Happy Halloween:) watch out for clowns tonight! If I see one I'm gonna
follow it into the woods to see if it's legit🤔 jk we go on lockdown
at 6 tonight so we will be in the apartment all night:(

How y'all doin? I hope everyone is doing great:) just had another
"normal" week in the mission field:) we did a ton of service this
week, and had some interesting lessons. Also some stuff that Mom will
love:)

A little last of last week and a lot this week, we've been doing a big
service project for an older lady in our ward. She has a really big
backyard that is like half an overgrown garden, so we have been
working to tear down her fence, remove the posts, roll up all the
barbed wire, and clear it out. After lots of cuts from the wire, and
ruining my back trying to act like I'm tough and swing an axe/sledge
hammer, and 4 days of work, we got the fence down lol check out the
videos I sent:) also we took one of the posts some wood from her house
and used it to tie a sheet up as a hammock in our apartment. It's
pretty dope.

We met a guy while SCI knowing who has a 1100 horsepower fox body
mustang, that's on a 500 shot of nitrous lol he said he ran a 10.2 in
a quarter mile...slow. We told each other some street racing stories
and had a good time talking cars, then he found out we were mormons
and told us to leave hahaha oh well it's his salvation at stake not
ours right?? Kidding we're gonna go back and talk to him again in like
a week:)

Mom you will love this:) I started to get really tired of my cast
again, and since it's been 5 weeks I looked into the possibility of
getting it off early. So I called the doctors office to ask them and
they put me on hold then hung up, so I called again and they didn't
answer so I decided they were rude and I wasn't going to drive the 45
minutes and waste that much time just to cut it off. So I talked to my
ward mission leader who is a physical therapist and he said after 5
weeks I only need a metacarpal brace:) so I had our elders Quorum
president get out his fancy power tools and a metal plate wrapped in a
paper towel, and he cut it off:) life is so much more simple with two
hands wow

We had a really cool experience this week where we saw the Lord
watching over us. Yesterday we were biking to an investigators house
on the other side of town. We were riding down the side of the road
when a lady stopped her car in the middle of the road and had us come
talk to her. She held some money out the window of her car and told us
to take it. We told her we don't take money. She insisted so we asked
if we could donate it to our church. She said no she wanted us to use
it for what we needed and she wasn't going to accept no. So we took
the money and tried to get her info and set up a time to meet with
her. She refused and said she wasn't interested in our church, but she
is so grateful for what we are doing and that we can pay her back by
helping someone else. We gave her our number if she needs anything
then went on our way. Then we got made it to our investigators house
in the hood, but he wasn't there so we were trying to decide what to
do and out of nowhere my back tire just blew and within 5 seconds it
was completely flat. After like 15 minutes we were able to find the
hole in the stem of the tube and get it to retain enough air for me to
slowly ride home:) it was nice tho cause some dudes were outside
blasting Chief Keef and Young Thug, so we had some very spiritual
music to listen to!

It's always a blessing to see the Lords hand in our lives, but don't
ever take it for granted. I did and I ended up with a flat tire so
don't follow my example and be gracious for what he gives you!

I love you all and hope all is well! Always stay close to the Lord and
be open to recognizing him blessing your life. Have a great week!!

Don't forget to Read and Pray!
3 Nephi 12:1-12

Mosiah 4:11-12
John 14:15

October 24, 2016

Pictures Living in the hood, cool cars and people, crazy investigators, ghetto
basketball, "bible bashing", South Carolina:)

Hello:) I feel like saying this week was interesting is actually just
normal in the mission, so this week was pretty normal. I was
transferred to Newberry, which is 45ish minutes West of West Columbia,
so I'm still in the West Columbia Zone:) my companions are Elder
Holmstead (Burley Idaho) and Elder Schultz (Mapleton Utah) ya another
3-pack lol. Elder Holmstead is a 6'6 skier bro that knows Cash and
Depeau through skiing. He's been out for 8 months. We get along really
well:) Elder Schultz is a mountain biker that is originally from
Canada (idk why I always have Canadian companions) and we get along
pretty well too:) He came out the same day I did so we're both in
training still. He is super set on perfect strict obedience, and takes
every rule 100% literally, Great guy.  This companionship seeming to be very
similar to my last one, Elder Holmstead is the new Elder Mitchell and
Elder Schultz is like Elder Scarff. All just a learning experience!
Newberry is definitely different from West Columbia. I thought that WC
was pretty ghetto, but Newberry is the freaking hood. It's pretty dope
not gonna lie. I thought there were a lot of G-Sleds (cars with GIANT
rims, like the cars I sent pics of in
the past) in WC, but they're like every other car here. There's so
many I don't even bother taking pictures lol. It's interesting that
there's so many incredibly poor people, yet some very wealthy people
as well. Like Porsches and Corvettes just drive through the hood lol.
We love right next to Newberry College, and sometimes see some lax
players practicing! Can't wait to get my cast off then go talk to them
haha. There's a lot of college kids in the apartments we live in, so
that creates some temptations ugh but the devil ain't tempting me!!!
The ward is very racially diverse, but is very united and loving which
is awesome! The black dudes are so funny and Elders Quorum gets pretty
wild here. It's a pretty solid ward and everyone has plenty of fun at
church:) it's hard to leave the Congaree ward and all of the people
there, but I'm happy and excited to be in Newberry:):)

