Week 54

August 28, 2017

Hello everyone! This week was great! The eclipse on Monday was so

sick! We were in North Charleston which was supposed to be like the

best place in America to see it. Well just minutes before a large

storm rolled in so it was awesome! I never even put on my glasses

cause the sun wasn't visible for like 30 minutes straight. Totality

was great you couldn't see the sun at all...or really much of anything

I guess you could say the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and

the moon became as blood (Revelation 6:12) so yep that was fun. Today

we've been in downtown Charleston walking the streets. We went to the

spot of the shooting last Thursday it was cool:) anyway this week was

good but not much to talk about so let's get to it

As far as the work goes we didn't have much success finding this week

but we now have 3 people on date for baptism so that's cool:) were

looking forward to some good things soon. We've done to service some

we got here which is always nice. We have lots this week too:) sorry

that's kinda boring. The ward had a family home evening at the church

for old people every week. Last week I taught which was fun then I

merked some senior citizens at their own game...Elder Winn bingo

champion💯💯

We went to Buffalo for an Elders birthday and I got my wings paid for

cause I made a full court on P-Day lol it was dope. This email was

super boring so sorry for that but gotta write about something right??

 Anyway luv

yall<3 read your scriptures. Bye

2 Corinthians 9:7

D&C 6:33

Moroni  7:5-10

Pic 1-2: Saw this things twice in one day

Pic 3: lol

Pic 4: After Zone conference

Pic 5-8: Downtown Charleston and the old slave market

Pic 9-10: Catholic Cathedral

Pic 11: idk

Pic 12: Louis Vuitton

Week 43

June 12, 2017

Hey hey hey, it's Elder Winn:) I'm doing great here in good old

Spartanburg 2nd:) this week wasn't too exciting, not much happened

that is worth sharing. Although I did take my first nap in like 2

months so that's was awesome:) and I hit 300 days on the mission so

that's cool too! Anyway let's get on with the email:)

Probs the biggest news from this week is that I got bike #4:) I guess

they finally decided to give me a nice one! It's a pretty solid bike

so we did some biking this week. It's been pretty cool for this time

of year so we're kind of taking advantage of that. But ya glad I got a

good bike now:) just to inform mom that I'm being safe, we like to

ride down the turn lane of 290 because that's the safest place we can

ride without sidewalks and just having weeds and stuff on the side of

the road. So ya that was super exciting let's move on.

We went on exchanges with the ZL's this week. I stayed here with my

man Elder Sheen. He's like a walking encyclopedia, except he knows the

stuff the encyclopedia won't tell you too. He was a librarian before

coming out and he's way smart. Asking him questions is like googling

something except I get faster answers and I don't have to search for

the answer. He's awesome I love him. We had a pretty boring day

though, not much happened.

As far as missionary work goes, we're kind of in the down slope of the

roller coaster. Some good and some bad. We pushed Manny's baptism back

even further because we want to make sure he really understands what

he's doing, and he's fully committed. On the bright side his brother

Mateo came to church!! He was super interested in the priesthood and

we're going over there to teach them again tomorrow:) please keep

Manny and his family in your prayers!

I know this was super short but it's all I got. For those of you who

say my emails are too long you're welcome. The mission is great

though. Crazy to think that one year ago right now I was having my

Lake Powell hangover haha good times. Even better time out here tho

right? Ya life is great. I hope y'all are great! I got a nice car

update for y'all this week haha Hopefully you like the pics:) luvs

2 Nephi 28:30                 Pic 1: Just a mirror pic

D&C 50:24                       Pic 2, ect.  Jiust this weeks vehicle update because I haven’t taken many lately

John 5:39

Week 40

May 22, 2017

Hey y'all! I hope everyone is doing great!! Another wonderful week

down here in the Burg. Spartanburg is an awesome place I love it here.

After my email last week it has been brought to my attention that my

emails of stories and updates on cars I see here are actually the

interest of my few readers. So ya I'm just gonna be me and tell y'all

what happened in my week haha. On Wednesday we got our car back which

is great. All y'all missionaries out there who just walk everywhere I

look up to you. Keep it up haha

This week we had Stake Conference so Elder Maynes from the presidency

of the seventy came for it. Saturday night we had the adult session

and he spoke to us and pretty much just dropped some deep doc on us

haha it was sick. I tired to catch him after to ask him some deep

questions haha but our mission president started to talk to me so I

just asked him haha he's a good guy. Sad that he's going home next

transfer. Anyway on sunday we had our investigator Manny there! His

first experience with one of our meetings was two general authorities

speaking so that worked out well haha manny's awesome tho! We saw him

3 times this week!

