Mike's Mission - April 2007

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#FFFF66" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="03c006e0dkfegl.gif"> <div>                          <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > Michael's Mission Page</FONT>      <IMG SRC="04e55390.gif" border=0 width="85" height="57" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div>                     California Santa Rosa Mission  June 2006 - June 2008    |   <A HREF="http://www.theHaslams.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.theHaslams.com"><U>theHaslams.com</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#009933" TEXT="#080000" background="03dbec00ddwnzy.gif"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission Front Page"><U><B>Front Page</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="latest_news.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission Latest News"><U><B>Latest News</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="photo_album.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission Photo Album"><U><B>Photo Album</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="companions.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission Companions"><U><B>Companions</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>=====================</B></div> <div> <A HREF="may_2008.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission May 2008"><U><B>May 2008</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="april_2008.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission April 2008"><U><B>April 2008</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="march_w008.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission March 2008"><U><B>March 2008</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="february_2008.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission February 2008"><U><B>February 2008</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="january_2008.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission January 2008"><U><B>January 2008</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="december_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission December 2007"><U><B>December 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="november_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission November 2007"><U><B>November 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="october_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission October 2007"><U><B>October 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="september_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission September 2007"><U><B>September 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="august_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission August 2007"><U><B>August 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="july_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission July 2007"><U><B>July 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="june_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mike_Mission June 2007"><U><B>June 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="may_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission May 2007"><U><B>May 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="april_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission April 2007"><U><B>April 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="march_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission March 2007"><U><B>March 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="february_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes mission February 2007"><U><B>February 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="january_2007.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission January 2007"><U><B>January 2007</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="december_2006.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission December 2006"><U><B>December 2006</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="november_2006.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission November 2006"><U><B>November 2006</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="october_2006.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission October 2006"><U><B>October 2006</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="september_2006.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission September 2006"><U><B>September 2006</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="august_2006.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michaels Mission August 2006"><U><B>August 2006</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="july_2006.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission July 2006"><U><B>July 2006</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="arrival.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Arrival in Santa Rosa"><U><B>Arrival in Santa Rosa</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="mtc.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission MTC"><U><B>Departure & the Missionary Training Center</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>=====================</B></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.mission.net/california/santa/rosa/index.php" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.mission.net/california/santa/"><U><B>California Santa Rosa Mission Alumni Site</B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>April 2007</B></div> <div> <B>April 30, 2007 - "Exciting Week Coming Up" - </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Michael wrote to say that things in his new zone are developing well.  They can see 7 baptisms in the zone during this transfer period.  At the Zone Council on Tuesday with the missionaries in the zone, there was much discussion on what kind of goal to set for this transfer period. With 9 companionships in the zone a total of 9 was suggested. Some missionaries thought was too much. One had already been baptized and the sisters in Woodland (Spanish speaking) had 4 committed.</FONT></div> <bR> <div> Michael also worked with an Elder whose been discouraged. He challenged him to have more faith and study the promises in the scriptures. Later they reported picking up a "golden contact".</div> <bR> <div> Michael wrote, "Wednesday was just business for a little bit. We had to help a companionship resolve some problems and settle some issues but when we got back to our area we did awesome and taught 3 lessons and found 2 investigators! Sadly they both dogged their appointments."</div> <bR> <div> Thursday we had to clean out the place where the prior zone leaders lived. It was a mess. Hopefully someone will buy out the existing lease. Following the cleaning Michael said, "Then we went up to Esparto, a small town north of Winters on the 505 and then west on 16. We found a golden part member family off pure inspiration. We visited one La and thought we have a little time, now where. WE both looked at our ward lists and the first one we saw in that area was only about 15 houses down and we felt we should go there. We went over there and the lady is divorced and her brother-in-law died. Her heart was soft and she is definitely ready to come back to church I think and the best part is, she has a 9-year-old daughter that hasn't been baptized! She said that she wanted her baptized so we'll work on that."