Hello My Friends!

May 16, 2016

Well hello my good friends! It is once again wonderful to write y'all and talk about my adventures down here in West Texas! This past week was very busy but nonetheless a fulfilling week of serving the Lord!

The week started off with basically the easiest transfer day ever for us. Thank heavens! Usually transfer day is hectic and long with tons of crazy confusion and stuff, and usually takes us well into the evening until we are relieved of managing it all. However, showed up to the church at like 9:00 and were out of there at 3:00 with not too much to worry about! I pretty much hung around all day at the church with different people just waiting for a car or two to show up and get the incoming missionaries sent back off. Good times. Elder Lund had to take a nice trip to Big Spring and back, but I basically just sat around. It was actually rather relaxing. Not too often do you get time like that as a missionary!

Along with transfers, they closed down two of the areas here in Abilene, which takes us down to only 6 companionships including us! So we have the privilege of going through the apartments closing. Holy cow! Greatest thing ever! We've found so much sweet stuff! The first time going through one of the apartments we filled the back seat with sweet stuff to take home for ourselves! And we haven't even gone through the other apartment yet so I am thoroughly looking forward to scoring some sweet items from that place. You can just find the most random stuff in missionary apartments. Its so weird. But so fun. We brought home Play-Do, sweet sweaters, some good treats, some jammin' cd's, and that’s just to name a few. We haven't even brought the comfy recliner chair home yet. That will most definitely be a nice addition to the two couches and recliner that we already have!

We had the privilege of going up to Lubbock for Mission Leadership Council on Friday! It was legit. President Heap is absolutely amazing! He spent a good while instructing us about "principles". You always think about missionaries and all of the "rules" that we have. Its true, we do have a lot of things that the Lord asks us to do as missionaries. However, President made it very clear that we do not and will never have a single "rule" (as far as spiritual matters are concerned... still thinking about the temporal matters though) either on our missions or at home. Not one single rule. The Lord will never give any rules to govern us. He only gives us principles to live by and lets us govern ourselves. Rules don't allow us to govern ourselves, don't leave room for us to follow the spirit, and put up parameters for our progression. You put yourself in a box when you follow rules, and there is no progression outside of that box. Ultimately, this allows us missionaries and followers of Christ to truly learn to follow Christ. It leaves us more room to make decisions based upon our spiritual knowledge and what the spirit teaches us, and to learn spiritually and not carnally. That is what President Heap's mission is about. Helping us learn to govern ourselves and become converted. Not for us to convert other people, but to convert us. A member of the first quorum of the 70, Elder Foster, told a stake president in Lubbock that the Texas Lubbock Mission has the lowest rate of missionaries going home early out of all 20 missions in the North America Southwest area. And that's because he teaches us the principles of things, and lets us govern ourselves. That usually leads to missionaries often times going through times of waywardness because they don't yet understand the principles of the gospel. However, through experience they always learn the principles and are more converted should they have been following rules the whole time. President Heap said that if we had 1000 convert baptisms this year (which we only had 200 something last year), and he lost 5 of us nearly 200 missionaries to inactivity after our missions, the 1000 convert baptism don't mean a thing to him. Anyway, that was just a nice long babble about principles and how amazing President Heap is. And the thing is too, that he taught it all from the scriptures and from teachings of modern day prophets. Just like he always does! The rest of MLC though was sweet. Nothing you non-missionaries care about because it has to do with functionings of our mission, but it was sweet too. Plus, it is always super good to be around a bunch of really good missionaries! Definitely boosts you up!

We met a sweet brothah in the 'hood this week named Sir Jason. Yes, you can't forget the "Sir" hahaha! His dad thinks that he is royalty or something so he called his son Sir Jason instead of just Jason. Def not royalty, unfortunately. I was pretty sure I had come across Sir Jason and some of his friends on exchanges with a different missionary the previous week, but they just stared at us and didn't respond to my trying to be nice, so we kept walking. But, this time around, he was just sitting by himself, so I decided to give him a second chance. Oh boy, that was the greatest decision of my life. Hahaha Sir Jason was SWEET! I asked him, "How are you doing, brother!" and he popped right off his bumm and told us to ask him stuff about Jesus. What made this character so funny is his use of the word "smooth". Hahaha he would say "Oh bro, thats smooth some real stuff right there, man!" and of course the "I'm smooth gonna go smoke all sorts of weed"! We actually had a really good conversation about some pretty deep Plan of Salvation doctrine that really hit him good and made him think. He was actually a really good thinker and had a nice layer of spiritualness to him. However, we went back yesterday and he said that he threw the pamphlet we gave him away and doesn't really care to learn anything. So that was sad. We couldn't do much to save it. However, he was a little sick yesterday, so I said, "Dang you're smooth sick today today?" and he responded, "No bro, I'm straight sick. You just can't be smooth sick." hahaha Sir Jason! I'm telling ya, this guy is something else! Good times. I love the people we meet all the time! They keep life interesting.

