Alright so nothing all that exciting, Elder P gets home on oct 8, I am going to miss him when he leaves and you will definitely be meeting him sooner rather than later he also says he wants to come to the marshall islands with us, but I think that could get a little bit costly... I will be the zone leader still and wait until my new companion gets here, which I still don't know who it is, which is kind of killing me honestly... Life goes on though. the couple that we were studying with had a little setback and so I guess we will see what happens with them, they will get baptized at some point but we don't exactly know when. However we do have another way solid young man that just caught fire out of nowhere and will be really good, hopefully he will be able to serve a mission. At least that's his plan at this point, I met him out on Wotje though and then he came back here and we ended up studying with him. He's awesome and I'm excited to see him get baptized. I guess in terms of studying Preach my Gospel I just studied a little bit about helping people keep commitments and the importance of following up afterwards. I'm trying to be able to find the right balance and it's hard to show that you care and help persuade someone to do something without nagging them. So that was my Preach My Gospel studying and I also started reading from the Gordon B. Hinckley book, which has a cool interview in it that I had never come across before. It really is eye opening. I think that's about all I have to say for now, sorry I'm a bit rushed, but I love you all very much and I find it mind blowing that I actually have my flight plans and things like that. So I guess I will be seeing Y'all sooner than I realize! Thank you for all the love and support and ps I did get your package and it was awesome hahahah you know me fairly well, just chocked full of chocolate and sweets, we made a pretty nice oreo cheesecake from the cookies... Anyways I feel like I always tell you about food, but ehh that's just something I really enjoy I guess!
Lots of lovin'Friday, October 10, 2014
I feel like I always tell you about food, but ehh that's just something I really enjoy I guess!
Sept. 29, 2014
From Elder Jordan MIchelson
Our prayers are not to change the will of God but rather to align our wills with his.
September 21, 2014
In terms of my week this week it was pretty good. We had a zone conference and I gave a training about the importance of prayer, and I definitely learned a couple of things while preparing for it and also giving it. I love what it says about prayer in the Bible Dictionary about how when we remember our relationship with our Father in Heaven that prayer will become instinctive and it will be easy to receive answers to our prayers, it also states that our prayers are not to change the will of God but rather to align our wills with his. Seeing that he knows literally everything and what will help us more than we do ourselves I found that to be a good reminder, that we need to ask to know what to say and what to do because of it. The last thing that I liked about prayer was that it is a form of work, sometimes in my own personal prayers it just becomes a list of things that I want and I start to become selfish in my prayers and then after the fact, I don't do anything about the things that I pray for. When we pray with real intent, and we really want answers we will do everything in our power in order to allow the Lord to bless us, we can't just wait until he answers. It requires diligent seeking for those answers. So I guess that's a little bit from my studies this week, I definitely recommend reading about prayer in the Bible Dictionary and why it is so important. I know that it has made a difference in my week and my attitude about prayer. Oh it was Elder P's birthday and so I made him a birthday supper that turned out pretty good. I made him a homemade chicken gnocchi bacon soup in a bread bowl, and then we had panna cotta with a citrus berry sauce for dessert, needless to say I thought it turned out pretty good, and that panna cotta was pretty delicious. Haha never thought I'd be able to eat anything close to that on my mission, but just gotta get a little bit creative and just come up with ideas from things that you see. So that was a pretty good day. We also have another investigator named Jemomo that is doing really well, he's been coming to church for a while now, but never really had a desire or a testimony and then one day a switch just kind of flipped and now he has plans to go on a mission, which would be really nice to see. He should be getting baptized on the 4 of October, which is right before Elder P leaves on the 8. That will be weird to see all of them go, I definitely have some good friends from that intake of missionaries and I feel like I came here at the same time. I guess I will be following them fairly shortly. I also filled out some plans for my flight home today... Yeah that was weird, weird that it is almost done. So you should be getting that fairly shortly in an email. For companionship study we watched a CES fireside that Elder Bednar spoke in and it was about learning by faith. It was a really cool training and I don't know if you could find that online or not, but it was cool how closely it related to teaching by the spirit. That the person who is receiving the teaching also has to learn by faith otherwise it will not be accepted. That is why we are to teach investigators and not just simply people, there is a noticeable difference between someone who will act and someone who will just be a "hearer of the word". I did know that my mom loves me, hahahaha one of the senior couples showed me the emails you sent to the mission office right as I was going to Wotje and he got a pretty good kick out of my worried mother emailing so many times and how sister wayas dealt with it. Other people may have been embarrassed by that, but I could care less, it just shows that you are concerned and also is good to have a laugh at. Anyways I think that's about all for this week, still doing well and am healthy and happy. You stay classy there in Canada!
