Great Training Meeting!

Hi!!  

Oh man so this week was crazy. Tuesday we woke up at 4 so I could get to LTM.  We drove to Canton dropped Elder Buxton off, picked up Elder Ingersoll then drove to Tallmadge, switched cars again then to Fairlawn, then to Cleveland.  I was so tired and sick of sitting.  It was fun to ride up with Tallmadge though so they could catch me up on everyone.  I am mad though they moved into a new apartment in January and it is sooooo nice.  I also found out Areo, one of the people Elder Johnson and I found and taught got baptized in February!  That made me so happy although it sucks when you find someone and teach them everything but don't get to see them get baptized haha oh well. They are still teaching Brian too. He is still getting hung up on deep doctrine though.  They said the singles branch had to ask Alex to stop coming to church.  They stopped teaching him like a month after I left but he still came to church and brought his anti books and tried to argue with everyone.  Its too bad... 

Anyway we finally got to Cleveland and I got to see Elder Johnson again.  That was good.  We both miss each other especially with our situations this transfer. haha  We got to teach together in role plays though.  It was fun teaching with him again where I actually knew what I was doing haha it went much better, he was impressed.  

The actual meeting was probably one of the most spiritual experiences ever. I learned so much.  I felt inferior being there cause LTM is like the 30 best missionaries in the mission so it was a way good meeting.  Its sooooooo long but way good.  The first day was from  10-5 and we talked a lot about just different policies and things we are changing and then talked about the Book of Mormon.  The second day was amazing though.  it went from 8 30 - 4 30 (soooo long)  but it was all about the atonement and the doctrine of Christ.  We read through 3 Nephi 11 and president went over the whole thing with us.  It was like wow I have read this a million times but never got any of this out of it.  

Tuesday night Elder Ingersoll and I stayed with the AP's.  I wish we could have spent more time with them but oh well it was still good.  I learned I don't want to be an AP haha those guys are sooooo busy and like never get any sleep.  Not sure I could do that haha It was cool to work around the Cleveland area though.  I want to serve there so bad.  I did ask president about uncle Bruce though.  He was like oh ya! I know Bruce really well.  

Other than LTM this week was pretty lame.  Still tracting a ton trying to find.  We have called Jay a couple times and he keeps saying he wants to read more of the Book of Mormon before he meets with us.  ughhhh I hate that.  Hopefully we will be able to teach him soon though.  

I did get your package!  Thank you!  You are not very good and making me sacrifice though haahah ;)  Although for future packages juice boxes aren't a good idea haha one of them exploded and everything in the box was wet and sticky haha nothing got ruined though so I can still eat it its just sticky.  If you or grandma are gonna send an Easter package in a couple weeks you should hold off to see if I get transferred or not.  I don't want to get stuff in the mail and then have to leave it all behind.  Transfers are like 3 days after Easter.  We had dinner with a member on Saturday and she made green Alfredo and green water haha it was fun their kids loved it.  And they got the exact same little bags of candy with the rainbow licorice and rolos haha she said she got the idea from pinterest so I am guessing that's where you got it too haha.  We get fed probably 2 or 3 times a week.  No one signs up on the calendar but I just go around in church and make people feed us haha.  I had to speak in church yesterday too.  The youth speaker bailed so I filled in.  There was a high counselor there so I only had to speak for 5 minutes on families. I thought it was kinda ironic that they ask the missionary to speak on families when he is supposed to forget about his haha it was good though. 

I am sorry your foot is still bugin you!  I hope you don't have to get surgery. I hope you have fun in Boise too! I didn't even know Ryan had a job!  Where is he working?  He never tells me anything haha. 

Well I hope you all have a good week and travel safely!  i love and miss you!!

Elder Skalla 

8 Months!!!!

Hi!!!

Dang that looks so good!  I really like it! (referring to the pics of the changes we made around the house)  man its gonna be like a new house when I get home! 

Well it is going by fast but not this week.  This week was soooooo hard.  There is just not a lot happening right now but not for lack of trying...  We have been tracting and stopping by formers and trying to get referrals and everything but nothing has happened yet.  Its soooo frustrating. 