As for the rest of the work. We have actually been able to teach this guy named Mark a few times. He is super legit. Dang solid. He has been praying to find truth and he soaks up everything we teach him! The only problem is that we have very slim margins of time to meet with him during his day because of his work schedule, but we're making it work out! We are looking forward to hopefully getting him a baptismal date this week to get him moving along more! We also have been keeping up with Nick who was baptized when I first got here! He is doing super well! Their family has had a lot of road bumps since he's been baptized but they have been hanging on strong through the whole thing and it has only built them stronger! He and his wife (returning less-active) have their eyes set on the temple! Nick has changed so much through his conversion process! It is such a joy to watch! Other than them, we don't have too much going forward right now. We have gotten some new investigators lately, but it seems to be difficult to teach them a second and third time. So we just gotta keep working hard!

Well my good friends, I love y'all and pray for y'all every day! May the good Lord bless you as you continue to press forward in faith! His grace is sufficient!

God bless ya!

Much love,

Elder Reed Ericson

Lost in Time

May 9, 2016

Hello my friends! (I feel like I start every week like that...) It has been a crazy week down here in Abilene, TX for Elder Ericson. But always a good week nonetheless!

I will start off by mentioning the topic of my subject for this email, "Lost in Time". It is what it is. This past week was so weird for me. Every single day was just a dream for an experience. I went about all day doing my work and got it done while being super tired, but not even realizing that I was tired until someone asked me how I was doing! Every night I would come in and plan, and then handle whatever was on task for that night, and then lie down in bed and not even really be able to remember what happened that day. It seemed like I would go to bed at night, and then get out of bed and then without delay get right back in bed again. It is starting to freak me out! I would think about lessons I taught and people I talked to and not be able to remember them very well for some reason! It was crazy! We went on two different exchanges this week as well so I think that was a reason for the dreamy like state. Spending two full days plus two mornings and two nights with a change of companion and social dynamic will do that. Plus exchange days just come and go and all of a sudden you are two days further ahead than you thought you were! So, it was interesting, but hopefully it'll cool down here after this week. This week will be crazy with transfers and cleaning out apartments, so I am not expecting a change! Maybe I should though... I don't know. I don't understand the human mind well enough to decide.

On a lighter note, here's a sweet story. We were at the church on Wednesday night because we play basketball with the missionaries and sometimes some members on Wednesday nights. Anyway, we got there while our ward's youth were finishing up their combined activity in the gym. After they were done they had a basketball that they were shooting basically full court shots with (it’s a smaller court). So, Elder Ericson got the ball somehow and shot one from the opposite corner of the gym...... nothin' but net! Oh yeah, who's the coolest missionary now kids! The young men were pretty impressed to say the least. I shot a few more over the next 5 minutes or so and was just right on but just off enough to not go in. But then, tossed up another one..... nothin' but net! Holy cow I got some mad brownie points with the young men of the Abilene 1st Ward! And then after they all left we played a game with the missionaries and a member, and I forgot my athletic clothes so I played in my missionary clothes. So that was interesting. But I still balled hard regardless.

We went out on Friday to do some service in a tiny town called Buffalo Gap. We go out there and help a non-member family with their house. They bought a tiny little hut basically and now its 3800 square feet and they still have 3 years or so to go! They are building everything with supplies they get from other construction jobs or scrap stuff so they aren't paying a single penny for anything! Its incredible! The house isn't your typical house, obviously, but it is super sweet to see the project they have going for them! They are basically preparing for the day when people will need a place to stay because the economy and society are completely shot, so they are planning on providing enough room for at least 40 people to live there! Pretty interesting project! Missionaries go out and work every Friday, and I've been out there two times I think, so hopefully we'll be able to go with the other elders more this transfer!

As for the work these days, its picking up! We picked up a few new people this week to teach! We haven't been able to meet with others people that we picked up in recent weeks though. So as for any progress with anybody, there isn't much. I try not to throw names out there in these emails because y'all can't keep them straight anyway, so unless we actually teach them multiple times, I usually keep the names out so its easier to keep things straight. Hopefully we will have more progress with some people after this week so that I will have more to report! As for other work, our ward mission leader is really pushing building up "PR" with the members. Luckily, Elder Lund and I both have always been the type to be liked by the members so that is going real well for us! Apparently things have improved a lot since Elder Lund got here and even more since I got here a transfer later! So we are doing work there. We ain't doing anything special. But we just are friendly and nice and don't act like business missionaries. We act like real people while still fulfilling our purpose as missionaries. People seem to love having us in their home because of that. We can have a nice chat about who knows what at dinner and have some good laughs, and still be the missionaries that we need to be! A lot more people are calling us for service and stuff and inviting us for things. So its going well. Hopefully we can get this rolling into some good member missionary work here! But its a process that will take time!

And then of course it was a pleasure to Skype the fam last night! Always a treat! Happy late Mother's Day to all you mothers who love the rest of us so much and take such great care of us! And especially to my own mother! Love you, Momma!

Well, I need to git. I hope y'all hold tight to the iron rod this week and go forward with an eye of faith! May the good Lord bless you as you strive to live righteously and be a true Christian!

God bless ya!

Mucho amor,

Elder Reed Ericson

Heatin' Up

May 2, 2016

Hello my good friends! I hope life is treating you well today! It surely is a wonderful life that we live and get to enjoy! This week was a week full of hard work and long days. But it was a wonderful, fulfilling week!