Mom's note... we did get Jordan's travel plans, he comes home really late Dec. 17 and his homecoming is Dec 28. WAHOO!!!
In terms of my week this week it was pretty good. We had a zone conference and I gave a training about the importance of prayer, and I definitely learned a couple of things while preparing for it and also giving it. I love what it says about prayer in the Bible Dictionary about how when we remember our relationship with our Father in Heaven that prayer will become instinctive and it will be easy to receive answers to our prayers, it also states that our prayers are not to change the will of God but rather to align our wills with his. Seeing that he knows literally everything and what will help us more than we do ourselves I found that to be a good reminder, that we need to ask to know what to say and what to do because of it. The last thing that I liked about prayer was that it is a form of work, sometimes in my own personal prayers it just becomes a list of things that I want and I start to become selfish in my prayers and then after the fact, I don't do anything about the things that I pray for. When we pray with real intent, and we really want answers we will do everything in our power in order to allow the Lord to bless us, we can't just wait until he answers. It requires diligent seeking for those answers. So I guess that's a little bit from my studies this week, I definitely recommend reading about prayer in the Bible Dictionary and why it is so important. I know that it has made a difference in my week and my attitude about prayer. Oh it was Elder P's birthday and so I made him a birthday supper that turned out pretty good. I made him a homemade chicken gnocchi bacon soup in a bread bowl, and then we had panna cotta with a citrus berry sauce for dessert, needless to say I thought it turned out pretty good, and that panna cotta was pretty delicious. Haha never thought I'd be able to eat anything close to that on my mission, but just gotta get a little bit creative and just come up with ideas from things that you see. So that was a pretty good day. We also have another investigator named Jemomo that is doing really well, he's been coming to church for a while now, but never really had a desire or a testimony and then one day a switch just kind of flipped and now he has plans to go on a mission, which would be really nice to see. He should be getting baptized on the 4 of October, which is right before Elder P leaves on the 8. That will be weird to see all of them go, I definitely have some good friends from that intake of missionaries and I feel like I came here at the same time. I guess I will be following them fairly shortly. I also filled out some plans for my flight home today... Yeah that was weird, weird that it is almost done. So you should be getting that fairly shortly in an email. For companionship study we watched a CES fireside that Elder Bednar spoke in and it was about learning by faith. It was a really cool training and I don't know if you could find that online or not, but it was cool how closely it related to teaching by the spirit. That the person who is receiving the teaching also has to learn by faith otherwise it will not be accepted. That is why we are to teach investigators and not just simply people, there is a noticeable difference between someone who will act and someone who will just be a "hearer of the word". I did know that my mom loves me, hahahaha one of the senior couples showed me the emails you sent to the mission office right as I was going to Wotje and he got a pretty good kick out of my worried mother emailing so many times and how sister wayas dealt with it. Other people may have been embarrassed by that, but I could care less, it just shows that you are concerned and also is good to have a laugh at. Anyways I think that's about all for this week, still doing well and am healthy and happy. You stay classy there in Canada!
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson
Can't say I miss the snow all that much!
September 14, 2014
From Elder Jordan Michelson
Well that sounds like a good week, I definitely miss some good sushi! But I can't say that I miss the snow all that much, it was funny a senior couple from Cardston just came out here and will being working in Ebeye which is kind of the hot slums of the Marshall Islands... Apparently she was crying because well frankly Ebeye isn't a whole lot to look at, and they are having quite the time adjusting to the heat but I'm sure they'll figure it out sooner or later. Kind of bummed that I probably won't see them again, they seemed like a really nice couple. What else happened this week, we set a baptismal date with our couple for the 4th of October so that should be pretty good, they are both awesome. And for the zone picture I'll ask one of the senior couples to see if I could get that, I'm pretty sure they were the ones who took that one. It's also been a while since I've received a package, I got one from the brooks' family after I got back from Wotje, but other than that no I haven't seen anything. Once again I still suck at writing, I'll try to get some letters out before I go back home, I know I need to, just before I didn't really have a whole ton to write about in all honesty so I didn't know what to say. So hopefully I'll have a little more to say to people, and I can get some letters out, but honestly with having this little time left I don't exactly know what to write to people. I just feel like it's kind of the same old same old, but maybe they wouldn't be thinking that. As far as I'm aware my release date will be December 17th and that is when I should be flying out, I don't have my flight plans or anything yet, but those will probably be coming sometime soon. It's kind of weird to make the transition to being on Majuro again even though I was only gone for a week, haha I guess I just got kind of used to being out on the outer island again. Just completely random thing, but one of the members here knows that I love anything to do with watersports or whatever so she showed me this video of this thing called a flyboard, don't know if you've ever seen that, but it looked pretty cool not going to lie. She said that she was going to buy me one, I just had to give her the receipt when I got home... For some reason I don't think that is going to happen, but the Flyboard did look pretty fun and I would like to try it at some point, don't exactly know when or where, but that's going on the bucket list. Sorry nothing all that exciting this week, I think that's about all for right now. Hope you all have an awesome week!