We finally got to meet with the district this week.  We have awesome missionaries in my district.  Elder Richardson (my grandpa) is in my district too, it's so weird being DL over him haha. I feel like that is his job.  He is awesome though.  The sisters are really good too.  One is almost done and is training a new sister.  (the new one is such a flirt though haha--not good.)  They work hard though so that is good.  

I had my first baptismal interview this week.  It was with a 9 year old girl.  It was so funny.  She confessed all her "sins" to me.  When I asked her what the Word of Wisdom was she felt bad because one time she had coffee cake haha, she assured me that once she found out it was coffee cake she didn't finish it hahahaha!  Then when I asked if she had asked Heavenly Father to be forgiven of mistakes she made she said "well I got grounded last week for not wiping the counters so I need to repent of that" hahahaha.  She was so cute, it was fun. 

Not much else happened this week.  We met a couple of nice guys tracting though.  We were just walking and went up to this guy outside and he invited us in to have dinner so we went in a grilled burgers and talked to him and his family for like 2 hours.  haha I am not sure how interested in the church they are but they were way nice!  He wants to take us to the Hall of Fame so bad!   haha I was tempted to go!  I still thinks its soooo stupid we can't but whatever. He was totally serious though he called and they wanted to take us today.  Only on a mission though do you knock on a strangers door and end up having dinner and talking for 2 hours.  

Well that's like all this week.  Tomorrow I am headed to Cleveland for a couple days for leadership meeting.  Elder Buxton is going to Canton and me and Elder Ingersoll (from my Tallmadge district)  are going up and get to work with the APs and stay with them Tuesday and Wednesday night.  It is 2 full days of meetings with all the DLs and ZLs and then everyone stays the nights around Cleveland and somehow we get to be with the assistants haha got to be on your best behavior ;) 

Well I hope everyone is doing well!  I love and miss you!!

Elder Skalla


I received the following about an hour after I got the first letter.  Tender Mercy of God working on behalf of my son…I am so grateful and thankful that He is mindful of us each and every day!!  Here is what Elder Skalla said: 


Ok Miracles happen!!!!   Here I am writing to President Sorensen about how hard we have been trying to find people and no one is listening and a guy comes up while I am writing my letter and starts asking us about food storage!  Then we end up teaching him about the Book of Mormon and set up a time to teach him and his wife!!!!!!!!!!!!  Oh my gosh that just made me soooooooo happy you have no idea!!!!!!!  Oh ok I am not discouraged anymore.  That was a tender Mercy.  I love how God works sometimes.  His name is Jay and we are going to meet with him later this week hopefully! 

Uneventful week for all of us!

This week did go by fast!!  I don't have much to tell you either!!  Things are still going well though!  Well kinda.  Things are going well but we seriously need more people to teach haha so keep praying for that!  It is soooo hard to find people.  Especially people that will commit to something.  We have been working well with the ward now and especially our ward mission leader.  Things have been soooooo much better since I got here.  We came up with a new ward mission plan in coordination this week and have done wonders to the ward mission process. President Stacey showed up to PEC yesterday and church yesterday.  He is one of President Sorensen's counselors.  I have never met any of them and didn't know he had counselors until like 2 months ago haha. I was glad he was there because we have our crap together now and didn't have to worry about anything haha.  I would have been embarrassed if he would have shown up in October.  I guess he has just been showing up to Sunday meetings in every ward and branch and seeing how the missionaries are working with the ward.   It went well!  I cant really think of like anything else good that happened this week haha we have just been trying to find people!

That stinks that your foot is still bugging you! I hope you can get to play tennis soon!  Its nice because whenever elder Buxton and I have health problems we just go to someone in the ward haha there is a member that is a resident in just about every field you can think of haha.  That's where a lot of the good young families come from in Ohio is the are from out west but come here to do their residency haha they are nice to have.  I was asking the orthopedic and podiatry (sp?)  residents about your foot the other day haha. 


