Have more energy and be more happy....

Hola Familia!

So this week we spent a lot of time doing tons of post transfer work.  We had to make sure that all of the information was right on the computer and it takes so much longer than you would think.  We finally got done with all of it this week and then tomorrow we start working on transfers for Oct 30th haha.   I think that I went to bed 4 or 5 times past midnight in the last week so I am super tired but I think I am receiving a little bit of energy help from the Lord or something.  

Every Sunday night we collect all the numbers of the whole mission by companionship by ward so it takes hours! Last night while we were waiting I decided to make a little circle dot next to everyone's picture on the transfer board that plays ball haha it was kind of funny.  My comp was like what are you doing....then he looked at the board and said you didn't just mark everyone that plays ball...and I said well.. maybe haha.  Today we are going to play with Elder Shuster's zone.   I am excited for the turkey bowl too, we have a lot of kids this year that talk like they are going to be pretty good but we will find out on game day.  

It was nice to see the pics from Johnny’s baptism.  He looks so much older and so do the rest of the cousins, its nuts! Glad to hear that he likes that song (How Can I Be?) too haha.  It is the best.  Tell them all that I say hi!  

 Well our area is struggling a bit right now but last night we had a really good night so this coming week some good things should happen.  The girl that was preparing to be baptized this weekend just moved to Taylorsville this week so she is out of our area and mission now so some other Elders are going to help her finish preparing to get baptized.  I don't have too much time left because I need to email President too..Hope all is going well there and keep being examples!

Real quick, we had the Brigham City Temple dedication yesterday and something that I thought was super interesting was about habits.  Our brain will try to make something a habit to save energy and stress.  So something that will help us not be as stressed out and to have more energy and just be in a better mood plain and simple is by having good habits.  Such as praying and reading your scriptures.  If we replace other habits that we have with habits that are going to help us come closer to Jesus Christ we will have less stress in our lives,  have more energy and be more happy.  Just a cool thought to think about.

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

So I added the "Turkey Bowl" to the calendar...

Hola Familia!

Sooo Mom I finally got your letter in the mail today...I needed some stamps and couldn't find the ones that I had until today so I sent it in the mail, I am super grateful for the package and the letter haha...My first thought was "no she didn't get into my house" haha...But the message really helped so thanks.  

Once again I don't have a ton of time to email because transfers are tomorrow and we are meeting with President here in half an hour to finalize some things and then later tonight we will finish everything between 6-11 at night so it will be an adventure.  So there is this thing called a pre transfer checklist that a couple of the AP's made in the other mission a long time ago and we use it just to make sure we have done everything before transfers...at the end it used to say "God loves you so much!" in big bold letters.  However, we changed it to say  "Now that you are all done you can go ahead and eat the Dominoe's pizza you ordered 2 hours ago" because that is what happened last time haha...I am going to leave specks of my personality everywhere...For example Elder Brickey is now the choir director for our mission, by the way- we have a mission choir now and we had a devotional this past Sunday and I picked out the videos for the fireside. We put it on for one of the stakes of the mission and we sang songs and watched those videos and there were some recent converts and less active's that have recently come back shared their testimonies so it was legit. You should watch the movies I put on. They are on mormonchannel.com..The first one was ("The Good Samaritan" the second one was "Rescued By Christ" and the third one was "Lifting Burdens") you should watch them, they're money!  Anyways Elder Brickey is directing the choir since he has been doing music stuff all his life and remember how I told you I started matching my pen with my tie in the old mish? Well now elder Brickey is doing it and it was spreading in our mission- so thank me later for that one once it hits Bry’s mish too haha :)...

So we heard all about the BYU and UTAH game all week haha and then we heard all about it on church on Sunday. Everyone asks me who is my team because they know I like sports, that is a very dangerous question around here haha..I have made the decision that Oregon is my team because I don't like WSU or UW and I have always liked Oregon but now it is going to have to be the official fave, haha.  So I was wondering if Bry could pick me out a super legit Oregon Football shirt so I can represent, safely haha.

We have been super busy with transfers all week trying to get everything ready for tomorrow. We have 17 missionaries coming in this transfer so that is making it kind of busy.  We had to create 7 new areas which means finding houses phones and what not so it has been great haha.  

 Speaking of football, we were planning for November the other day and we had everything all on the board and then President left real quick and I noticed that something very important was missing from the plans for November on the calendar.  So I added the "Turkey Bowl" to the calendar and then sat back in my chair.  When President came back into the room he reviewed the calendar and said “Now wait a second, what is a Turkey Bowl?” hahaha. So I had to explain it to him and he thinks someone will get hurt but I assured him it would be alright haha :)..

