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