On Friday we went to the park with manny and played soccer for a bit

then sat down and taught him the Restoration again. He told us how

we're filling in a lot of holes for him so it's way cool to see. On

Saturday he texted us and invited us to the Verizon fair with his

family. We we went into Greenville and to a little fair that Verizon

had for their employees cause his mom works there. We only stayed for

like an hour but got to meet his family and get some free cotton

candy:) so good to see him showing Initiative to meet with us. Keep

him in your prayers y'all!

On Tuesday we had planned to go with our investigator Tim to meet the

Sisters for pizza, then go have a church tour, then we give the sister

blessings for transfers. Well Tim's gf got way sick so he just ended

up not going but giving us money for it...so we ended up at the pizza

place without Tim lol then just gave blessings which was a cool

experience. Kinda weird night but we at least got to see Tim for a

while. We went over on to Tims on Thursday night and told him we were

going to teach him the Restoration and he had to save his questions

and comments to the end cause usually he asks questions that just get

us into super deep stuff that we really don't need to discuss. But we

were able to teach him the Restoration again and it went so well. At

the end I was able to bare my testimony about how there's is no way I

would still be here if I didn't know 100% this was true. Tears were

shed my friends. I love that guy wow. He also called us at midnight

Saturday night for advice with his friends haha he's an awesome guy.

I'll send a pic of him so you can imagine him:)

Well now that I've shared some missionary work I'll share our fun

story for the week:) well having a Hawaiian companion he likes to keep

all the doors open all the time (so do I:) so ya we ended up getting a

mouse in our house. He ate our stuff for a couple days and even

nibbled the crap out of one of my new shirts:( now it's just hipster

cause it's all tattered haha. But anyway we had asked the maintenance

guys and they said they would send the exterminator Tuesday (tomorrow)

but on Friday morning while we were making breakfast we saw it run

under the fridge...so we took up our battle stations. I got my

lacrosse stick, while Elder Dawbarn got the fly swatter and a tupper

ware. We began our standoff by creating a perimeter using towels and

old ties to block off cracks. I then proceeded to dead lift the fridge

so we could attack. After nearly 45 minutes of strategic attempts to

lure him to our grasp, he was able to escape to a narrow hold in the

dishwasher. After taking apart the bottom of the washer, we decided

missionary work is more important. So we set up a barricade of Book of

Mormon's and weights, and decided to head out.  We saw maintenance

dude and told him about our standoff. He ended up just giving us

mouse traps (idk why they didn't do that in the first place) and

within a matter of hours the enemy was eliminated:) what a morning

that was.

Well that was about our week. This week I realized I haven't really

shared my testimony with y'all in a long time. So if y'all don't mind

I would like to do that:)

When I came out on my mission I had what you might call an untested

testimony. I came out because I believed, not because I knew. But I

can tell y'all now that I truly know. I know this is the true church

without question. It has changed my life completely. My thoughts, my

interests, my desires, my nature, all have changed for the better. No

matter how much persecution we face, how many anti dummies tell us

we're wrong, how many trials I face, I never fail to be able to answer

my questions. Like I said earlier, there's no way I would still be out

here if I didn't know this was true. I love being a missionary and I

love y'all:) have a great week everyone!! Keep reading and praying!

Luvs

Acts 7:56

D&C 76:20

John 5:19

Pic 1: Tacos on exchanges last week

Pic 2-3: Last District pic

Pic 4: Pizza with the STL's lol

Pic 5: I crashed:(

Pic 6: G bike

Pic 7: Scoot-or-die

Pic 8-9: Cool waterfall we found biking forms service

Pic 10-11: The Warzone/BOM barricade

Pic 12: Tim (left) and his friend Steve:) funny dudes

Hello friends. Here in Marion we've had another pretty slow week but
we're trying. Nothing we can do about it except keep trying. Every
lesson we had planned this week cancelled so that was kinda sad but
it's ok. Sorry for the later than normal email we spent our P-day
doing service cause a guy in the Branch told us he needed
our help and it had to be done today. He took us to a ladies house to
mow her lawn and she said she had someone coming to mow it and didn't
want us to but he insisted and said he was going to call our mission
president because we wouldnt help him...so ya not much of a P day for
us. TNDO tho right?? Also they gave us a couch for it. Well on the
bright side our A/C got fixed this week. It hasn't really worked for
like a month idk but they finally fixed it. Sadly my comp is from
Arizona and he likes the apartment to be like 80+ all the time it
seems like so we kind of have a low key battle of the thermostat haha
I just turn it down when I start sweating and can't focus super well.
But ya pretty slow week. Testimony meeting here is always interesting.
We had an old guy get up and talk about teaching his kids to be his
"voice activated dishwasher" for like 15 minutes...ya idk. Got a great
quote for y'all from our property manager tho: "The cigarette smokes,
not me. I just puff." So remember kids. You don't smoke, the cigarette
smokes. Ok now onto what we did lol

