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2/26/18
Hello!
Sean was baptized this week! How awesome is that??
It was such an awesome service and I was so happy we were able to participate in it. Sean was just beaming the whole day on Saturday and couldn't stop smiling. He has waited so long for this. Brother McCormack, his brother in law, baptized him on Saturday, and then on Sunday, I had the privilege of confirming him a member of the church and giving him a blessing to receive the Holy Ghost. It was a really cool experience to feel the Spirit as I was confirming him. Elder Bjerga and I were just super pumped for him throughout the whole weekend. Now we are going to work on teaching him the recent convert lessons and prep him to receive the priesthood. We also want to get him to the temple as soon as possible. What a great way way for Elder Bjerga to end his mission.
Elder Bjerga is going home soon! I can't believe it! He has been working like crazy though before he heads home. So, we have been hitting Commerce City pretty hard with trying to find people to teach - knocking on doors and we were actually invited in, like 3 times! Also, on an exchange we had, Elder Bjerga and his companion for the day, found a really cool woman named Valerie! Apparently when she answered the door she was smiling and was excited to see them! She is super nice and friendly! She was going to come to church this Sunday, but got sick and couldn't make it. She told us she would be there next week though. Until then, she seems super interested in learning and having us teach her!
As for office work this week, we worked a lot on the transfers happening soon. It is so interesting! There are a lot of solid missionaries in our mission, but there are also about 10 or so that are harder to place because they have motivation, or obedience, or getting along issues. Most of our time is spent trying to figure out where to place these missionaries. [Elder Bjerga says that there are two types of missionaries: babies and babysitters.] We pray about it a lot and of course President Savage never does anything without direction or confirmation from God.
Because Elder Bjerga is leaving this week, President Savage called a new companion for me. We are going to meet up with him tonight and bring him into the office. He is a great leader and really loved and respected by the missionaries, so he will do great. This will be one of the more interesting weeks of the mission helping President and Sister Savage for something big on Thursday. I'll tell you all about it next week!
I love you all so much!
Elder Bird
2/20/18
Hello everyone!
Super good week this week! The highlight of the week was definitely some really cool exchanges that we got to go on with a few of the zone leaders around the mission. Now that things have kind of calmed down for us after the Mission Leadership Counsel and zone conferences, we have a little bit more time. We have been trying to go on as many exchanges with the zone leaders as possible, to see how they all are doing and how their zones are applying what they might have learned.
We went on a total of 3 exchanges this week, with the Parker Elders, the Arvada Elders, and the Westminster Elders. I got to go to two of my old wards and areas, the Crowfoot YSA ward in Parker and the Arvada 2nd ward in Arvada. It is always fun to go back to old areas! It was fun to see a few people I knew in Parker and a lot of people I knew in Arvada! I actually wasn't sure if anyone from the old areas would recognize me, maybe they would think that I was just another missionary, but they did! It was cool because most of them said they missed the times that I would come over and share lessons with them. I think for most of them it was a positive experience, and I convinced a lot of them to meet with the elders again. I was grateful to be able to see that my missionary service was meaningful in the lives of a few people in each area.
Things are still going well in our current ward too! A couple of our investigators have either dropped us or dropped off the map, like Steven and Yolanda. It is a bummer when that kind of stuff happens. Gloria is also going through a hard time and wasn't able to meet with us this week. Her brother fell and fractured his hip, and he is in a pretty bad way, but we are still in good contact with her. And while some people have been dropping off, others are picking up! It is crazy how the work will go that way. A friend of ours named Malahni who has only been open to us having casual conversations over dinner has now just accepted the invite for a church tour!! We are super excited for that! Of course, Sean is still doing fantastic! Sean is having his baptismal interview tonight at the church building, and things are looking like they'll go really well. He is just so honest, committed, and converted. It's been so cool to be able to work with him.
Elder Bjerga is getting close to the end of his time out here, but isn't "trunky" at all, and we are working super hard. We're hoping to have a killer week this week and are already starting to look at our mission roster in preparation for transfers next week. We have such awesome missionaries out here! I love sitting back and seeing where everybody is serving.
