He's HOME!!!!!!!

Best weekend ever!  So happy to have him home.  What a wonderful 2 years it has been!  Thank you so much for the love and support all of you have shown Brad and our family!

He is off to Utah State in August!!

Last Letter from Elder Skalla

Hey!  

It was nice to see my truck is still in good shape!  Now just don't drive it for 3 days so it survives haha That parade and stuff looks pretty fun.  It was weird seeing Jason Grover in that picture too haha.  

I was thinking the same thing of saying just see you Saturday but I guess I will tell you about the week.  I was supposed to come home Thursday but a few months ago we had to switch some things around with transfers so it is on a Friday this week.  That's why I am coming home on a Saturday.  

We had a great week this week.  Tuesday we had mission council for my last time and had a great meeting.  At the end of the meeting all the missionaries going home just share some thoughts.  It was a weird experience just because I have sat there and watched missionary after missionary stand and bear their testimonies in that room at mission council and never believed it would ever be me.  On the 4th we had my last zone training meeting.  It went really well, we talked about the Book of Mormon and all the missionaries going home share their thoughts in that meeting too.  Between all these meetings and things I think I have shared my "farewell testimony" like 8 times now.  haha Hopefully President doesn't make me do it again at transfers.  I think everyone is getting sick of hearing me talk haha I have been some of these missionaries leader for their whole missions I think it is time for someone else haha.  We had some miracles happen this week too.   We have found a lot of people and we are meeting with them this week.  I wish I could stay so bad.  Every time we have set an appointment this week I have tried to make it before Friday haha Things are finally starting to pick up a lot.  One cool experience was with a Less Active.  The other Elders were in the library and someone came up to them and gave them his number and he lives in our area so we called him.  Turns out he is a 29 year old convert of 3 years who just got back from his mission 6 months ago.  His name is Darren, he served in Minnesota and has the coolest conversion story.  He went less active shortly after his mission and just got caught back up in the business of living.  He has no family and lives alone.  It was so cool though we just talked to him about his mission and we went through his journal with him and talked about the things he experienced and read some scriptures.  It was a great conversation and he is so committed to coming back.  We need him too.  A solid black return missionary that has overcome the things of the world will do wonders for so many of the people we are teaching. 

I am gonna miss it, I am going to miss all of it.  I have never been so happy in my entire life.  I am so scared for it to end. I never thought I would ever feel like this or be where I am.  I thought I knew what sacrifice was before my mission.  I thought giving up worldly things and life at the age of a missionary was a great thing to do.  I thought that I was showing Heavenly Father something giving up a great life and school and a girlfriend and a truck and sports and everything that I love. And it is a great thing but I know what a sacrifice is now.  A mission is not a sacrifice.  And the only thing that can teach us that is His great and last sacrifice.   Learning it and applying it and becoming what it is intended to make us become.  It is hard to know when we have done enough for the Atonement to change who we are and what we think and what we do to qualify us for the blessings promised.  The last few weeks and in my interview with President I have talked and thought a lot about that.  Have I done enough?  Did I miss someone? Have I learned and changed enough? Have I helped others enough?  Have I done everything Heavenly Father wanted me to do on a mission?  Do I know why I was sent here? It is hard to know.  But what I do know is that for some reason I was sent here by Heavenly Father and have done all that I know how to do.  I feel good about it.  As hard as it is to leave I am prepared to do it because I know I have given it my all.  I know I will be forever changed and will continue to learn from the experiences on my mission.  It honestly still hasn't really hit me.  I think about it and talk about it but part of me still expects to be in district meeting next week or to the lessons we have this weekend.  I will work these last 3 days though like that is true and will continue to learn in my time left.  I am eternally grateful for missions, for the people I have met and the experiences I have had that have shaped who I am today and who I am becoming.  I pray I will be able to remember them and never look back at who I used to be.  