Lots of lovin'We stayed longer in Arno
September 9, 2014
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson
Iakwe iakwe everybody!
So this week was kind of an interesting one, we were going out to Arno for supposedly like 2 days... turns into a week because the boat didn't come out, so I wore the same pair of clothes for a week and they may have been slightly yellow... I also didn't shave for a week because we didn't bring our razors either so we came back looking pretty dirty to say the least! But the week was definitely a memorable one, it was fun to be with Elder Schmidt again, he was one of my favourite companions and it was nice to be able to just bwebwenato again (ps you all have to learn that word because I feel like I'll be saying it a decent amount when I go home, basically means chat) but yeah that was a lot of fun. Also got to go out to another island in arno, because they were all doing a fun day there, so Elder Schmidt and I went out and played volleyball and just met some of the locals. They were all really nice, and they had like a volleyball tournament and picked me for their all-star team... hahah needless to say we won fairly easily, they were actually really good out on that island. It was some good volleyball, and had some fun doing that again. Also just randomly saying I forgot how much I miss drinking coconut, that stuff is delicious and I'm going to miss that once I go back home, here in town you can hardly find any. What else happened... Oh we went out crab hunting and just picked up some crabs, that was fun, and we also went shark fishing, but didn't catch anything. The people on that island are also way good, I say there should be a good amount of baptisms there soon and that's kind of exciting. I definitely liked having a little taste of outer island life again, and it was nice with 4 elders out there as well, we worked hard and had fun too. Coming back today was kind of interesting because you forget how much you appreciate the little things like having a fridge in your house, or air conditioning or having a car, just simple groceries all that stuff, haha I feel like the culture shock is going to be fairly interesting coming home as well when I go to the pantry and there is actually food in it and stuff, but we'll wait until that one actually happens to see. I've been studying about the atonement a decent amount lately and read the book "The Infinite Atonement" by Tad R. Callister and it definitely had some cool thoughts and perspectives on it that really improved my appreciation for our Saviour and his sacrifices that he performed for us. It's honestly truly remarkable how perfect he was and how perfect that plan was, without it there would be no purpose to life. So I enjoyed those studies quite a bit, and if you can find that book I would suggest reading it! As far as investigators go, I literally have no idea, we have one guy who left to Hawaii but should be back on the 15th so I guess we'll see, he's definitely our best one right now. But everybody else I haven't seen in a week so I guess we'll see... The people in Arno are good though! And when I come back I'm definitely going to go to Arno, it's got some cool things to see out there. Anywho I think that's about all for the week, it was an exciting one which was good seeing as the last couple have been a little dull at times. But love you all and thank you for all the help!From Elder Jordan Michelson
Sunday, September 7, 2014
This week we go to Arno... one of the outer islands
August 31, 2014
Just sounds like I keep missing out on the big parties! But life over here is pretty good, I got the package that you sent me, and one of the huckleberry jams kind of exploded everywhere,the senior couples had some fun with that one, but most of the package was still in pretty good shape regardless, and I still got a huckleberry jam so that's all fine! I was literally saying the day before that it would be nice if I could get a package, and then the next day the package came, so that was really nice! And no I still suck at letter writing... haha it's just hard to find the time, but I need to start sending some out before it gets too late, I'm just a punk and I will acknowledge that fully! I really do appreciate all the love and support though and I wish I could thank people for all that they do to help, it just kind of gets put on the back burner sometimes. But this week was pretty good, we had a baptism and she is doing well, has a couple of friends and is continuing to come to church, also we gave a guy named George and his wife Bertine a baptismal date and hopefully they will be able to be baptized before Elder P goes home in October. I guess just a couple of random stories for you this week, I believe on Tuesday night I wake up to this yelling... "Bro!!!!" and I see Elder P come out of the bathroom with a broom and was just really confused, turns out that a cat had somehow gotten through our screen window in the bathroom and then came in our house. I think he might have smelt some tuna or something, but that was pretty entertaining.. And then on Friday I randomly woke up at 1 in the morning and just had these eerie feelings and couldn't get back to sleep.. then at around 2:30 I was just kind of laying there and then all of a sudden I see this kid in our house. Some kid had broken into our house and was trying to steal some stuff, and this was kind of ridiculous because over the past 2 weeks Elder P had lost over 400 dollars and his ipod, so obviously this kid had been coming in quite a few times. We had fun chasing him out of our house and not really knowing where he went seeing as we are both really blind... Of course the