Hello

October 19, 2015

Well hello to y'all once again on this wonderful Monday! We had a pretty good week this week and had some pretty sweet stuff!

First off I would love to tell you about Zone Conference that we had on Wednesday in Midland. Dang it was good. Well, President Heap was good. The assistants were kinda "eh" but it was actually good stuff that I needed to hear. But anyway, back to President Heap. Before lunch he gave a sick instruction about the Book of Mormon! I saw that he was gonna be talking about it and I had high hopes, but he exceeded them! He went hard on how the Book of Mormon is the tool that is gathering Israel. Holy cow, he made it so amazing! He basically told us that next time somebody asks us what makes our church different or unique that we should ask them what their church is doing to gather Israel, since the Bible talks about the gathering is Israel in the last days SO MUCH) and then told us to expound unto them how the Book of Mormon is what is doing that and told us what that’s all about in an amazing way. THEN, after he already outdid himself he closed off the conference by blowing minds up with an INSANE instruction about the sacrament! Oh, my gosh. Just when I think he can't outdo what he did the previous time he blows everybody's minds once again with something else insane. He got DEEP into the sacrament. About how the sacrament table is the tomb and also the altar. He based everything off of Moses 1:39, Matthew 26:26 (JST), Matthew 27, and then of course Moroni 4&5. With Moses 1:39 he talked about how the sacrament emblems represent immortality and eternal life and said some crazy stuff about that. And then with Matthew 26:26 (JST) he emphasized how Christ broke the bread before he blessed the bread and how important that was. And then with Matthew 27 he related it to how we are each Barrabas each and every week and how we are the guilty ones who should be the ones being crucified on the altar, but then how Christ steps in at the last moment when the sacrament prayer says "and witness unto thee" to take his place on the altar and save us week after week after week. Then he made the point that if we don't let the sacrament change us we are letting this man who has done so much for us and who we love so dearly die in vain each and every week that we don't let it change us. The way he teaches though is so dang powerful! He is a master teacher. I have never met anyone that can teach even close to the way he teaches. He just interprets the scripture in such an amazing way and expounds on things so incredibly. Every time he teaches the spirit just slaps you across the face and you feel like you know everything there is to know about whatever he's teaching about. But then you forget half of it because you just can't recreate what he says in your notes or your thoughts.

We had some sweet fun at the Art Museum this week as well! Usually we sit at the front desk for 4 hours and do nothing but this week we went at a different time and helped guide some 3rd graders on their little field trip! It was so fun! They had two galleries open and then a classroom so there were three places to rotate through and there were 6 stations with activities in both of the galleries! So basically we just told them when to rotate and helped them with their stations. But it was so fun! They are funny little humans and always crack you up! I was just laughing at them when they were standing in line waiting to enter into the building! I guess I just really like 3rd graders and am entertained by that age group extremely easily... but they are for legit like the perfect age to be fun! We were supposed to do two different sessions, however the school went on lock down before the second group could leave so we only did one group of them :( But I can't complain.

So some other interesting news... our mission family is super legit now! My son, Elder Cardon was called to be a Zone Leader this transfer! Our family is just royal right now with my father, Elder Stringham, as AP and my son as a ZL. Then I guess I'm just cool and stuff so that's what I have to add to the family! Anyway, just wanted to brag about my family. Maybe I'll train Elder Despain up unto the ways of his forefathers. We shall see how that turns out.

Oh yeah, we did another service project at the cemetery on Saturday. And by "another" I am referring to the one that I did in Sweetwater like the second week on my mission. Well, I highly highly doubt that you remember what came along later that night after the first time I did service at a cemetery on my mission........ it was totally the day that I literally blew chunks all over the Weldy's floor!!!! Hahahahahahaha classic! So anyway, every night at the end of last week I felt like I was going to wake up sick the next day. So before I would go to bed I would down some Vitamin C and also in the morning. So, when the Bishop called and asked us to go help I was extremely worried that history was going to repeat itself!!!! I just knew that I was going to puke somewhere that night on somebodies floor. BUT, I survived. I did feel a little iffy that night after dinner but I went out and hopped on my bike and went to work and had a sweet night of work! We actually went to talk to this one guy we talked to a few nights prior that we left a Book of Mormon with and he came out on Saturday night and handed it back to us and said that he read quite a bit of it and that he was just going to stick with the Bible. However, we worked some magic over the next 15 minutes and that man walked inside when we left excited to immediately read and pray about it! Ha! Heck yeah! We used a little bit from President Heap's instruction about the Book of Mormon and bore some strong testimony and he came around! The spirit really went to work on him! Hopefully he actually follows through! We plan on going to visit him tonight so we will find out!

