Happy Easter

I know its not much of spring here either.  It is snowing right now.  We got about 4 inches last night.  I am so sick of it it has been a long long cloudy winter.  I am ready to see some sun and green.  
Man I wish I was complaining about 200 in a sacrament meeting! haha That's pretty darn good for here.  So do you still meet in the stake center or are you back in our building?  Its going to be so weird coming home to so many changes.  Speaking of coming home stuff.  I get home July 12th now.  We had to move that transfer back a day.  Second I am pretty sure registration for next semester is soon.  You may want to talk to Brandi or someone to see about getting me back in school.  I also need somewhere to live... I don't even know where to start with that.  oh and a new Ford Raptor if you have time... :)  haha Sorry I am so needy but there is not much I can do from here.  I think I gave you a folder before I left that tells you how to do everything.  Lake Powell sounds good to me! haha I don't care what we do.  I just hope I don't fry in the sun.  I'm pasty white now unfortunately. Its going to be weird without Ali and Ty.  And Jenni is a mom now so she she isn't fun anymore.  And Dad is an old man it sounds like now so looks like me and Ryan are going to be the only ones that can have any fun... haha kidding.  I am excited and it all sounds great to me.  Not like I have any plans.  
That is sad about that guy.  If only he understood what the gospel could do for him.  I will keep him in my prayers. 
This week was pretty normal.  A bunch of meetings and exchanges.  We had our training meeting with all the new missionaries and their trainers in Kirtland.  Man was that a trick.  It was like 2 zone conferences. There were 63 missionaries there.  We let them watch the Kirtland video and the sister take them on a short tour and then Elder Ingersoll and I did some training for another 2 hours.  It was fun with that many people.  We also picked up 25 pizzas for lunch.  I probably told you about him last time but we bought the pizza from the same local pizza place and man does the owner love us.  He was all giddy 6 weeks ago when we ordered 12 pizzas you shoulda seen him with 25!  He was buttering us up big time.  I think he likes our money.  
We got a couple new investigators this week.  One is a guy a member met outside of Walmart and another is a La's boyfriend.  His name is Durio.  Which is my suggestion for Ali's sons name.  You say it like Darito but without the T.  
So I got like the best news of my whole life last night!  Brother and Sister H went to the temple on Saturday and got endowed.  Man that made me soooooo happy.  Its like the ultimate goal you strive to help people get to and they made it.  They are finishing up the adoption process for C and then they will go get sealed. Smoking and Drinking to Active, endowed, young mens president in less than a year.  No one will ever be able to tell me that someone isn't ready to be invited to prepare for the temple.  It is President Monson's rescue working perfectly.  You have so many people say "oh well they aren't even active or living the commandments we cant invite them to prepare for the temple, they aren't ready."  Not true.  It worked for them! 

That's funny I was thinking about that letter from Easter last week!  The Atonement is a miraculous thing. 

I hope you have a great week and a good Easter! Love and miss you!! 

Elder Skalla 

More thought, prayer and effort…

Hey!! 

 

Sorry I am e mailing a little earlier...  President switched the schedule around a little because we have to get some missionaries going to Brazil to the airport.  They finally got their visas. 

This week was really good!  Semi normal.  We were across the mission from Bowling Green to Ashtabula going to zone training meetings and picking up visa waiters.  We actually got some time to find this week too!  We have been working with the mission on finding the elect and using every tool we have been given to find and not just mindlessly tracting.  We need to be more confident in the message we share and start to find because we are struggling.  Elder Ingersoll and I kinda cracked the whip on it in the Zone meetings we went to.  This week I finally got to practice what I have been preaching and do some finding for the first time in like 6 weeks.  We planned to stop by a few formers and tract some specific places and set goals on what tools we wanted to use and how we were going to focus our efforts on the days we got to go out.  Over 3 days we knocked on 4 doors and got in all 4 and taught lessons and set 2 return appointments.  It was awesome. I have never had that much success in such a short time.  We had planned to go a lot longer but every time we got out we knocked on the first door we felt impressed to and they let us in every time.  I definitely have a testimony of putting a little more thought, prayer and effort into finding.  Hopefully one day ill get to go back to the field and use is more haha. 