To start off, its heating up down here in the great West Texas! It hasn't gotten too hot yet, however. But we've been up solid in the 80's and creepin' to the 90's range. This week we were out all week on our bikes and on foot doing the good work of the Lord, so we surely got a taste of it. The sun has been beating down as well. No clouds in view most days. It definitely was a taxing week for us though. Our bodies were not used to being out in the sun all day and on top of that the increased heat. So each day we just came trudging inside our apartment at the close of the day and just planned and crashed if we weren't the one on the phone! Definitely a fulfilling week of hard work though! It feels so good to come in and just be beat! Very satisfying indeed!

One evening we were walking around in the more "hood" neighborhood of our area and came across a clan of teenagers/children. They come right up to us and tagged us and said we were "it" and that we had to tag them. Well, it took me about 5 seconds to get another teenage boy. So then he was it. So he then took off after me again to try to catch me........... ha. Nice try. My dress shoes were definitely not the running type which made things extremely difficult for me to outrun him, but he still didn't have a chance. So then after escaping his chase, and basically just ending the game, I asked who wanted to ball us up on the basketball hoop out in the street. So the same guy and this black kid with mad hops joined together to go 2 on 2 against me and my companion! They were both 18 years old I think. I started off by single handedly tearing them up with some made bombs and some nice drives to the hoop. For the record, Elder Lund isn't exactly the skilled basketball player type. I think we caught them off-guard being white boys. I don't think that black kid had ever played organized basketball against real basketball players so my defense seemed to be a surprise to him when he couldn't get past me! Anyway, we tire out quickly, so when we were up like 12-4 they started to come back on us. It got to be 13-13 I think when I decided that it was do or die time... so I took my guy mano y mano to the hoop, threw up a little pump fake, got him way up in the air, and then kissed it off the glass with my defenders feet firmly on the ground for the winning hoop! It was pretty sweet! There were a bunch of kids out there watching us! But our competitors were super good kids and we are friends now! That group of kids though was pretty amazing to see! You had white kids, black kids, Mexican kids, young kids, old kids, etc. They didn't care what color they were or how old they were, they were all just outside in the good outdoors enjoying life together! I don't think any of them have many gadgets and gizmos to spend their time on or anything so they are always outside with each other! We even happened to be back there the next evening and a smaller number of them were outside again together running around and laughing! It was wonderful to see!

We have a lady that we had taught when I first got here but haven't been able to teach again. This past week we had called her to set something up and she mentioned that her back got hurt pretty bad and that she was having a hard time dealing with that. So we offered some service and she said that she needed her lawn mowed! So we showed up and before we even mowed her lawn she mentioned a bunch of miracles that had happened that week. She didn't have money to pay her phone bill, but the perfect amount randomly showed up in her phone account balance, her cat was basically dead but was perfectly healthy just a couple days later, the day we showed up her back was like magically feeling a lot better,  and something else I think. Well, her lawnmower had like zero gas. It was saturated a little bit on the bottom of the tank but not enough to get the job done. Well, Elder Lund mowed her entire lawn with that mower with no additional gas, and then after that got done we were cleaning out the bottom of the mower, so we had the mower tilted in its front, and gas was leaking out of the gas tank cap!!!!!! HOLY COW!!!!! Miracles in the life of Shanna!!!! It was just like, BAM, miracle! Right there! Check it! Definitely a testimony builder that the good Lord still works small miracles in the lives of his children!

We went on exchanges this week with the elders out in Eastland. We had them into Abilene to work our area. I was with on of the Eastland elders in their car all day. I can say that the Lord was working miracles that day for sure. No idea how I'm still alive. That kid was the scariest driver ever. Like, zero awareness. God bless him. And on top of that, we had to drive home that evening in a raging storm. Pretty sure we were on our way off of the side of the overpass at one point before an angel put his hand on the side of the car and pushed us back on! And that was a huge exaggeration... but, it was still scary with him. Definitely a white-knuckle experience!

So we had a good time a couple nights ago. We stopped by a family’s house that we are acquainted with well to share a lesson with them. They are members but are just getting stronger in the church again. Well, the mom wasn't home so it was just the 23 year old son and the 19 year old daughter. We had zero plans for a lesson so we just winged it and somehow got right into the Law of Chastity! hahaha it was great! So awkward for them and so fun for us! Their mother had a good laugh when we talked to them yesterday about it! It was classic. People make that lesson so awkward but it is so fun to just straight up teach the doctrine and principles! But, I've only taught that lesson like maybe 3 times on my mission so thats unfortunate.

We picked up a huge group of new investigators this week! And by big group, I mean they all are at the same apartment. There was Kim & Sunny (married couple), and their friends Marissa, Olivia, and Abraham! They are pretty legit! Taught them in two different groups on two different days and they are pretty excited to start coming to our church and learning more! Hopefully we will have a good week teaching them this coming week! More info on them in weeks to come! However, Kim actually lived in Caldwell for a couple years! Small world. I have met tons of members with home ties but this is my first investigator!

Anyway, I need to jet. I have a couple of other things to mention but they won't make it this week! But I hope y'all have a wonderful week and have a week full of fun and joy!

God bless ya!

Loves,

Elder Reed Ericson

Heck Yeah, Dude!