Well, I gotta go! I hope y'all have a fantastic week and hope that God has great things in store for y'all this week! I love you all!

Oh yeah, Thursday is my year mark! PARTY! Dang, time has gone by so quick! I feel like I've already progressed so so much and learned so so much that I could go home accomplished so it excites me to know that I am only half way through and there is just that much more in store for me to learn and so many more ways for me to progress! I am sure it will go by quick though... maybe too quick! Wish me luck as I embark on the second half of my journey starting Friday!

Lots of Love,

Elder Reed Ericson

Lives Changed

October 12, 2015

How are y'all doing today?! It was a wonderful-ish week here in Odessa!

To start off, I will tell you all about Mark's baptism on Saturday! Dang was is sweet! Mark had a rough week dealing with this and that. He didn't have very much support at all from his family and in fact had a really interesting week with that. However, he didn't even bat an eye at it! He has just been so prepared for this and didn't let that affect his decision and his faith. Good grief, he was just so prepared and ready to be baptized. Anyway, the service was pretty good, however the baptism itself was insane. Mark got into the font with Bro Noyes and we had to direct them and get them situated in the font correctly and that created a few chuckles from Mark and the audience and I actually was worried that it may have detracted from the spirit and anticipation that Mark was feeling. You could see the calm excitement on his face. So, Bro Noyes dunked his pretty good, and pulled him back up. When Mark came up out of the water he just started weeping! He was nearly sobbing in the font for about 15 seconds when he just looked up and said "Thank you, God!" and then continued to weep for another 15 seconds or so before they walked out of the font. Holy cow. All the females there were crying, I just had a nice spiritual smile on my face the whole time. I don't know how to describe a spiritual smile but I'll leave that up to your imagination. Anyway, that was super awesome to experience! His life has been changed SO much in the last month and its all because a family made him a part of them in such a short time and he realized that he wanted what they had! I wish sometimes that I could have more experiences like that on my mission. Mark is really the first person in almost a year now that I truly feel has let the gospel CHANGE him and his life. It's done so for Michael as well, but I feel like its much more profound for Mark. It is such an amazing thing to be able to experience and is such a big testimony builder to me of the power that the gospel brings. I definitely think I take advantage of it all the time. I grew up with the gift of the Holy Ghost and lived in a home where the spirit was present, and its crazy to watch the change that people have when that is all of a sudden part of their lives. Simply the gift of the Holy Ghost is something that I never even think about having because at this point I am just so used to its presence that the times I usually think about it is when its presence isn't with me and I know I need to do something different. I have talked to so many people who have never even felt the Holy Ghost in their lives. So when we speak with them and they feel that presence it scares them. Yes, the Holy Spirit of COMFORT scares them. They have no idea how to respond to it so they run from it. How grateful I am go have that gift with me so that I can always feel the COMFORT that the first comforter brings!

Here's a fun story for y'all. So the other day we were just doing out thing doing missionary work and all. We took a 7 mile trek on our bikes up to the north part of our area because we haven't been up there since the car went bye bye. Anyway, we stopped and talked to this old brotha named Bruce. Elder Despain asked him if we could help him with his project and he just looked up and said, "Praise the Lord! God is good! Hallelujah! Y'all are the Latter-Day Saints! I knew I smelled something!" So I asked, "What did you smell?!" hahaha and he responded, "The Holy Spirit" hahaha once again. So I asked him, "What does that smell like? I've never smelt that before!" And then I think he just said it smelled good or something. I can't remember what he said but the first few lines of our conversation were classic! Hahaha you meet some of the funniest people! He was a really nice guy and knows like half of the Mormons here in Odessa. We ate dinner last night with one of the families he knows/works for and we talked about him for a little bit. He is a good guy. But, he is like the 99% that don't think it matters what church you go to as long as you believe in Christ. So, probably won't ever see him again. But we had a nice pleasant 15 minute conversation with him about "the good Lord". One of his quotes was, "I'm too blessed to be stressed!". Dang, I wish we could all think like he does. Thats some power right there!

We had a less-active lady named Sister Huntington come to church yesterday for the first time in over 20 years!!! So that was quite the accomplishment for her! We basically did nothing for that. We just went over a while ago and challenged her to read the Book of Mormon. So she did. And she read all of it and thought it was the most amazing thing ever and came to church yesterday and plans on coming every week now! We just go over there and are her friends. I don't think she has much communication with anyone. She very openly told us this past week that we are her best friends! She is a funny lady! I enjoy visiting with her! And for those of you who are freaking out because it sounds like we go over to a single ladies house and visit with her, we totally do. We got permission from Pres Heap to go over without any other male because she is older and the time of day we visit her is terribly inconvenient for us to take anyone with us. So, that was sweet. Hopefully she keeps up her progression!

