Email: November 5, 2012

Dear Family,

I can't believe its almost Christmas!  Now that it is November we are allowed to listen to Christmas music, its awesome.  I have a Michael Buble CD that I got from another missionary that is awesome!  And I have a mix CD with some Mannheim Steamroller, I don't know if I spelled that right ha ha.  

This week has be an amazing one full of more and more miracles!!  It was incredible.  So my new comp Elder Clements is from Arkansas and has been out about 9 months.  He is a very hard worker and focused on the work.  It has been awesome getting to know him and I am super stoked about this upcoming transfer.  We were able to set another baptism date on Thursday night with Trona that we tracted into.  He is a single guy who has two kids who are 11 and 13.  We have splits with the elders quorum every Thursday night so Elder Clements was with our ward mission leader Bro. Beer who actually knew Trona.  They went in and taught the first lesson and invited him to be baptized and he is getting dunked on the 1st of December!  His kids weren't there but we are meeting again tomorrow night and we are going to invite them to be baptized also!  It is a complete miracle.  The ward baptism goal for the year was 12 I think and they are at 5 so we made it a goal to get them to the 12 by the end of the year and I think it is going to happen.  

We also tracted into another little family on Friday afternoon.  We had to go out a ways to go to our appointment with Ike and Delores and we got there a little early so we decided to tract right around their area.  We ended up only knocking 2 doors because the second one let us in.  It was a mom dad and son who were super friendly and allowed us to teach them the first lesson and invited us back to teach again.  We committed them to read and pray before then and we are going back Tuesday night.  The spirit was very strong in the lesson and we are stoked for this family and for the work that is going on here in Albany!  We have been striving to be as obedient as we can and we are definitely seeing the blessings of keeping the commandments.  We also picked up an new investigator named Angela last night who really needs the gospel.  She is a super sincere lady in her 30's and she has been going through a lot in life.  She has two kids who are in juvie for a while and then a seven year old at home.  She said that she would read and pray and that we could come back on Thursday night when we do splits and we will teach and see if she got an answer.  

For Halloween we didn't get to do much.  They didn't really want us knocking doors which was no fun but we had an appointment or two and then we had to be back in by 730 and we did our weekly planning.  I don't like days where we don't get to do much, I love working and staying busy.  It makes things go better and i'm happier.  I definitely feel like I am a different person than I used to be.  This was the best choice I have ever made!  It is cool to see the promises in my patriarchal blessing coming true more and more every day.  I know that the gospel is true!  I love you all very much.  This week will probably be a week that goes down in history.  

Love,

Elder Erickson

Email: October 29, 2012

Dear Family,

This week was money!  We didn't teach a ton of lessons, it seemed like they all fell through but we have this old couple that we are teaching that are so awesome!  I think I might have mentioned them last week but they are so sweet, Ike and Delores Adamson.  Delores told us last week that she hadn't been baptized only because she couldn't quit smoking so we talked about that on Friday and invited them to be baptized.  They both excepted and are going to join the church on the 22nd of December!  I am so stoked for them.  We didn't think Ike was going to want to do it but he was right there with her and they are all in.  Their daughter who is a member is going to come down this Sunday and go to church with them for the first time.  It's going to be so tight.  

So we got transfer calls on Saturday and............................................................ Elder Sheen is getting transferred down to Klamath falls and I am here for one more and hopefully more after that.  I love this place.  It's definitely not Roseburg but its pretty good.  I just want to only have one more area after this and it is looking like that might be the case.  So we spent the day yesterday saying goodbye to people and taught one family the restoration so it was good.  My new companion is Elder Clements.  I have tried to ask around and see what he is like but no one seems to know him.  Worsencroft said that he came out at the same time but he doesn't know him much.  So he has been out like 9 months which is going to be sweet.  President Young did say that he was super obedient and a hard worker so I am counting on that.  We are going to hopefully have 5 with a date by the end of this week!  I have definitely seen the difference that the lord blesses us when we are being exactly obedient and when we are not.  Elder Sheen and I sat down and evaluated what we could be doing to be more obedient the other day and since then we have just seen so many miracles occur.  The lord is there and willing to bless us when we do what he asks.  That's why is is one of the first principles and ordinances of the gospel.  

We had a cool conference call last night with the whole mission.  President wanted to talk about the new announcement of the age being changed for missionaries and what that means for us.  He had a few people from the missionary department here this week and they gave him some stats about what has happened so far.  He said the within a 2 to 3 week period the usually get around 800 applications for service and since General conference they have received 10,000, and half of them are sisters.  So he was guessing that within the next 4 months or so that we will have at least 50 new missionaries in the mission and that he will have to open lots of new areas and may even have more than one set in a ward.  So he was challenging us to all rise to a new level of commitment and be the best we have ever been because he will need lots of trainers for these new missionaries.  I have taken that to heart and really been thinking about that since then and I am so excited to use this time to totally consecrate myself to the lord.  