April 25, 2016

Hello my friends! Another week down in the books. This past week I hit my 18 month mark! Ugh, so crazy. It seems like after I passed a year, one month goes by one after another and I don't even give a thought to it until I look and see that it is the 22nd of the month. Wowzers. I didn't even realize it until later in the afternoon on Friday that it was 18 months for me! It is weird to think that I am like legit considered an old missionary now. I still think of myself of a middle man. It freaks me out that I have 6 months left but I know that they will be a good 6 months and that at the end of them I will be ready to pack up and go home to start applying everything to real life stuff! In fact, this transfer has flown by as well! It weirded me out the last night when I flipped my planner to week 5. Before I know it this transfer will be all done and over and we will be embarking in my last 4 transfers! LET'S GO!!!!! West Texas isn't going to know what hits them!

Funny story that’s not really all that funny... we were sitting at the church Saturday morning to do our studies (why we were there will be reported on later) and Elder Lund had the brilliant idea to go get a TV from the library to watch some videos on for our studies (one of the TV's at our church has a Roku connected to it). So we started off with a couple good videos from the Mormon Channel, and then we ran across "The District: Going Home". Well, as missionaries we have these videos called "The District" which are training videos, more or less, that show the work of 4 companionships. The church decided to make a 3 part TV series out of them which includes the 3 episodes at about 35 minutes a piece. We have those as missionaries. BUT, little did we know, there is a part 4 to the series. It’s called "Going Home". So we watched it. It was dang good. They showed a lot of stuff that is on the other 3 episodes, but also some new stuff that was really good teaching and stuff. But then the last 10 minutes or so was showing all of them going home. Oh man, I would have been all tore up with tears had it not been for a group of young women coming inside to use the bathroom before leaving on their hike. They kinda ruined the moment. But nonetheless it was pretty intense for both Elder Lund and I to see that. I think it was kinda good though, because it made us realize that going home is a reality, so we better make some good use of our last 6 months! We are getting more focused than ever, so it worked out good for us!

Anyway, enough of that business. This week was interesting in some ways. I spent nearly two full days with Elder Hatch, one of our Spanish missionaries here in Abilene. We went on exchanges with them on Tuesday/Wednesday and I went with him all day Tuesday, and then some stuff happened (we'll leave it at that) that lead to a call asking if we could go on an exchange on Saturday. So I ditched Elder Lund with Elder Hatch's companion and we went out again together! So he was basically my companion this week. Haha he is sweet! Good kid! He says "Heck yeah, dude!" to everything so I naturally caught onto it within like 30 seconds and it was game over from there. I don't even want to know how many times we said that phrase throughout those two days! Good fun. Also, Elder Lund and I play the slug bug game, so I started slugging Elder Hatch whenever I saw a VW Beetle. Well, Saturday must have been national bring your VW Beetle out of hiding day or something because I wrecked him! I probably hit him about 15 times or so in one day! It was insane how many of them were out! Hahaha he said that he would spend forever on the lookout, and then within seconds or him stopping his search I would reach over and hit him! Hahahaha sucka! Got him good. Good times with Elder Hatch!

Funny story that’s not really funny from Tuesday with Elder Hatch. We went out and went hard for a couple hours and did some real good work. Talked to some good people, knocked on some sweet doors, got a new investigator from a knocked door, etc. I was pretty sure we were in our area because we hadn't passed over our divider road yet. Well, turns out that we were indeed out of our area. And not only were we out of our area, we skipped over an area and were in the area that is two areas over from us! Hahaha! Oh man! There's a slap in the face! In my defense, the divider road changes names just a little north of where we were, so that threw me off. And also, the area that we skipped over just has a little panhandle of less than 6 or so blocks that was the part we skipped over. But, still felt like an idiot. Oh well, now I know exactly where our area ends! So now I have to go on a short little exchange while on exchanges tomorrow to go to a lesson with the new investigator that we got for the 3rd East elders. It'll be a fun one!

Anyway, so back to being at the church on Saturday morning... I'll tell you about that. Well, we live in the same apartment complex as another set of elders. The other elders had some bed bugs in their apartment. So, they sent in some Orkin people to inspect their apartment and treat it. In the process of doing that they decided to send them over to our place as well. According the the Orkin lady, she found "bed bug eggs" in our couch and recliner. Ok, cool, you caught it before they even came along! But then, we learned that the treatment (which is just a spray) ran the mission $800!!!! Bed bug eggs??? Chya right! You just wanted to make $800 lady! So, they gave us this big long check list of things to do to our apartment to prep it for their $800 treatment for a few bed bug eggs that are claimed to be there. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing if there are actually eggs in there or not because who knows how to find those?! There was zero signs of bed bugs anywhere else in our apartment, and apparently our beds were completely clear of them. But, we had to basically turn our apartment into a war zone for them. We had to move everything away from the walls, flip over our two couches and the recliner, put all of our clothes into plastic bags, take the cloth covers off from the bottom of our box springs, vacuum where the floor and wall meet, take everything off the walls (including our huge whiteboard), and some other junk. It was a mess! So, they treated on Saturday morning and we had to be gone all day long for that. So we got moved to the church for studies and stuff. Good stuff. But, on the bright side, we don't have a bed bug problem anymore..... oh wait.... we didn't even have one in the first place!

