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| some Arizonas for the Arizonas |
Mom wrote to Elder Wallgren: On Jun 13, 2016, at 10:54 AM, GinSingRae <GinSingRae@aol.com> wrote: 300 DAYS!!!!
Are you kidding me? It feels like you've been gone FOREVER, and just left yesterday! Today is you 300 day anniversary! Congratulations, Elder. Keep up the good work. We can see your growth with each letter. You are learning so many skills you'll be using later in life. Skills you can carefully share with us, too.
...and got THIS response:
I'm up to date on all my rabies shots.... Right? ;)
Elder Braden R Wallgren
@_@
Second letter:
"Pride fades our feelings of sonship to God and brotherhood to man. It
separates and divides us by “ranks,” according to our “riches” and our
“chances for learning.” (3 Ne. 6:12.) Unity is impossible for a proud
people, and unless we are one we are not the Lord’s... Pride is the
great stumbling block to Zion. I repeat: Pride is the great stumbling
block to Zion.
We must cleanse the inner vessel by conquering pride. (See Matt. 23:25–26.)
We must yield “to the enticings of the Holy Spirit,” put off the
prideful “natural man,” become “a saint through the atonement of
Christ the Lord,” and become “as a child, submissive, meek, humble.”
(Mosiah 3:10; also see Alma 13:28)" (Ezra Taft Benson, Beware Of
Pride, April 1989 General Conference)
Pride drives us all to becoming someone that we are not. Humility is
what help us become that which our father in heaven knows we can be.
When we are humble, we see the strengths in others, we see how others
can help us, AS WELL as seeing how we can help others. As we humble
ourselves, the outward "natural" man sees weakness. However, when we
begin to see our growth through god's eyes, we will realize that the
humble man grows much more and much faster than a prideful one ever
could! Take the weaknesses that you have, humble yourself before the
lord, and see that through him, those weaknesses of yours not only
will be strengthened, but they will become your GREATEST STRENGTHS!
So..... For the next two weeks my new address:
5605 Falcon Road
Helena, MT 59602
In two weeks we are going to be moving again, but in two weeks is also
transfers. So we'll cross that bridge when we get to it
6/6
We went on a sweet zone hike for preparation day. We hiked up Mt.
Helena, which is an easier hike than the M in Missoula, but it is
longer. The M is only about 1/4 of a mile, while the path we took at
Mt. Helena was about 2 miles. It was definitely easier though! There
are some sweet spots around the path that are cool to stop at: the
Helene H, the devil's kitchen (a sweet alcove entrance to a cave) the
city view, and then at the top there is the scenic view. I've attached
pictures of everything but the H, because the H was super lame and not
really picture-worthy.
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| zone hike! There is the zone picture as well as just an elder picture, then a couple scenic stuff |
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| Elders |
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| Zone |
Well, while we were on the hike I realized I had forgotten my iPad
back at our apartment (almost like 20 miles away) and so I wasn't able
to do a TON of emailing, and even the emailing I did was pretty late.
When we were getting ready to go shopping, I realized that I had put
my wallet in elder Cardiffs bag, and they were gone. So I didn't have
my wallet, or the keys to the house. So we called the zone leaders and
had to hang out until like 4 to get my things. After that we had to
rush to go shopping and get to dinner in time.
We taught a lesson to one of our two progressing investigators, Daniel
Lode. He is a super cool dude who is into computers and cars and
stuff, but being a Mennonite, it was. All like super retro old stuff.
He had a computer that looks like it was made in the late 80s haha. It
was super cool to talk to him. He was super chill about the church and
about having us over. He has some pretty weird concerns though, ones
that I've never encountered before. I'm confident that the lord will
help us, but it is definitely going to take some work.
6/7
Tuesday was super interesting- why? Because I found out that I do in
fact have some allergies to something or other.
The experience-
Well we were walking down the street and my nose was super stuffed,
and my eyes itched. Well, having never dealt with allergies before, I
had no idea that that was what I was experiencing. So, I rubbed my
eyes. MISTAKE. Long story short- we had to rush home and get some
Benadryl before my eyes swelled shut (even though they were almost
there by the time we got home).
Yeah..... Allergies suck.