It's Halloween on Wednesday, just FYI, in case you didn't hear.  I think I'm going to dress up as captain jack sparrow... ha ha.  We have to be in our houses by 7:30 but they did tell us that we could hand out candy if we wanted so we might do that, depends on how my new companion feels about it.  What is everyone else being? I would like some pictures if that's okay.  Well I love you all very much.  Hope you have a safe and fun Halloween!

Love,

Elder Erickson

Email: October 22, 2012

Dear Family,

This week was an incredible one.  It was filled with the spirit and lots of miracles!  It started off with having interviews with president young on Tuesday, which was awesome.  I always love getting to talk with him and share the progress I have been making.  He and I talked for a good half hour it was funny.  Anyway, we also had one of the assistants to the president come down and do an exchange with us.  He was one of the Zone leaders down in Roseburg when I was there and was made AP this last transfer.  He is an awesome missionary and super inspiring.  He is like 25 and hasn't been a member for too long.  

We were challenged by President on tuesday to instead of doing family history as much as we were to teach everyone we possible could the message of the restoration.  We took that to heart and have been doing that as often as we can this week and I feel that that was the source of all the miracles that we are receiving.  It started when we were at dinner with the Tranthums on wednesday night.  It was our first opportunity to teach an active family the restoration and so after dinner we sat down and planned to teach it.  We asked bro Tranthum to share with us his conversion and what stuck out to him the most when he was taking the lessons and became a member.  They have been members for about 9 years now.  So that ended up taking all of the time that we had but they had signed up for this wednesday also and said that we could do it then and they would invite a non member over to hear it.  We were stoked because it was the first time we had done it and we already were receiving blessings.  

We then were tracting and ran into this guy named Trona.  He is super awesome and actually knows our ward mission leader Brother Beer.  He walked out and was like oh good, I have actually been planning on converting to become a Mormon.  It was incredible!  I have never had that happen before.  He has been around a lot of members and said that there is not much else to it because if it wasn't from God then why are we such an amazing group of people.  He said he was moving this week so we thought we might not get to teach him but he's not moving out of our area!  We are super excited for him.  We also got an appointment with a girl named Lucy who has three little girls like 5 and under but she is a single mom.  She loves us and was so excited for us to come back.  Brother Allred was outside while we were tracting on his street on Saturday and introduced us to his neighbor who we actually set up 2 appointments with.  And she actually lives two houses down from Lucy.  We taught this older couple Ike and Delores, they have a daughter who is a member and Delores told us the only thing that has held her back from becoming a member was smoking.  She was very excited and we are going to help her quit and they committed to come to church next week already.  It just blows my mind again that the lord has blessed us with so much when we listened to his representative and had faith and acted.  My testimony has grown a lot in the past few days.  

Transfer calls come in the weekend so I am just hoping and praying that I get to stay and work with all of these incredible people that we are finding.  The rain wont stop us!  We are going to use that to our advantage!  ha ha just kidding, I am still not a big fan of it!  Well I think thats all I had for this week.  Thank you all for the good example that you are to me!  

Love,

Elder Erickson

Email: October 15, 2012

Dear Family, 

Crazy, I have been back out this time for 1 year now!  On Thursday anyway.  Time is going pretty fast!  I can't believe that it is almost halloween!  I think I might dress up like a missionary this year... ha ha.  

So this week was very long and mentally draining.  We are working are very hardest everyday to move the work forward here but we aren't seeing anything come from it right away.  It's hard.  Plus it started raining on Friday and that is going to take some getting used to again.  I forgot how not seeing the sun can affect how you feel.  But with all of that we won't let it stop us from pushing ourselves everyday and working hard.  We don't really have many investigators right now who are progressing anywhere.  Just Gus.  On the flip side though he is doing awesome and reading the Book of Mormon.  We had a lesson with him last Monday night and it went well.  We talked about what he had read so far and he said he likes it a lot because it is easier to read.  We kinda had a little lesson about Lehi's dream and what it meant.  I am so excited for that!  That is usually the hardest thing to get people to do is to actually read what the book says.  

We kinda started teaching this guy named George also but we aren't sure if he is just there to argue.  He has like 3 pages of anti stuff that he wants cleared up.  He sounds very sincere when he is asking but it doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere.  We went in with a plan of bearing testimony and getting him to realize that if he believes that the book of mormon is true than the rest of it comes with it and how important it is to get that spiritual witness from the holy ghost.  But he didn't sound like he was actually going to put it to the test that way.  He said hes going to compare it to the bible and if it doesn't match up then it isnt true.  So we will meet with him a few more times and see where it takes us but if he makes in argumentative then we will stop going over to see him.  