Anyway, things are well and the work is great. I love life and love serving out here. I know that the Book of Mormon is God's word and am so grateful to be able to testify of its truth to people everyday. I am grateful to all of you for all of your love and support as I try to serve the Lord the best I can. :)
Love, Elder Bird
2/13/18
Hi everybody!
So many good things happened this week, it is hard to know where to start! We had lots happen in the work and in the office. Elder Bjerga and I helped run two zone conferences this week and also a convert fireside on Sunday night. Sometimes with this new assignment I feel more like an event planner than a missionary out here. But everything went great and we were able to have some super spiritual moments as we helped out this week.
As for the work, a lot is going on. We are meeting with so many cool people! We met with Yolanda and her kids a bunch this week, we are still teaching Gloria, and Tina & John came to church again...so much! I want to focus my email on two miracles that happened this week though, and how they testify that God really does know and has a plan for our lives.
The first happened with a brand new person that we met out street contacting on Tuesday, named Grant. Our truck actually had to go into the shop on Tuesday for a tire change, so while in there, Elder Bjerga got out and started to street contact people. We talked to a few nice people and our last conversation before heading out, was with a guy named Grant. Grant is a nice kid (like 22) that recently moved here from Arkansas. He's not particularly religious, but we had a great conversation about God and the world today. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but we invited him to the fireside at the end of the week, and then we said goodbye. Well, we go on with our day and get the truck back. A few hours later, we are heading to dinner and decide to stop by one family in the ward who wants their kids to take some lessons. The family lives pretty far from where we were earlier that day with Grant, but as we pull up to go and to chat with them, we see Grant coming out of their next door neighbor's house. We freaked out! He asked us if we were stalking him and we told him that we had just been there to stop by a member of the congregation! We all freaked out because it was so obviously orchestrated by a higher being, us all seeing each other again. The exact right time and place, twice in one day! It was a super cool moment! He gave us his number and hopefully we can teach him this week!
The other miracle happened yesterday actually. Previously, I have talked about Sean, who is preparing to be baptized. Yesterday, I called him to chat about the details for his baptism and when he picked up, I could tell something was off. His wife was yelling in the background at us that he was acting strange and that we needed to come by. Sean wouldn't say anything, so I asked if we could all pray over the phone. I said a simple prayer and afterwards, Sean opened up and let us know that he had just found out his best friend had died. He was in a head on collision about a month ago and Sean had just learned about it that day. It really sent him over the edge. He was already going through so much with the recent move, trying to find a job, having to provide for a wife and kids, etc. He felt like he was being attacked. We talked for a long time about life and God and how Satan works, especially as he was prepping for baptism. As we chatted, I could literally hear a change in Sean's voice. He kept on telling us that we called at exactly the right moment, and that he knew Heavenly Father was mindful of him. We were so grateful to be able to call at the right time and help him when he needed it. It is cool when you can see that you are a tool in Heavenly Father's hands! We gave him a Book of Mormon chapter to read and think about. Later that night, he called again and we chatted about the chapter we gave him to read. He was feeling much better and seems to be totally fine now!
My mission has shown me over and over again that God does indeed have a plan and knows exactly what each of us are going through. He uses us, not just missionaries, but his children, as angels to help each other make it back to him and abide in His love. I am so grateful that I get to be out here to help in His work and continually get built up by him. I love this work!!
Elder Bird
2/5/18
Hello!
WHAT. A. WEEK. Oh my goodness. So much happened this week! I feel like our area just kind of exploded with stuff going on. By the end of Sunday, we had two nonmembers at church and a guy set for a baptismal date for the end of February, out of nowhere! Definitely some serious miracles happened this week.
So let me begin with a short update on Gloria from last week. We weren't able to see her at all this week because of some stuff that came up for her, but we have another meeting scheduled with her for tomorrow, which should be super good!
On Monday after P-day, we had a lesson with a family that we have kind of been seeing every so often and teaching the kids. There is a 5 yr old and a 7 yr old and they love having us over. Their mom Tina is a less active member that wants to start coming back to church. She is dating a guy right now named John, who seems pretty open and receptive to us. It has been hard in the past to teach them all as a family because Tina and John seem to have stuff going on all the time, so we usually just teach the kids with them kind of half listening in the background. Well, this week we were actually able to teach Tina and John. We talked a lot about the Sacrament and the power it has in helping us remember the good experiences we have from baptism. Tina's baptism is a big deal for her in her life and so that really resonated. Well, they ended up both coming to church on Sunday, and John actually knew two people in the congregation! It was so cool! We had a powerful testimony meeting and we could see that both of them were touched from the meeting. John isn't really investigating yet, and Tina doesn't want to push it, but I think there could be some real potential with them moving forward!
