Wa-Tac Week 9

Wow this week has been so amazing I don't know where to start, so I'll just start on Monday.

Monday we knocked into this girl named Katelyn. She came from around the house doing yardwork and basically asked us for a pamphlet and we scheduled an appointment for Wednesday. When we went back for the appointment she invited us to her backyard where the pamphlet was sitting on the table opened, highlighted and underlined with every question in the back answered (that never ever happens). So we taught her about the Restoration of the gospel and she was really interested, we went back two days later with some members from the ward and taught her the Plan of Salvation. During the lesson we asked her that as she came to know the truthfulness of what we are teaching her if she would be baptized, and she said that she would! She is one of those perfect investigators that you don't find very often, she came to church this Sunday and everything went great. I’m so excited to continue teaching her and I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

In other good news sister Church fasted and prayed about asking her "husband" about getting legally married (because she was nervous) and he was supportive! So they should be getting married soon and then she will be baptized! That was so exciting.

Our other investigators are doing great as well and just in general this week we have been blessed with so much success it's really amazing. Last week was kind of hard with the hot weather and what not but it's interesting that after we endure the trail of our faith we then see the blessings and receive the reward for all of the hard work that we do.

It's funny how God knows exactly what will put us out of our comfort zone and it's up to us to rise to the occasion so that we can grow, I have learned so much about the gospel since being on a mission, I feel like I didn't even know what we believe until now, it's weird.

We have been blessed with so much success lately that at this point I'm praying that my Visa doesn't come in until after this transfer, specifically until these people we are working with get baptized. We have some really solid amazing investigators, I'm especially excited for Katelyn, it's not very often you see someone so willing to read the book of Mormon and the pamphlets and everything else it's just amazing. I love being a missionary.

The email is a little short this week, unfortunately I'm running out of time, but I love you all so much! Miracles do happen! And the Gospel of Jesus Christ is so amazing!

Love you all,
Elder Hyer

P.S. (from Dad) I just checked Chandler’s visa status and it has been processed and authorized. He should find out tonight or tomorrow and be off to Brazil probably this week!!!

Wa-Tac Week 8

Hey everyone, this week has been sooo much fun. I'm 19 everybody!! Woohoo! And I would like to thank everyone for all of the amazing presents I got, like I'm talking a billion cookies, letters, delicious foods, ties, some other great stuff, and just to brag my sister Lindsay sent me the coolest drawing in the world cause she is awesome!


My birthday was pretty sweet, besides the packages I went on an exchange with the Elders from the 4th ward and set up tents and moved wood for 3 hour for a local campground, it was fun... Other than that we basically just did normal stuff, oh and my birthday was also hot, but that was every day this week.

This week has probably been the hottest week of my life, I don't even think it gets this hot in Brazil, I mean seriously it's been so extremely hot. Fortunately there are these trees with little plums all over the place so I've eaten probably 50 - 60 of those this week, which was pretty nice. I’m not exactly sure those made up for the heat but it made it a little bit better.

I live right next to train tracks, and that means that trains pass by our house all the time, loud noises every 30 minutes or so... so that's a little annoying but on the bright side it doesn't wake me up so who cares right?

As far as investigators go we have sister Church who is awesome, she has been coming to church every week and is just an awesome lady, her only hang up is that she is not married to her "husband" and she is working up the courage to do that so keep her in your prayers.

Shawn and Jessie are both friends and Jessie in particular is really interested, Shawn is a little more hesitant and he got put in jail for a few days this week and has to go to court. It's been a hard week for him, but there are consequences to our actions, and hopefully he will allow himself to grow from this experience.

This week has been rough on finding new investigators, the problem with this weather in Washington is that because it rarely gets hot here none of the houses have AC which means when a heat wave like this hits everybody is basically just miserable whether they are inside or not and it's not exactly the best environment for teaching, so hopefully it will cool down soon.

That's it for this week. I love you all and again thank you so much for everything it was a great week.

Love,
Elder Hyer

WA-TAC Week 7

    

Hey everybody,

This week has been a lot of fun. As I mentioned last week I've been transferred to the Lacey 1st and 2nd Ward serving with some more zone leaders, Elder Short and Elder Ivie, and it has 
been a blast.

