August 22, 2016

This has been a really great week! We had our Mission tour and Elder and Sister Anderson of the 70 and Elder and Sister Nattress of the 70 came and spoke to us and taught us. It was so awesome to see and hear from them.

We drove up to Pueblo Thursday night and drove back to the Valley Friday after Mission tour was over. From this trip I learned a lot about myself, I like road trips, I like to drive during road trips. We drove up with the Elders serving in La Jara, Elders Soller and Tillman. We are a small 4 man district but it is so much fun!

One of the things from Mission tour really stuck out to me, Elder Nattress said it. "Any man can do the work of ten men, However it takes a great man to get ten men to work." In life we can work really hard and that is a really good thing we must work hard and learn as much as we can, but just as we must work hard there are many times in life when we need to help others work hard and we can if we choose to not do that. However when we help others work as hard as we work then things that seemed impossible become possible.

So pretty much everyone in Sanford has at least one apple tree, and apples cost more than I want to spend money on so for our lunch day we went and picked 2 huge bags of apples and then we realized that we picked a lot of apples. So we were trying to figure out what to do with them all and we came up with the idea of making apple sauce. so after all our lessons Saturday night we started the process of making apple sauce and we did not fully understand how much we would get we had 4 pots boiling constantly for about an hour and a half and we were mashing the apples and the end result was about 2-3 gallons of apple sauce! So if anyone has recipes that us applesauce send them my why, we could us them.

Also it has to be said. Congratulations Taylor and Anthony! I am so excited for you!

I love you all and I hope and pray you look and take the time to recognize that our Father in Heaven loves you as well!

Elder Stewart

 

 

 

August 15th, 2016

It has been a great week! Last Monday we went hiking to some waterfalls again so that we could show Elder Williams and the other new missionaries in the Zone. It was a tone of fun! We had a lesson with the Konig family and the two young daughters wanted to show us their puppies after the lesson! I love puppies just in case any of you were wondering about that they are the best.

We have been helping on and off build a log work shop for another member of the Wards here in Sanford, it has been great to work with my hands again! And it is a really good sized shop. The logs are super big and it takes like 4 of us to lift some of them!

We also helped a new friend of ours hang a super super old tapestry in his house! It is from the 15th century I think. We have to drive through like 3 fields of cows to get to his house! You can see for miles!

Yesterday Elder Williams and I spoke in Sacrament meeting, we taught about the How and Why missionary work is so important. I quoted from the Hymn "Because I have been Given Much."  We have been given a lot by our Father in Heaven and He asks us to do some things to show that we are grateful to him for that. He wants us to do well to all and to stand as Disciples of Christ, at all times in all things and in all places. So to sum it all up always. The place to start if you don't know where to start is in the Home; with your family and closest friends. Talk about the good things that you have seen in your life, and what you learned from the bad.

Happy Birthday Taylor! Love you and hope that things go well for you! Thank you for always being there for me when I needed to talk to someone!

I hope you all have a great week and know that I love you all!

Elder Stewart

August 8th 2016

This has been a really exciting week! I took a lot of pictures and then I forgot my backpack at the house... so I will get them to you this week I hope.

I went to Del Norte and was on Exchanges with the Elders there all day Wednesday and it was so cool to see so many old faces and talk with so many wonderful people again! We were able to show them about 8 families that they had not met before and were able to start teaching them again! It was really fun to work in my old area again! It was my home for 6months and it was my home again for a day!

This week it has been raining a lot not like the monsoons but still pretty hard and the rain doesn't go away, it just sits in huge puddles all the time because of the thick clay layer under the top soil, but every night this week it has rained and stormed at least a bit. So there is now a lake in front of our house! It is like 8inchs to a foot deep and huge! I am very grateful to have a truck to drive here in Sanford!

So as we were driving to the Library today we say a truck in a ditch so we pulled over and got out and no one was there but the truck had taken out a fence so we called a guy in town and turns out there were stolen plates on the Truck! It has been a weird day!

This Sunday in one of our Sacrament meetings our Ward mission leader got up to bear his testimony and talked a lot about why it is so important to remember. To remember where we came from and to remember our Father in Heaven. There is a lot of things that will get in our way and try and get us to forget but when we remember we will be alright. I have come to that this is true. It is easy to forget. But it takes effort to remember.

Congratulations Austin and Chelsie! I wish and pray for you both!

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Elder Stewart

August 1st 2016

This has been a really awesome week! It started off with last Preparation day we went on a district trip to Creede part of my first area and we went mountain biking in bachelor loop! It was so much fun! One elder did crash and got a bit cut up but we bandaged him up and cleaned everything up and then drove home in time for a lesson.