We played some sick basketball last week one morning. We had two teams of 3 and a team of 2. Me and Elder Despain were the team of 2. And we totally shredded everybody up. We basically just destroyed. I was dropping some sick 3's and we both could just take anyone to the rack like it was our day job. Fun stuff. I've been sucking at basketball lately but I reemerged as a TLM powerhouse. Jk, I ain't no powerhouse. I am just an asset to have on your team. I have my moments though... like Wednesday morning.

Anyway, we've had some fun weather lately. We went out and mobbed through a sick rain storm on Thursday. Well, we waited until after it was pouring but we went hard riding through all the puddles and stuff coming home from the Presidential Archives. And then we spent the rest of our lunch time taking pictures in the Everglade Road River as I call it. Good times. Good times. I think we are in store for some more storms here in the next couple months before winter hits. And apparently this winter is supposed to be terrible! According to the Farmer's Almanac which is actually extremely accurate we are supposed to have the wettest winter down here in recorded history. So, that should be fun. Lots of ICE!!!!

I hope y'all have a good week! I love y'all and I thank you for your support and love! I feel it each and every day!

Oh yeah, I hit my year mark in like 10 days so be ready for that. I'm expecting something extraordinary. Jk, I'm not. But I'm pretty pumped for that day. Its like the most grand day on your entire mission. Heck yeah. I'm pumped.

Lots of Love,

Elder Reed Ericson

Every Little Step I Take

September 28, 2015

Well hello there! What a pleasure it is to address you every Monday! This past week has been good! Some good stuff happened but also some whatever stuff happened. So basically it was a typical week!

To start off, we had a sweet party last week on p-day. After emailing and lunch we went to some cheap bowling alley and bowled the crap out of a couple of games with everyone in our zone. Well, the first game wasn't my best. Let me just say that nowhere in my score was there a number higher than 3.............................. yup. But I improved a lot my second game and started off on a tear before I started blowing chunks again. I improved 40 points though with a score of 72! My strategy was to take the 6 lb ball and just put my finger tips into the holes and just let it rip. It took a while to get it out of the left gutter but once I figured that out I started to look like a professional. Well, to a certain extent. I got a couple of spares... that’s all. It was a struggle to say the least. BUT, I can only go up from here. Maybe, I could do worse, but if that happens then I may just never do any sort of sport ever again. Then after bowling we went to the church for some sick basketball and then ate cake and destroyed a piňata. It was one of the sister's birthday so they planned a party. I can't complain about free cake and a piňata.

Another funny story, my one of the 4 wheel legs of my chair completely broke yesterday. So, I have now officially totally biffed it in my chair like 40 times. I have it figured out to where I can sit on it (even though I've fallen like 3 times) but praying on it is getting every increasingly difficult. But the only other chair we have is a hard folding chair and I want my ancient swivel chair with arm rests that reclines. Its a rough life but I'm surviving.

So, I had this crazy sweet idea for our "practice/role play" portion of district meeting last week. It was to teach the plan of salvation to yourself by writing it down using first person. So I told them what we were gonna do and we all went to the chapel and sat all by ourselves and I said a prayer to start and then I got into it. HOLY COW! It was one of the craziest experiences of my life! I was almost crying sitting there in the chapel as I was teaching myself the pre-earth life on my notepad. It was so crazy thinking about being created and living there and then leaving to come to earth. I got pretty personal into it and ended up teaching myself about my life here on earth and all that my Father has given me. It was such an amazing experience! I basically look at life completely differently now and have a different perspective of my life! Dang, I can't wait to teach someone the Plan of Salvation now because I feel like I am going to change their life right then and there. I hope to do that with all of our lessons now and see what different insights I get and how it will affect how I teach them! Oh yeah, to relate this to my email's subject... it has put "every little step I take" into much more perspective for me! Every step of my life means something! That was kind of a lame relation but we'll go with it.