Love for one last time, 

Elder Brad Skalla 

ps I told President I was going to get some Panda Express at the airport before I met you and he told me you would shoot me if I did and if you didn't he would haha.  So I guess I will have to wait till after I see you haha

Final stretch!!!

Hey!! I cant believe its the second to last letter but I am excited to see everyone and start the next chapter in my life. We had an ok week this week.  Frustrating with the comp still but I am trying to work through it and be happy and work hard even though we sit in the apartment half the day.  I just miss Elder Curtis and Weaver and Ingersoll haha but it isnt too bad. 

I did talk to Chaz this week!  (the guy from the bus)  we are meeting with him tomorrow night.  I am actually really excited... For some reason I feel like I need to teach this guy.  I hope it keeps.  

My interview with President was really good.  He was running behind so he let me go over to the Thompson's in Lakewood and visit so I really enjoyed that. We talked for over an hour haha I took way too much of his time but there was so much I wanted to talk about.  I could talk to him all day haha I miss those 4 hour car rides with him. He is incredible at giving advice and council and he has a story for EVERYTHING from his life.  He definitely made me feel more calm about going home and more confident in myself and the future.  It was a conversation I will look back to often.  It was kind of weird talking about all that stuff and then just coming back to work for 2 weeks haha. 

Ya I thought it was weird too being the only white guy....  there are some funny things that happen on the bus and just in the streets in Cleveland haha I would love to take you there sometime.   

I am glad Joeys homecoming went well...  It sounds like he has changed a lot on his mission.  I did hear about Tom haha President and Elder Ingersoll have been calling me and keeping me updated.  Sounds like he is still going through a rough time though...  

Tell Elder Johnson Happy birthday for me on the 9th since I cant because he never e mails me so I don't have his address.

So for things at home the stuff on Saturday night sounds good.  Definitely put it on FB and you should also but that I am speaking in church and the address and stuff.  Who knows maybe someone will come.  Have you invited any of your friends to come?  Its a good reason to invite!  

I would love some new underwear haha I am planning on getting rid of most of mine cuz they are nasty.  So get me some large spandex ones and medium tall crew neck shirts.  Thank you!  I will probably get rid of most of my shirts but I don't need any new ones.  I actually have 1 long sleeve and 1 short sleeve still brand new in the package that I never used.  As for food I eat special K (the fruit and yogurt kind is the best)  Or honey bunches of oats peach and raspberry and a banana every morning so it would be nice to have that! haha Sorry the cell phone thing is so hard!  You have usually had your way with sprint so I am sure you wont fail this time haha  Just get an I phone.  I am pretty sure that is what I want but you should have like 30 days that you can still take it back right?  

Man I can't believe Ryan is going to be an Elder...  that will be cool to be a part of and to bless Ali's baby.  I have never done that.  

Sorry for the randomness of the letter haha it will be so much easier to just tell you about everything next week haha
Although I probably wont know where to start like all the times we have skyped.  Well I will send you my last e mail on Tuesday next week!  Love and miss you! 

Elder Skalla 

Nearing the end…

Man what a week...  We struggled a little more teaching this week but had some good things happen.   On Monday we went to Kirtland to play Frisbee and stuff with the zone.  We were playing ultimate and an Elder Nailed me right in the face with the Frisbee from like 2 feet away.  I guess it slipped out of his hand but there was a nice stream of blood out my nose for a while and a pretty nasty bruise right under my nose on my upper lip.  It still kinda hurts but the bruise is already going away.  It hurt though haha.  It was funny because the whole zones concern was that I was going to go home with a bruise on my face and look ugly haha but it will be fine by then.  

Tuesday was an answer to prayer...  I guess President talked to the assistants and told them to go on an exchange with us because he felt bad I wasn't getting to work all day.   So Elder Ingersoll came to Shaker and worked with me all day Tuesday and slept over Tuesday night.  I love that kid.  It was so fun just to work all day and teach and be in a totally different area serving together.  I had a blast and his excitement and work ethic motivated me.  I miss serving with him.  I would love to do it again but just be normal missionaries without all the extra stuff to worry about.  I did get my birthday present from him too. haha he got me a really cool Boise State shirt.  

The rest of the week was pretty slow.  We got back in contact with one of the families that was facing opposition from her relatives this week.  I wrote her a letter and left a Book of Mormon and Restoration DVD on her doorstep and she texted us and said she was going to start reading over the weekend so we are going to talk with her again this week.  

I really enjoyed the broadcast!  There were so many rumors flying across the mission it was insane.  It was wayyyyyy too hyped up out here haha.   But it almost made me more like sad than anything since I am leaving.  Some of those videos of the kids preparing for their missions and getting their calls and going to the MTC were tear jerkers for me.  And then seeing all those missionaries in the MTC was amazing.  I just hate that I will never again be part of this in the capacity I am.  But it was inspiring especially as far as member missionary work goes.  So I guess I will get to apply some of that in a few weeks.  I am glad you drug Ryan to it.  He needed to see that.  He is the one that will be doing all of that.  

I have my exit interview with President on Thursday... I am sure that is going to be fun haha. 

That is funny about Elder Hapairais girlfriend, I heard that story a time or 2 haha.  I am happy for him though.  I don't know what it is but everyone is getting engaged lately from this mission...  And all to people they met on their missions haha. There is one AP engaged to a training sister another AP engaged to a sister and an Elder engaged to a member from here and Elder Hapairai engaged to someone from the MTC...  weird stuff.  I tell President that is why we aren't baptizing haha 

I would love to come teach the 4 year olds with you.  I have done it a time or 2 out here and am still alive haha. 

Boy that is quite the topic...  haha I am supposed to share all of that in only 15 minutes??  I will do my best,  I feel like I could talk for days about that. I am excited though.  

I did not know that but I am glad!  She needs to do something else! I haven't talked to her in a little while.  How is her progress towards the temple do you know?? 

i will send you her address next week.  

I hope you have a great week!!  

Love and miss you! 

Elder Skalla

Oh I forgot about part of my week.  On Friday I went on exchanges in East Cleveland with Elder Tam.  That was a blast too.  They dont have a car so they take the bus train and walk everywhere.  IT was soooo different but a ton of fun.  There are some pretty crazy people on busses haha  I did have one amazing experience though.  It was really crowded and we were sitting on different sides of the bus and I started talking to the guy next to me.  Turns out he joined the church in the Navy in 2006 and just got out of the marines 3 months ago and came back to Cleveland.  He was such a cool guy.  He said that the time he was active in the church was the happiest he has ever been in his life.  He said he had looked up the church around here but was too afraid to go back alone so he goes to a Non Dom with a friend of his. We talked for probably 20 minutes and got his information and stuff.  It is just amazing the people that Heavenly Father places in your path.  No one probably knows where he is living and his records are probably floating around somewhere and Heavenly Father sticks me on a bus in the ghetto of Cleveland right next to this guy.  incredible.  His name is Chaz and he is working with the VA teaching an addiction recovery program.  We will hopefully meet with him this week.

No clue what they are missing….

I dont have a whole lot of time so I will just tell you what happened real fast. 

We actually had a really good week.  We found a lot and taught a lot of new people.  I am so frustrated though.  We found 2 amazing families and had great lessons with them, then when we go back for our return appointment we hear about a spouse or family member that doesnt want them to meet with us and all this dumb stuff.  I just wish people would give it a chance.  They have NO clue what they are missing out on but no one wants to take the time to see what the gospel can do in their lives.  

We were at the library this week and some guy came up to us outside and started talking about Mitt Romney and Howard Hughes only hiring Mormons and all that stuff and like 15 minutes later he took off running because he had to go to the bank or something.  We managed to give him a pamphlet though.  Like 20 mins later after we are finished at the library we were walking to the truck and he comes running down the street holding the pamphlet in the air yelling wait haha he said he had some time now so we got to sit down and teach him the restoration.  It was just funny seeing him run down the street waving a pamphlet haha.  