The weather hasn't been too bad. We kept having tornado warnings every day this week and it rained and snowed a little last night but now it is nice again!  The winter has been soooo weird. I like it but its like bizarre it will be 65 one day then snow then a lightning and hail storm.  People in the west think the weather changes fast but I think it changes faster here its crazy. Tell Ryan congrats for me!  He hasn't sent me one letter my whole mission I don't think he should be complaining that I never talk to him he needs to talk to me back! haha I hope he is keeping up on his BOM reading!  keep on him about it!  I loved reading the end of Alma that fast!  I read it even faster than I was supposed to.  The war stories and stuff are intense when you read them straight through and not just a couple verses at a time!  Well that is like all I can think of!  I hope I will have more next week!  I get to go to a 2 day leadership training next week so that will be good!!  I need to learn how to deal with sisters!  haha  I love and miss you all!!!  

Elder Skalla

A Week of Blessings….and Staying in Alliance!

Hi!!!  

Man it has been a crazy long week!  Lots going on!  Well, I will be spending a quarter of my mission in Alliance!  I'm happy with it.  I love the ward and everything.  The crazy thing is that Elder Buxton is staying here with me! That was a shocker just because you dont stay with your trainer for 3 transfers very often.  We are both happy with it, but honestly I wish he would have transferred.  It's not that I don't love him, but I wanted him to get out and experience the work somewhere else and on his own ya know? I think I grew the most when I left Elder Johnson and had to figure things out and adapt to another area and companion.  He is officially done being trained now but it wont be much different this transfer.  My whole district got shotguned too. We are getting 2 new Elders in Lisbon and they are putting sisters back in Ravenna.  It will be very different.  Although I am not sure how excited I am to be the DL to sisters! haha We had 4 here when Elder Warner was DL and there can be a lot of drama that comes with sisters, but they bring a special spirit and very different input to meetings so I am excited.  The ward is going to be excited we are staying.  People have been calling and asking us for days if we know who is leaving yet. haha I have never seen a ward so curious about transfers haha.  

So the baptism this week went awesome!  I wish President would have showed up tp this one instead haha.  Everything went well and Elder Buxton and I gave a really good restoration presentation.  The spirit was definitely there!  The _______families non member parents were there and were asking Sister ______ questions and came up to us after and said they really enjoyed our testimonies so hopefully we can teach them!

So this week I feel like the Lord wanted me to learn something about the priesthood...  I think I used it in about every way I know how this week!  Tuesday we were on exchanges and Elder Meza came here with me in Alliance. We had dinner with our ward mission leader and his non member parents and daughter.  It went really well and Elder Meza and I just had a simple lesson on Christ.  After the lesson his mom asked us if we could pray for her.  We told her we could do one better and explained the priesthood and told her we could give her a blessing.  She accepted.  I was excited because it was an opportunity for her to see her son use the priesthood and give her a blessing.  Then he asked me if I would do it.  I was like kinda mad at him and didnt understand why he was not taking the opportunity to give his non member mom a blessing.  I said a quick prayer to know what to say since I was kinda shocked he asked me and a little mad haha.  I gave her the blessing and by the time I was through half the room was in tears.  She thanked us and then we had to get going to another appointment.  The next day at the baptism our ward mission leader came up to me and thanked me again for the blessing.  I asked him why he wanted me to do it and then it all made sense. He said he asked me to because he knows all the issues she is having and trials she is facing.  He asked me to do it because I didnt know anything about her and he wanted her to understand that the blessing was from God and that even though I knew nothing about her,  I could tell her what she needed to hear.  I never thought about that!  haha He said after we left, her whole attitude was different.  Late that night his dad called and thanked him again and told him how much it meant to them.  It was a pretty cool experience.  There was also a very old member of the ward that is passing away.  The bishop went to give her and her daughter a blessing in the hospital but they refused and told the Bishop that they wanted the Elders to do it.  haha I dont know why, but we went.  It was really cool.   We gave the blessing and talked to the (excommunicated) daughter about the plan of salvation. 