I was able to go on exchanges again this last week. I went over to 1st East again with Elder Jewett. It was a good day! We had a lesson with a recent convert/less-active couple and talked about the Tree of Life and we were able to help them overcome some of the struggles they've been having. Later that evening I was able to interview their 11 year old investigator named Frankie for his baptism! His parents are both members and kind of returning less-actives so he hasn't been baptized yet. That was awesome! He has some attention issues but it was amazing to see him calm and attentive and he took it serious but still was himself! He's a good kid! And then later that night we went to see this man named Ronnie who they have been working with forever. He is a 60ish year old black guy and is just the funniest thing ever! He always says dicey stuff that you can't help but to laugh at! I've been over there 4 times now I think and I always walk out of there with a huge smile on my face. And then Ronnie was able to come to Frankie's baptism on Saturday and we had a good time eating refreshments/lunch with him after the service! Hahaha Ronnie is the man!

We had a sick lesson with Mark last Monday as well. We read and talked about 1 Nephi 8 with him and it was dang good and powerful! We teach him at the Noyes home (members in our ward who he basically belongs to) and so the spirit is always just so strong in there and the Noyes are way good member presents. Anyway, he is all set to go for the 10th of October! However, we may not be able to teach him everything by then so that may have to be postponed because of that. But hopefully we will be able to meet with him more often so that we can get that rolling faster! Other than that we suffered from a lot of punched appointments and normal appointments that didn't happen this week. So it was a slow week with teaching and whatnot. Hopefully we'll have a better week this week with that! We're going to have to focus a lot on finding this week to get more people to teach!

Well that's all I have time for this week! I hope y'all have a good week! I love y'all and pray for y'all every day!

Loves,

Elder Reed Ericson

Days Go By

September 21, 2015

Well this week was interesting... haha some interesting stuff happened! First and foremost we no longer have a car! Our temporary use of the car is now over. We found out Tuesday that they would be taking it on Friday evening! So, Friday came around and we no longer have a car! So starting Saturday we are now officially a bike area again! I don't mind it too much, I like to be out and about all day, it makes you feel extremely productive! Plus, the weather has cooled down a bit this past week so it wasn't too bad the last couple days! In fact it was quite pleasant! So it will be a good 2 weeks to finish this transfer out on the bikes and hopefully we can continue with good weather to accompany us! #Pray4WestTexasWeather

Well on Thursday we went to our service at the Presidential Archives, and guess what!? They were having a press conference for the start of Constitution Week! It really wasn't that cool, but hey, its not too often that you get to attend a press conference for the start of Constitution Week! So we took a break from our work and they had us go watch the press conference for which took maybe a little over 30 mins and then they fed us some cake and then we were back to work in the back room. So that was exciting. Fun fact about that place, right behind the building is the childhood home of George W. Bush. I believe he lived there most of his childhood after H.W. moved there right around the time that W. was born. So Odessa is basically famous for lots of stuff. Also, another interesting thing from the press conference, apparently Texas has a Pledge to its flag. Haha they did the Pledge of Allegiance for the American flag and then adjusted slightly to face the Texas flag and did the Pledge for that one.... Texas pride ain't no joke. A number of people during the press conference mentioned how proud they were to be an American, AND a Texan!

Some other cool random stuff. In the last week I have seen a 1A and a 2C Idaho license plate! What are the odds of that?! I saw the 1A one on Tuesday afternoon and then I saw the 2C one last night! Crazyness! There's Treasure Valley peeps all over down here!

We had some pretty good lessons this week! We taught Mark again last Monday and we had a really good lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and committed him to the 10th of October for baptism! We are excited to keep working with him. He has great faith and a desire to KNOW for himself. He is lacking a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon but he has had many other spiritual experiences at church and on other occasions that he is feeding off of! We also had a sweet lesson yesterday with a young couple. The guy is a returned missionary of a few years who has fallen off track quite a bit but is wanting to get back on track and is working on that. He has a girlfriend that is interested in learning and finding the truth for her. We were able to go teach them yesterday with our Bishop. We had lunch with the bishop's family right after church so we had him go with us. I guess we had no other choice because he was our ride home.... but it was a solid lesson with a good spirit to accompany us! We are obviously focusing more on the girlfriend, but it is a good opportunity to help the guy feel the spirit and remember the testimony that he already has inside of him!

Another funny story.... so, one of the traveling assistants was down here for a couple days this past week with our zone leaders. They had gone over to teach this guy who smokes like a chimney and it left his clothes smelling absolutely awful! So he needed to put his pants in the wash obviously. So he did so, but was left without any pants! So Elder Spencer who is about 6' had to wear Elder Moschetti's pants who is about 5'6". Hahahaha it was the funniest thing I've ever seen! They were showing about 4 inches of ankle and he had a hard core perma-weggie! Oh my goodness, I didn't have my camera or else I SO would have gotten a picture to send home. And he went out and proselyted for a few hours I think wearing those! He had a good sense of humor about it though. I mean, you have to in that situation. He had some funny stuff to say about his situation!