kid picks the house with the 2 blind Elders to steal from haha kind of ironic, so yeah that was a little adventure for sure. We still haven't caught the kid, but it was this little 14 year old kid, and just didn't put the best spin on the things for the week. Oh well nothing too important was stolen and no one was hurt. What else happened... oh this week we will be going to Arno, one of the outer Islands to go help a struggling companionship. Hopefully we can go help out there, but that will also just be a good trip, you can get there by boat, and it will be just a short ride. So we leave on Wednesday and will come back on Friday, and I'm definitely looking forward to that it's always nice to jumbo! We also had a Zone Conference this past week, and that was pretty good, enjoyed the training given and they focused a lot on Preach My Gospel, which was nice because I feel like we definitely overlook the importance of that book. I have often wondered what would happen if a missionary truly applied everything from Preach My Gospel and how successful that missionary would be? We're obviously not perfect and will fall short, but if we just had faith to do those simple things, missionary work would honestly be so much easier, it definitely is a combined effort both from the missionaries themselves and the members. So that's a little of what I learned and I hope it helps some of the newer missionaries, because some of them haven't exactly figured it out. But eventually they'll get it! Anyways I think that's all from the week, definitely busy running around doing errands for everyone and that takes away from the proselyting time, but sometimes you have to do those things as they come up. Hope that you guys have an awesome week and I love you all a ton!
Just sounds like I keep missing out on the big parties! But life over here is pretty good, I got the package that you sent me, and one of the huckleberry jams kind of exploded everywhere,the senior couples had some fun with that one, but most of the package was still in pretty good shape regardless, and I still got a huckleberry jam so that's all fine! I was literally saying the day before that it would be nice if I could get a package, and then the next day the package came, so that was really nice! And no I still suck at letter writing... haha it's just hard to find the time, but I need to start sending some out before it gets too late, I'm just a punk and I will acknowledge that fully! I really do appreciate all the love and support though and I wish I could thank people for all that they do to help, it just kind of gets put on the back burner sometimes. But this week was pretty good, we had a baptism and she is doing well, has a couple of friends and is continuing to come to church, also we gave a guy named George and his wife Bertine a baptismal date and hopefully they will be able to be baptized before Elder P goes home in October. I guess just a couple of random stories for you this week, I believe on Tuesday night I wake up to this yelling... "Bro!!!!" and I see Elder P come out of the bathroom with a broom and was just really confused, turns out that a cat had somehow gotten through our screen window in the bathroom and then came in our house. I think he might have smelt some tuna or something, but that was pretty entertaining.. And then on Friday I randomly woke up at 1 in the morning and just had these eerie feelings and couldn't get back to sleep.. then at around 2:30 I was just kind of laying there and then all of a sudden I see this kid in our house. Some kid had broken into our house and was trying to steal some stuff, and this was kind of ridiculous because over the past 2 weeks Elder P had lost over 400 dollars and his ipod, so obviously this kid had been coming in quite a few times. We had fun chasing him out of our house and not really knowing where he went seeing as we are both really blind... Of course the kid picks the house with the 2 blind Elders to steal from haha kind of ironic, so yeah that was a little adventure for sure. We still haven't caught the kid, but it was this little 14 year old kid, and just didn't put the best spin on the things for the week. Oh well nothing too important was stolen and no one was hurt. What else happened... oh this week we will be going to Arno, one of the outer Islands to go help a struggling companionship. Hopefully we can go help out there, but that will also just be a good trip, you can get there by boat, and it will be just a short ride. So we leave on Wednesday and will come back on Friday, and I'm definitely looking forward to that it's always nice to jumbo! We also had a Zone Conference this past week, and that was pretty good, enjoyed the training given and they focused a lot on Preach My Gospel, which was nice because I feel like we definitely overlook the importance of that book. I have often wondered what would happen if a missionary truly applied everything from Preach My Gospel and how successful that missionary would be? We're obviously not perfect and will fall short, but if we just had faith to do those simple things, missionary work would honestly be so much easier, it definitely is a combined effort both from the missionaries themselves and the members. So that's a little of what I learned and I hope it helps some of the newer missionaries, because some of them haven't exactly figured it out. But eventually they'll get it! Anyways I think that's all from the week, definitely busy running around doing errands for everyone and that takes away from the proselyting time, but sometimes you have to do those things as they come up. Hope that you guys have an awesome week and I love you all a ton!