This ward has some awesome members that I get along with really well.
Our Elders Quorum president is a retired track bike (bullet bike)
racer that now sells high end hospital beds and is pretty wealthy. He
has a 500 horsepower 1973 Z28 Camarillo that is completely restored
and freaking dope. Another brother in our ward has a supercharged
Dodge Challenger "Hellcat" that supposedly puts down 950 horsepower. I
have yet to see it but have heard all about the legend of the hellcat.
There's a couple other people that have pretty dope muscle cars and
trucks but those ones stood out to me:)

Now with Missionary work we have a couple of interesting
investigators. One of them goes by blue, and is literally like Michael
Oher from the movie the Blind Side. He is this HUGE black dude that
looks scary, but is actually the sweetest most tender hearted guy
you'll ever meet. He's on date for November 12:)
Now for the crazy investigators! We work with these room mates named
J. and C.  They are complete pot heads and are completely open
about it. They have met with us while high, chewed tobacco while
talking to us, and participated in drug deals on their porch while we
are there, but they pay attention, keep commitments, and are
interested so we keep working with them haha. They definitely come up
with some crazy stuff while we talk them lol now we just gotta go over
the Word of Wisdom with them soon and we will be good:)
We also work with these two black brothers who are always high, and
have no teeth so we can't really understand them. They also are
interested and keep commitments, and they have our phone number and
call us like 3 times a day, so we meet with them occasionally.

Down the street from our apartment there is a way nice basketball
court in the hood, that has lights and an announcer where tons of
black people come on Friday and Saturday nights. It's pretty crazy and
is just like the stuff you see on YouTube lol.

Newberry is a pretty interesting place, but I love it here:) we were
able to go to the State fair on Wednesday and do service by pushing
old people from a retirement home around in wheel chairs:) I was able
to have a wonderful conversation for around 30 minutes, with an older
gentlemen who insisted on raising his voice and expressing his
opinions on "Normans" by using choice words and frantically expressing
his emotions. Some may call this "Bible Bashing", but as Bruce R.
Mckonkie said, "it's not bible bashing if you know what you're talking
about."  But I still don't know all that much of what I'm talking
about so it was pretty much bible bashing:) but now I realize why
we're not supposed to do it, it wastes a lot of time, gets you
nowhere, and is really fun so I'm probably going to do it again if the
opportunity is presented. But don't worry I just ask questions that
they can't answer, or that make them answer for themselves, and don't
bring up any scriptures so it's not bad. Just teaching what we
believe:)

South Carolina is an awesome place!! I'm starting to get used to it,
except it's getting pretty dang cold here. We were doing service the
other day and the lady we were helping had a thermometer that was in
the shade and it said 40 degrees, and it's still like 50-60 percent
humidity. So ya it's pretty cold sometimes but I'm getting much better
at understanding southern hick and toothless black man:) The Ward
Mission leader here asked me how long I had been out and where I was
from, then was surprised because he said I'm picking up a southern
accent:) I'm really starting to like it here, and getting into the
swing of things in Newberry is helping me to really enjoy missionary
work. Waking up at 6:30 every morning still sucks but Elder Schultz
lets me know when it's 6:32 and I'm still in bed:)

Don't forget to Read and Pray<3
Alma 26:22
Alma 34:17-27
Mosiah 23:21-22

Pic 1-2: Our recent convert Chanta's ferrite lol
Pic 3: Transfers-saying bye to Elder Mitchell:(
Pic 4: My new companions

October 17, 2016

 

First Transfer down!! How y'all doin? I have had another interesting and in expected week. First off I learned how to solve a Rubik’s cube which is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. Just kidding but I really did learn how and now I'm addicted. I bought my own today so I can keep doing it. The reason I needed to buy my own is my next topic...

