Week 18 (Week 1 in Michigan)

Elder Christiansen, Elder Palmer, and me at Lake Huron.

Hey everyone!! Long time no see! It's been a few months since I was last out in the field, but I'm back out and excited to do the Lord's work again. 

I arrived Tuesday night at the Lansing, Michigan airport, stayed with a few other elders in a hotel and then met my companions the next morning. I say companions plural because I've been put in a trio with an Elder Christiansen and Elder Palmer. I am serving now in Bad Axe, Michigan, which is quite a bit more up north from Lansing. It turns out the mission is huge, and so is our area. In fact, because they have no missionaries in our neighboring area called Caro right now, we are covering both the Bad Axe and Caro areas. And yes I know, Bad Axe is a very interesting name for a town, but its real!

All the elders that have been in the Bad Axe area sign
this, well, bad axe we have in our apartment. 😆

I had the opportunity my first day to see one of the great lakes, Lake Huron, as it is pretty close to our apartment, only a half-hour drive. It is HUGE and also very pretty, and we were able to walk on a long dock way out into the lake.

As for the work in the area, it is quite slow! The state of Michigan is still in a state of emergency, so we Elders are still mostly quarantined. We are allowed now to do service, and soon we will be able to go to church as well in person, but we still aren't able to knock on doors, do contacts, or meet in person with our investigators. This means that most of our work is over the phone, and/or through Facebook.

 

Unfortunately, our area has a pretty small teaching pool meaning that we don't have a lot of interested people to teach in our records. And since we can't do finding out and about, we have to work with who we DO have in our records, and find new people through Facebook. It seems as if most of the elders around here do not like Facebook-finding very much, and I can't blame them, but I'm thankful for it! It at least gives us some ability to find new people and spread the gospel while we're being confined to our apartments.

 

A little about my new companions: Elder Christiansen has been out on his mission for 21 months, and Elder Palmer for just over 6 months. Since we serve missions for 2 years, Elder Christiansen only has a few months left, and let me tell you, he is ready to go. I think quarantine has been pretty hard on him, as it has been hard on a lot of missionaries, but he's a great guy with a major addiction to Ben and Jerry's ice cream, which we ate on my first day, as tradition, I suppose to induct me to the companionship. Elder Palmer is also a very interesting guy who begs some of the oddest questions out of nowhere, such as "is ketchup considered a sauce, jam, or smoothie?". He determined it is, in fact, closest to a jam. He is such a funny dude with a good heart as well. But yeah, I love these elders, and I look forward to working with them further, however, our actual transfer day is next week, meaning any one of us could be changed to another area. Elder Palmer has been in this area for just under 5 months (this is is first area) so he is probably the most likely to leave, but who knows! I'll keep you all posted on what happens though. 

Even though our teaching pool is small, we are doing our best to find new people. Doing some calling this week, we found two great people, Mary and Sam, whom we hope to set up lessons with in the future. We set up a lesson this coming Wednesday and Sunday with a couple of nice ladies as well. One experience was particularly special, as last night, with about an hour left, both me and Elder Palmer felt prompted to make a few more calls to people on our records. I pitched a few names forward and only one of them answered, and he was too busy to talk with us. But then Elder Christiansen went to another list and felt we should call down that list. The first person we called answered, had talked with missionaries before, but hadn't been contacted since Covid really hit, and was very happy to hear from us. We talked for a short little bit and scheduled a lesson with her next Sunday over video call. It was definitely a blessing in which all three of us elders were prompted by the Spirit, and I know we were specifically led to her.

Finally I just want share a quote by Elder Holland, an apostle of the Lord, that I stumbled upon recently that was really powerful and gave me a lot of hope:

“The Spirit is not blocked by a virus or by national boundaries or by medical forecasts. [There are] gifts from heaven that are not limited by trouble in the land or illness in the air. … He who created this marvelous world in which we live can say to any of the elements in it: ‘This far and no farther.’ That is what He will say to this blight we are facing. In the presence of His majesty, even subatomic-sized creations must bend—if only figuratively—and each in its own way ‘confess’ that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the great Redeemer of all. Under the direction of His Father, the Savior is in charge of the destiny of this world. We are in very sure and loving hands.” 

God is in control, and He is aware of each and every one of you and your struggles. Have faith, and know that God has a plan for each of us!

-Elder Lightheart

A huge plate of eggs, rice and bacon that Elder Christiansen made which I didn't finish until after 3 meals.:

This is us elders getting Chick Filet after meeting
our new companions, however you can
only see my gray floral tie barely in this photo.