Elder Sheen was sick yesterday so we spent the day inside which was hard.  I had cabin fever pretty bad.  I watched the testaments twice and read and took a nap but it really helps me see how much I like going out and working everyday.  Its very satisfying.  Sorry there is more to report this week.  Hopefully this one will be a better week.  We have interviews with President Young tomorrow morning which should be pretty good. 

I almost forgot.  I was going to tell you about this cool study I did this week.  Brother Marteeny in the ward told us about it so I thought I would look into it.  He talked to us about Ministering angels and I had never really thought about it before.   But the Aaronic Priesthood holds the Keys to the Ministering of Angels.  Those angels who minister are the spirits who have already lived and have accepted the gospel or those who haven't lived yet.  Those who have already passed and are there ministering are our ancestors.  When we are being righteous we have the right to those angels who will be round about us to bear us up and also confirm the testimony of the gospel to others.  If you haven't looked into it, I would suggest it!  Love you all very much!  

Love,

Elder Erickson

Email: October 8, 2012

Dear Familia,

Conference was amazing!  I don't even know if I could pick a favorite talk if I had to.  They were all out of this world amazing.  I don't know how anyone who watches conference and feels that spirit not know that it is true and from god.  It makes no sense to me.  I know without a doubt in my heart that President Thomas S. Monson is a prophet and is called of god to be here on the earth and receives revelation and guidance for us today.   Christ Lives.  He is there and wants us all to be happy and loves us so much that he does whatever he can to help us return and live with him.  Families can be and are forever.  All we need to do is keep his commandments.  I am so thankful for the examples I have around me and all of you.  I loved all of the talks that were shared but there was one that applied directly to what Elder Sheen and I have been trying to do here in the Takena ward.  We felt that the direction to take to get the missionary work established and going here was family history.  

We had our weekly planning session on Friday and we were really trying to feel the spirit and be directed to what we should be doing.  We knelt down and asked and we received that answer.  So we got these pedigree charts from the family history consultants and we are taking them to all of our dinners and challenging them to fill them out and we are going to make a board at the church and have a "Takena Family Tree".   Then get them to the family history Center and share it with their friends and then get their friends to the center.  Elder Scott's talk was specifically about doing family history ourselves and not losing out on half the blessing of the temple.  I know that when we went to the Fresno temple with family names and did baptisms that I felt the spirit very strongly and I don't want to miss out on that.   There is a cool quote in preach my gospel that basically says that we need to dissolve the artificial boundary between missionary work and temple and family history.  It is the same thing.  Whether its for those living or dead.  I am very excited about this and we are going to be working on it very hard. 

We found 4 new investigators the week.  We have a lesson tonight with two of them, Lindy and Walker, they are a young couple and they are super nice and friendly.  The other is George and Kiersten fox.  They are kind of an older couple, they have a sincere desire to find the truth.  I didn't meet them because we were on exchanges but from what I hear they are great!  

I love all of you very much!  Thank you for being great examples to me and helping me become a better person!  

Love,

Elder Erickson

Email: October 1, 2012

Dear Family,

Well tell Wilson the dog congrats on being a dad!  ha ha that is nuts to hear that she had them already that fast.  Didn't she just get pregnant like a month ago?!  I guess I don't know how that works with dogs.  Crazy Crazy.  Saw some of the lake powell pictures, looks like it was fun!  Well I hope everything goes smoothly with the dog and that she is okay.  

This week has been a service week.  By sunday I was just so dead.  We helped the minks, a family in our ward mix and pour cement for a footing for a shop.  It was very cool to learn how to do it but it was super long and tiring.  I kind of want to build my own home someday so its good to know how to do concrete now.  We are still doing a lot of finding through the old formers and potentials list.  Bishop Harding also gave us a list of people to go and see this upcoming week and we have a cool lesson planned with Gus tonight where hopefully we are going to invite him to be baptized!  I am stoked.  We also did service and had a lesson with Laurette on friday and talked about her making the next steps to gain a testimony and really know if this is true.  We helped her peel apples so that she could dehydrate them.  It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.  My hands were dying by the end. 

For our Pday activity today we went... Golfing!  It was so good to get out and hit some balls.  I haven't been for like six months and I am terrible but it is still fun.  We are also planning to go over to the coast next week which should be sweet!  There is a cool Nike outlet store over in Lincoln City that I want to go to.  It's weird, even though this is where Nike was started and the headquarters are they don't have a lot of stores around.  They sell the stuff in other stores but it is super expensive.  

I can't even explain to you how excited I am for General Conference this weekend!  Its hard to believe that its already here but I am not complaining.  We are going to invite as many people as we can this week to watch it.  Lots of the members opened their homes and said that we could invite some of our investigators over to watch it!  Well other than that, not much to report this week.   I love you all very much.  Thanks for being there for me!  

Love,

Elder Erickson