Elder Short has been out 23 months so he finishes this transfer which is kind of sad but he's still staying focused and there's a lot that I can learn from him. He is from West Valley Utah. He's a really cool guy. Elder Ivie has been serving for about 9 months or so and is also just a good missionary and a fun person. He is from St. George Utah. We have a lot of fun.

We have some great investigators here, namely Shawn and Jessie who are two really cool guys who have been reading the Book of Mormon and have been coming to church, they are both trying to quit smoking which can be hard, There is also Sam who is in the army and is just about perfect, he is also reading, really is looking for truth and works as hard as he can to come to church even if its straight from work, I really like him. There is also a sister Church who is working on getting married to her husband so that she can be baptized, she is also great.

One day this week we were driving along and we felt this thump against the side of our car, and we thought we saw a bird, so we turned around and saw this bird frozen in the position shown in the

picture. The bird

literally flew into our car and then sat in that position on the sidewalk, with it's beak open. We took a picture and went to an appointment. After the appointment we came back and it was still there! in the same position! It was literally sitting there for like 30 min. I hope it was just stunned and eventually recovered, but it was way weird.

I think that's about it for this week, I am still getting to know the area. I love you all and I'm loving it here in Lacey! I have been really lucky to have great companions so far and like I said, I'm really loving it.
Bye!

Elder Hyer

Our mission leader in Silverdale 1st ward and some of his family, he is a great mission leader.

WA-TAC Week 6

Happy Fathers day!!, another crazy week come and gone.

First of all we had a baptism this week! actually fix that, we had 3!! Melissa and her two daughters Nikki and Chloe were baptized on Saturday. It was a great baptism and is a fantastic way to finish out this transfer. It's funny how we worked so hard for six weeks and it wasn't until the very last possible minute that we finally got the baptism, the Lord truly blesses us after all we can do. 


On Tuesday we had Zion's camp!! Zion's camp is where all the missionaries get together and go to this camp with a bunch of group activities. For example there’s the trust fall, wire walk, balance log (there’s a picture of all of us balanced on it, we were the only zone to do it with everybody and we blew the record out of the water for our time), there was the wall climb, etc. We did all kinds of really fun stuff with a good meeting at the end. It was a blast. I have such a cool zone. I'll be sad to leave them.

Something funny happened this week, Elder Irava and I were knocking a trailer park, we were having a good time as we knocked on somebody's door. We were standing on this person's doorstep when the door flies open and a lady steps out with a glass of ice water and flings the water all over me (I was the one standing in front of the door). I got drenched with water, right after this the lady yells "Now Leave! Jesus Whores!!" to which Elder Irava said "Is there any service we can do for you?" then she slammed the door. It was so funny, I mean I was pretty wet but we were both laughing pretty hard.

Saturday was transfer call day, so all day on Saturday the missionaries get calls letting them know whether or not they will be staying in their area or getting transferred somewhere else. I was curious to see what was going to happen to our companionship but I was almost positive I was staying in Silverdale because Greenies always stay at least 2 transfers with their trainers, but not me! I'm getting transferred to the Lacey 1st & 2nd ward tomorrow in the Lacey zone. I was pretty shocked. I'm getting two new zone leader companions and I'm excited! Elder Marsh and Elder Sheehan are also getting transferred, only Irava is staying in the Silverdale area. My new companions are Elder Ivy and Elder Short. So basically I'm taking this to mean that I've mastered Earth bending from Elder Marsh, Air bending from Elder Irava and now I'm finding two new masters to learn Water and Fire so that I can become the Avatar! I mean that pretty much sums up my situation.
Anyways not much else to say from this week, Our Father in Heaven loves us so much and I can't wait to figure out my purpose in the Lacey area. I love you all so much, may the force and the spirit be with you.

Elder Hyer

WA-TAC Week 5

Hey everyone!

This week flew by, we were so busy!

Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal but Wednesday right after district meeting, which is always fun, we did an exchange, so I went with Elder Nebeker for the day. He's a way awesome guy and we had a blast,

then Thursday morning Elder Sheehan and I got back together and came back to our area. But things only got crazier, Elder Marsh and Irava were in Tacoma for the day with the car so we were walking/biking/begging for rides until that evening when they were supposed to come back. Then Thursday evening we got a call saying that they were going to be staying in Tacoma over night for another training on Friday, which meant that we had another day on foot. But we still had a good time.

