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!

Peace Out San Angelo!!!

March 28, 2016

Hello everyone! It is a beautiful Spring day here in San Angelo, TX! And yesterday was a beautiful Easter Sunday! What a wonderful time of year it is!

 

Well, as said in the subject line, I will be headed out of San Angelo tomorrow and headed just up the road to Abilene! I will be serving in the Abilene 1st Ward with Elder Lund! Elder Lund is THE BEST!!!!!! Hahaha he is going to be a blast to work with! We will be serving as the Zone Leaders as well! I was really hoping to stay in the San Angelo 1st Ward or go somewhere new that I haven't been before. I have never served in Abilene but I have been there many times and been on some exchanges in Abilene as well. In fact, when we went up to Abilene for stake conference a couple weeks ago I made a comment a few times about how I wouldn't mind serving in Abilene. Well, I think the Lord heard that! So we will see how it goes. Out of my five areas, 3 will be in the Abilene Stake! It's a good stake with an absolutely wonderful stake president so I don't mind!

 

However, I am extremely sad to leave San Angelo! This has been an incredible place to work. I had always heard good things about San Angelo; however, it always was just the place way down in the southeast part of the mission that seems to be off by itself. So getting called here was interesting, but I soon found that it was wonderful. I have honestly served among such great people in any of my past areas. It seems like every single person that I associate with, whether it be on the street, at church, at the store, and really just anywhere, is a great person and very friendly and nice! I've never been really treated like dirt here and even when people aren't interested in the missionaries talking to them they are always very nice and will at least talk to you for a minute about this and that. I wouldn't say that southern hospitality is all that its claimed to be, but in San Angelo it is!

 

The San Angelo 1st Ward was absolutely amazing to serve in as well! At first I was extremely intimidated by the size of the ward, since I had gotten used to smaller wards. But holy cow, once I got acquainted with the people my intimidation had turned into lots of love! All the members are so good to us and wonderful people. Our meal calendar is usually pretty full with lots of different families and we never seem to have any awkward dinners or anything of the sort! Everyone is so fun to be with. They also know that we are missionaries first, however we always also have a dang good time and have lots of laughs and such and get off on weird tangents! They have been so good to me!

 

As for things I have learned while here in San Angelo, there have been many! This has probably been my most influential area for my personal growth so far! One of the greatest lessons I have learned here is the principle of accountability. Accountability truly can change lives and change the way you look at yourself and whatever you are involved in. Learning how to account to my leaders and the Lord has truly changed the way I view my mission and the importance of it. It has changed the way I take every single day and my mind set is changed as I do so. I have been able to improve on things that I have long struggled with and my desires to improve more and more has been enhanced!

Another life changing thing that I have really learned here in San Angelo is what it means to be a priesthood holder. I have had many opportunities to administer the priesthood through blessings and to minister as a priesthood leader in the mission, and those experiences were building blocks to my understanding of the doctrine of the priesthood and what it means to hold it. And as I have studied the scriptures as well I have learned much about what holding the priesthood means. Some of the most significant parts of scripture for me have been D&C 121:34-46 as well as much of Prophet Joseph's writings in Liberty Jail. I have memorized that section in D&C 121 and it is frequently going through my head and helped me understand the doctrine of the priesthood. And then through studying the beginning chapters of the Old Testament in Genesis I have gained a better understanding of my role in the Plan of Salvation. There are many key words, phrases, and doctrines in those early chapters speaking of the creation, Adam and Eve, and our early ancestors down to about Abraham that truly teach much about the priesthood and the most important duties that I and others have as bearers of the holy priesthood. President Heap says that his #2 responsibility behind his family is to prepare us to be good husbands, fathers, and priesthood leaders, and I believe that he is helping me do just that along! Although what is really doing it is the Lord and the Holy Ghost! But in San Angelo my eyes have been opened further to these things.