 _______the 16 year old who was baptized this week also asked me to confirm her in church on Sunday so I got to do that as well!  It was pretty cool.  Also Sunday I taught Elders quorum.  They brought the priests in too and we had a lesson on the priesthood.  It went really well I showed that clip Sanctify Yourselves so hopefully it will help them in some way.  But I think I gave some sort of blessing every day this week and I feel I learned more of the power of the priesthood. 

Well we have a lot of work to do this transfer...  We either baptized or dropped all our investigators haha so we are kinda starting from scratch but its all good we will find people hopefully haha 


So today we get to do something fun for p day.  We are going bowling with my "brotha" Tommy haha He is a less active, the guy that took Elder Warner and I to Kirtland.  He is awesome!  We met with him this week and he said he was drinking these coffee things from McDonalds and asked if it was bad.  I told him not to ask me but to pray about it and see how he feels next time he goes to McDonalds.  He got orange juice this week and called and told us about it right after!  He came to church on Sunday and bore his testimony in sunday school on prayer since that was what the lesson was on.  It was cool!

So I am sooooooooooo excited for 2015 now!!!!!!!  I dont know how soon in advance you can buy tickets to a game but you better get me 2!  I dont care how much they are!  I will walk if I have to! And I am sorry mom, but its in Nebraska and I will not be caught dead wearing anything but red in Lincoln Memorial...   My mind is already made up haha   

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

Elder Skalla

Faith=Personal Righteousness

Hey!!  

Man im not gonna lie I want to go to Powderhorn!! I think I have been like every year since middle school.  Oh well...  I got to go to Kirtland this week!  We went up there with the _________ family on Saturday.  It was way fun.  Nice weather and I think the girls really liked it.  We drove there in their station wagon and Elder Buxton and I sat in the seat that faces backwards. haha It totally reminded me of Brian Regan.  We just like stared at people that stopped behind us, haha it was fun.  I am very excited for the baptism this week!  We have grown really close to them.  Sister _____ calls us her adopted sons and Brother ______ likes having us around to talk about guy stuff haha.  I think Kirtland just gets better and better every time I go there.  Its so amazing.  

So yesterday we had Stake conference.  It was soooo good.  Elder Christoffel Gelden Jr. came from the Seventy.  Man he was good.  My favorite part was his equation for faith.  He said Faith = Personal Righteousness.  Our faith is only equal to our personal righteousness and if were not living the commandments and doing the best we can, our faith is low.  No wonder why so many people struggle with faith.  After conference all the missionaries in our zone got to have a meeting with him.  It was so awesome.  He applied that equation in the work.   If we want to baptize more we need increased faith and if we want to have increased faith we have to be more righteous. He was a masterful teacher.  He has a cool voice too, he is from South Africa.   

So during that meeting President Sorensen informed us that our new mission president received his call this week. That like hit me hard for some reason.  I got a little teary!  I am sure our next president will be amazing.  I knew the whole time I would have 2 mission presidents but the thought never crossed my mind President Sorensen would actually leave us!  I cant imagine the work without him!  I want both!  

I got your DVD!  Thank you those are awesome!  I have already used them a ton!  I dont think I need those Hymns.  I have listened to them and I dont think I need them.  Thats exciting Megan and Issac got their calls!! I didnt even know Megan was going!  Speaking of the Bunkers I was on exchanges in Lisbon a while ago and  a letter got delivered to Elder Brandon Barlow and it was from the Bunkers!  It was weird haha but I guess they must know him.  I served with him for a day this summer. Small world... 

I am gonna look into buying some space bags.  I thought of that this week.  Speaking of packing, transfers are on next week!  That went by FAST...  I dont know whats happening so  if you send mail make sure you send it so it gets here by Tuesday next week!  I cant believe my time in Alliance may be up.  I dont really want to leave! haha I dont feel like I have been here for 4 months.  But I guess we will see what happens.   I think I'll be ok with it if I stay or go.  I dont want to leave but it will be fun to go somewhere new.  I just hope I can fit all my stuff! haha Well I hope you have a great week!  Love and miss you!  Dont forget p day is Tuesday next week!  


Love you!

Elder Skalla

Proud Brian Regan moment!  

Happy Valentines Day

Hi!!  

Man this has been such a crazy week!  It went by so fast!  Zone Conference was awesome.  Thats like my favorite thing to go to, haha it just like revives you and keeps you driven.  The tiwi guy came and talked to us.  They put Tiwi in our car last zone conference in November but it wasnt on.  They lied... haha it was on and monitoring us the whole time.  He gave us the stats for how many speeding violations and stuff. haha It was in the thousands just in the month of January... But don't worry NONE of those were from me hahaha ;)  Its super annoying now cuz it never shuts up and beeps and yells at me all the time haha like every time I drive over rail road tracks over 2 miles an hour it gives you an aggressive driving warning.  Its gonna be a long year and a half driving...  haha

So Chloe got me in a door this week and we were able to teach them haha.  On Wednesday we were just tracting and she opened the door and I didn't even say anything I was just like ah can I pet your dog haha then they let us in and we taught them.  They were a nice couple I don't know if they were super interested but it was a good lesson.  They assured us many times that they would be voting for Romney though haha I don't think they understood we weren't concerned with who they were voting for haha.  Lots of people do that.  We will knock on the door and then they will say "no thanks but I think I might vote for your guy" its funny.  So I had another way good experience tracting this week and a bad one.  The good one This lady just like opened the door and said come on in!  Then she was like I have no idea why I let you in you have come before and I never had but I think God told me to let you in.  She was way cool but her friend that was there her husband was a pastor so she was like way rude.  I hate it the people that are the most Christian are the rudest.  Which leads to the bad experience.  We knocked on a door and it was funny at first because a little girl opened the door and screamed "AH mom there are Jewish people here!"  haha but then the mom came out and she was nice at first but then she was just saying all these horrible things!  Elder ___ didn't really know what to do but I just was calm and talked to her.  Then I think I was offended for the first time in my whole life.  Like I cant think of a time where I have ever been offended.   But she said "I think what you are doing out here is disrespecting and dethroning the name Jesus Christ."   OHHH that did not make me happy...  I probably shouldn't have said this but I told her "I have given up my family, my girlfriend and everything I love to be here and wear his name on my chest every day of my life.  I am representing Him and here to share his love and teachings.  Read for yourself and then tell me I am dethroning and disrespecting Christ."  Then I put a Book of Mormon on her table and we left.   I was so upset after that.  I probably shouldn't have said that or done that but it got the best of me.  I don't know maybe she will humble herself enough to find out one day.  It bothered me for like the whole day but then I prayed I would forget about it and I did.  Haha gotta love tracting...  

Grayce and Presleigh are doing awesome.  They are getting baptized on the 22nd!!  I am way excited.  That family has come a looooong way.  We have come really close to them and the girls.  Last night she gave us their address and she made us promise to send her our wedding announcements hahaha it was funny.  They are mad that one of us may be leaving on the 29th.  They made sure to choose a baptism date that was before then haha 

I am so jealous They are going to Powderhorn :(  has anything changed there yet?  I got your package this morning!!  Thank you!  No more food for a while though I am gonna get fat :) The mail usually comes at 4 but the mail lady came this morning because I got a package from you and Hillary and a Giant Valentines day card from Hill.  haha it was like Christmas again!  I will send a picture of this card its awesome haha. 

So I got the Mormon message DVDs and they are AMAZING!!! They work on our DVD player too.  Thank you SOOOOO much.  I am so sorry I feel so needy but I had an idea for teaching a lesson to our young men and then a couple guys preparing to serve missions.  I want to use the videos "inviting all to come unto Christ"  its about these kids in Miami that just invited all their friends to church and then the video "sanctify yourselves"  That's on youthlds.org.   I hope its not too hard to make those but I really want to show them so if you could get them asap that would be amazing.  Thank you so much!!  Hopefully those weren't too hard to make but I have no doubt they will help change lives! 

