Oct 13-19

October 13th-

We emailed and cleaned our car and the apartment and all the normal P-DAY stuff. The most exciting part of the day though is sports. Our zone is a bunch of Spanish speaking Elders and Sisters and a couple English speaking. Anyways we play soccer a lot. We played from 2:00-5:00. It is so much fun. We have pug goals and we set them up and have a tournament each Monday. Its a blast. Then we had FHE at Bishops Schafers house. 

October 14th-

We had exchanges with the zone leaders. I went to Elder M area this time. They cover La Cresta which is a Spanish ward. So all day I heard nothing but Spanish. I am grateful I took three years of Spanish so I could understand a little bit. He translated what I didn't know and I bore my testimony and testified in English and he translated it into Spanish. It was an amazing day. 

October 15th-

We exchanged back and then me and Elder M went out for the day. This was our best day so far. An appointment fell through so we did some street contacting and we ran into this guy who was having a bad day and we offered him a pass along card which then turned into us teaching a brief restoration lesson and he was super interested. The only bad thing about that is since we are YSA we had to send him off as a referral. Then we prepared a member for a lesson to teach to our Investigator. So we prepared her and then went to the lesson with out investigator which went really well. She is progressing really well towards her baptism date on the 8th of November. For dinner we went to Bro Hallings house who is in the Bishopric. Guess what we ate? We had donut burgers. I will include a picture. It was the greatest thing ever. The maple on the donut mixed with the hamburger was superb. 

October 16th-

We had weekly planning and Institute. 

October 17th-

We had district meeting and then we had a rough finding day. We had an appointment fall through so we tracked quite a bit and tried to see members. We decided to go to this one members home. She had 11 other brothers and sisters. It was a crazy house but it seemed like alot of fun. We taught then this fun little game that has symbolism behind it. I would show you but that might be hard through a computer.

October 18th-

We had a lesson with our investigator. We were trying to help show her she has already received her answer. The lesson went really well. 

October 19th-

We had church and then we went and saw some less-actives. Those went really well. We talked to this football player who goes to the local college and he has 17 siblings. There are 18 of them . When he told us this me and my companion looked at each other so funny. That is alot of kids. 

October 20th-

Today we got our flu shots and washed the car and did our laundry so far. After this we are going to play sports :)

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Love you all. Have a good week.

Love,

ELDER LOERTSCHER

October 6-12

I am going to briefly talk about this week because I don't have much time. 

Monday 6th-

We got to watch Meet the Mormons and it was amazing I loved it. If you didn't get a chance to see it I would highly encourage it. 

Tuesday 7th-

We had two appointments fall through which was upsetting but we ended up tracking and finding a new investigator. Its funny how the Lord works. 

Wednesday 8th-

We had a trade off lesson with another set of Elders. Their investigator was wanting to go to the singles ward so we picked her up and are starting to teach her.

Thursday 9th-

We had weekly planning and institute

Friday 10th-

We had district meeting and an appointment that day and the rest of the day we spent tracking. 

Saturday 11th- 

We went invited one of the priests from a neighboring ward who wanted to go out with us to a couple of lessons. We went to one house looking for this families son and come to find out he is actually on a mission.  He comes home December 31st. We talked with his family for a little bit.

Sunday 12th- 

We had fast and testimony meeting. Our new investigator came and she said she really liked it. 

This week was a very difficult week and there were some quotes that I would like to share with you. 

"Allow my individual will to be swallowed up in the will of the father. Strong faith in the savior is submissively accepting his will and timing in our lives even if the outcome it not what we hoped for or wanted. During difficult experiences character is built, hearts are purified, and souls are enlarged as individuals gain experiences and spiritual tutoring" - David A Bednar

"no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care" 

"oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"

"families that pray together stay together"

The best thing we can do is stand up for what we believe in even if the world thinks other wise. Don't let the people around you change who you are and what you want. Trust that Heavenly Father will watch over you. Put your full effort into him and his gospel and he will bless you. The blessings might not come when you think but remember that Heavenly Father blesses us in his time frame.

I hope you all have a great week.

Love, 

ELDER LOERTSCHER

Week Sept 29- Oct 5th

I am going to run through the week quick because I don't have a lot of time to email today because we get to go see MEET THE MORMONS before it comes out. They are showing it at a local church building for missionaries. Our mission president has the hook up with all that kind of stuff. We have a bunch of apostles that visit our mission all the time

Monday 29th-

Today was good. Transfers were tomorrow. I did not get transferred so I am staying in YSA till at least November 12th. We did alot of stuff to clean the apartment and other things. For dinner we went to a members house in a neighboring ward. This family MAKES missionaries try this hot sauce they have. It is called Da Bomb. This is one of the hottest things in the world. It measures 1.5 million scoville unites. A ghost pepper is like 300,000. The bigger the number the hotter it is. The tip is like a nail polish thing. He put like two strokes on a potato wedge. I had one and elder M had one. As soon as it hits your throat you freak out. Elder M almost threw up a couple times. I started involuntarily crying and I started sweating really bad. I had to have 6 Popsicles  it was crazy. He said there is a spice that is 72 million and it is the hottest there is. He said the very tip of a tooth pic would make you go crazy. I will include a picture of the bottle of DA bomb though. It was crazy

Tuesday 30th-

We had our third lesson with a progressing investigator. He is golden he started saying some of his beliefs and he talked about a friend who has passed away and started crying. He really appreciates the Plan of salvation. He is progressing towards his baptism date of November 8th. We later on in the night went on splits with the Elders Quorum

Wednesday 1st-

Today we spent a lot of time going to members and trying to get referrals. 