Now that I'm done with that hot mess of a rant (which btw I wasn't really worked up over it at all, in fact, it worked out nicely for us to organize and change some stuff up after the treatment). We pulled a sweet bike day on Thursday! Bike day for us is intense because we live way out of our area, so once we leave, there is no going back until its time to go in for the night. We got picked up for some service by a member in the morning, and then had lunch after that. So we were able to have lunch before we left. But we pretty much had zero plans for dinner. We were just going to wing it and see what happened. So we were riding to the church to hang out there for our dinner hour when we road past Papa Johns. Remember, I'm hot, hungry, and tired... so Papa Johns looked extremely satisfying. But, that stuff is way out of my missionary budget! But then, I remembered something that changed my sorrow into complete joy. I received a letter from Mother before we left for the day on bikes, and that letter contained a $20 bill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mother, you probably had no idea why you sent those $20 when you did, but it was nothing but heaven sent inspiration! So we wrote down the phone number on the side of the Papa Johns, went to the church, called in an order for a large pizza, and got it delivered to us at the church!!!! Miracles do happen! So we left back out to work happy happy happy after eating the entire pizza! Btw, Papa John's is pretty dang good. Easily my favorite pizza these days. I think it easily beats out all the other pizza companies! Its the most sought out pizza around these parts!

Well, we went pretty hard this week. We did some good finding work, went out and worked worked worked. We focused on improving a few things with our finding that has made things more effective as well. We did some good work. But, we don't really have any investigators or anything. We had like 4 appointments on Saturday and none of them went through. So, hopefully this week goes better! Usually you have a week or two where you don't have anything going at all, then you start to pick up the finding and get some good potentials, and then in the next week or two you have lots of punched appointments and little to show for all your good work in the previous weeks, and then one week it all comes together and you have a solid stretch of a few weeks with more teaching! So this week should be our reward week! So we shall see!

Anyway, I love y'all and hope y'all have a wonderful week full of fun and love! May the good Lord bless you as you strive to follow him!

God Bless Ya!

Loves,

Elder Reed Ericson

 

Saw this unit in a driveway while trying to find a less-active. Passed it after thinking I should get a picture with it. Then, we realized that it was parked at the house we were looking for.

Elder Hanson and I lamenting our 18 month mark while fixing a fence after it dawned on us that it was the 22nd. #SadDay

 

The Po-Po

April 18, 2016

Well hello there my good friends! I got some good stuff to talk about... well... kinda... so I ain't gonna beat around the bush too much and get right into the goods!

So I will hit the subject of this email before I move on any further. Well well well, this guy got pulled over on Friday afternoon driving out of Lubbock on our way back to Abilene!!!!! So stupid!!!!!! So, our speedometer on our truck is off by 3-5ish mph when going high speeds, so everything is based off of what the GPS is telling us. ALSO, we got good ol' Elder Tiwi who barks at us whenever we hit 5 over. And in the trucks it is a consistent 5 over. Some cars don't bark until 7 or more but the truck is a consistently 5. So, I was rockin' cruise control at 78 (speed limit 75) and my friend Elder Tiwi hadn't barked at me a single time to slow down. So, when the police on the other side of the big freeway turned his light on from the side of the road and drove through the grassy/weedy middle median thing, I was thinking he was just doing some other sort of business despite being the only car in my general vicinity. Well, sure enough, I pulled over to the side of the freeway, and the police car pulled right up behind me!!! That dude hopped right out and came up to the window and told me that they clocked me going over 80!!!!! I was about to call "bull" and go on to prove him wrong and make him feel like a dingleberry because I have proof of not going over 80 with my good friend Elder Tiwi tracking everything I do behind the wheel, but he quickly said that he was just going to give me a warning. So, instead I played nice-guy and got off real well with him. But, the cool thing is here in Texas, that even though it was just a warning, he gave me a little "official warning" slip and had me sign it for their records and then one for myself. So I proudly have my official warning hanging on my wall now!!!! Take that officer! He was kind of a jerk. Real stern and asked questions and didn't let me respond. Not a fan of that guy. I will have to pray for more charity or something.

Another fun note for the week. I went through and counted the churches in the phone book for the Abilene area (which is Abilene of 100,000 and a few other small towns of 10,000 or far less) and I counted 300 churches!!! And that’s just the churches in the phone book. Literally it is common to be standing on the side of a street and clearly see 4 churches. Its nutso. This place is widely considered the "buckle of the Bible belt"! The term "there's a church on every street corner" is turned into "there's a church on every street corner, AND in the middle of the block"!

We had zone training on Tuesday, which was a first for me to conduct and instruct. It was a solid training. The fundamental for training was "teach people, not lessons" so we focused a lot on teaching skills. Pretty simple stuff, but I felt like all of our training and role playing was very beneficial and there was lots of good discussion about the skills that I think will be very applicable! I instructed on "how to begin teaching" and really focused on having impactful immediate impressions on people to open up more personal teaching later on. I have found that to be very important in working with people! And now after two straight weeks of instructing on a larger scale I will be taking a break of more than a month before I do it again. Which is nice. I love instructing and leading role-plays, but doing it all the time as a district leader kinda started to get boring to me. So, this is a nice change of scenery for me.