When we went to Youngstown ZTM we showed up and Dylan was there in a suit!  The Elders there invited him to the meeting.  It was fun to see him and talk about how he was doing and see him get excited to go on a mission.  I kinda embarrassed him I think because I pulled him up in front of everyone and talked about his miracle of how he prayed about a date that was 1 week away and we had to get moving to make sure he was ready and everything was set for the baptism.  He got a lot more comfortable though and by the end was practicing and talking with all the other missionaries.  It was cool to see. 

I did get my running shoes in the mail, thank you! Sorry for the short e mail.  I hope you had a good week!  

Love and miss you!!

 

Elder Skalla

Survived "the flood",

HEY!!  

Well we did survive... barely.  It was an absolutely insane week.  Just about everything that could have gone wrong went wrong and the weeks we spent preparing and making plans got thrown out the window and we just had to wing it, but we figured it out and everything worked out!  

President got a call Monday night at 12 am saying that the flight the 29 of them were supposed to be on got cancelled and told him all the other options.   They also said there would be 30 coming so we had to scramble to find a trainer and an area and all that kind of stuff Tuesday morning.  Then we just had to wait on word from Salt Lake. Then at presidents on Tuesday morning we got a call from the "travel leader"  from the group that was coming.  (the travel leader is someone they give a paper of flights to and its whoever s last name starts with A haha)  Anyway this sister calls and he answers and she was like "uh ya is this our mission president?  We're at the airport and our flight got cancelled and we don't know what to do" haha.  There was like a million missionaries talking in the background trying to figure out whats going on, haha it was really funny.  Then he gets a call from the missionary department to explain what was going on and they were mad because the missionaries are supposed to call them not the mission president and it was just a mess.  We felt bad for them at the airport though.  They ended up splitting up onto 5 different flights coming in throughout the afternoon so we were back and forth from the airport a lot.  It was weird, I have never spent so much time alone on my mission.  We had to drive alone to the airport and all these other places. So we get them all and take them to the stake center with only 2 lost bags.  All this while Sister Vellinga is sick.  (She is better now)  We fed them dinner and got them all to the different places they were staying.  Elder Weaver and I had to go back to the airport at like 11pm to get the lost bags.  We got to bed around 12 that night and woke up at 6 the next day.  All day Wednesday we had training while President interviewed.  Sister Vellinga came and interviewed too even though she was like dying.  She was a champ this week.  Elder Weaver and I did every kind of training you could think of from 9 am to 6 haha, it was a looong day but it actually went really well and we had a lot of fun with them.  Wednesday night right when we were about to go home we had one missionary pretty much pass out so we had to take her to the ER with president.  We got back about 11.  She was ok, she was just tired and stressed and had a little anxiety. We started to pick trainers up and all the stuff we have to do before transfers.  We got to bed a little after 2am Wednesday and took a nap till 4am.  We were on the road with all of them packed in 5 cars to Kirtland by 6am.  Did the Kirtland tour and everything and got ready for transfer meeting.  It was by far the biggest transfer meeting we have ever had.  It was so cool to see.  We got everyone where they were supposed to go took care of departures that night, got home at 11 and I just crashed. Then woke up and ran 2 miles the next morning :)  It was so exhausting and so busy but such an amazing and unforgettable week.  It was part of church history.  Being on a mission and being involved when "the flood " came haha. The best part is in 6 weeks we get to do it all again with 27 more!  

The other cool thing is that we decided to put sisters in our ward! We just don't get a ton of time to proselyte so I think it will be really good.  They are awesome sisters too.  1 brand new one and then one who just got released from being the training sister.  It was funny, they were like celebrities at church yesterday haha, no one even noticed Elder Ingersoll and I haha. We are just old news now.  President just walked in and handed us a goodie bag from sister Vellinga and he said she felt bad that everyone at church gave all the attention to the sisters and not us so she made it for us.  haha She is so funny.  I have never worked in a ward with sisters though so I am excited.  