We took our investigator Marcia to the Kirtland fireside last night.  She is pretty great.  Just a really sweet older black lady.  She really liked the fireside though and should be getting baptized the day I go home haha.  

You dont need to send me any more packages haha.  It is just a waste of money, I dont need anything haha Just save it for a few weeks.  :)  I appreciate the thought though!   

Sorry for such a lame letter!  We are going to play ultimate with the zone at the stake center.   Have a great week!!

Elder Skalla

Setting Goals

Hey!  Ya I got a post card from Brandi this week from Hawaii.  She told me all about it and is really excited.  It is weird cuz everyone I know is like doing all this crazy stuff and moving on in their lives and I feel like I haven't even started mine haha.  Oh well that is coming sooner than I want it to.  Its hard not to be trunky.  Not like in not wanting to work but EVERYONE is constantly reminding you about going home and your mind just wanders about what things are going to be like and what you are going to do with your life.  It's hard not to think about haha.  

I don't think I got a birthday present from Elder Ingersoll... He sent me a nice letter though so I liked that haha.   Last week we went to this place called The Melt.  We are going to have to go there when we come back.  Its all grilled cheese sandwiches but they are like the biggest most insane grilled cheese ever with all this stuff on it.  It was so good.  

We had a pretty good week.  We had mission leadership council on Tuesday and it was really good.  I felt like I got so much more out of it not as an assistant.  I didn't have to focus on running the meeting just talking so I liked it.  We had our zone training meeting this week that went pretty well.  It is different with all sisters, but it was fun.  I told Elder Christensen that he needs to just cut me off and chime in a lot because I will just go, but that didn't happen.  I did pretty much the whole meeting.  I felt bad because I thought he thought I was just taking it over but I talked with him after and he thought it went great and said he didn't have anything else to say or do.  We have been trying to increase our new investigators so we talked a lo about goals.  Sisters are hard because they always want to set way high goals.  They wanted to baptize 30 people in the zone in June.. That's double what the mission gets...  I asked how they planned on doing that and all they could come up with was faith and prayer.  I said I didn't want to be the faithless Elder here, but were not going to get 30 baptisms and it's going to take a lot more out of us than faith and prayer.  I have just been sick of seeing month after month the mission having these massive goals and never even coming close to them.  We also talked about how to find.  There is one thing that frustrates me the most when tracting and contacting.  When a missionary is mini mouthed about the message and hides behind a pass along card.  So I demonstrated a couple different contacting and tracting ideas and how to use a pass along card or pamphlet as a tool rather than something to just offer because they didn't accept you right away.  Also getting away from the "Hi were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were here sharing a message about Jesus Christ, would you be interested in learning more?"  "no"  "ok , well can we give you a card."   That's what everyone says and its dumb.  Offering merely a pass along card will do little to nothing to help a person come unto Christ and achieve Salvation.   But they came up with some great, not new things, but less robotic, more natural and persistent ways so I was proud of them. 

I went on Exchanges with a missionary on the east side of Cleveland too. Man we had a great time.  We found like 7 potentials and set 4 return appointments.   It was the same day as our zone training meeting so we just applied the things we practiced and it worked!  I just wish I could do that in my own area for once.  

Teaching is going alright though.  I still haven't taught a white person since I have been here so its a little different than North Olmsted.  Oh and Elder Ingersoll told me Tom came to church yesterday so he is doing well!  

I do not have a Chic Fil A... haha sorry but I did get all the food I needed.  The Wal-mart here is soooo ghetto though.  I hate going there.  I loved the pictures this week.  She is adorable.  I am excited to meet her.   

Well I hope you have a great week!  Love and miss you! 

Elder Skalla

Here is the guy in "tighty whities" that they found in their apartment (last weeks letter)

GROSS!!!!