Probably the most exciting thing to happen to Marion in years is in
the works. We met with our Stake President and discussed a plan called
"The Marion Branch Blits". I am so pumped for this. Since we have a 7%
activity rate and the most widespread area in North America, the Stake
presidency, high council, bishops/branch presidents, and all of the
missionaries in the Florence Stake/Zone are going to come to Marion
one night. We're all going to go on splits and try to contact as many
of the less active families as we can in around 2 hours. We're hoping
to be able to reach out to those in need and figure out the
situations/wants and needs of the less active members all over our
area and honestly do in one night what would take us months. I'm so
pumped for this wow it's gonna be so sick:)

One other  cool thing from this week is that we actually stayed under
on our miles limit for the car. It's been over a year at least since
missionaries stayed under on miles here in Marion so I decided to see
just how hard it would be to stay under. Found out it's pretty hard
but we did it. As my good friend Tony Jay Benard would say we got  out
the iron horses and made our way around town. I lost track towards the
end of the month though and since we didn't really drive for like 3
days we had over 100 extra miles and forgot we got 40 miles at the
start of the month for an oil change in Florence and 28 day month so
we had a bunch extra. We took the opportunity and spent the whole day
in Dillon which is almost to the NC border. We ate a pizza from papa
johns while parked in the car and were up there for like almost 9
hours.

On the way home from Dillon we got a call to go give a blessing to a
less active who I haven't seen at church since I've been here. Her BF
who has tattoo sleeves and piercings and what not, asked for us to
give him a blessing. He had to have surgery and have like 20+ teeth
pulled and part of his jaw taken out (don't smoke) so he wanted us to
give him a blessing. Then the next day when we were at young men's at
the church, she showed up...I talked to her for a bit then she met
with the branch president, so at least she was in the church that was
cool:)

On Friday we had ZTM in Florence and it was probs the best ZTM I've
been to yet. We got a new zone leader who was just released as AP and
new Sister Training Leaders and they're pretty sick. The new Zone
leader gave a training on the standards of excellence which is 3-On
Date 3-at Sacrament 3-New Investigators. He related it to 333, or
dropping 3's, then made it into March Madness themed so I was pretty
into it:)
One of our STL's gave a training on fighting for the Lord and she said
something that hit me. She told us to think of those who died for this
work. Think of Abinadi who was burned to death, The believers in Alma
14 who also were burned to death, Joseph Smith who even in the modern
day was martyred for his belief. These men gave their life for this
work so we could have it today, and some of us struggle to give up 5
minutes to read for ourselves. Its sad and I hope y'all will strive to
give up more than 5 minutes lol.

I want to finish this email with something very interesting that was
taught in Elder Holland and President Eyring's Face 2 Face on
Saturday. Elder Holland talked about prayer and receiving answer. He
said that we need to give The Lord time to answer us. Too many of us
pray the. Just get up and walk off or climb in bed or dig into our
meal, and we don't allow him to answer. Bruce R. McConkie taught that
when we allow our thoughts to go elsewhere, it is as if we are praying
to a wall. Just as it is when we are praying, it's the same when we're
trying to receive answers. If we allow our mind to immediately wander
off, we're essentially putting up a wall for the Lord to talk to and
blocking ourselves in. We need to give time to receive answers. After
you close your prayer, stay on your knees for a bit and continue to
reflect on the prayer you have just had, the things you need to find
clarity on, or just think about the Savior. Stay focused and keep
listening. Allow him to answer you, because he will. Don't waste a
prayer by saying amen and immediately heading off into the world.
Spend some time with your Father and let him speak back to you.

I hope everyone had a great week. Look up Nephi's courage (Pg. 120) in
the children's hymn book and read the 3rd verse. Think about yourself
and be courageous:) love y'all. Have a great week!!

