Monday the 15th-

It was a pretty calm day. We did the normal pday routine and then dinner was the best. We went over to the second counselor in the bishoprics house and he fed us steak and potatoes and vegetables. Best dinner since i have been out. Afterwards he lent us his P90X3 videos so that we can workout in the morning. He is a pretty cool guy. 

Tuesday 16th-

Just a finding day. We didn't really talk to alot of people. We then went to dinner with the Elders Quorum president. Then we had splits with the elders quorum. We visited a man who was less active. When we showed up he invited us in. He is an ex missionary. He served in Brazil. There is a statistic that 41% of returned missionaries go in active which is a scary big number and it shows there is a bunch out here in Bakersfield. 

Wednesday 17th- BEST DAY IN THE MISSION SO FAR

We had exchanges today with the zone leaders today. I went with Elder G. We did alot of knocking. We gave out two book of Mormons and we got two referrals to commit to a baptism date after we taught them the first lesson. Always invite on the first visit. It was a really cool day there were so many miracles.

Thursday 18th-

We switched back to our normal companionship today. Today was planning. So we planned alot and then went out for the rest of the night.

Friday 19th-

Zone conference was today. Elder Gregory A Schwitzer of the quorum of the 70 came and spoke. He was a really cool guy. You could feel the spirit really well while he was here. He gave some super good advice. After zone conference we went out and went to appointments

Saturday 20th- 

Today we had alot of appointments. We went and taught alot of lessons. We also had Jesus's (hey zoos) is how its pronounced. Anyways we had his baptism interview. He passed with flying colors. So he is ready to be baptized next Saturday. This week we started teaching his friend and his friend is interested. We taught Bryant (the friend) and he is super interested. He agreed to a baptism date. We then went to the night session of stake conference.

Sunday 21st-

We went to stake conference in the morning. Then after we had a baptism to go to at 3 for a neighboring ward. We got 3 investigators to come. It was a really cool experience. Then we went to dinner with a member of our ward. There was a bunch of family over at his house so it was crazy. There was like 15 people. It felt at home. We had salmon and sausage and chicken and some amazing guacamole. They invited us back over for dinner on Wednesday so that should be fun

Monday 22nd-

This morning we went to get our tire fixed. Then we went to clean our car. Then we went shopping and now we are emailing. Today we are going to an Ostrich farm as a district activity so that should be so much fun. I am excited. 

Lastly my words of wisdom-

I love this scripture

D&C 121:7-8

"my son peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment" "And if thou endure it well God shall exalt thee on high: thou shalt triumph over all thy foes"

"some things that are difficult are sometimes disguised as opportunities"

Its not how fast we go its the direction that we are going that matters

The first picture is me smelling the "cream soda" tree. At the mtc there is a tree that smells exactly like cream soda.

The second one was us just landing in Bakersfield.

 I hope you all have a great week

Love, 

ELDER LOERTSCHER

This Week

Monday September 8th-

It was p day we deep cleaned. I cleaned the bathrooms living room and study room. We took the car for a wash. Went to walmart. Went to golden corral. A guy in the ward works there so we went and ate at the buffet for free. Then we went home and relaxed. Then went to dinner with another member. It was his last day before he left for college. He is my favorite member besides Sam the ward mission leader. Today we saw some weird things. 

Tuesday September 9th-  

We met with an investigator and found out where he was at. He knew what we were teaching was true and he told us that but he cant get over the fact it is different from what he grew up in so we dropped him because he didn't want to change.

Wednesday September 10th

During lunch today me and Elder M broke out in a juggling war with the soccer ball. I won. We have a mini ball so it is tough. We then tried to visit people but no one was really home so we tracted and got alot of doors where people slammed them and said they weren't interested. Then you have some people who say they admire what we are doing and go and grab us a bottle of water and tell us they are not interested. I love people like that. If you aren't interested that's awesome but be nice about it. Then we went and ate dinner at Bishops house. It was super nice. There dinner table has a bunch of peoples names carved into them. I got to carve mine into it with a screw driver. In my mind i thought what my mom would say if i did this to her table. 

Thursday September 11th-

Just a day filled with planning for the next week. 

Friday September 12th- 

Normal morning routine and then off to district meeting. One of the sisters that came down with me to the mtc went home this week. It was super hard for her i guess but she went home so we had a new sister. She is pretty cool. Today we went to the doctor for me because my eye has been crazy red lately. Elder M said we needed to go to the doctor so we went. We got there late because we didnt have the right address. I have really bad allergies so i got some pills and eye drops. 

I am running low on time so i am going to leave with my usual words of wisdom 

"You are who you hang around"

THIS NEXT ONE IS MY FAVORITE AND HAS BEEN ON MY MIND ALL WEEK

"prayer is your personal key to heaven and the lock is on your side of the veil". So true the "ball is on our side of the court" so to say. Pray Pray Pray i cant stress the importance. Also our prayers should not be a wish list or series of requests. 

Then HYMN #128 Pay attention to the words.

I will not doubt, I will not fear

Gods love and strength are always near

His promised gift helps me to find

An inner peace of strength and mind

I give the father willingly

My trust, my prayers, humility

His spirit guides: his love assures

That fear departs when faith endures

Have faith is all i can say the words are so powerful and speak for themselves

Everyone here things i look like joseph smith from the restoration video when he was like 16 so everyone calls me either. ELDER L, ELDER LOBSTER, or Young Joseph.