New Companion, Elder Christensen

Happy 21st Birthday!!!

HA I cant believe I am 21 either...  I dont feel like it.

I had a great last week as an assistant with transfers.  I can not thank Heavenly Father and President Vellinga enough for that opportunity.  I learned more in those 6 months than I think I have my entire life.  I saw myself doing things I didnt know I could do. I will think back on those times for the rest of my life.  Everything went pretty smoothly with transfers.  I think we finally have how to do these big groups down.  Transfer meeting was great.  President had me conduct one last time and he said some really kind things about me being his assistant.  It was hard calling up all the missionaries up who went home. I like almost got a little choked up.  I have spent my whole mission with those guys and there were 3 assistants and 4 zone leaders so I was around them a lot.  It was hard to say bye to such a solid group.  

I am loving my new area!  My new companion is pretty good too.  Kinda frustrating though.  He goes home the transfer after me and I am pretty sure he is way trunky.  He is way too concerned about getting his "personal time",  his days revolve around what he is going to eat for lunch and getting to P day. He refuses to take less than an hour for lunch and dinner.  He also has a little planter faciitis or whatever so he has to stretch and ice his feet like 4 times a day which takes forever so that is frustrating but whatever, I think we will be fine.  Its always going to be different coming from "heaven" with Elder Weaver and Elder Ingersoll to someone else.  

This area is soooooo different though.  The Shaker Heights part is way nice but we only cover a little bit of that.  Our area is either really, really nice or really really, really ghetto.  Its part of the East side of Cleveland.  Its the weirdest place I have ever been.  You can be on a corner and look at one street with huge, nice, beautiful, historic homes and then turn your head and see one of the worst parts of Cleveland.   I have already seen some pretty dang funny stuff too.  People are so weird.  Just last week the Elders came back to the apartment and there was a huge black man in whitey tightys asleep on Elder Christensen's bed.  haha They were in the back of the apartment and then he just walked out and there was a big black man in his bed, haha.  They took a picture and called the cops and they came and got him out haha.  We always make sure the door is locked now even if we are just inside the apartment for a minute haha.  We live with the East Cleveland Elders too.  The apartment is pretty cool.  Its in a place called Shaker square which is a nicer part of town.  Its beautiful, you should google it. (like I hadn't already!!)  The buildings are really old though.  We have all hard wood floors and stuff.  Its cool though I like it. We have a truck so we dont have to bike at all.  I am actually working on selling my bike so hopefully I can get rid of it soon.  The ward here is pretty good.  We share it with 2 sets of Sisters.  It is mostly all young medical students.  I think it is the loudest ward I have ever been in. haha (lots of babies??)  The baptism on Friday went great and it was cool but really weird to see Elder Weaver with his family.  She gave me a hug from you haha.  

So one of the brand new missionaries Elder Flinders lives with us.  His birthday is today too so we are going to go out and eat to celebrate.  He is turning 19 though haha.  Do you want to buy my lunch for me?  :)  And groceries is exactly what I was going to ask for for my birthday.  I always need stuff when I get transferred, mostly cleaning supplies because missionaries are not very clean and also I will need a lot of food.  We never get fed in this ward so we eat at home every day. I have had a PB&J every meal since Wednesday.  I am so sick of it haha 

President called this morning as well as the Thompsons from the Lakewood ward and Sister Vellinga.  Sister Jacklin e mailed me another picture of her granddaughter and said she says happy birthday, but I have a feeling Elder Ingersoll and Elder Labar had something to do with that one. haha I laughed though. 

I will be back in the office on Tuesday for mission council. 

 So I am confuse about what you sent me.  Should I go home and check the mail before I go out to eat and use that money?  

Love, Elder Skalla

Brad's new apartment…yes, they sleep in the living room haha

Current and Former Assistant's

 Saying good bye is always hard.  These two have been great examples to Brad.

A "District" run