Yesterday we had one of our investigators give us tons of fresh fruit and veggies, like seriously there were freshly grown potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, 3 kinds of jam, leeks, lettuce, a honeydew, strawberries, cherries and more, it was awesome. Not much else to say this week honestly.

I find it funny when people tell me that God doesn't exist, or that what I'm doing out here is wrong, and then I see people like Erick, one of our investigators, who, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ overcame addiction and is getting married to his wife after years of waiting and is then going to be baptized. He is so happy and it was all because missionaries knocked on his door and he decided to act on what the Spirit directed him to do and repented. It is incredible.

Anyways I love you all, that's it this week.

Elder Chandler Hyer

WA-TAC Week 4

Hey everyone, 

I can't believe I'm already in my 5th week in the mission field. I'm almost done with this transfer, it's crazy. Everything here is still way way awesome.

This week was full of knocking. The reason why is that only Elder Marsh is allowed to drive the car, which means that whoever is not with Elder Marsh that day has to either ride bikes all day or get dropped off somewhere for an appointment, and then when it falls through we knock until we can get picked up again. I have knocked on hundreds and hundreds of doors this week, not to mention the fact that it's way hot here, but I'll address in a sec. The hard part about knocking doors so much this week is not the walking or the cursings yelled at us, but the lack of any success from it. Finding has been really hard recently and we are trying to think of different ways to enlarge our teaching pool.

The weather for the past week has been exceptionally hot, like really really hot. The problem is that no houses here have air conditioning because "it doesn't get hot here", but that's a huge lie. So this week we sweat outside and then get invited inside and sweat some more.

The few investigators that we do have, have been good but slow, this was the last week of school for everyone here so everyone has been really busy, which in turn made it difficult to teach lessons. I'm really excited for summer when people are actually at home.

This companionship still rocks, we have a good time.

I recently heard from several of the guys from my MTC district that got reassigned. Several of them got their visas, so maybe mine is on its way? Maybe not? We'll see.

Not much more to say that I can think of to be honest, I miss you guys a bunch.

Love you,
Elder Hyer

WA-TAC Week 3

This week was way way awesome!! I never know where to start with these. First of all I can't believe Jacob Nickerl has his mission call!!  (New Jersey Morristown mission, Korean language)  That's so exciting, and that mission sounds awesome!

There were some emergency transfers this week and we got a new elder in our companionship, Elder Sheehan!!

He is from Layton, Utah, has been out 6 months, he's a way cool guy and it's so much fun having 4 people in a companionship. We just split up everyday.

Our district is really fun, there are 3 other companionships in our district, one of which is sisters. They are all so much fun. P-days are a blast because all of the Elders get together and we just play random awesome games, it's so much fun. Mom I finally got your package, that was pretty awesome.

Sundays here are pretty long, our 2 wards start at 9 and 11 which means we split up and then as soon as the first one gets done we rush over to the other ward, and then if there are any meetings afterwards we stay even longer, but it's also pretty fun.

So here in our area we have been struggling with finding new investigators, we do so much finding with very little success. But we have a few investigators who are way awesome.

One of the only investigators that we have found since I've been here is Thomas, he is such a cool guy who just turned 18. He comes to mutual every week, is coming to church, and all we need to do is finish the lessons with him. He's just been so busy because this week is graduation, but I'm way excited for him.

All of our other investigators are people that have been taught for a long time. We literally have 3 different families that are on the edge of getting baptized but there is just something holding them back, (and some of these people have been taught for multiple years).

So we decided to have a special fast for these people who are ready to get baptized. Within a couple of days we visited Erick and Sarianne who have been seeing the missionariess for years but they were scared to get married. They told us that they decided to get married this month and then he is getting baptized literally the day after he gets back (sarrianne is already a member).

The Gibson's have been ready to be baptized for weeks but they wanted to wait for their friend who never is able to come up for the baptism. Finally she told us that she was getting baptized on the 20th whether her friend comes up or not.

It was amazing how quickly everything changed, there is a lot of power in prayer and fasting.

Anyways, I guess that is about it. I love you all so much,
Elder Chandler Hyer