I had a good week i hope you all did as well

Love,

ELDER LOERTSCHER

WOW! what a crazy amazing week

Wow what a crazy amazing week. I forgot my journal at home so i cant give a day by day I see way to many people each day I couldnt remember everything. There are some cool things i would like to share with you guys this week. 

At night here in Bakersfield they have a police chopper out from the hours of 8:00 till like 4:00 in the morning. They fly around and shine there light everywhere to just keep a eye on the city. It is crazy. Also you are never not hearing police sirens go off. Its kinda annoying but you get used to it really fast. 

Also this week i almost died. TWICE. My companion Elder M dozed off a little while driving let me take you through these two experiences. 

The first one- WE are going about 30 MPH and Elder M zones out he starts driving in the other lane. Shortly ahead we needed to turn left. This car was coming straight for us. I thought Elder M was playing chicken with the other car. He cut them off and turned all without knowing. Me on the other hand watched the car sped right for my side of the car. Barely missing us. thought i was going to die. My life flashed before my eyes. 

Second- Wow elder M dozed off again. What a surprise. 

The GPS started being weird and he looked at it while straight ahead was an intersection that was a 4 way stop. We DIDNT STOP. The inner DALE EARNHARDT came out as he would say. He is from north carolina they love there nascar. So we blew through the 4 way stop almost hitting people and getting hit. Car horns were coming out like nothing it was bad. So yeah the Lord protects his missionaries and i can attest to that by real life experiences. 

There was this quote that i read this week that i really like

"I think ive been worrying to much about what everybody else thinks and not enough about what God thinks" How true is this. We get caught up in how other people view us, or who we are friends with. WHO CARES? WHO REALLY CARES? We should be more worried about how we are conducting ourselves and aligning ourselves with our Heavenly Fathers will for us. 

Here are some more

"Demand improvement of yourself. He will be there to help you" 

"The gospel of Jesus Christ isnt our weight its our wings"

And my favorite

"He doesnt expect PERFECTION he expects progression". I like that one a lot because how true is it. We cant obtain perfection in this life. But we can progress thats for sure. I really like that one. 

Okay for this it is going to be hard for me to because i cant read it to you. Read it then picture it in your eyes. i just this week came across my mtc journal. Our teacher told us this and i wanted to share it with you. 

Picture this. You are walking down the road and out of no where a meteor comes and kills you. You dont know where you are at. Its all white around you and you are just walking. While walking you see someone. You dont know who it is. You start walking closer you see that it is our savior Jesus Christ. How do you feel? What are you going to say to him? This goes to show that things can change very quickly. Conduct your life as if you are going to see the savior and our Heavenly Father tomorrow. Stand "SPOTLESS" before them. 

Go read this talk below it is short should only take a couple minutes to read. When reading it really focus on times that you have gotten mad at someone for something super simple things. I had a very humble experience with this. I say things that i shouldn't over simple stuff like this. Lets watch how we speak to people and what we get mad over. After reading over this i have a lot of apologizing to do. 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2011/01/the-grapefruit-syndrome?lang=eng

I love you all thank you for your support. I would love to hear from you. If you want to write a letter ask my mom for the address. 

LOVE,

ELDER LOERTSCHER

Week Two

August 25th 

It was pday and the ward activity was mud volleyball. I have some pictures its was such a fun activity. It was super depressing that we couldn't play though. It turned into a mud fight it was funny. our ward mission leader is THE FUNNIEST GUY i have ever met. He never ceases to make me laugh a lot. 

August 26th 

It was a pretty normal day. We went out to eat at in n out for dinner then we went on splits with out ward mission leader and the elders quorum president. Splits were funny. Our ward mission leader kept making the funniest jokes. Ask me sometime what it means to be "BROWED". Its the funniest thing ever. 

August 27th

We did some service today and we were dealing with dirt. We were raking up leaves and dust was flying up in the air. In the dirt there is something called valley fever. its a disease that you can get by inhaling the dirt. So that was fun because we did not have any masks so we may or may not have valley fever??? After cleaning we went and ate lunch with our ward mission leader. We had some seafood salsa stuff and some other food. It was pretty good. I cant complain. 

August 28th 

Today was planning day and planning is from 12-4. After we went tracting and went to visit some members. We had visited a member of the ward and he told us was going to institute and there was an activity. We decided to go to it. The activity was capture the flag. Um young adults can get really violent when playing that game. Some kid cut his finger open. We played inside the institute building it was so much fun. 

August 29th 

We had district meeting. We have to drive an hour each Friday to go to it. it is kind of annoying. After we went out to eat. We visited some less activities out there and then we came back to our house for dinner. Elder M said that he was going to take a nap. I decided to take one also. We ended up over sleeping by thirty minutes and was a little late to an activity. Tonight we went and played ultimate frisbee in the cultural hall of the stake center. It was super fun. We have a lot of activities in our ward. 

I'm going to skip the last two days because I am running low on time. 

A couple things I wanted to touch on.

Our bishop grows THE COTTON CANDY GRAPES. If you have ever gone into sprouts and seen them they come from California. He pattented the idea and so he is the only one who can grow them. He makes $200,000 an acre. 

Next realize that our trials and struggles are the lord trying to shape us into who he wants us to become

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=1839005837001

watch that short video it is three minutes and I love it so much. That is one thing I have had to realize. I need to let the lord guide me and make me who he wants me to become

"Thoughts"

If you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything 

I love you all and hope you are doing well 

Love, Elder Loertscher

Next go to youtube and watch " Crazy Hot Matrix" a member of the ward said his dad sent this to him. He was explaining it and it sounds really funny. Watch it and let me know.