We have a new ward-mission leader. I don't know if I've mentioned that yet. He is a huge body-builder, so he is just yolked out of his mind! He is down here working in the oil business but he is from Canada so he speaks with a little bit of Canadianness. Holy cow is he funny! He went out to a lesson with us earlier in the week and was just super blunt and said the funniest stuff. We have dinner over there at least once a week now too and you never know what conversation you're going to get into. Super guy though. And awesome family. His wife is legit as well. I am looking forward to continuing to work with him. He has a fire to get stuff going in our ward and do something different! Also, once they find a house to buy, he had a full gym set of equipment and we will be able to work out in the mornings with him. But who knows when that will be. I may be gone by then!

Anyway, that's all I have for y'all this week! I hope y'all have a good week ahead of you and always remember who you are and what you stand for! I love y'all!

Con Mucho Amor,

Elder Reed Ericson

Odesssssssaaaaaa

September 14, 2015

Well hello everyone. Just for a warning, I have no plans about what I will be talking about today. Usually it takes me a little bit to go through and see what I did the previous week and write it down so I remember. Everything is just turning to mush in my mind so I can never remember what happened the previous week. I really right now have no idea what I am going to say in this next paragraph so I am just stalling and hoping that something comes to my mind as I sit here typing away...........................................

Well, I decided to just go ahead and start a new paragraph and let the spirit guide. Well, this past week was a little more difficult. We had a number of punched appointments and we tried by people like crazy and nobody was ever home to answer their doors. Like, they were legit not home. No cars, no lights, no sounds. We got like 6 media referrals last week because they went through and are cleaning out the referrals in the mission office and just sent all the old ones out again that didn't have updates on them. So, we thought we were going to be busy visiting them but that turned out to be a bust. Ain't nobody ever home and ain't nobody ever answering their phone. We also spent a lot of time trying to contact less-actives in our area because we have like a gajillion of them but that has been a total bust too. Sheesh, there are so many less-actives in Odessa. They say that if most of the people on the 1st Ward's roster actually went to church they would go from 1 to 3 wards! They have 32 pages of roster and a pretty weak ward. We don't have that many, I think we have like 19 pages or so. Anyway, it wasn't bothering me too much, I am used to not really having too much to do to fill out your days, but Elder Despain has been having a hard time with it. What we need is more potentials which means more finding which means walking/biking around talking to people. Its no biggy for me, I can go out and find all day if I needed to, but for a new missionary that is difficult. I remember those 2 hour long finding sessions in Sweetwater when I first came out... they were death. So I am trying to find out how to balance our days so that we can be productive and get some finding in but not go out and find for chunks of time. Which isn't too hard to do. Pretty easy actually. We just have to work through a few things.

Our teaching has been going well with the teaching that we do have. We were able to go teach this kid named Mark on Tuesday right after emails. He is basically a family member of the Noyes family in our ward. He is 19 and is "converting to Mormonisn" after having bad experiences in a different church. He is solid as can be. We were able to teach him the Plan of Salvation and are teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ today, which I am pumped about because I love that lesson. Its just so rockin'. Also, we are continuing to meet with Rose. We talked to her and we are going to start teaching everything over from the start. She is basically ready to go but with Dustin (her boyfriend) in jail there are some hold-ups of sorts. But she is legit. Super good spirit about her. Remember that crazy dude I mentioned last week that we went and taught? Yeah, well we went back this past week and taught his daughter who seemed to be more of the reason that they requested a visit. But, before we taught her we had another LONG crazy conversation. So, let me expound the story unto you. So this man is like 40ish. He has this weird thing with Ukrainian girls. He has spent over $90,000 on Ukrainian girls in the last year or two. Like, straight up. He even went and fought in the Ukrainian army for a few months not too long ago to show his loyalty to them. So, as of now, he has this like 25 year old Ukrainian girl that looks like a supermodel that he is engaged to....... ok. Super weird, right? Well, his nephew who is probably mid-late 20's also has some Ukrainian girl that he is engaged to........ ok. This is getting really weird, right? Well get this, his 14 year old daughter has this 14 year old Ukrainian dude that she is "dating"......... huh. Ok. They showed us a picture of this 14 year old dude. He's is an absolute monster. Like, biggest muscles I have ever seen on someone under the age of like 18 years old. Anyway, the father and the nephew are trying to explain "love" to these Ukrainian girls. Apparently the Ukrainians only think of love as an emotion and not as an action or anything. I could go on for days about the details but for the sake of time, we don't need to go there. So, these people are just going crazy trying to figure out how to teach these Ukrainian girls what "love" is. Oh my goodness...... they could go on forever. They have been on this extensive search to find out exactly what love is according to the Bible, so they have been out talking to preachers and stuff and trying to get it all figured out. And they were so thankful to have two "prophets" in the house with them to help them figure this out! Hahaha we ain't no prophets! We taught you about prophets three days ago, dude! Anyway, we came to the conclusion after a total of like over an hour that love is an emotion that you can express through actions. I actually like that definition.