Deuteronomy 1:7
1 Samuel 16:7
2 Chronicles 19:6

Pic 1: just a pic with cool sunrise
Pic 2: our front yard idk
Pic 3-4: my lil homie Josh:)

Sup y'all:) life in the mission is good:) weeks go by way fast and
there's a ton of fun times out here. Transfers are next week tho so
the 3-pack is probs getting split. I have no idea what will happen but
I'm sure it will be good no matter what. Newberry is dope tho I love
it here. Church is always way fun cause our ward is like half southern
rednecks and half crazy black people so it's pretty wild. This week
the speaker told a joke and some of the black people in the
congregation were cracking jokes back and clapping lol. Also I love
the ghetto of hoodberry and all the crazy people there are. You see
some wild stuff, but I feel 100% safe riding my bike past what I
expect to be a trap house hahaha. This week had some pretty cool stuff
tho!

I crashed my bike when I was going down a hill:( I fell on some gravel
lol but I'm good mom:)

This week we got chased and driven off the road by a less active
member.  We had to reschedule for the next day and he wasn't
answering his phone, so we went to his house that is out in the
country. He was in his shop and we didn't know, so we assumed he
wasn't home and left. Apparently he didn't see who it was and was
yelling to us, but we didn't hear so we just drove off. He bought we
were running. Now this guy was in the military, ran a martial arts and
boxing gym for years, and used to be a pro rally car driver, so he's
pretty wild. He ran to his truck and started chasing us down the dirt
road. We were going like 50 and had no idea he was coming. He caught
us going like 90 and pulled in front then hit his breaks to pull us
over. He got out freaking pumped ready to kill someone, then saw it
was an old man and us 3 missionaries in the car and calmed down. He
to,d us he had a gun and was about to throw down cuz he thought we
were robbing him lol. Then we taught a quick lesson and rescheduled
our appointment:)

On Thursday the BYU women's soccer team was playing Oklahoma in the
playoffs, at USC's soccer stadium. One of the players on the team and
a sister in our mission are sister so everyone in the Columbia and
West Columbia zones got to go!! It was so fun to get to watch some
sports again! 2 of the Elders tried to make us into like a student
section and run cheers, it reminded me of my gentile days but I
controlled myself and didn't go up and get going like the old days.
BYU won 2-1, so we had a celebratory dinner!

We went to HuHot which is a Mongolian grill in West Columbia that is a
lot like Charlie Chows in Salt Lake. The AP's, 2 sets of zone leaders,
and a couple of other companionships, so there was like 15 of us
eating. While we were eating the waitress came up to us and said the
guy that just left paid like $150 for all of our food, and that we
need to tip tip our server and keep working hard! That's how to be
Christ-like right there. Thank you for all the prayers it seems to be
paying off!

On Friday night, since the soccer team won we had a fireside with
them!! 3 of the players spoke and the 2 sisters both spoke. They all
did way good and were pretty motivational not gonna lie. It was cool
to see hear the stories they have had through sports and how Heavenly
Father has always been watching over them. There were 2 bountiful
alumni on the team and I talked to them for a while:) I talked to
their families and some people that live like 2 minutes from us back
home lol. Small world.

Mission life is way good! I'm happy and enjoying myself! We have a
baptism this Saturday so way pumped for that! Our whole coming week is
planned out to where we have to plan people for next week. We're doing
good out here and enjoying it! Hope y'all have a great week!! Luvs

D&C 50:19-22
Ether 2:15
Alma 26:12

Pics 1-2: weekly old lady selfie
Pics 3-6: The Soccer game
Pic 7: recycle:)
Pic 8: just a common South Carolina G Sled💯
Pics 9: BYU soccer player (Elena Medeiros) from bountiful:)
Pic 10:Me and Emily/Ben Argyle's grandma lol

November 13, 2016

Helloooooo:) how are y'all? I'm way good! This week FLEW by! It
literally felt like P-Day was like 2 days ago. They weren't lying when
they said the mission goes by fast...I'm over 3 months out and it
feels like I just left. Danggg well I had a good week! Some more
interesting stuff happened but I've just kinda gotten used to the
weird stuff that happens here in hoodberry lol. Well right now where
I'm at in SC the people are like rejoicing because USC (University of
South Carolina not South Cal) has been winning, and Clemson finally
lost! Also everyone here loves Trump so there's like a million
American flags and trump posters everywhere. They're real happy:) too
bad y'all didn't write in Dallin H. Oaks:(

Ill start this week with missionary stuff, then talk about the
interesting stuff. This week we set a mission record of 29 referrals
in one week. We went to a trailer park to contact an online bible
request, and met the owner of the trailer park. Turned out she is a
member in the Ridgeway Ward, and she gave us names and addresses of 27
people in her trailer park that could use our message!! We normally
get like 3 or 4 referrals in a week, and our goal was 5 so we did
pretty good this week lol. That happened on Friday, and we were going
to try to add to it by asking the apartment manager in our complex
that has like 100 apartments and try to get like 50 referrals, but she
doesn't work weekends so we couldn't talk to her:( any missionaries
reading this I definitely recommend doing this lol.