We were able to head up to Lubbock on Thursday morning for exchanges with the assistants all day and Friday morning! Holy cow! So much fun! We were there along with the Midland Zone Leaders so we split off into two trios to work. I went with Elder Stringham and one of the Midland elders!!!!! It was fun to relive the glory days. Although it was way different and not much reliving because there was a third one of us. But still fun. It was a crazy day. The assistants cover Texas Tech campus so we worked all day on campus! In the process we taught 4 lessons throughout the day, which I don't think I have ever done on my mission! It was fun to teach with Elder Stringham again, because we are both so much better than we were over a year ago! We had some fun lessons though! Super solid. However the biggest envy of working on Tech is the finding work. It so crazy and fun! You basically stand there or sit there in the open place right outside the library where tons of people are, and you just have to go for it! You literally just sit there, and when someone walks by who seems like a good target, you say, "How's it going?" "Good." "Hey could I ask you a question?" "Sure." "And then rip off a thought-provoking question that pops into your head and run with it! Its crazy! But so fun! I had a couple interesting conversations! We didn't get to go out and contact very much but the little time we did have was fun!

We did have a precious moment during one of our lessons. We were teaching these two hard core non-denom girls in the library when our discussion led to testimony of the Book of Mormon. They asked us how we received our answer to if the Book of Mormon was true. Elder Stringham went first, then they looked at me and said that I was next. I started off with talking about reading it before my mission but never really receiving a solid answer. Then I got to the time of my mission, and realized the situation at hand with Elder Stringham right there, and it hit me what was next in my story and it was time to start holding back tears. I will tell you the story that proceeded this moment.

Well, it was within my first few weeks on my mission, and we were teaching a stick-figure girl drawn on a piece of paper taped onto our couch. I was the one teaching about the Book of Mormon, and I said something about knowing that the teachings of the Book of Mormon were true but not so much all the little details. Elder Stringham and I had a nice little chat and he told me that we couldn't do anything for people unless I knew that every little thing in there was true. I remember him talking about knowing that there were elephants there and all. Well, over the next couple days I spent time thinking about it and praying about it, and one day I was reading in the Book of Mormon and it was just undeniable that everything in there was correct. And I remember the night when we laid in our beds super late talking about how our testimonies had grown so much on our missions, and I remember just bearing testimony time and time again about this and that, the Book of Mormon being one of them. Well, going back to our lesson, I had to share an abbreviated version of that with those two girls. I looked over at Elder Stringham a couple times and he wasn't crying, but his eyes were red and there was moisture in his eyes, and I had the same thing as well, but didn't cry. So, that was fun.

Anyway, I am starting to run low on time here. But, let me press on. We stopped in Sweetwater on our way home and worked with the elders there for a little more than an hour! It was fun to work in Sweetwater again! Still know that place like the back of my hand! However, I realized how much of a dump that place is. Definitely thankful to have served in cities since leaving there. I definitely like the cities better. However, still fun going back and serving there for even just an hour or so! It’s weird to think that I served there! It feels like me serving there was just a dream I had or something!

I do have another funny story about a dude we ran into yesterday who pretty much threw down on us. No time for the whole story. But he talked to us for like 5+ straight minutes about how Joseph Smith was this and that and how our doctrine is this and that. I was planning on kindly saying "Hey, thank you for strengthening my testimony of my faith" as I shook his hand to leave, but I'm pretty sure the Spirit bound my tongue in the moment because nothing came out. Definitely got bailed out by the spirit on that one! Haha I just left with a big smile on my face over his naiveté. If you only knew sir what you just said and how it contradicts everything you believe in..... people in Texas are fun! Great fun!

Anyway, I gotta jet! I love y'all and hope y'all have a blessed week! May the good Lord bless you as you go about sharing joy to the world!

God bless ya!

Loves,

Elder Reed Ericson

 

 

             Elder Reed is 3rd from left with Elder Stringham next to him (arms around guys).

Abilene Lyfe

April 11, 2016

Well hello my wonderful amigos! It is a beautiful day here in Abilene, TX despite the intense thunderstorm last night! We got hit with a pretty good one! We went outside on our little balcony thing to take it all in and I almost got the crap kaboomed out of me. Literally. Pretty intense stuff there for a minute. So I went inside to get my camera to get some on video, and the thunder never had a big KABOOM again. So that was a total disappointment! Oh well, life goes on!

This week was pretty interesting. Some sweet stuff happened. First things first, our investigator Nick got baptized on Saturday! And I use the term "our" very loosely. I literally didn't teach him a single time. In fact, his baptismal interview was the second time I saw him and I didn't even teach him a single lesson. But, it was still cool. We weren't sure if he was going to be baptized or not until about Thursday so it was a pretty intense week for Elder Lund..... tbh I barely thought of him since I had barely even met him. Elder Lund talked to him on the phone every day however and he had a challenging but nonetheless confirming week leading up to Saturday! He definitely put forth fruits of repentance and had a strong desire to be baptized for all the right reasons! The baptismal interview went well. Very very long, but well. The missionary doing the interview was doing his first one and he is kind of a nutcase, but he is also incredibly smart. So he actually conducted a very good interview and they had some wonderful discussion that really helped Nick! But that was definitely unnerving sitting there for over an hour waiting for that thing to end. Usually those things take about 15ish minutes or so, so an hour was definitely a little strange.

The service was a little interesting as well! Nick and his family were about 30 minutes late! His daughter is in a crazy cast for her broken femur so they had to do some shopping to find something to sit her down in for the service and that held them up way longer than is was supposed to. Nothing they could control! But once they showed up we got everything going quickly and got the show on the road! Nick had an awesome experience being baptized and being confirmed yesterday! So I am thoroughly looking forward to being able to teach him all the new member lessons and working with him moving forward!