We are teaching these two little girls that a member is adopting and they are so funny one LOVES glitter and sparkles, the other really likes riding horses. It is such fun lessons. We talked about the Plan of salvation last week and it was really awesome!

We went up to Pueblo Thursday for a Zone conference they were updating the TIWI device in all of the mission cars so we were there for a really long time. The TIWI devices are the driving monitors for the mission cars.

At the Zone conference we talked about how we measure if we are doing well or not. It was really good to hear and talk about what we view as a good work.

Saturday night we helped a family install a new well in there house there old one collapsed and so we drove pipe down and we were pumping sand and dirty water out of the well of a couple hours trying to get it going, and we finally did! It was a really neat experience installing a well. It was fun!

I realized I have not really said very much about my new companion, His name is Elder Williams he is from Lehi Utah, He is a really awesome missionary, we have been working on finding and teaching together, this will be his 3rd week in the mission! We have been doing a lot of serve and it has been really awesome working and helping the people we have been meeting!

I am trying to take more pictures every week but I forget most of the time, I will do better this upcoming week! Love you all and I hope you will remember we are all children of God and He loves us!

Elder Stewart

July 27th 2016

This has been the strangest week of my mission it has been super fun, and just so different from everything I have done.

It started off with driving up to springs on Tuesday and picking up a brand new missionary. I was able to say good bye to Elder Bennett my Trainer and take a "3 generation" picture. We drove home and got to our house at about 8:30 at night. Made dinner and then went to bed. We drove a lot that day it was a long day.

Wednesday was a normal day of missionary work we contacted people and taught lessons. It was really a good day.

Then Thursday happened. It was the first day of what is known as "Mormon Christmas" it is one of the few really really big thing that happens in Valley and so we had a really awesome week we contacted like 300 people easy and just walked around and gave out Book of Mormons to people visiting.

We were in 3 Parades! We drove a truck full of missionaries singing Hymns in 2 of them and walked in a 3rd. I will try and find pictures of it to send next week.

We went to a rodeo and a derby, we were asked to help with the ticket sells and then we were able to watch it! So much fun!

Then Saturday Morning our entire zone ran in the Manassa days 5K Run I don't think I had a very good time but it was still really fun there is like no air up here at all! I think I want to get more into running though after the mission it was super fun!

On Sunday we had a really awesome opportunity to teach the Primary in Sanford 2nd ward about Captain Moroni. We talked about what he did to help the people in there wars against their enemy’s. He fortified the cities and he taught the people to trust in God and obey his commands. In our lives we might not have to fight in battles however we still must always be fighting a different kind of battle. We have to fight against the tricks of the Devil. He wants us to be miserable and turn away from God. If we stand tall and turn to God we will be alright. I know that He cares about us and wants the very best for us.

I love you all and pray for your safety

Elder Stewart

July 18th 2016

I am going to be Training a new missionary for the next 12 weeks! I got the call from President Rehm, my mission president, and I am going to be driving up to Colorado Springs to get my new companion. I am really excited to find out who he is and work with him and learn from him as we work together the next 3 months.

This upcoming week we have what the people in the Valley very fervently call "Mormon Christmas" it is the Pioneer celebration the entire valley comes and visitors from everywhere come and take part in the Parade, and other festival type stuff! Our mission is hosting a Family history both! I have come to find I really love Family history. It is so much fun and you can learn so much about where you came from! Love it!

This week we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders and while I was in Alamosa I somehow committed to do an interpretive dance of a scripture next time I see the family. I am really not sure how... but that is a thing that happened this week and I thought I would share. I will send a video if it is a good dance. So there will probably not be a video.

We have been working like crazy this past week and we are so excited for the upcoming weeks we have a lot of investigators that have been coming to church and so many have been prepared by our heavenly father to hear our message about the Gospel of the Savior. I have come to see just how much the Lord is in this work as well. This one woman we work with recently moved and she has a lot more free time to talk with us and she has read through 2 Nephi! In only like 2 weeks. She has really loved the message of the Gospel and came to church yesterday!

At the end of this Transfer I have been reflecting on the missionary work in the Sanford area and it has really taken off the past 6 weeks. I know that the reason for that is because the members have been helping us out so much. I am going to giving a talk in about 3 weeks about missionary work and I wanted some for your stories about working with missionaries. What have you seen work and what have sort of things do you like to see Elders and sisters doing? Look forward to reading your stories!

Love you all and Hope that you are having a wonderful summer!

Elder Stewart