Well I hope you have a great week this week!  I love and miss you all sooooo 

Love 
Elder Skalla


Oh and I forgot to put this in there but our furnace broke this week!!  It is soooooooo cold in our apartment.  We woke up on saturday and my thermometer said 39 in our bedroom!!!  Then I went out and my little bottle of oil was on my desk frozen solid!  Its been misrible... A member gave us a little space heater so that kinda helps but we are getting our furnace fixed this week.  (therefore the beanie and blankets in the photos!)  BURRRRR

Going Up….

Well I was way sad to hear about Chloe :(  She was a good puppy.  I cant even remember when she wasn't around.  I forget that she has been in my life since before I can even remember.  I am glad I wasn't there though when you had to put her down.  That must have been hard. I knew she probably wouldn't make it another 2 years when I left. I am glad I said bye when she wasn't suffering so much.  We will see her again though.  I know the atonement covers dogs too! :) "The grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ."  Mosiah 16:8   (I want that on my grave if I die young by the way)  haha sorry that probably freaked you out haha but hey I like it and its true.  Death it just another step in eternal progression!  If anything we should be looking forward to it! 

Everyone told me about how snowy it has been in Denver.  I am glad I'm not there haha.  It has been way nice here!  I hope it stays like this.  We even rode our bikes on Friday it was like 60 degrees!   

This week went pretty well.  Wednesday I went down to Lisbon on exchanges.  It was fun I got to go to West Virginia!  Never thought I would ever go there but I guess there is a little part that is in our mission.   I don't think I have any plans to ever go back to West Virginia haha but hey at least I can say I have been there.  The work has been slowing down here though... Our investigators are kinda in a stand still except for the girls.  We have found a lot of really good potentials but no one really goes anywhere.  We did meet a way cool lady this week that thought some very very strange things about Mormons... I seriously have no idea where these people hear some of this stuff but she was way glad we found her and taught her what was right.  I think that's one of the things that keeps me going.  People don't want to commit to living the gospel because it is "too hard" but hey at least I clear up some crazy ideas people have about the church.  I guess that's still good and plants a seed.   I really loved that talk you sent me about keeping covenants by the way!  It was very good!   

So tomorrow is Zone conference again.  I am excited.  It is only every 3 months.  Although I swear it was just like last month haha but everything just kinda blurs together and then you realize how much time it has been when a transfer or zone conference comes up.  I am not excited though because we are getting this little box called TIWI.  He is basically the most annoying drivers ed teacher in the car with you at all times.  I had him for a week my very first week on my mission but he got turned off.  Now they are turning him back on.  He talks to you and tells you to buckle your seat belt and gives you all kinds of violations.  I guess when they had it this summer 1/3 of the mission lost their driving privileges because of him haha its gonna suck having him back.  

SO there is a family of recent converts (like less than a year) in our ward the _____family.  They are seriously awesome.  This week Brother ________ has been texting us and calling us all the time because of this guy that is trying to prove the church is wrong and wants to go to Kirtland with us and brother ________ so he can prove the Book of Mormon wrong.  Super annoying guy, he has no idea what he is talking about, but it was awesome because he was going to meet with this guy this week, but the stake president called him randomly wanted him to come help on his land the same day.  He chose to go with President K and then that night he was reading in Mosiah about trusting only those that walk by Christ and follow his commandments (or something like that) to be your teachers and ministers.  Anyway that probably made no sense to you, but he then called the guy and pretty much told him he knew it was true and stuff.  He called us and had us come over the day after to tell us about it!  He was all excited.  Then he bore his testimony for the first time ever in church on Sunday.  They are preparing to go to the temple in April.  They are the kind of people that keep me going.  I want to find a family like them.  

SO you know the movie UP?  When the old man rides his little chair up the stairs?  Ever since I saw that movie I have wanted to ride one of those and I got to on Tuesday! hahaha It was awesome.  We just stopped by a less active members house.  They fed us lunch and had a chair thingy on the stairs and let us ride it! 

Well I think that's all that happened this week!  I hope everyone had a good week!  I love and miss you!!

Elder Skalla