We had Zone Conference down in San Angelo on Thursday! It was fantastic to get to go back down to the old stomping grounds of two weeks ago! I decided that San Angelo was just fantastic going back down there. Definitely a solid place. Anyway, zone conference was a little nerve racking for myself........ I got a call earlier in the week from one of the assistants saying that President Heap had an assignment for me to instruct at the conference................................. great. I've never instructed more than 8 people and so I went from that to two full zones (almost 40 missionaries), all the senior couples, the assistants, and President and Sister Heap. So the first 4 hours or so were fun just sitting there waiting. Ok, that’s an exaggeration. It really wasn't that bad. I would think about it every once in a while and get a few little butterflies, but nothing too bad. I was assigned the topic "The why and how of the baptismal invitation on the first lesson". Once I got up there I went from being a little antsy and nervous to beast mode and just tore it up. Well, tore it up about as much as you can with a topic like that.

I felt like it went pretty well and felt like I was able to give the missionaries something to think about and some really good ways to more effectively go about inviting people to be baptized on the first lesson. And our role plays along with it were pretty good too! I invited the missionaries to try to learn more from being the investigator than anything else and we had some good evaluation on that! Overall it went pretty well! Lots of participation and I saw lots of note taking and lots of people came up and told me that they learned a lot from it! So I feel like I did my job! It was good to be with the missionaries from my current zone as well as lots of missionaries from my time in the San Angelo zone the last few transfers! I felt right at home at the conference with all of them and being in the San Angelo chapel! Also, it was good to hear Elder Ahnder's story about giving a blessing to a cat again. LOL! I'll tell you that one when I get home!

Random cool thing from this week. We did some service out in Buffalo Gap (pretty cool tiny town... look it up) and I put up a bunch of drywall/sheet rock! There were two of us, and it was quite the experience. Definitely wanna give some props to Taco Carl for doing nearly that whole basement of ours mostly by himself! Nice work, pops!

During Nick's baptismal interview there was a SWEET tri-stake YSA dance happening in the gym. Hahahaha so funny! That thing was so lame! Kid you not, one time we walked by the doors and every single person was just sitting there staring at each other and not a single person was dancing! Hahaha! People kept coming out to the lobby to talk to us because they wanted to escape! We talked to some pretty sweet people though. So that was cool for us to kill time during that hour long interview. Oh man, I needed to be at that dance so bad to put some life and electricity onto that dance floor. The things I could've done for the welfare of that activity were unreal. Oh well, that'll have to wait!

Well folks, I really don't have much else to talk about this week. We taught a couple new investigators but nothing has come of it yet. We had to spend a lot of time in the truck this week going here and there as well so a lot of time was eaten up with all that. Hopefully we can get rid of some of that this week. However, we are driving up to Lubbock on Thursday morning to do exchanges with the assistant for Thursday and Friday, so that should be fun! And it will also take us out of our area a lot, but we will survive!

I hope y'all will have a wonderful week! May the good Lord bless you as you look forward with an eye of faith to marvelous things! I love y'all!

God bless ya!

Lots of Love,
Elder Reed Ericson

Picture: Road trippin' to San Angelo with Elder Lund, Elder Hanson, and Elder VanWeerd!!!

 

BBQ Heaven

April 4, 2014

Hey team! Its good to email you today and fill you in on my life and adventures down here in Abilene, TX! This past week was a little crazy with this and that, but overall a very good week full of goodness!

To start off I will address the subject of my email. So, anyone remember that amazing barbeque place I always raved about when I was in my first area, Sweetwater? Well, if you don't remember, I will fill you in. This place is called Blackland Smokehouse and it is out in a tiny town called Roscoe. This place is incredibly amazing. Like, its down right not even real how good the meat is that they put into your belly. I have been to many bbq places down here in West Texas, and this place puts all the other places to complete utter shame. This place, however, is only opened for lunch time. So, my hopes of ever going there again on my mission were completely destroyed since I don't expect to go back to serve in Sweetwater. However, this place is open for dinner as well only on Fridays. And, this guy, Elder Ericson, happened to be passing right by Roscoe on his way home from Lubbock Friday evening at about 7:45. BOOYAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It didn't take much convincing to get my companion to stop.... nobody in their right mind could pass up this opportunity! So we stopped by, went in, and I proceeded to order a 3 meat plate which gives you nearly a pound and a half of meat!!!!! But I figured I may never get the chance again so I went big! I got pulled pork, ribs, and brisket. I began with eating some pulled pork. Pretty dang good stuff. Then I proceeded to chow down a rib. Oh man. Unreal stuff. I think they have improved their ribs since I last went! AND THEN,  I moved on to my first slice of brisket........................................ HOLY COW (literally... hee hee). Straight up party in my mouth. It literally took my breath away every time the blackened edge hit my mouth!!!!!!!!! I can't even begin to describe to you the state that this beef puts your entire soul into. I am pretty sure I got a glimpse of the Celestial Kingdom. I kid you not. If only I could take a slice of that brisket into the celestial room at the temple, then that is the closest thing to heaven I could possibly imagine in this life. Anyway, enough of my rambling. If I were you I would buy a plane ticket right now and fly down here to go. Just make sure to stay away from the east side of Abilene so we don't run into each other!

