New Comp and New State!!!!

Jordan's new companion is Elder Searle and he is in Indiana now! Yay! 

His new address is: 1775 Antler Ct. Apt. #F3

                                Elwood, IN  46036

He would LOVE letters!

Getting Transferred Tomorrow

Hey y'all! So I'm not gonna write much on this weeks email. Sorry about that. But things have been going alright in the area. We had one day that was fantastic. We taught Scott Van De Grift and it was such an amazing lesson! So one thing with Scott, when I first moved in to the area, you could barely ask him a question without him getting upset or mad at you and tell you off. We went in to this lesson with prayer, fasting, and President Loechinguer (mission presidents counselor) and wow! Miracles happened! He opened up a whole lot and was super close to praying and being put on date. I know he will be there soon enough. I am getting transferred this week though, but am not sure where I am going till tomorrow. But I know Elder Brasher will get Scott there and take care of the area. Love you all!

Here's some fun pics.

Don't look TOO happy!

Got a haircut.

Helping ward member cut down some trees.

New Investigators

Hey whats up y'all!!! :D

Everybody needs to hurry and send my mother Darlene Silotti a message on Facebook. It is currently her birthday today and needs the wishes! ;) But seriously though.... DO IT! :P

Lets see, so currently our area is still not doing super hot, but we are getting a little better I guess? We don't really have any other progressing investigators besides Scott Van De Grift, but we have a couple who are still up and down. Abbi was doing great but has bailed on us a lot this past week or so which is a bummer cuz she could really use a switch around in life and wants a switch up. I just don't know how much she is willing to sacrifice to get that. So hopefully things will work out for her.

So our mission does this thing called 2-2-5ing where if we go to a persons house and they are not home we talk to the 2 neighbors on both sides of the house, and the 5 houses across the street to ask about that person and then introduce ourselves and see if we can get a new investigator. And we were doing that one time this week and this lady answers the door and the first thing she says to us is "Hey! Wanna come do some dishes for me?" Elder Brasher immediately responds, is there another male in the house? I would love to do it!  (Rules are, there has to be another 16+ old male in the house for us to go in) and she just starts laughing and replies "No its okay, I'll do it. Talk to my son" Then she walks in and tells her 17 year old son to come out and talk to us. It was so funny! Their names are Erin (Mom), Kyle (17 year old son), and Iseaha (10?) and we have an appointment with them I think tomorrow? So that will be awesome. We would love to get another family to join the church!

Lets see, so one of our long term investigators we stop by occassionally needed some work on her truck so I asked what it needed work on. She was like,"It needs new intake manifold gaskets. I've got the parts." So I respond,"I've never done it before but that doesn't sound too difficult", so she let me do it cuz nobody else could in a reasonable time. I was excited. Working on cars is great! So I replaced my first exhaust manifold gaskets and it was fantastic! ;) And because of Gods grace, we were able to give her a tour of the church later that night which is the most progress we have made with her so far, and it went pretty well. :) Hopefully we can teach her again soon. She is super busy. Oh! Her name is Tika and she is like 35-40? And she has 3 kids.

I don't think there is anything else this week, so I will talk to y'all later. Love ya!

2 Weeks Till Transfers

 

So honestly there isn't a whole lot to talk about this week but I will try to hit the more important points. :)

 

So this last week we had what is called a Social Media Split, which is something our mission came up with I think. You get one day where you try and plan the whole day to have members out with you teaching or doing service etc... and the point of is it to have the members take photos or videos to post on social media sites to kind of spread the good word. :) Kind of cool! So Elder Brasher and I did lots of service. We were on top of roofs cleaning gutters, painting floors, weeding, mowing lawns etc... It was a lot of fun. :) Sadly we weren't able to get many lessons that day though, but lots of service is always good.

 

Then the other thing from this week is sadly our area is not doing so hot currently. Our investigators Brianna and Wileen dropped us. Brianna had an attitude with Wileen I guess and Wileen blamed it on us and text us and told us to never come back again. So they are dropped. Then we had our other really good potential, Rhonda Hauke, drop us. Well, her fiancé did, she told us we could call her last night to see if we could start coming by again (fiancé hates Mormons I guess) and so I called her and the Fiance answered. He went off on us which is sad that he is so controlling over Rhonda. She is in her 30's and he is stopping her from even talking to us. Poor Rhonda. She really wanted to keep learning. And as for Tammy, a long term investigator who started progressing, seems to be dropping a little again cuz she has such a crazy life (2 Jobs, 5 kids, and is going to court with 2 crazy ex's) so she has a lot on her plate. But she won't keep any commitments so we may have to drop her soon sadly.

 

And lastly, as for Abby, she is doing good. We had an in home lesson with her last Wednesday. And it went really good, she was excited to read the Book of Mormon.she was going to be at church on Sundy but ended up being out of town longer than planned, so hopefully we can see her soon :)

Oh, lastly! I gave my first talk while on the mission and it went a lot better than I was expecting, It was my first time speaking without my whole talk written out, just a couple bullet points.... Anyways, love you all!