We also were able to put a lady named Karen P. on date this
week! She knew a ton and I'm way excited to work with her more! We had
exchanges with the zone leaders, and one exchanges I got to go on an
exchange with an older member in our ward to an investigators house
and basically teach the lesson on my own with his testimony thrown in
which was cool:)

This week we went into Chapin, one of the areas by ours to help with
service. We helped this old lady with her yard and pulled out like 50
stumps. On one of the stumps I was trying to pull it out and was
pulling as hard as I could, then it suddenly broke and shot up between
my legs...and it cut my thigh hahaha but ya I got a pretty big cut on
my thigh but it's pretty high up so not gonna send a pic of it lol.

Now more fun stuff:) this week we had our investigator Blue over to
the church. There was a relief society activity going on so there were
tons of snacks. Blue decided to eat 3 cookies even though he's
diabetic. We started playing basketball with some other kids and blue
walked off. He sat down on the couch and passed out cause his sugar
was too high. We had to shake him pretty hard to wake him up, then run
out to his car to get his medicine cause he hasn't taken it. Kinda
scary but he was good in like 15 minutes:)

My back is pretty messed up from the dedication I'm having out here.
This week we have been biking every day, and I have been working
really hard on learning how to do what the locals call "walking the
bike" or doing a wheelie. After doing like 500 wheelies a day for 3
days I could barely even stand cause my back was so messed up. Luckily
our ward mission leader is a physical therapist and we got it all
figured out so I'm good now:)

That's pretty much all for this week:) I hope everyone is doing well!!
I love you guys and am so grateful for everything y'all did for me
over the years! Make sure you read and pray everyday!! Love y'all<3

3 Nephi 13:1-8
Helamen 13:26-28
3 Nephi 19:19-23

Pic 1: A kid in our ward's dope yu-gi-oh cards
Pic 2-3: Our district
Pic 4-5: Selfies with an old lady:)
Vid 1: One night I raced our car lol

Hey there y'all:) how's everyone doing? I'm doing great! Newberry is
pretty sweet! We're coming a long ways from changing a Spanish area to
English, and building a pretty decent teaching pool. It's been a good
productive week!!

Well go Cubs:) fun fact C.J. Edwards, the pitcher for the cubs grew up
in the Newberry area, and his family is still in our ward boundaries!
He's planning to build a baseball facility here which would be dope.
Everyone here has been freaking out cause the hometown hero won the
World Series.

I forgot to tell y'all last week that we too had our chili cook off
lol. Every ward in the south seems to have one hahaha it was way good
tho! We had 19 different chilis there and we got to judge it so I ate
a lot of chili...and if you know me well you know I'm way good with
spicy stuff so it was way fun for me! I probably lost more water
weight from sweating than I gained from the chili haha. It was way
good tho and we got some investigators and less actives out to it so
that's all that matters:)

This week we did a ton of service for older people. We had one older
brother in the ward ask us to come help him, and when he got there he
said he needed someone to put in a new mailbox for him. I told him I
had some experience in fixing mailboxes and that I was the man for the
job!! My companions weren't too happy cause I did that while they

pulled overgrown tomato cages out of the ground lol

We went to an old guy in our wards house one night and he told us
about a cool calling he used to have. He was President Kimball's
bodyguard back in the day!! He told us about how he has met like every
prophet since Joseph Fielding Smith and a bunch of apostles and spent
quite a bit of time around them. That sounds like a pretty dope
calling to me!!

We had another awesome experience of seeing the people watching over
us. We had a lady that we helped give us a sealed card, and after her
insisting that we need to take it, we took it home and opened it.
Turns out she gave us $60 and wrote a note to us. We tried to give the
money back but she refused so we now have an extra $60...:)

With voting day tomorrow I would like to encourage you all to take my
advice. WRITE IN DALLIN H. OAKS. He will make this country great
again. Thank you:)

We have had so many experiences this week where we can feel people
watching out for us, and all of the faithful prayers blessing us, so
thank you all so much!<3 love you guys! Y'all mean so much to me and I
hope you are all well. Please be sure to share your testimony with at
least one person this week, no matter the situation or circumstances,
make someone's day! Love y'all.

Don't forget to Read and Pray!
Helamen 5:12

Alma 5:45-48
Helamen 14:15-19

Pic 1: Elder Holmstead and I...lol
Pic 2: Elder Holmstead had a standoff with a mega snake haha
Pic 3: here's a selfie I just took cuz I don't have many pics sorry:)