Well, leaving San Angelo was tough but it was all good. I am used to leaving places now so it doesn't wrench my heart out like it used to. I gave my farewell email last week so I mostly covered everything. However, one thing did happen Monday night. We had a lesson with our investigator Andrew, and I hadn't mentioned how I was leaving the next morning yet. So it was just all normal. It was getting pretty close to the time for us to leave and he was talking about everything going on. He mentioned how he wants to go all the way and get baptized before we left because he didn't want to just keep going through missionaries (he has been taught multiple times before). Well, I stopped him right there and broke the news that I was leaving the next day. He said "What?! No your not. You're just playing with me! You're not leaving." Well, that was one of those times where your heart gets ripped out of your chest. I had to then tell him about everything and he had to accept the fact that I was a goner. Ugh, that one packed a punch. But, we both handled it like a champ. Me and him really had a pretty good connection, and he didn't really have one with my companion so it was difficult for him and will be a big adjustment for him, but he will do fine. I hope to hear good updates on him soon!

Transfer day was a little crazy. We left San Angelo at 9:00am to go to Abilene. After managing the transfer site with tons of cars and people in Abilene we took off to take two missionaries to Snyder (1.5 hours west) and then back to Abilene with a stop in Sweetwater. We stopped by my old apartment to exchange cars with the Sweetwater elders. It was super weird. Haha my time in Sweetwater feels like a dream! It was weird to walk around the apartment and think that I spent 6 months there! Anyway, the rest of the day was long. We had a lot of driving around to do, and ended up not leaving the church until about 9:30pm. It was a long day. Not looking forward to managing transfers in the future!

On Thursday night we headed up to Lubbock for Mission Leadership Council on Friday morning. That was a good drive. We made it go by fast! We both like to sing so we just jammed out to our missionary tunes the whole way. However, Elder Lund actually has a dang good voice and I was screeching pretty bad because of a minor cold that I had for a number of days, so it was an experience. MLC was dang good. It was fun to be a part of the council! We had some good training and it was fun to be around lots of my good friends who are all very good missionaries! At the end of our conferences we have "departing testimonies" for those missionaries who go home at the end of the transfer. Well, Elder Stringham gave his departing testimony, and that was a rough one for me. He even had a hard time getting through it. I had some tears but I kept from losing it completely. It is weird to think that he goes home soon! Without going into details, he has been incredibly influential to me on my mission! So it was a hard one, but I made it through. It will be a fun one when he actually goes home. We shall see how that goes. Overall though it was a good council!

However, we had a big truck saga before we left. The mission received 4 new trucks. The truck that we had in Abilene got wrecked about a month ago, so its been out of commission for a while, so we were borrowing another car from other elders. We were told that we would be receiving one of the new trucks. However, through some decision making that makes no sense (not even exaggerating, the vehicle guy couldn't even explain anything to us) we took home the assistants truck. That thing is sweet. There is a huge crack in the windshield, the key is falling apart and held together with yellow tape, the front license plate in in the dash because it broke off, one of the vents is broken, the brakes aren't in tip top shape, and it stinks a little bit. So, its not the greatest ride but hey, its a vehicle and its still better than driving a Carolla, so I'm down. They say that there are more trucks coming in about a month, but we can see them just leaving this truck hear for another 8,000 miles until it is at the end of its life instead of giving us the one they said we would get in a month. So we shall see.

The work is going pretty well here. And by pretty well, I mean it ain't bad. We were going to have a baptism last night but his child ended up breaking her femur way up by her hip (yeah, I know, bizarre right? the x-ray was insane!) so they were in the hospital all weekend with her. His name is Nick and he is married to a returning less-active lady. I have only met him once now but he is a pretty sweet guy! He is now gunning towards next Saturday! So hopefully that works out for him. I have only taught one other investigator, a lady named Shanna. Good lady. I don't know too much about her, so more on her later. And we have lots of potentials to try by and hopefully teach and we have done some good finding in the little bit of time that we've had between transfers, MLC, and general conference. So this week should be good!

Elder Lund and I have been doing really well! We both like to sing and so we are always just busting out lines from random songs. Somebody will say a word that is in a song and that always leads to a line or two of singing. Its pretty fantastic. But, it may become a problem. We spent like half a comp study one day singing. We'll have to work on that! hahaha! We'll figure out a good balance! We've been having a dang good time and working hard and have already been opening up to each other and developing a pretty deep connection! So I am looking forward to the rest of the transfer with him! We're gonna do some good work!

General Conference was wonderful as well! I will admit however that I had a hard time staying alert and awake for a lot of it. I don't know why but sitting in a dark chapel was tough for me to handle with being naturally tired as a missionary. All my previous conferences I have been locked in the whole time, but I really struggled this time around. But I am looking forward to reading all of the talks and addresses soon! Because there were some mighty good ones! And it was good to hear President Monson speak! He may only have given only 5-10 minute messages but they were short, sweet, and to the point, and kept him from having a difficult time staying up like last conference! God bless him! I was super jacked to get to sustain him as the president of the church! I raised my right hand proudly! I love that man!!!!

Well team, its about time for me to jet. I hope and pray that y'all have an inspiring week and that the Lord bestows his blessing upon y'all as you invite them! And always remember that it all starts with faith in Jesus Christ and relying on his grace. Once we learn that, the rest is easy! I love y'all!

God bless ya!

Much love,

Elder Reed Ericson

My new address:

3549 Curry Ln #2808
Abilene, TX 79606

Hit me up!