       

P-Day on Tuesday

This week has been full of miracles its great! :) Things are getting better with my comp. It is up and down but it's getting better though. I have grown a lot spiritually and with my testimony so that is great. :) We study every morning and I study or clean whenever we have down time cuz I don't want any time to waste. We follow all of the mission rules. Obedience is power and I want to be as spiritually powerful as I can be, cuz if I'm slacking, other people are losing that opportunity to change their lives. 

So this last week we had the coolest thing happen. So Elder Brasher and I were going over to the Van De Grifts to teach the new convert lessons and there was somebody over there selling them a TV named Abi. She was a family friend they saw every once in awhile who is 25. Anyways, so of course Elder Brasher starts trying to teach her like, "Hey, we can teach you" and other little things like that, in a joking way, and she was always saying,"No I'm good." But by the end of when we left she totally opened up and was asking if she could go to church on Sunday and meet with us again. It was insane! She was telling us (Later) how she just saw something in Elder Brasher that she had a strong desire for. Not an attraction but something else, and she didn't know what it was, but she wanted it. Which, as I am sure most of you know, that was the Holy Ghost that she saw in him. She has such a strong desire for it. So she came to church and was only planning on staying for 1 hour and by the end she went to all 3 hours and really opened up during Relief Society and even bore her testimony! It was insane!!! 

So we had another lesson that Sunday night and it was just crazy and we have another lesson on Wednesday. But a little about her, it took a lot of trust for her to open up to us about the fact that she is a lesbian and has a partner currently but wants to be with a man. She was the, "it girl/cheerleader" type person in high school. She had a really rough family life which led her to, after high school, getting into stripping for awhile. So she really has a long ways to go currently as she tries to change. But as long as she continues to see the light and has the desire she will get there. She is fantastic! :)

So 2 funny stories from this week. So we went over to this one guys house (Bill) to see if we could share a message with him and he opens the door a little but like hid himself behind the door, besides his head and upper chest. He told us now was a bad time and to come back later. So we said okay and as we were leaving I looked back and saw through the window, Bills little butt cheeks jiggling as he was walking haha! He opened the door and he was completely naked... What a nut ;)

Story 2, We went over to one of our favorite old ladies, Sister Garbe, and she says to us, "One second. Let me go put my teeth in (dentures)." So she leaves and comes back a minute later and has her dentures in with a huge smile on and says,"How do I look?" Haha. Not only did she put her dentures in, she also put on lots of blush and lipstick haha, It totally made my day ;') She's so great! That's it for the week. Love you all! :)

Jordan's bed and his side of the room

Still crazy!

Family Zone Day

Labor Day fun

First Baptism!

So this week has been super busy and great! But also a lot of work, especially with the baptism. So with Christina Van De Grift she text us Thursday morning and decided she was not going to be baptized. So we talked to her for a little bit and were able to get her to go to the interview tonight with President Lochinger, (mission presidents counselor), and he solved all of her concerns. Thankfully!  So she was good to go! She also has not been drinking coffee at all. She is so super! So Saturday evening we had the baptism of Christina Van De Grift which was super duper sick! I mean spiritual. Anyways, it was a great experience. She is going to be a fantastic member. 

Then that Saturday we went to the Christinas to help build a wheelchair ramp for her husband who has Multiple sclerosis. We had like 10 members of the ward show up to help. It was so fantastic to see the ward work together to help out our investigators/members. :)

So on Thursday we had a special training with President Porter and the assistants and the whole lower half of the mission. It was really good. BUT they gave us these things called Tiwi's, (we got a car part time now). They are a little box that tells you to slow down if you are speeding, tells you if you are driving aggressive and tells the mission if those things happen so they know who is being dumb in the vehicles. So that is fun. ;) We named our Tiwi, Helga, cuz she is the mean, Mom who tells you what you can and can't do. It's like getting a license so you can drive on your own, but still have your Mom with you.... Hahaha ;)

One last thing! So we have this new investigator, Kevin, who is super cool. But he needs help, he has an addiction to Heroin, weed, and tobacco and maybe some other things as well, and is in a rough situation. He is so cool though and really needs help, and he can definitely feel the spirit so strongly! The first time we met him we shared a prayer and he started crying. After our first lesson/first vision lesson with him we shared Joseph Smiths first vision experience and he just started crying. It was such a touching moment. We are hoping to see him Tuesday and extend a baptismal date to him at the end of the lesson.

Other than that this week has still been great! I love you all. Good luck this week :)

Special Missionary Training

Good eats

Loving the work

Love President Porter!

So fun to see Elder Longmire again

Sister Van De Grift before she was baptised

See how happy she is after!

This lady is awesome

She made him laugh so hard

Awesome Letter We Received!