Another profound thing that I have come to understand better is the role of my Father in Heaven in my life. I have had many "pondering" experiences throughout my time here in which I have recognized the Lords hand in many ways. Some of the more prominent "ponderings" have been when I pondered events and things in my life that have led to my present conversion, and the role the Holy Ghost played in it. I was able to recognize just how often the Lord did HUGE things for me in my life, even when those huge things seemed like happenstance. Another one was when I pondered the most powerful prayers I have ever offered and what made them so powerful. I received some sweet revelation from that as well! I feel like half of my studies are spent sitting there staring at the wall in deep thought. Which can get me in trouble sometimes, because that usually at some point turns into me thinking about who knows what. But hey, its good stuff.... usually.

I have also developed greater Christ-like attributes here. Along with all of my ponderings and my learning of accountability I have recognized appendages of my weakness (the natural man) that are falling short of Christ-like. I have learned more fully my god given gifts and how to use those in a more Christ-like way. That has been a very interesting one for me! Once you begin to understand your gifts it leads to a process of learning how to apply those more fully, which is the tough part! However over the last couple transfers I have felt an increase in my ability to express my gifts and use them to bless other people. That has been wonderful to see. I can only hope to continue to grasp and apply those things in which my Father has blessed me with to bless others!

I have also seen an increase in my ability to relate to people and show love to them. Don't really know how that happened. I have always been able to do a good job at that, but I have seen an increase in the application of that. I have felt like I have been able to develop a deeper connection to the people I have acquainted with here than anywhere else. What a blessing!

 

I have had many other wonderful experiences here that I will never forget! Working with the infamous Mac and being here for him getting baptized was something that will last with me forever! I have memory after memory of just getting shut down time after time by him in their family room! Hahaha good times! I will forever remember the moment he said "Well, I guess I need to get baptized..............................................................................." and then the following weeks of disbelief by every single person that knows him! And then his baptismal service that filled the chapel and all the amazingness of that experience! Something I will never forget. I will never forget knocking into Richard who had been inactive for 35 years and told the Lord the night before that he was waiting on him to tell him it was time to go back to church. I will never forget those nights sitting in Andrews home helping him down his path of repentance. I will never forget Thanksgiving and Christmas at the Lunkley's, and all the fantastic dinner appointments at their place! And I will never forget all the hilarious rides in the truck with Elder Cooper, Mangum, and Johnson! Just a bunch of dang good, memorable times!

 

Anyway, as you could tell, I like San Angelo! But it is time to move on to Abilene, which I am excited for! But it is now time to fare thee well! I love y'all and hope y'all have a blessed week! Thank you for all of your prayers of support and know that I always appreciate them and pray for you as well! May the good Lord bless you as you go about sharing your light this week!

 

God bless ya!

Much love,

Elder Reed Ericson

Easter Power!

March 21, 2016

Hello! It is a sunny spring morning here in San Angelo, Texas! It has probably been a little bit more "springy" down yonder than it has been for the majority of you up in the more northern region. However, it has been a little chilly this past week. And I hear that it was pretty dang cold up in the Lubbock area the last week. Some missionaries went to the temple on Saturday and they said that it was in the 30's! Hace frio! Thank heavens I was sent down to the warm part of the mission for winter! Hopefully I won't have to bear the brunt of the boiling heat down here once summer rolls around. Not looking forward to that. Send me up to the panhandle or the mountains of NM for that! Anyway, this past week was a good week. I look at our key indicators (numbers) and it was borderline one of the worst weeks I've ever had, but I have learned that numbers don't mean anything here in the Texas Lubbock Mission and I am able to look back on many good things that happened!

 

To start off, I'll drop a little line about the Easter Initiative. We have seen that video now like a million times. At first it seemed like the same thing that we've had for the past 4 initiative videos. A lot or our "initiative work" comes with members after a meal. And members have all seen every single video and this is just another of the same it seemed like to them and there is not much excitement or anything. However, Elder's Quorum yesterday really put it all together for me. There are a few unique things to this video that we always like to talk about when showing it. One of which is the layer of family history that is brought up with it. It shows the young adults holding up pictures of their deceased family members and it takes it from a feel good video and gives it a personal touch. I always just think of those pictures being of my own ancestors and family and it gives me great thanks for the atonement and the resurrection!

There are other things that stand out to me when I watch it, but that is the main one. But yesterday in Elder's Quorum we had probably the best lesson I have ever had in church on the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the teaching of Howard W. Hunter. Holy cow. Bro Williams went so hard. I have always known and realized that the resurrection is by far the most important part of the atonement. In fact, I remember Grandma Ericson last Easter mentioning in an email that Christmas wouldn't mean anything without Easter. That has always stuck with me, but Bro Williams lesson really just helped me understand and grasp the concept in a new light. He actually started from the back of the lesson (the resurrection) and then worked back to the beginning of the lesson (being saved from spiritual death). A quote from Bro Williams, "Without the resurrection, the gospel is just a bunch of feel good stuff." How true that is! Even the unimaginable suffering that Christ went through literally has zero significance had he not risen. "Well that's cool that Christ saved you from your sins...... well...... cool. Glad it made you feel happy now because that's all it is. Temporary relief until you die." But thanks to the resurrection, the relief that he brings to us from our sins and all our other negative feelings and emotions MEANS SOMETHING. Thanks to an unconditional effect of the atonement, the conditional effects of it play an eternal and significant role in our lives. So now whenever I watch the Easter video (which he showed in his lesson) I see it in a new light. They mention "finding new life in Jesus Christ" a lot and that means something much deeper to me now. The 2 minutes of pure simplicity touches me deeply. Hallelujah!

 

Anyway, enough of my rambling. There are not too many notable things that happened that have much significance to you. We did go on exchanges on Wednesday/Thursday which were interesting. We ended up pulling a much longer exchange than we were originally planning on because we didn't have too much time to work on Wednesday. For exchanges now we just have all 4 missionaries working the leaders' area in two different companionships, which is an interesting experience compared to the old way of splitting up into two different areas. Thursday afternoon I was able to go out with Elder Johnson and we did some solid work. Taught a sweet lesson to one of their investigators. Interesting story there. He and his family are from Micronesia. He doesn't speak super duper English, but enough to understand and get things. However they got him a Bompayan Book of Mormon, so when we read scriptures he reads it in Bompayan and we read in English. So that was pretty sweet.

 

We also walked and biked a ton and talked to a lot of people. It was weird, their area seems to have way more people outside than our area! And you would expect the social and economical aspect of our area to bring a lot more people outside than their area! Oh well, we work with what we have. So we did some solid work all afternoon and had some dang good discussion about mission related things. Good times with Elder Johnson. (Random note: a man was here in the computer area at the library that I am sitting in and was talking to the worker. The worker answered his question and the man said "God bless you" and walked off! I love Texas!) On Wednesday night during our exchange we went and had dinner at the Lunkley's (same family that had us for Thanksgiving and Christmas) and it was one of the most legit dinners ever! He went Cajun style on us! Holy cow! We had a couple different kinds of Cajun sausage, gumbo, jambalaya, a seafood boil with shrimp, crab-legs, corn, potatoes, and then some lemon meringue soda to top it off (which tasted like a mix of lemonade and cream soda - dang good stuff). Oh dang. So dang good! Bro Lunkley can throw down some good grub! And then we ended it up with splitting a caramel something pie into fourths and chowing that down. It was amazing. And then after dinner we just had a grand old time with the Lunkley's. Probably were there a little long, but we learned some great life things from them! Most times we go over there they teach us a lot about relationships, marriage, etc. which is ultimately what we are preparing ourselves for out here. President Heap even says that his first priority is the make his mission a good experience for his family, and then his second priority is to prepare us to be good 1.husbands, 2.fathers, and 3.leaders in the church. Top two priorities. So a good lesson on relationships and marriage at the Lunkley's once a month can't hurt. They used some great analogies that were hilarious but perfect and I learned tons!

 

Saturday was a good day of work for us! It was a really nice day (on the cooler side of nice), so we literally walked from 1:00-5:30ish with a few small breaks and talked to lots of people and contacted a couple sweet former investigators! It was good to get out and actually have people to talk to! And the good Lord blessed me with only minor aches in my knees! Usually when I go out and walk for more than an hour or so my knees ache but I went for quite a while and felt relatively good all day! And then we had dinner with the one and only Blinn family after that so it was just overall a sweet day in San Angelo! Hopefully now that it is getting into spring time people will actually migrate outside. We have had lots of really nice weather but nobody seems to want to enjoy it. But now that it is officially Spring maybe people will switch gears in their heads! Other than all that, not much to report on with lessons or teaching. We had a few less-active lessons but that was about it. Granted, we were out of our area for a couple of good work days, so that probably had a big impact on that.

 

Well my loved ones, we're fixin' to get out of here. So I will close this one off for the day! I love y'all and hope that you can ponder the wonderful atonement of Jesus Christ this week and particularly the his resurrection and the amazing unconditional gift it is to all of us!

 

God bless ya!

Loves,

Elder Reed Ericson

The Hand of the Lord

March 14, 2016

Hello my friends! Another week in the books! Time is flying way too fast! March is halfway over and I am a week away from being out for 17 months! Dang. Next month will be my 3/4 mark. Its crazy to think that time is winding down so fast. It will be over before I know it, which is scaring me a little bit!

 

This week was interesting. I feel like the work here in San Angelo was just dead all week. It seemed like days just happened with nothing in them. Part of it was the weather. We had a wet week with a couple days of lots and lots of rain. Already being a little disabled with transportation being in a bike area, you add rain to it and it now puts you on foot since you don't want to get drenched by riding through puddles that are necessary to ride through. Usually walking gets you a good chance to slow down to talk to some people, but when its raining there ain't nobody to talk to! And you can't just spend time knocking on doors because you are trying to get to a place that you know you can sit inside and visit with someone! And then when they aren't there, you must embark on your trek to the next place. So it was interesting. Those days were long but we were able to avoid getting soaked to the bone, thanks to rain jackets! This week looks to be sunny and bright all week with a little bit of clouds towards the end but not a high chance of rain. So we should be good to go! Cloudy but no rain is what I like to see!

 

Last Monday evening we stopped by this young brotha named Trey. He had stopped us from inside of his car to talk to us a few weeks ago. We went in and sat down in his house and had an interesting convo. In fact, the Jehovah's Witnesses beat us to him by a couple of days so he already had some religious literature there with him. So we gave him even more before we left! He talked on and on about some weird stuff that he has going on. He believes in the law of attraction where if you look at yourself in a certain way then your body will do what you are imagining it. He said that he lost a lot of weight doing that and right now his teeth are in the process of straightening up! Seemed legit. However he seems to not have a very good attention so we shall see how it works out with him. We haven't been able to see him again so I am looking forward to seeing how a follow-up visit will go with him! However, the JW's beat us over there for a follow-up I'm sure. And he will probably show them the Book of Mormon and stuff. So looks like we have a classic JW vs. Mormon show down on our hands! Although we will only share what we believe and not get in a JW showdown with him. We'll have to keep it real. Should be interesting!

 

We had a ride in a sweet new mini-van! There is a young couple in our ward that fed us a few days ago on a night that it was raining. The other elders couldn't give us a ride home so we asked them for a ride. Sure enough, we got to hop into their SWEET mini-van. I felt like I was riding in a 23rd century spaceship! That unit had everything you could ever ask for in a vehicle! I huge GPS screen on the console, sweet front seat/console design, a mega-wide flip down tv screen, trash baskets, crazy back seat buttons/controls, middle seats that slide back and forth to create more room or less room, and anything else you could possibly imagine! Ugh..... I just want a mini-van so bad now! #DreamCar

 

I had what are called "Idaho Tacos" for the first time in my life! Sis McMunn made them for us for dinner and blew us Idaho boys away with something that we should have been so familiar with already. However, somehow me in all my Idahoaness had never had the term or meal Idaho Tacos revealed to me! So, imagine a taco, a regular delicious taco. But now, replace the tortilla or shell with a potato. Boom! There you are! An Idaho Taco!!!! You just cut the potato open, slice it up a little/much it a little, and throw on your taco toppings! I was a little skeptical at first, but it turned out to be wonderful! Y'all best be getting ready for some real Idaho food from Texas when I get home! Also on a food note, I almost divulged into some Ramen Noodles that were left in my cupboard by the previous missionary when I got here. I have yet to give in to the Ramen temptation in the last nearly 17 months, and I don't plan on eating them in the next 7 months. I want to be able to say that I served a full 2 year mission without eating Ramen a single time! So I held strong to my inner commitment and did not partake, even though I was suffering from some serious munchies and I had no food to munch on and Ramen sounded really good. I hope to be able to report that I didn't eat Ramen a single time when I get home! Be ready to ask so I can be accountable to you!

 

Church was pretty sweet yesterday. It was fast Sunday for us since we had stake conference last week so we had testimony meeting for sacrament. Testimony meeting is always beast here in Texas. It kinda weirds me out sometimes when I think about sitting in testimony meeting back home through lots of silence and lots of kids. Here you have one adult after another getting up to share their testimony with silence on rare occasions. You can literally go a whole meeting with having no more than like 10 seconds of silence. Plus, they have some way of keeping the kids down. I think they give them opportunities to do it in primary or something. And you don't get any long stories or nothing like that. People go up, bear sincere testimony about things they know to be true, and sit down and give the spotlight to the next person. Every once in a while you get a brief story, but nothing more than a minute or two and its usually concise and to the point! Its fantastic stuff! Its interesting how the culture of the church is just a little different down here. The church is still definitely the exact same thing, but it has a little different feel to it sometimes. I love it! I can't really put it all into words in an email, but you will hear it all some day.

After church we were about to head out the door when a Sister in the ward came running over and said that her son wanted to be there and stand in on his Aaronic Priesthood ordination! We don't know the family too well, even though they are super awesome. I have only been over to dinner twice at their place, but I guess we sometimes have a super positive influence on people when we have no idea we do! The kid had plenty of family there for his ordination as well, so it wasn't like he was stretching to get people to stand in. But it was touching to know that he desired to have us there! I was honored!

 

I finished the Book of Mormon yesterday after church! This time reading through it I highlighted all the mentions of deity. Everything from "God" to "he". It was an interesting study. At times I would be marking a something on every single like and others I would go pages with only highlighting a couple. Overall, what I realized was that the Lord was at the center of everything the entire time. There were times when he was obviously the direct center of everything (the times when I was highlighting a something on every line) and then there were times when he was indirectly the center of everything (those pages where he was hardly mentioned). I think those pages where he was not mentioned a whole lot are the ones we can learn the most from. Lately I have been realizing just how much of a hand the Lord has played in my life over the last 20.5 years and back into the pre-existence, and it took me a long time to realize that it was him and not just happenstance. The Lord does more indirectly in our lives than he does directly. We think, "Oh, the Lord did this....." far less than we should. But we just don't recognize how involved he really is with us. He literally does everything. And I could see instances in the Book of Mormon where prophets would hardly mention him because of the kind of text they were writing, but the Lord was at work regardless of the lack of mentioning him in text. Very interesting study. And it was sweet too. I knelt down after finishing it to ask once again for a reaffirming witness of the book, and as I was about to pop the question I could feel the Spirit blowing up inside of me and then when I popped the question the Spirit popped as well and it just felt real good. Real good indeed. That was easily the strongest answer to a prayer asking about the Book of Mormon I have ever had! Yes! It is true!!!!!!!

 

Well team, its time for me to close up on y'all. You mean the world to me! I thank the good Lord every day for such wonderful family, friends, and everyone else that I associate with! May you recognize more fully the hand of the Lord working in your lives this week and give him thanks for the many wonderful blessings he gives you every minute of every day!

 

God bless ya!

 Con Mucho Amor,

Elder Reed Ericson