Elder May: Chapter 76

Love and miss his face! 

What a great email!  It makes my heart happy to hear him so happy and doing well in his new area.  He talks about 76 weeks of emails and it is funny to think that he has less to write than he has written.  He will be out 18 months on the 27^th of this month.  I can hear him talking as I read this email and that brings a smile to my face.  Love him, miss him too but oh, so proud of him!  Enjoy!!

Chapter 76

1) You’re transferring to Providence!

2) Meet and greet Elder Stockham

3) This is a blessed area!

4) Not a coincidence

5) Who knew I was such a baller!

Hi everybody! I’ve been sending these emails for the past 76 weeks, save the couple that I didn't send one. Like last week...my bad. But I was busy. 

I was busy packing because I was transferred up to the middle of the mission in an area called Providence. The mission office (basically the middle point of our mission) is 20 minutes away now. This means I am in Tampa which has some crazy traffic and I am not used to that. Our normal "main roads" that we use in our areas move so slow every once in a while. It’s okay though. 

My new companion is Elder Stockham from north Salt Lake City, Utah. He has been out since about February of this past week and is super excited to hit the ground running. And we have definitely been running. 

We have tried a lot of different ways to meet some new people this past week. We have gone tracting in apartment complexes, some former investigators (those that have been met with missionaries before) which has brought some cool results, less active members which now we are teaching a nonmember husband, and a list of unbaptized members and now we are going to teach a man named Joseph Smith. Hopefully he will be able to relate well to the message. 

One huge blessing is that our progressing investigator, Danny, has a date for baptism on the 4th of November and hopefully that works out. If not then we can reschedule it. We found him doing some service and he wanted some help because of the winds of the Hurricane that came through here. He now is reading the Book of Mormon by himself and reading a lot. We asked him to read just 1st Nephi 2nd and he read all the way to chapter 8 and came to church this past Sunday and loved it. Even better is that where we were sitting in church was right behind a couple in the ward and the wife turned around, and said "Danny how are you and your brother Randy?" She grew up on the same street as him and knew his family so when he came in she recognized him and started talking to him which was awesome and we are going to try to have them over for some lessons. 

We have a couple of promising lessons this week that we just randomly called because we are both fairly new in the area. One of them came because we had a little bit before we met with our ward mission leader so we called a former that lived one street north of our ward mission leader. That person answered the phone and after we established who we were said, "I haven't heard from you guys in a while! Want to come by on Tuesday?" There have been a couple phone calls like that in the past couple of days which have been awesome and built faith. 

The fourth quote is actually really funny. We met with our ward mission leader and talked a little bit about where I am from and where he is from and found out that not only did he serve in this same mission 10 years ago but he also is from Arizona, is in college to be a software engineer, and his brother lives in the same neighborhood as me. WHAT?! This is actually the second person I've met that served in this mission and met his future wife while he was out here serving. It has been pretty crazy.

Last, we played basketball on Saturday and this morning and guess what, I am a baller. Elder Stockham and I are going to start working out by going to the church to play basketball more. It will be awesome but don't be surprised when I can dunk when I get home (I can already touch the front of the rim).

I'll talk to you all later! Love you!

Love Elder May

Saying Good-bye

 

Elder May and Elder Stockham

 

Elder May: Chapter 74

Our very happy, handsome missionary helping those in need!

Thank you for all the extra prayers and temple rolls entries on Elder Hayden's behalf.  After almost a month, he is finally feeling better.  He is back to helping and serving the amazing people in Port Charlotte.  There are so many that have lost so much and some still without power and water.  It really is a true miracle that nothing happened to Elder May and Elder Shakespeare's apartment.  We love him and we miss him but we are oh, so proud of him!  Enjoy!!

Chapter 74

           1.      I finally feel better

           2.      We did a lot of service

           3.      Like a lot of service.

           4.      You're fighting about the Mormons coming over 

Hey everybody! First off, thank you for all the prayers sent our way because we were sick. We are all better now. No more bronchitis or amoxicillin so that is a blessing. I was sick of being sick.

Second and third,  we have done a lot of service over the past two weeks especially. So many trees, and move outs, and flooding and everything but it has been a ton of fun. The Spirit was very strong and each person we served we asked to end with a prayer and each accepted, including a man who claimed he was atheist. They each appreciated it so much.

Lastly, we finally got to meet with our investigator who has learned everything and likes to make us dinner. His wife is pregnant right now and doesn't feel good most the time so she stayed in her room. But the daughter came out and said, "Mom isn't tired, she's mad at you because the Mormons are here." That was hilarious but made the lesson pretty awkward for us and the member we brought.  We busted up laughing as soon as we got into the car. It was hilarious.

Not too much else happened though. It sure was a fast week though. I am very excited for conference this weekend and excited to hear more from our prophet. Although he is unable to do much nowadays I know he is still inspired and will tell us exactly what we need to know, and more importantly do, as members of the church. I love this gospel and testify God loves each and every one of us.

Love Elder May 

Zone Conference

Zone Conference

Zone Conference - Back Row on Right

Elder May: Chapter 73

Another crazy week for this Elder and getting home after Hurricane Irma.  He still does not feel well so if anyone in his area knows a doctor he can go see, please let me know.  He went to urgent care and the co-pay was almost half his allotted money for the month and he isn’t any better.  Please also send prayers his way.  He and Elder Shakespeare have definitely been watched over and kept safe.  We all are so grateful for everyone’s love and support.  We love him and miss him so much but we are oh, so proud of him!  Enjoy!!

Chapter 73

1) Church Building Sleepover!

2) Service missionary style!

3) I am sick of tired of being sick and tired. 😷😴

4) I wish I took more pictures.

Hey everybody! Sorry for being AWOL last week but blame it on Irma. 

However, that is a pretty cool thing that is definitely going into the journal. Living in a church building was pretty fun in theory but after three days the hype wore off. Luckily it didn't last any longer than that. Cool story though. We got to have a full church service with just us missionaries and it gets even cooler. Our mission president, President Cooper, said the opening prayer in one of our three evacuation building we were staying at. In this prayer he said that by the priesthood he holds as mission president, the storm will not reach any of the building and all of us would be safe. A member in the ward building we were at was watching the storm and while we were having church he said he "saw the storm do a hiccup" and from that point was weakened and lost a huge amount of power. The priesthood is real and is on the earth today. 

The eye of the hurricane did happen to go directly through my area though as a category 2 hurricane (meaning it was pretty windy) so some trees were uprooted, including a huge tree in from of our church building that we have had a blast getting rid of it. This past week has been a lot of that moving trees and branches and such and we have a couple more projects lined up for doing so this week. 

Not as fun though, I am still not totally fixed.  I still feel pretty sick.   I just wanna feel better you know. Go at 100%, but for now I will give 100% of all I can give. That all the gospel asks of us anyway. 

Lastly, I totally should have took more pictures while we had a chance with all the missionaries and everything going on. I think there should be a couple on the facebook page and such. My mom has been a champ and kept updated on all of that and maybe she can add them.

Anyway, I love you all and truly appreciate and felt the prayers sent our way. Please continue to pray for those that weren't as fortunate as us and that we can find them and help them out. 

Love, 

Elder May

Back home - no water or storm damage

Ready to help those in need

More volunteering and helping