Anyway! Later that night after a long nap and a good detox, we went
and met with our other progressing investigator, Corey. He is a super
cool dude that is super ready. We talked with him for a while about
the Book of Mormon, and we got to meet his wife. She seems like a nice
lady, and she actually talked a little bit about her experience in
reading the Book of Mormon. She wasn't interested before, but we think
that the lord might be softening her heart!!
Only other thing that happened was we had a correlation meeting with
brother Strang to talk about the work. (We also talked about his music
and stuff, but that's a story for a different time).
6/8
District meeting was cool. I gave the lamest discussion ever about
patience. I had no idea what to say so I just kinda talked forever. It
was boring.... It was lame. And yeah
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| Helena North District! (Starting from left) sister Harward, sister fredrickson (both sisters I came out with!) elder Raymond, elder bird, elder Merrell, elder me, elder Patterson, elder Cardiff (elder Cardiff is from Kingman, and sister fredrickson is from Mesa!) |
We gave some service at a thrift store in the afternoon, for a little
bit. We were helping out with the books when the manager came over and
told us they were having some septic issues so they would like us to
leave.
I don't know what our rotten Luck with this area and septic tanks, but
apparently something should come of it haha. So we left there and we
spent the rest of the day finding. At the end of the day we had a
correlation meeting with the relief society presidency to talk about
all the less active sisters in the ward. It was a long meeting, but
definitely worth the time.
6/9
We had a rough time weekly planning..... Got super distracted.
However, now we know that for all the missionaries in the world to
visit 17 billion people.... (Assuming 50 second visits and 4 hours of
sleep) it would take 11 months, 2 days, 15 hours, 36 minutes, and 6
seconds (we couldn't figure out where the extra 6 came from.... But it
was there). Yeah........ We were super distracted.
We gave some more service, more carpet tearing. I think it's becoming
my calling! We teamed up carpets and tack boards, and then we ran it
with them to the dump. I could see the service we gave in Clinton
coming to help. I knew what I was doing more than anyone that was
there haha.
We had a stake missionary coordination meeting during the evening,
with all the missionaries, mission leaders, and stake presidency
there. It was a cool meeting, to see all of what was happening in the
zone.
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| more of big sky country |
6/10
We tried to visit a less active sister in the morning, but it turns
out she was in the hospital, so we tried to call her and visit. We
didn't get to, but we will keep trying. We went to go get lunch in
town, and when we got there a member was there so we got it al, paid
for. That's always super sweet! We had a lesson with a active-ish
member family about service. I love service!
After he lesson, we had an exchange with the zone leaders. Elder
Cardiff and I were in Helena 2nd. Both from AZ, rocking Helena. We apt
basically all day finding- new investigators and less actives. Good
day.
6/11
We gave service for the city, working a stop for a 10k race. It was
cool to see all the people run, even through the streets will all
hilly. Seemed like a HARD run!
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| I took apart a counter.... But then I couldn't figure out how to put it back together correctly again.... So now we have a broken counter hahah! |
We had a meeting with president Bingham, so in order to save miles we
went and got breakfast and then we listened to a bunch of talks for
meeting with the stake president was about working with members
instead of Tracting, which was cool. We taught a few lessons to random
people as we woes, but really the rest of the day was more finding!
Switched at the end of the day.
6/12
Elder Merrell and I were super tired for some reason... Couldn't
figure it out! But we spent the day working to find more members to
teach, finding more people to teach.
We had dinner with a friend of brother Yule (from Clinton) and we
spent a lot of time talking about him. It was interesting to be able
to talk with him.
Had a few interesting experiences- we were contacting people on the street,
I GOT BIT BY A DOG!
Hah I think i just scared the thing, because it only happened when I
made a loud noise. He jumped up and bit the back of my leg. It
hurt..... But the people said he got all his shots and my medical
advisor said as long as I keep it wrapped I'll be good. But now I get
to say I got attacked by a dog on my mission!!! FINALLY!!!! Hahah
Unfortunately..... It did rip a pair of my suit pants.... So that stinks.....
After that we had correlation with the mission leader. Talked a lot
about the work, but we also talked a lot about music and my upbringing
with music. It was cool to be able to talk about my parents and get to
brag about their talents a little but haha!
Went to bed a little earlier...... Cause we were so freakin tired!!
Elder Braden R Wallgren
Montana Billings Mission
2015-2017
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Isaiah 61:1
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
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