We have been trying to focus on finding people to teach right now.  We are getting to teach a lot of returning members but we are trying to find friends that they have so that when they are coming back they can bring those friends with them too.  We have 2 baptisms coming up.  The next one is in 2 weeks for a lady.  Her boyfriend is one of the members that was less active for a time and now is starting to come back and they are both doing great.  She had never ever been to a LDS church before two weeks ago and then she came two weeks ago and said that she felt something different during Sacrament Meeting that she had never ever felt before in any of the other Christian churches she had been to.  We helped her recognize the Spirit and we taught her the Restoration to help her understand why this was the only church that had that special feeling, and the reason why it's the only one is because it is true.  The Spirit is going to testify of truth and that is exactly what happened in her case here so it was pretty cool to see how she could tell the difference of the church the first time that she went. Then the next week which was this past week she said that she came to church with a couple doubts still about getting baptized but she said when she came to church during Sacrament Meeting she felt the Spirit super strong again and all of her doubts are gone now. It just goes to show ya how important and powerful Sacrament Meeting can be.  For her, one Sacrament Meeting changed her life because in two weeks when she gets baptized she will unlock the power of the Atonement in her life.  If she wouldn't have felt the Spirit during that first Sacrament Meeting she went to she might not have ever committed herself to get baptized and receive all the blessings that are going to come from that.  

It made me start to think about how many Sacrament Meetings I have had in my life and in how many of those did I actually feel the cleansing power of the Atonement and the Spirit and how many times was I just going through the motions.  Every Sunday when we go to Sacrament Meeting we need to prepare ourselves so that we can have a spiritual experience and feel the power of the Atonement in our lives.  So that is my invitation for you this week, is to really prepare yourselves for the Sacrament so that you can have the same type of experience that this awesome lady had.

Well I gotta go cuz President is here but hope you have a good week. Love ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

The best way to lose fear is to have faith...

Hola Familia!
Well to start off with your request about sending home some more pictures...I haven't been able to find my camera for the last week so when I find it I will be sending home some pics haha. Jessie congrats on making A-team for v-ball and for learning the Spanish alphabet! At Christmas time I will see how good you are!

So this week has been so tiring...every single day I wake up more tired haha. It’s not just physical tiredness though; it was mental as well- just flat out exhausted.  We have been working super hard to try and find people that we can start teaching.  We have been finding a lot of people that are members and that are beginning to return but it has been really tough to find investigators.  The most solid converts are the ones that we get as referrals from members.  That is a big part of this new mission - to work more effectively with members to find their friends and teach them.

So for you back home you gotta make sure that you set the example about what a missionary is.  Make sure that you keep sharing the gospel with everyone you meet.  

Yesterday we met this kid who got off his mission 3 weeks ago from San Paulo.  He is an excellent example of missionary work.  The first thing he asked us was when he could come out with the missionaries and he then got our number and told us he would find someone for us to teach before next Sunday.  He showed the Lord his faith by his determination to find someone.  And because he has that righteous desire to find someone to bring closer to Jesus Christ, I guarantee the Lord is going to put someone in his path. 

Another cool thing that happened was yesterday one of the members that is beginning to come back to church was being a great missionary.  He invited a girl that he met to meet with us.  The simple invitation to come to church led her to accept a baptism date for Sept 29th.  One person extended one invitation and because of that how great shall be his joy when he sees Heavenly Father again.  He wasn't scared to invite her, if we are scared we are letting Satan win so we need to ignore him and get the fear out.  The best way to lose fear is to have faith which just means to go out and do it. INVITE! So that is the challenge for each one of you for this upcoming week.  You need to have a missionary experience and the best way to have that is to invite someone.  Let me know how it works.

I have been studying the Book of Mormon and the Atonement like crazy these last couple weeks. My testimony is getting a lot stronger and I am being taught new things by the Spirit every single day.

Also if you think about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and remember what that feels like to feel the cleansing power that it brings, it will bring you so much joy that you will desire others to have it as well. The scripture example we see of this is Lehi when he has his dream of the tree of life. The fruit of the tree represents the Atonement and he said when he had partook of the fruit he was filled with joy and he desired to share that with his family.  So because we are all children of God we are all family.  So taste of the Atonement of Jesus Christ again and you will want to share the gospel and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

Hope you all had and will have a good week.  Think about all the tender mercies the Lord has given each one of you and then go share that with someone else!!

Love Ya!
Siempre crean,
Elder Creer

He did a great job- short sweet and simple...

Hola Familia!

Things are going good here.  We got our car on Wednesday; it is a 2009   Mazda 3.  Definitely not the biggest car I have driven but it handles well and is fast.  My companion isn't a big fan of driving so I am the one has been driving it, I think he likes the phone too much lol. I was wondering if you could see if you could find a CD for me...like a Polynesian reggae type thing that just talks about church or Christ.  

So we were able to have another baptism this week.  He has been taught for a long time now and he finally got baptized this week.  It was cool because his family isn’t members but they all came to his baptism and the Spirit was so strong.  We invited him to share his testimony in front of everyone after he was baptized and he did a great job, short sweet and simple.  

So being an AP is way more work than anything else I have done.  We are super busy and I am dead every single night.   I don't know how my Spanish is going to be either because we have meetings in place of language study and I don’t really get to practice much, but we keep getting referrals from the Spanish sisters so now we are teaching a few Spanish speaking people which is nice.  

 Something cool and different about my new area is that every Monday night we go FHE (Family Home Evening) hopping.   We pretty much get to go to like five different FHE's throughout the night and ask for referrals and play the games with them, it's pretty fun.

So that is the short update for the day, sorry it is so short I will try better next week haha :)

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer