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
Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
MRI TODAY--RESULTS ON THURSDAY
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
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
Sunday, August 22, 2010
KNEE TROUBLE
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
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
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
"MIRACLE WORKING"
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
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
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
MEETINGS WITH PRESIDENT JONES
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
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
Monday, July 26, 2010
I'M AN UNCLE!
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
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
Monday, July 19, 2010
"ANOTHER WEEK"
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
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
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