Anyway, along with teaching all these peeps. Elder Despain is making some good progress with his teaching. He definitely has had WAY more opportunities to teach his first three weeks than I did. I think I had one lesson my first three weeks.... he's had quite a bit and he is definitely making strides! We also have opportunities to teach Michael and Aiyannah the recent convert lessons so we have had lots of additional opportunities with that.

Well, I really just can't think of anything else to talk about this week. Oh yeah, I thought of one. I was able to give Michael the Aaronic Priesthood at church yesterday and ordain him to the office of a Priest! That was pretty cool! I had never done that before so it was a good experience! I definitely love being able to use my priesthood to bless others! There is no greater feeling than being able to know that I am righteously exercising my priesthood and am worthy and ready to exercise it whenever it is needed! In fact we had a cool experience with that last Monday. We were all hanging in one of the other apartments, and most of the elders were playing an intense game of Risk and they were getting a little loud and a little out of control. Its what happens, no knock on them. However, I was just sitting to the side trying to get our new phone all set-up, and another one of the brand new elders was in the room laying on his bed. We got a phone call saying that a blessing was needed at the hospital, they were all so involved with their game of Risk, so I took Elder Nebeker with me to go give the blessing. I was very thankful that I was ready to be called upon at any given moment to exercise my priesthood, and have Elder Nebeker ready as well. We didn't have to invite the spirit or anything because we already had it with us and were ready to be called upon. It gave me a good perspective about how I need to be like that my whole life. Obviously I am not going to be boring or anything, but I need to be always ready to be called upon in any situation, because I'll never know when my authority is in need.

Well, hopefully I have some fun stuff to talk about next week! But for now I will be ending this email! I love y'all and pray for y'all every day! Have a fantastic week full of fun and joy!

With all my love,

Elder Reed Ericson

Hello

September 8, 2015

Well I had no idea what to put as the title of this email... so I ended up just putting "hello" in the subject line. I need to work on my creativity. I wonder if there's a Mormon Message about that. I wouldn't know, because we don't have ipads yet, and we don't know when we'll get them. However, they did promise all the new missionaries that they would get them at some point. So, we are still waiting on that.

Anyway, it was a good week down here in Odessa, Texas! Tons of stuff going on for me. It was quite the week. To start off, I had my second District Meeting today after having my first one last Tuesday. Not gonna lie, they were two dang good district meetings! It was awesome to see the spirit guide me as I prepared to instruct my district. For my first one I had nearly an entire instruction planned out by Saturday and then I had an idea to do something else so I switched it up and it was awesome! We are supposed to instruct off of what we talked about in our special "District Conference" with Pres Heap and the assistants a couple weeks ago, so I instructed on having a vision of what you want to be and become on your mission, and I really focused on how Satan is going to do everything he can to stop you from achieving that vision. The spirit just gave me some awesome ideas and it was a powerful message that I truly learned a lot from preparing and instructing. I obviously started crying at one point, and I almost had a couple of the other Elders crying too. Gosh, I'm such a cry baby. And then today I almost cried, but no tears came out so I did solid. Today I instructed about humility and grace and the process we need to take to receive Christ's grace, and how it is the only way we can have the power and authority we have to have in order to fulfill our calling as representatives of Jesus Christ. I was really worried about today because I only have three other people in my district without the zone leaders and two of them are new missionaries, so I didn't think I was going to have very good participation but we had a lot of participation and awesome comments to work with! It was a solid meeting. It has been a blessing to be able to prepare for and instruct at district meetings. I learn so much being able to study and apply what I learn preparing and then help others learn and apply the same things!

On Friday I was able to go to Mission Leadership Conference in Lubbock. Usually its just the zone leaders and sister training leaders that go once a month to the MLC but they have been having the district leaders go every few transfers, so I was able to attend that. It was an awesome meeting. There were tons of my peeps there too so I had the pleasure of conversing with a bunch of old friends. It was good stuff. They talked a lot about leadership and some other stuff that y'all don't really care about, but I was able to learn a lot and took a lot away from that meeting!