Sounds like you had quite the sacrament meeting!  That is way sad they split the ward... It was bound to happen I guess.  

(As for picking him up….)I figured you guys would want to.  That trip is what everyone usually does when their parents come to get them.  I would love to do that but I was talking to president and I guess the brethren  discourage it.  He also said its just really weird for the missionary too which I totally agree with.  Its not the same when you are with your family and you are still set apart.  PLEASE PLEASE let us come out in the Fall though.  Ohio is beautiful in the Fall anyway.  Then we could do some of the fun things around here too since I wont be a missionary.  My original release date was July 18th.  But because of transfers you usually stay about a week longer than when you went to the MTC, but now its 2 days short of it.  

By the way I loved Brother Driggs.  He was one of the good ones haha. *(a Seminary teacher that is now in our ward)

We got a missionary from the Castle Rock stake.  Elder Houser.  I told him he was my new favorite missionary since we were the only ones from CO.  He liked that! haha It's funny how much the new missionaries think the AP's are so amazing when were not haha.  I guess I was the same way,  I was reading my journal this week and on my first night I wrote "I hope one day I can be as good of a missionary as the Ap's are"  haha made me laugh.  

It is an amazing time to be serving a mission.  Miracles are happening every day and I love every minute of it.  I hope you got my letter I sent this week!  

Love and miss you!!

Elder Skalla 

Another Crazy Week!!

Hey!!

 

Sorry you are sick!  That's no fun.  Well you guessed right it was another busy week! We are throwing the last second things together today and then tomorrow is when they all come! I am actually really excited but just hope nothing goes wrong.  It is going to be interesting seeing 29 missionaries come out of the terminal at the same time.  I am sure they will turn heads.  I wish I could video it or something.  We are still working out some kinks.  Just pray everything will run smoothly.  Even the weather.  It has been snowing the last 4 or 5 days but today it is beautiful so I just hope it lasts. 

Even amongst delivering furniture, planning travel arrangements, working on transfers and a million other things we actually had some good lessons this week!  We haven't handed David off yet but we taught him about the Book of Mormon this week and invited him to read it and this morning we got this text (see picture)  It was sweet.  He is doing great. 

We had our trainer meeting this week which was way cool meeting with 29 trainers.  Elder Curtis is training too!  So I get my first grandson!  Well half.  Him and another missionary are training together. But I am proud of him.  I am just bummed he is getting transferred so I wont get to see him train but oh well. Our transfer meeting was interesting.  I think I have told you about that but the one where the 3 of us come in fasting and pretty much stare at the board all day long and move people.  It was hard finding places for everyone since so much of the mission is tied up training. The picture is what we stare at haha.  Elder Weaver is getting transferred and my new companion is Elder Matthew Ingersoll.  He came out 1 transfer after me and Elder Weaver trained him in the Tallmadge ward so we have served together before.  He will be awesome. 

I hear ya about time flying by...  I cant believe it is almost spring.  I am not complaining about that though I am sick of winter.  This one was way worse than last year.

That is exciting about all those mission calls!  Even though I feel like some of those people aren't old enough haha.  It's weird Ryan turns 18 next month… 

Well speaking of time flying, I don't know if I have talked to you or if you have thought about it but I don't want you to come pick me up.  But I would love to come back shortly after I am released :)  Then we can do the fun stuff.  Not that there is a whole lot to do in Ohio but like Cedar Point and the Hall of Fames and stuff. 

Also for Easter can I have some razor blades?  No shaving cream I just bought some.  Oh and remember NO FOOD :) 

Sorry I am just spitting out random thoughts.  My mind is a million different places today.  But we gotta go and wash some cars and set up the church for tomorrow.  Please pray for us this week we need all the help we can get!  haha 

Love and miss you!!!

 

Elder Skalla