! It's awesome to hear about Hannah's successful, little business too! And it was a lot of fun reading about Jordan's experience with the superactivity, haha. Pretty crazy though too! And I'm glad Dad is still doing alright with business. And I am glad to hear Megan's foot is healing properly, and that she still remembers me! I am so glad I have that cute video of her on my camera from the drive up when she was really happy. Yeah, I heard about that swine flu situation in the MTC. So I guess it was necessary to have the "no handshake" policy when I was there. The whole time I thought it was pretty ridiculous too. But yeah, I love both, emails and letters. Sometimes I won't be able to reply to emails, but so far I've gotten around to replying to the letters I've gotten.
Well there are alot of cool things from this week. Wednesday, Elder Vance went out to his leadership meeting, since he's the district leader; and there, they had men from the missionary department in Salt Lake who came and taught the leaders cool things about effective teaching and obedience, and they promised it would "quadruple the success of our mission". So that was exciting to hear. I learned this week that the Wisconsin Milwaukee mission has the record of being the "hardest" stateside mission, or the one with the least baptisms. At one point the missionaries here were so bad that they almost closed the mission, only a few years ago. But now, with President Barrett, I think we will begin to see a boom here, and this mission will become one of the best. I am really excited to be here at this time.
Our ward, the Muskego Lakes ward, is catching the spirit of missionary work very well. Many people are starting to bring friends to church, and give ideas of how our ward will be better with that. Last night, our ward mission leader, Brother Du Charme, said that the ward is becoming zion-ized through the efforts too. It's awesome! Elder Vance and I actually just moved into the Du Charme's house on Saturday night, and we are living there now. It's been really nice so far! I woke up early this morning, and went down to the basement where they have a nice home gym with a lot of machines and equipment, and worked out. I know we will save a lot of money living there, since they tell us everything is provided, and they don't want us to buy our own food anymore.
Another cool thing we did was go down to the Chicago temple on Saturday. It was awesome! (haha i feel like i have said that too many times in this email) We were invited to go down with a newly activated family we have been teaching, the Littles. Brother Little was receiving his endowment, so all of his family drove out from Snowflake, AZ to be there. I could tell the family was so happy to see their brother and son come back to the church - they were all in tears actually.
And then last night, Sunday night, I had the opportunity to give a blessing for the first time. It was pretty random how it happened. Elder Caldwell actually called me at around 7 and said there was a guy who's girlfriend was really sick, and they wanted her to receive a blessing as soon as possible. Elder Caldwell and his companion still don't have a car, so they asked us to do it, and they were actually in our area anyway. So we went to the house and met Forest and Myra, who had actually just moved in here from Texas and Idaho, both were inactive members of the church. So yeah, I was a bit nervous, not knowing what to say and everything, but the Spirit was very strong in that room, and I guess the words the words that were said gave her alot of comfort, and were similar to the feelings she had felt before the blessing. They didn't want us to leave after that, so we stayed and shared a message with them.
So that is the email for this week - alot of cool and awesome stuff going on! I hope I don't hear anything about Jordan wrecking the truck! I love you! Be good, and do your best to be good missionaries there at home. I really wish I would have done more of that before I came out here. If you could only see how the families of this ward are being strengthened, and the joy that they are experiencing from it. Okay, well I will write again next week! -Elder Vogan
Thank you for all the emails this week, I really enjoyed them! I'm sorry that I won't be able to reply to them though because I have really limited time today. So, I will just say, I'm sorry you were sick for awhile, Mom, and I really hope you are doing better! It's awesome to hear about Hannah's successful, little business too! And it was a lot of fun reading about Jordan's experience with the superactivity, haha. Pretty crazy though too! And I'm glad Dad is still doing alright with business. And I am glad to hear Megan's foot is healing properly, and that she still remembers me! I am so glad I have that cute video of her on my camera from the drive up when she was really happy. Yeah, I heard about that swine flu situation in the MTC. So I guess it was necessary to have the "no handshake" policy when I was there. The whole time I thought it was pretty ridiculous too. But yeah, I love both, emails and letters. Sometimes I won't be able to reply to emails, but so far I've gotten around to replying to the letters I've gotten.
Well there are alot of cool things from this week. Wednesday, Elder Vance went out to his leadership meeting, since he's the district leader; and there, they had men from the missionary department in Salt Lake who came and taught the leaders cool things about effective teaching and obedience, and they promised it would "quadruple the success of our mission". So that was exciting to hear. I learned this week that the Wisconsin Milwaukee mission has the record of being the "hardest" stateside mission, or the one with the least baptisms. At one point the missionaries here were so bad that they almost closed the mission, only a few years ago. But now, with President Barrett, I think we will begin to see a boom here, and this mission will become one of the best. I am really excited to be here at this time.