 

I have been stressing transfers coming up so much and finally have found out what will be happening tomorrow. Well I found out that Elder Mitchell is being transferred, and so am I. I'm half way through training and I'm being sent to another 3 pack, but don't know where I'm going until tomorrow. I never would have expected to be transferred during training and it's been really sad saying bye to all of the people I have grown close to in the last 6 weeks, but I have made myself know that this is what's best for me, and I'm ready for the next step. It's amazing to think that I'm already done with my first transfer...6 weeks went by so fast. They say that the mission flies by, but the first 3 months are long. If the mission goes by faster than this has, I'm not ready to be home so soon lol.

 

Now some mission stuff:) we were able to do some good service this week! We worked with a company called S.B.P. That is a volunteer organization, and painted a room in some old people's house. We also helped our relief society president move, and she gave us a bunch of gamecock’s shirts and some cool stuff. We also had Leigh, the lady we have on date come to church for the first time yesterday. It was a perfect Sacrament for her to be at because we had the mission president from Des Moines Iowa giving his homecoming talk and it was so good! I was able to talk to him after the meeting and we talked about how Elder Seljaas is doing which was nice:)

 

Last night we had our church tour/open house that we have been planning for a while now. It turned out really well and we had some of the investigators there and enjoy it. We had one of our recent converts bare his testimony to everyone, including his family of investigators which was way cool! Too bad I can't stay here and keep working towards their baptisms:( oh well I'm going to keep in touch with them!

 

The mission is never what you expect. I have had such a crazy first transfer and never would have expected some of the things that have happened, to actually happen. There have been so many amazing strengthening trials that have taught me so much while I've been here!

I hope you are all reading and praying, and staying close to our Heavenly Father. Love you all❤️

 

Mosiah 4:30

Alma 13:27-30

3 Nephi 12:48

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elder Winn

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Pic 1: some train playground at a school idk Pics 2-3: selfies with my companions idk:) Pic 4: selfie with the pottery lady that we paint stuff with lol Sorry I don't have many pics this week:( hopefully these will do😊

October 10, 2016

Hello hello:) hopefully everyone is doing great:) I've had another
interesting week this week! Definitely not your average week in the
mission field.

This week we put a lady named Leigh H. on date! Her husband was
baptized when he was 8 but doesn't even remember being baptized
they have been church hopping for a long time now and it's great to
see her keeping commitments and coming to church with us! She's on
date for November 12:)

We had soccer night again with the Spanish Elders which is always way
fun! I bubble wrapped my cast so I didn't hurt anyone:) After soccer
my cast was super sweaty and smelled so bad that I freaked out and
decided I wasn't going to have that gross thing anymore. In a state of
anger and disgust I flipped and just shoved my cast in the sink,
started pumping soap on it, then tried to pull it off. That didn't
work...so I got Elder Mitchell's help. We weren't able to pull it off
still, so we moved on to plan B. Elder Mitchell got his pocket knife:)
sorry mom. After 20 minutes of sawing through the cast, we finally got
it off. My hand looked like I was about to die. It smelled like I
already had died. So ya I threw my cast away and Friday morning we
went to the doctor again and I got a new one:) I had a Mexican Elder
that's way good at tagging draw on this one. He wrote LDS.ORG and
Elder Winn on it:)

The hurricane has made life pretty crazy for a lot of people. On
Tuesday night we got a call from the AP's telling us that all of the
Elders from coastal areas were being evacuated inland. So we had 7
Elders living with us. Ya so that sucked. With the hurricane its been
like doomsday prepping around here. Walmart had 70 pallets of cases of
water that were bought completely out. The freeway was closed so that
both sides went the same direction to bring people inland. They used
school busses to shuttle people inland. They brought everyone in to
Columbia and West Columbia so it's been nice and crowded here:) Friday
night and most of Saturday we were on lock down and had to just stay
in our apartment, so between all of our refugee Elders and the ones
staying with the Spanish Elders, we had 12 Elders playing board games
at our apartment which is like my favorite thing to do so I was way
pumped. Just kidding I hate board games so I went up stairs and
switched off between reading my scriptures and sleeping. I did a
little more of one than the other but let's just say I got some good
reading in;) the weather was pretty bad for like 2 hours on Saturday
but other than that it was just raining and kinda windy. Saturday
evening it was blue skies and completely clear so we were let off of
lockdown. Since we had cancelled everything and it was already like
6:30 so we just went to the church and played basketball. I'm way good
left handed lol.