The Lord has blessed us tremendously over the last week! While I was at MLC my companion and another elder on exchanges had a sick lesson with a 19 and 14 year old that are friends of some members in our ward. They basically live at the member's house. So they had a super powerful lesson with them and we are going over there again in like 45 minutes to teach them again. I am pretty pumped. So there's two solid investigators. At MLC I was given a referral from the mission office for a man and his 14 year old daughter. So we went over there on Saturday afternoon. The daughter wasn't home, but we had an interesting conversation (and by conversation I mean we listened to him) for like 30 minutes and this guy seemed like a wing-nut. Holy cow we couldn't get this man to shut up or even let us say something without cutting us off. But then he asked what "Mormon stuff" we had to share with him so we shared a very simple Restoration and blew the roof off the house with it. It was amazing to see how the spirit changed this man in just a couple short minutes. He went from talking like crazy and seeming just on a buzz to super calm and peaceful as we shared the last part of the restoration about Joseph Smith and all that fun stuff. He is pretty solid and it sounds like his daughter was even more interested than him. We have another appointment tonight with them so I am excited for that! We also taught this man from Vietnam on Sunday. Haha that was fun. It was hard because he doesn't have that solid Christian background that we are used to down here in Texas where EVERYONE knows Jesus. So that was a good learning opportunity for Elder Despain and I. I had to go back and teach a lot of stuff a second time and talk about the words he isn't familiar with and explain things very very simply. We were able to have a good talk about adjusting teaching for different people and was a good learning experience for us. And on top of all that we still have our other people we are working with and are going to have a busy week teaching them and also trying to get more investigators with our solid potential list we have.

All in all I feel like I am just starting to learn what this missionary thing is all about. Over the last month or so I have been starting to see things differently and am starting to flip the page in my missionary work. It seems like this is usually about the time of my mission that missionaries start to really figure things out. And I am starting to see it big time. I have just been learning how to go all in. Obviously I have worked hard and "understood" what I was doing and my purpose as a missionary for a long time now, but there is a certain switch that gets flipped "on" after a while and that switch has a finger on it and its on its way to getting flipped into the "on" position! I called Elder Stringham last night (because I can and he told me to call him) and we had a good talk about it for a while. He said that he went through the same stuff about the same time that I did and he was just so proud and full of joy about his "son". I love my mission "dad". He also challenged me to start to really think about how this is going to affect my life when I get home and to start to make specific plans for life after the mission. Obviously its not making plans to make me trunky, but he said that this is a time to figure out the rest of my life and what the Lord wants me to do. So I now have that challenge on me and I will be able to start thinking about that and report back to him what I have thought of.

Funny story from MLC. So I was sitting to the right of Elder Johnson (you know, from Frenship Mesa and who is in like a million of my pictures) and Elder Cardon was sitting on his left. They were instructing us on the new cell phones we are getting (we are switching from Sprint to AT&T) and how we will need to use Bluetooth to transfer over our contacts. So the senior missionary instructing us asked who knew what Bluetooth was and like everyone raised their hands because everyone our age knows what Bluetooth is. Well, Elder Cardon hates technology so much. Like, I had to force him to take the phone. He had a phone at home but he used the same phone for like 6 years and he left his phone at home half the time. So when that question was posed everyone raised their hands... except Elder Cardon, who went on to pose the question, "What the crap is Bluetooth?" in his typical naive "I hate technology" tone of voice. Elder Johnson and I DIED laughing. I know, I know. That story was pretty lame. But, that was like the highlight of my week. I stinkin' love Elder Cardon. I had lots of laughs at that conference... good times.

Well that will be all for me today! I hope y'all have a good week! I love y'all and pray for y'all every day! That was a lot of "y'all"..........

Mucho amor,

Elder Reed Ericson

Second Son

August 31, 2015

Well hello my good friends and family! It’s been a crazy week down here in Odessa for Elder Ericson! But it’s been a good week nonetheless!

The week started off by driving up to Lubbock with Elder Bench and Elder Wrathall on Tuesday. We had a pretty fun drive! We went hard singing along to some missionary tunes and had a good time. We got to the transfer site in Lubbock and I was just in heaven. Good golly. It was a massive reunion! I felt like a celebrity! I saw so many people there that I hadn't seen in a whole 6 weeks and then some people that I haven't seen in even longer than that! They were mainly people who were serving in Lubbock that I knew from my time there and then some others that happened to be going through the Lubbock transfer site. It was a good time. Anyway, I had to go searching for my new trainee and I found him inside the mission office. So we went and got all his stuff gathered and taken out to the car and eventually after a while of this and that we left on our way back to Odessa along with another Elder who was going down to Fort Stockton. We had a nice car ride back down to Odessa, it actually flew by! Holy cow! It’s about a 2 hour drive but it felt really short! I guess good conversation will do that.