Our ward, the Muskego Lakes ward, is catching the spirit of missionary work very well. Many people are starting to bring friends to church, and give ideas of how our ward will be better with that. Last night, our ward mission leader, Brother Du Charme, said that the ward is becoming zion-ized through the efforts too. It's awesome! Elder Vance and I actually just moved into the Du Charme's house on Saturday night, and we are living there now. It's been really nice so far! I woke up early this morning, and went down to the basement where they have a nice home gym with a lot of machines and equipment, and worked out. I know we will save a lot of money living there, since they tell us everything is provided, and they don't want us to buy our own food anymore.
Another cool thing we did was go down to the Chicago temple on Saturday. It was awesome! (haha i feel like i have said that too many times in this email) We were invited to go down with a newly activated family we have been teaching, the Littles. Brother Little was receiving his endowment, so all of his family drove out from Snowflake, AZ to be there. I could tell the family was so happy to see their brother and son come back to the church - they were all in tears actually.
And then last night, Sunday night, I had the opportunity to give a blessing for the first time. It was pretty random how it happened. Elder Caldwell actually called me at around 7 and said there was a guy who's girlfriend was really sick, and they wanted her to receive a blessing as soon as possible. Elder Caldwell and his companion still don't have a car, so they asked us to do it, and they were actually in our area anyway. So we went to the house and met Forest and Myra, who had actually just moved in here from Texas and Idaho, both were inactive members of the church. So yeah, I was a bit nervous, not knowing what to say and everything, but the Spirit was very strong in that room, and I guess the words the words that were said gave her alot of comfort, and were similar to the feelings she had felt before the blessing. They didn't want us to leave after that, so we stayed and shared a message with them.
So that is the email for this week - alot of cool and awesome stuff going on! I hope I don't hear anything about Jordan wrecking the truck! I love you! Be good, and do your best to be good missionaries there at home. I really wish I would have done more of that before I came out here. If you could only see how the families of this ward are being strengthened, and the joy that they are experiencing from it. Okay, well I will write again next week! -Elder Vogan
Sunday, June 14, 2009
SAY 'QUESO'!!!
6/14/09Hi Amy,
We took the Elders out for a Mexican meal Friday night and I remembered to bring my camera. So, attached is another picture - actually, I just viewed it and accidently took a video. I'm not sure how I did that but will try to do it next time so that he can say "hi" to you all. I'm afraid the meal wasn't as good as it usually is, but it was nice to eat outside on a beautiful day. We had tostadas civeche (sp?) for an appetizer. It is my favorite. Elder Vogan told us that his father makes it when you are in Mexico. I am so jealous...I would love that recipe. Surprisingly we have quite a large Hispanic population out here, particularly in Waukesha where we had dinner.
The Elders just moved in with a family yesterday. I'm sure he will tell you the details in his own e-mail. Our son is living with a couple. He is still in Paradise Valley with his companion for another transfer, but has been transferred to another ward. He's pretty sure he will remain in that area for the duration. Sounds like he's already making plans for a trip back to AZ to introduce my husband and I to the lovely people out there.
Rest assured, Elder Vogan is well! They have been so helpful to us. The other day they helped us shovel and spread mulch in our garden. Friday they did the same as part of a community project. They are very hard workers! Even my mom commented on their work ethic and she's a pretty tough one since she was raised on a farm. You can be proud:)
Love,
Leslie
We took the Elders out for a Mexican meal Friday night and I remembered to bring my camera. So, attached is another picture - actually, I just viewed it and accidently took a video. I'm not sure how I did that but will try to do it next time so that he can say "hi" to you all. I'm afraid the meal wasn't as good as it usually is, but it was nice to eat outside on a beautiful day. We had tostadas civeche (sp?) for an appetizer. It is my favorite. Elder Vogan told us that his father makes it when you are in Mexico. I am so jealous...I would love that recipe. Surprisingly we have quite a large Hispanic population out here, particularly in Waukesha where we had dinner.
The Elders just moved in with a family yesterday. I'm sure he will tell you the details in his own e-mail. Our son is living with a couple. He is still in Paradise Valley with his companion for another transfer, but has been transferred to another ward. He's pretty sure he will remain in that area for the duration. Sounds like he's already making plans for a trip back to AZ to introduce my husband and I to the lovely people out there.
Rest assured, Elder Vogan is well! They have been so helpful to us. The other day they helped us shovel and spread mulch in our garden. Friday they did the same as part of a community project. They are very hard workers! Even my mom commented on their work ethic and she's a pretty tough one since she was raised on a farm. You can be proud:)
Love,
Leslie
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