Whoever said I would only need to worry about the heat down here lied.
All 3 of us did our studies this morning in hoodies and wrapped in
blankets. It's probably because of the storm but it's pretty cold here
rn. There's not much damage from the storm here, just some trees
knocked over and crap blown around. Other than that it's good:)

The refugee Elders all left this morning. Finally. I want to talk
about one of them really quick though. His name is Elder Leaulai. He's
a giant Samoan kid from West Jordan Utah. He was a great example to me
of being charitable to everyone, even when people aren't kind to you.
His companion is one of the most difficult people I've ever met. He
complained constantly about just about everything, and Elder Leaulai
was always patient and supportive. When he was whining about his feet
hurting, Elder Laeulai rubbed his feet. When he was complaining that
carrying some garbage for a lady cause it was heavy, Elder Leaulai
carried both bags. Whatever he complained about, and however
frustrated Elder L was, he was always patient and helped him. I wish I
could be like that but I get mad too easy lol. Something to work on:)

Life is going good:) the mission is good! I love hearing from you all!
If I don't reply to you im sorry we don't have a ton of time to email
and I'm trying to be obedient to the time limit. I still love you:)

Don't forget to read and pray!!
2 Nephi 9:39
D&C 12:8
Omni 1:25-26

Pics: cast pics
Elder Mitchell and Scarffs Indian and wolf they painted, my artwork of
a potatoe:)

October  3, 2106

Hello everyone:) I hope your Conference weekend was almost as good as mine ;) I really liked how Elder Oaks spoke on how missionary work isn't only for missionaries, but it's for all of us. I hope everyone who listened to this talk and takes this to heart. No matter where you are in the world, and in your own life always remember that "We are ALL under the commands from God to share the Gospel with EVERYONE." Wherever you are, even if you're in a place that people don't know what a "Mormon" is, or if you're in the Mormon Metropolis of Utah, you can and are commanded to share the Gospel with all of your fellow sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. "Sharing the Gospel is not a burden, but a joy." Don't forget this. Along with this talk I really enjoyed Elder Nelson's talk on Joy. He talked about all of the different things that bring us joy in life, and the all relate to Christ. "Joy is a gift for the faithful, and is given through living righteously, and choosing to follow Christ." Sharing the Gospel shows your faith, and will bring you joy. Being on a mission has helped me feel joy that I never before felt. The joy of the gospel, and I love it. 

This morning instead of going to the mall, we decided to go the Temple. I wish I never would have taken the Temple being so close back home for granted. We were lucky that there were some repair men eating lunch there, and they let us come in and stand by the font. The Temple is so small, but so amazing. I hope someday I will be able to take one of my former investigators through the Temple, to receive their endowments. Never pass up the opportunity to go to the Temple. Someday, like me, you might wish you went more when you had the chance. 

Once again we had another very interesting week. We taught lessons to two ex- communicated investigators, gave two blessings, and almost got jumped by a dude in a bullet bike gang. One ex communicated lady asked us a deep question that I have studied a lot and found my answer to it, but I want to ask you all and would love to hear what you have to say. If Joseph Smith is the only Latter Day Prophet that was physically called of God, and he was martyred, how we know that prophets after that are actually called of God and not by man, and not just by using Faith and your own testimony. Think about it. How do you know?

Giving the blessings was really cool. We went to the Lexington hospital for one of them and gave it to a terminal sister in her hospital room. It was interesting because Elder Scarff blessed her to be close to her Heavenly Father in the next life, she passed away yesterday…  She had so much faith to accept that Heavenly Father was calling her home it was amazing! 

This week we also almost got in a fight with a bullet bike dude. Like 2 weeks ago Elder Mitchell was driving while Elder Scarff was on exchange, and this guy on his bullet bike was riding in Mitchell's blind spot, so when he got over he almost hit him. The guy lost it. He got next to us and told me to roll down my window, then started cussing us out. I just told him we were sorry but he kept freaking out so Elder Mitchell just turned left and we didn't see him again. On Friday we gave a sister a blessing at her house, when we came outside the same bullet bike dude from two weeks ago was sitting by our car. He freaked out at us again and told us he had been looking for us ever since it had happened. He told us he would get off his bike and go at it right then, and that he's got guys and he's been in fights before. We just said we were sorry and after like 15 minutes of him FREAKING OUT, he told us he better not see us in his town (our area) again or it wouldn't be good. Then he told us that he knows what we teach is true so we need to represent it better. At least he knows it's true and he can repent for freaking out at us :) 

Other than that we just had a good week of missionary work:) we get up early to play basketball and I sleep on the stage cause broken hand lol and mega bed is no more:( the Spanish elders moved back into their apartment. Life is good here and it's going by fast. Still really worried and stressed out about transfers but other than that it's good :) hope everyone is doing well! I would love to hear from all of you:)

Don't forget to read and pray!