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson
Just taking care of the needs
August 24, 2014
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson
Iakwe iakwe!
Hmm sorry that these weeks aren't all that exciting, just kind of going through the same old same old, working with Elder P is really nice and it's just so easy to do everything. But this week since the president and the assistants were still gone so we still have to do everything and have to go try to take care of the needs for the outer islands and things like that, we bought this ridiculous amount of food for this one companionship and I think they'll be pretty pumped about that, I remember how much I missed real food when I was out on Wotje, so just thought we'd spread some love! I figured out how to make a french bread more or less so I've been making a lot of like hot sandwiches and things like that, haha Subway in Majol pretty much. You're week sounds pretty good though and that's so weird that Emily is finished school, I remember when she didn't even know what she wanted to do! What's her plan and stuff though, and is she dating anyone or anything right about now?? What about any cousins or anything like that, is there any potential for them to get married or have been dating anyone serious? Haha just curious and what the hector, Tanner Brooks is engaged??? I'm just way surprised that happened pretty fast! If you could you should send me a picture or something? Umm let's see this week there is a zone conference, which should be pretty good, always looking forward to those and it will be nice to have president back on island. The missionaries are doing pretty good we keep having baptisms in the wards and things like that, they are just struggling to get them to stay in the church. That's always been the struggle. But I feel like that will come with time, and in terms of people writing me, I hear from some other missionaries, I get letter's from Aunt Deanne and Grandma quite often... I should probably write them back, I! What else did you ask... I'll probably work for the whole year, there's no way I'm going to school in January that's just way too fast!! I don't really want to rush into everything, I think I'll wait roughly like 2 or 3 weeks until all the Christmas holidays and stuff are finished and then I'll start work if I can. That's my plan for right now, and in terms of P-day it's just playing sports and just kind of boring bajjik nothing all that exciting, but I'm glad that people know how to play volleyball at least, that makes things fun! Also I drive pretty much everyday, we got permission to go the gym in Long Island every morning, it's a really nice gym and hopefully I'll be looking not too fat when I come home I think that's about it though. It's going to be weird when all the missionaries from the intake before me go home! That's all the news from over here, we have some pretty good investigators that hopefully will progress, trying to get them just know that these things are true but it's kind of hard when you have to do random errands, it just throws off the schedule and stuff. From Elder Jordan Michelson
We did a lot of running around
August 17, 2014
From Elder Jordan Michelson
Alright so nothing all that exciting this week, it was just really slow because the assistants and the president were off island so we were the highest leadership on island and that meant that we had to do a lot of running around and just reporting numbers and all sorts of things like that. So just kind of busy with that and it sucks that the mission office is about 20 minutes away so to do anything over there takes some time for sure. Then I got somewhat sick this week and just slept like a rock until I was feeling better, so that was fun... Had to get our shower fixed which took a huge amount of time, and hence didn't really get to see a ton of investigators, but we do have a baptismal interview coming up this saturday which is nice, she's a 17 year old girl named mina and she's pretty solid, it's nice to see when people actually change. So yeah that's that, and then I guess to answer your questions, yep I still see the ocean everyday and it just makes me want to go barefooting and what not, still missing that, but I guess once again just have to wait. Recently I've been studying general conference talks a decent amount, and have just gained a huge appreciation for talks and things like that. Also I find that weird that Brendan is home now, just mind-blowing really and send some loving his way! In terms of helping the sisters it happens only in special circumstances and that was the man that I was studying with previously, so I had made a pretty good connection with him. He is really worried about the Sabbath and the law of moses and things like that, and I hope that he figures it out soon. I don't know about the most unique food I've eaten, probably turtle?? That was pretty good, or a dried fruit leather kind of thing made from pandanus, that was pretty good, and fairly unique, definitely eat a lot more unique things on an outer island. But I think that's about all for now, just kind of the same old same old! But I'm doing well and I'm still learning a lot, hopefully this next week won't be as slow! I love you all bunches, and thanks for all the love and support.
Lots of lovin'
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