The other nonmember that attended church on Sunday was Sean. Sean is married to the sister-in-law of a recent convert we are teaching, Michael McCormack. We have been helping Brother McCormack get ready to pass and bless the Sacrament, once he receives the Melchizedek priesthood. Well, Sean and his wife Sheena moved in and we were able to teach them for the first time on Friday. It turns out that Sean has actually taken all of the lessons already in Sacramento (where they moved from), been to church a bunch of times there, and really desires to be baptized and join the church. The only reason he didn't get baptized in California is because a week or two before he was going to be baptized out there, he accidentally slipped up and drank a coffee someone offered to him. Then he moved out here. Hopefully he has no setbacks, problems, or concerns of being baptized! When we asked Sean why he wanted to get baptized so bad, he told us that he wanted to be sealed in the temple with his wife. Mind blown! He is so ready. He is such a good guy and we are super happy to be helping him. We set a day for him to be baptized on February 24th. They all came to church on Sunday and Sheena, his wife bore her testimony in the ward during Sacrament meeting. Now the whole ward is rallying around them and are super excited for him as well. What a huge miracle!!!
We helped out with a leadership conference this week as well, prepping and giving trainings. I was super nervous at first, but things went great and the missionaries really loved it! We are going to be really busy this week too because of zone conferences coming up.
Obviously, things are really moving here and we have tons of stuff to keep us busy. I am just so happy to see families coming together and people experiencing the blessings of living the gospel. I love it so much!
Elder Bird
1/29/18
Hello!!
What a wonderful week here in the Denver Mission and the Skylake ward! Things are going well -- the work is moving along, and Elder Bjerga and I are laughing our way through the end of January! We love it so much here in the ward and working together!
So much happened this week - tracting, exchanges, and prepping for a Sisters Conference. We have a lot of duties, but mostly just always being available in case the President needs help with something. We also help a lot with transfers and help missionaries get to where they need to go. Another one of our duties is on Sunday night we draft up a group email/newsletter to send out to all the missionaries the next day, P-day.
On Tuesday we went out tracting and knocking on doors and found a woman named Gloria. She was asking all of the right questions. On Thursday we had kind of a scattered lesson with her, and then another lesson on Sunday. She has lots of great questions, like which church has correct interpretations of scripture, or if we need a prophet today, etc. In our lesson on Sunday, something super interesting happened. Whenever Elder Bjerga or I would be teaching or testifying and Gloria was starting to really understand and feel the Spirit, Gloria's phone would ring or she'd get a text or she'd have to help out her brother with something. She actually noticed that these things were distracting her from the lesson and pointed it out to us, and told us she knew that she was being distracted by the adversary and that our message was from God!! It was so awesome! We will be seeing her again on Thursday and are just so excited for her moving forward.
On Friday we helped set up a conference for the Sisters in the mission. We also helped serve during lunch. This week will be prepping for a leadership counsel for this weekend and zone conferences next week. We are super pumped to be seeing and training with the leaders in the mission, and trying to help the missionaries be super effective as they are out and about.
One of my goals this transfer is to minister better to the missionaries we are serving. I am kind of a more "getting business done" kind of leader. And so I am really trying my hardest to keep a huge smile on my face whenever I see missionaries and just take a second to chat about their areas and their life - get to know them better. I am also really trying to set good examples in how we work (especially in keeping my shoes polished). It is a wild ride!
I love this work so much, and things are really hastening here. Just now as we are writing our letter here in the library, a man named Cory, approached us and asked us for a Book of Mormon. I was able to share one that my father had written his testimony in and given to me to hand out. (My whole family wrote their testimonies in BOMs and gave them to me for Christmas to hand out.) People are just coming to us!! I know this is God's work and I am glad that we can be his instrument.
I love you all!
Elder Bird
Pics from the Sisters Conference
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