Elder Despain has been doing well. Its always crazy those first couple days in the field. But he managed well. Luckily for him I am the type of trainee to look out for signs of exhaustion and whatnot. So our first full day I noticed that he was just about to die right before dinner so we took a long dinner to give him more time to rest and recuperate before we went back out to work. We've really hit the role plays hard this past week. Role play, role play, role play. We have what is called the "12 Week Training Program" but I have felt the need to focus more on role plays this first week because I didn't find the training for week 1 very applicable so we've just been practicing the restoration, plan of salvation, and street contacts like crazy. So this coming week we will get into the training program more. I feel like I am a much better trainer this time around. I am able to apply the training much better and help him learn and develop better skills much better than the first time. Unfortunately, its rough to come down to the TLM and start to experience what real missionary work is like. The MTC makes it seem like you will be teaching people all day and helping people learn and grow, when in reality you will come down here and not teach a lesson for weeks. We didn't really have any lessons this past week for us to practice. It is difficult for a new missionary to be thrown into a situation that is completely opposite of what they thought it was going to be. Instead of teaching people all day you go try by people who don't answer their door, go to appointments and have them punch on you, have people reject you on the street, etc. It can be tough for a new missionary to be thrown into that type of situation. So its important that we role play as much as we can to make up for the lack of teaching we have! I forgot what it was like to have a trainee too, it’s a rough transition from having two companions who can just do the work to having a companion that has no clue what’s going on that you basically have to teach how to do everything in missionary work! But he's learning fast and making big strides already!

Elder Despain is from northern Wyoming from a small town with only like 600 people. He went to a 1A school, so pretty typical Wyoming. Fun stuff. He played football, basketball, and ran track too in high school so we are able to talk about sports and stuff as we go out and work. Solid guy. I will probs tell you more about him later. But for how that's about it!

On top of starting to train a new missionary I had to whip together Aiyannah's baptism, which wasn't easy. I struck out a number of times and had a hard time filling in the program. But I did it! And it was a wonderful service! Aiyannah's father is a member and lives here in our ward, and her mother is no longer a member and she lives up in Andrews. But her whole family came and she even had some aunts and grandma who came also who I don't believe are members! We had some good talks and good words shared! I had the opportunity to baptize her, and we had to do it twice. Apparently her hand didn't get fully under, and the witnesses didn't catch it, so luckily Bishop Coombs came in and told us as Aiyannah was already out of the font. So we did it again and I DUNKED her good! There was no way I was letting any part of her not get under! But it was a good service and Aiyannah was super happy and excited!

And on top of getting a trainee, and having to throw a baptism together, I have to get all my district leader stuff organized (there was no prior organization) and start prepping for district meeting tomorrow. So that was fun! President Heap and the assistants are making their way through the entire mission having what they call "District Conferences". So both of the Odessa districts met together with them for a 2.5 hour meeting on Thursday. Pres Heap apparently has felt like we need to help people understand The Fall of Adam and Eve better and that it will help the people we work with feel a greater need to adhere to the gospel we bring them and look for the Savior more. Straight inspiration on Pres Heap's part. So he gave a sick instruction on The Fall and the Atonement. It was mind blowing. Apparently our numbers mission wide have been on a downward trend. Of course we don't care about numbers here in the TLM, but what we do care about is people and each number represents a person. So we had instructions on our vision as missionaries, strict obedience, accountability, and then an instruction about the results of applying all those things. It got me fired up to go out and kill it! Holy cow, I have been on one ever since Thursday! And I am excited to keep moving forward and just kill it and help my district kill it as well. I've already had some fantastic calls with them and we have some good goals and sites set for the coming weeks and transfer! I am excited to keep on working with them!

One nasty story, so on Saturday our apartment started to smell rank, and this isn't the first time its happened. The first time we just opened up the doors and cleaned the crap out of our apartment and it got better that day even without finding the source, and then it happened again on Saturday and we found out that it was from the nasty air filter on the intake for our air conditioning! That thing was NASTY! So, we made an emergency trip to Wal-Mart to get a new one since the apartment complex office was closed and we couldn't get one from them. Ugh, it smelt horrible. Like rotten eggs. Luckily with the new air filter that shouldn't happen again!

Well that will be all for me this week! I love y'all and hope y'all have a good week and KEEP THE FAITH!

Love,

Elder Reed Ericson