Mosiah 4:27

Isaiah 41:10

Alma 38:5

Check out teachings of presidents, Ezra Taft Benson Chapter 2 section 3 please:):):)

Pics 1-3: Elder Mitchell and I at the Columbia Temple

Pic 4: Our mission presidents dog...lol

Pic 5: Elder Scarffs driving

9/26/2016

Hello everyone! I feel like I say this every week, but this week was
very interesting. A lot of good stuff happened, but a lot of not so
good stuff happened too...

Starting off with the good. First off we had my first baptism this
Saturday!! Shawnta M.  was baptized by a brother in our ward. We
encourage the investigator to be baptized by a member and not a
missionary, because they will be here to keep the relationship and we
could be transferred in the next 3 weeks. It was awesome and I was
able to be part of the circle confirming her a member :) we also had
zone conference this week which was good.

We met a guy at a gas station and just started talking about how he
feels there in something missing in his life and how he wants the
happiness that he can see in our eyes. We were so pumped because that
like perfect for us, then we found out that he is in the West Columbia
ward boundaries not Congaree (our ward) so we referred him to the other
elders and that was it:( still a way good experience and I'm excited
to hear about what happens with him.

I got to go to into the city Columbia for the first time this week :)
is a pretty cool city. There's a huge bridge that you cross which is
pretty sweet. I went twice, once to go to firestone because Elder Scarff
ruined the battery on our car. Lol. The other I will talk about in
then it so good section...

We had our ward fish fry on Friday and it was a huge success! We had
some investigators, less actives, and Shawnta and her less
active/investigator family came!! We had a ton of cat fish, bass, and
crappie which all kinda sucked but hush puppies are pretty dope :) it
was on Pine Island at Lake Murray which was way sick. Look it up it's
a cool place :)

I was able to give a sister a blessing this week which was really
cool. She hasn't been able to move from the same chair in over a week
so she called us to get a blessing. Blessings are always cool
experiences and great testimony builders.

I got on family search this week for the first time. I tracked all the
way back to the year 600! Good work grandma :) I wish I would have
gotten into it earlier because it's pretty cool. Everyone should do
some family history work cause it's actually pretty interesting :)

Now I'll talk about the. It so good stuff......

First off the police showed up at our apartment at 12:30 one night.
They were in the front and back yard shining lights in and pounded on
the door. They had reports of us fighting, but we had been in bed for
2 hours since then... we were way confused and told them we had no
idea so they just left and we went back to bed lol.

Our sacrament yesterday was the primary program which was nice, except
it was an hour and 45 minutes long...we literally 15 minutes for
Sunday school which sucked since we had an investigator and Shawnta
with us, it ended up alright though :)

Lastly the worst thing that happened this week. I broke my hand :) now
I have a cast for 6 weeks which sucks. I fell out of a chair and when
I caught myself I got a metacarpal fracture on my 4th phalange. So ya
I broke my ring finger inside my hand so I have to have a dumb cast.
And it's my right hand so it screws everything over. Elder Mitchell
drew the outline of SC and LDS.ORG on it hehe :) on the bright side I
can't fit in a suit jacket so I don't have to wear one :) So ya that
sucks but good thing the church is true so it's good :)

Hope everyone is doing well! The mission field is grea t:) I'm really
enjoying myself here! Elder Mitchell is awesome and we're like best
friends :) Elder Scarff is very interesting, but he's still nice:) I'm
getting really worried with transfers in 3 weeks that Elder Mitchell is
going to get transferred.
Please keep me in your prayers hahaha love you all!! Don't forget to
read and pray :)

Alma 36:3
Mosiah 2:41
Alma 32:21
Also I encourage all of you to read chapter 32 of Brigham Young and
chapter 10 of Wilford Woodruff, in teaching of presidents in gospel
library. They apply to modern day really well :)

Pic 1: Zone Conference
Pic 2-4: Lake Murray
Pic 5-7: the cast:(
Pic 8-9: Shawnta's baptism
The rest are just typical South Carolina cars lol