Thursday 2nd-

Planning took up a lot of time today. We had to figure out a new game plan for our area because we don't have a really big teaching pool. So we spent  a lot of time brainstorming on how to make it a super effective area. Then we had institute which is always fun. There are so many non members that go to it it is crazy. It is right next to a local college and it counts as credit for college so there are a lot of local students that go. It is a good place to talk to some people and try to find new investigators.

Friday 3rd-

We had zone training meeting. That went really well. The day was going good until I had a sneeze attack. I sneezed like 30 times no joke. Then my throat started hurting and I got a fever it was really weird but missionaries don't stop working when their sick. So we kept going through out or day and then Elder M got tired of me sneezing and snuffling so we went back to the apartment so I could get medicine and take a nap. We woke up and then went to visit some people at the end of the night.

Saturday and Sunday 4th and 5th

These days were spent watching general conference which was awesome. I love the words we hear from the apostles and prophet. David A Bednar was really good and funny. 

My top 3 favorite talks were by

Lynn G. Robbins

Richard G. Scott

M. Russell Ballard

There are some quote that I wanted to share with you.

This first one is talking about Joseph Smith

"Dear Brother though you are bound in jail

 yet never fear the powers of hell

 your God he will deliver you

 therefore fear not what men can do

 Let all the hosts of hell engage

 with all their malice spite and rage

 the mormonites God will defend

 who are so called by wicked men"

"blame keeps wounds open: forgiveness heals them"

I will leave you with quotes from a talk given at general conference.

"which way do you face"

"Lord is it I"

I loved Genreal Conference. I hope you all loved it as much as I did. If you didn't have a chance to watch all the sessions i would advise you to do so. I love you all and hope you have a good week.

Love,

Elder Loertscher

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Monday 22nd

We went to the ostrich farm which was a world of fun. I will include some pictures later on in the email. While we were taking a pictures an ostrich bit my ear. It cut some skin that was fun. It feels like a chip clamp. You can stick your hand out and it will bite it. Ostriches have a brain the size of our finger nail. Its memory is 5 seconds long. They are really smart. After that later that night we have FHE and the activity was tic tac toe life size. That was fun. 

Tuesday 23rd 

We tracked quite a bit today. We had one of our last lessons with Jesus before his baptism. He told us he is engaged. That was exciting. He was excited for his baptism on Saturday. Later in the day we were tracking and we ran into this lady who's sister is getting baptized. She said she was investigating but she left because people were super judgmental. Which seems like a major problem in today's society. 

Wednesday 24th

We tracked a crazy amount today. We tracked from 12:30 to 3:30. While we did that we found one person who was interested. Then we went an visited a member in our ward. It seems like a common theme out here in Bakersfield to have part member families. Alot of the youths parents aren't members. Then we went to dinner with Vance. His family is so cool. Then we went and visited a few less actives. 

Thursday 25th

Today we had weekly planning. During planning we had a member call us and tell us we needed to come share a message with her because she was just laid off. So we went over and shared a message and then went to see Jesus because he lived over by her. He was doing well. Still going strong on the word of wisdom which we were really proud of him. Then we had institute. Institute seems like so much fun. While we were there we had a lady who was interested in the plan of salvation so we had a mini lesson. That was cool. 

Friday 26th 

We had District Meeting today. It was really good we talked about our trials and things. Some great scriptures D&C 121:7 and Alma 36:3. Then we got stuff figured out for our baptism with Jesus. We went to Sam's house to talk with him about the program and to have everything ready. Then we went and visited a couple less actives and tracked. Little success again. 

Saturday 27th

Jesus's baptism day :) We woke up and got the font ready and got the chairs set up. I was super excited for this experience. A baptism in your first transfer isn't common Elder M said. The experience was pretty cool. Jesus is a great guy. The rest of the day we looked for more investigators to teach so we went tracking. Then we had apartment inspection. We passed with flying colors :) 

Sunday  28th

We got up early this morning for ward coordination. Which SAM didn't show up to. Then we had ward council. Our bishopric is so awesome. Then we had church. Elder M and Elder S both gave talks. During sacrament we had confirmations. Yesterday there was another baptism held in our ward with the other YSA elders. So we had two confirmations. I had the wonderful opportunity to do Jesus's. Then we went over to Vance's house for dinner. His brother said he was out looking for a job in Texas. I asked him where he said McKinney and Frisco. I told him i lived in Prosper. We talked for like 30 minutes about Texas. There family is super cool.

This week went really well. I will include some pictures. 

I love you all. 

Love Elder Loertscher