</div> <div>  </div> <div> Concluding the week Michael said, "Yesterday was a typical Sunday, I love the ward members here though, they are all awesome. The youth are awesome missionaries too. They talk with their friends a lot and one of the most popular kids is a member. We talked with a LA yesterday who said that her friend wants to come back to church, she went as a kid, and her whole family does too! I hope we get to teach them. We're going to try and talk with them this Thursday or Friday. "</div> <bR> <div> Looking at the week ahead Michael is excited, he added, "This week will be great. We get to go to the temple tomorrow!!!! I am so excited, it's been 10 months since I've been!!! I've been a temple recommend holder for a year now and only been 6 times. I need to catch up! We only get to go once a year in this mission since all the temples are outside of it. We are all splitting up and going to our temple districts. This means that we're going to the new Sacramento Temple!!!! The one I got to see the dedication when I was in Vacaville 9 months ago!!! How cool is that! Also this week we have a zone conference in Vacaville! Back to my birthplace for a great meeting. I'm super excited for this week and I'll let you know how things went next week. The AP's are coming to sleep at our place tonight so I'll get to see my daddy again!"</div> <bR> <div> <B>April 23, 2007 - "Liv'in the Crazy Life" - </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >In his E-mail Michael tells an unbelievable story from his new town of Winters, California. He relates the incident thus: "So we're standing at an FIs door and a cop comes up behind us and calls us over to his car. We stand in the front with the spotlight and he tells us its illegal to go door to door on Sunday! He also tells us we need a solicitors permit to go on any other day!!! How crazy is that!? We just show our ministerial certificate and he didn't care. He got our driver's license numbers and let us go but the FI is going to be thinking, why were LDS missionaries getting the cops called on them? We told president and he didn't laugh. He's calling the missionary department today because of it."  [Editor's note: I never had that much trouble with the law in Thailand which in 95% Buddhist! This does not bode well for a good reception among the residents of Winters. The town is very small having a total population of only 7,000 persons.]</FONT></div> <bR> <div> Michael added the following about Winters: "Winters is SMALL!!! It is only a 1.5 mile by 2 mile rectangle! We have a car but we can only use it for zone business because we don't have the miles to do anything else. We have no investigators whatsoever at the time but we're looking forward to finding them. It's a pretty tough area and a lot of the missionaries that have served in the area haven't done much so that leaves us where we are. Apparently the Stake President told the mission president that they need to have good missionaries in Winters. The good news is that the members are awesome and we have got some good referrals from them. This week we got 12 referrals. Some are better than others but hopefully at least one of them will turn into an investigator. I guess the Lord likes me in small areas. The great news: I have normal roads and sidewalks!!!! There is also some normal stores and fast food restaurants in the surrounding cities. I like the area."</div> <bR> <div> Michael explained that his companion Elder Davis who just got out of the office serving as an assistant to the president is having trouble remembering how to form an inspired question list, "Where were you 100 years ago?" or "Have you heard of the prophet Abinadi?" Elder Davis attempted this, "Have you every heard about the angel that appeared to Joseph Smith and showed him where the gold plates were? I'm talking about the book of Mormon of course". </div> <bR> <div> We are real busy, our zone has 20 missionaries in two districts.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > <A NAME="zone_leader"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><B>April 17, 2007 - Davis Zone Leader - </B></FONT>Michael is transferred to Winters, California as a new Zone Leader in the Davis zone. Winters California is west of Davis, California and north of Vacaville, California where Michael first served. The Winters Ward is in the <A HREF="https://secure.lds.org/units/stake/0,9780,606-1-5-513237,00.html?" TARGET="_top" TITLE="https://secure.lds.org/units/stake/0,978"><U>Woodland California Stake</U></A>.</div> <bR> <div> <B>April 16 - 2007 - "Spend'in the Summers in Winters " - </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Of his new assignment Michael wrote, "I'm not old enough for such an assignment so I'm going to be praying a lot and putting a lot of faith in "whom the Lord calls he qualifies".</FONT></div> <bR> <div> My new companion is Elder Dane Davis who was my Zone Leader back in Vacaville. He was just released as an assistant to President Stoddard. I will be killing him since he returns home in just 6 weeks. We are co-Zone Leaders in the Davis Zone. We are "whitewashing" Winters (meaning he and Elder Davis are going in fresh without any prior work to build on).</div> <bR> <div> Commenting on his new companion Michael wrote, "He is good at every single sport on the planet and will destroy me at everything, including basketball. I might be able to beat him at bowling though, we'll see. I am way excited to learn from him though. I am also nervous about the call. Being ZL just carries a lot of weight. At least when I was DL I could just sit and point at the ZL".</div> <bR> <div> He described his final week in Lake County as, "We did some incredible work and the Highlands "out" area has a lot better investigators than mine (the "in" area). We had a great time together and taught a lot of lessons. First though I need to tell a crazy experience. We were going to go in at 8pm and take our dinner that we didn't get. SO around 7:50 we knock on a potentials door and just figure we'll set something else up. She goes in and asks her parents if it would be OK for us to come in and they say yes. We go in and there is 10 people around this big table having a nice dinner together. They're real nice and introduce themselves as "the Worship Team"!!! They are the band and pastor members for the Neighborhood Christian Fellowship Church in town. Pretty much all of them were so called "pastors" for the church. Including the head pastor, who Elder Twiggs met tracting!! So there we were in the midst of these pastors and they ask us what we do and I went straight in to teaching and testifying. I even quoted the first vision to them and bore testimony of its truthfulness and they were quiet for a little bit before saying that they were about to go sing and pray and worship. They invited us to stay and we told them for just a little bit. Well one pastor starts playing and singing along. Sometimes throwing his own words in but then getting into some choruses of "Jesus is the Lord" or "Jesus is my Lord". And everyone would be singing along with closed eyes and sometimes raised arms and hands. The guy continued to play while the pastor made some ridiculous comments on Elohim and Christ. He made absolutely no sense. He confused the two all the time and really taught nothing. They continued to do this for a whole hour!!!! We were just amazed at how weird it all was. We could feel of the Spirit. They really were trying to worship Christ but they had it very weak we decided. At the end I told them that it was good what they were doing and that I felt the Spirit, but, I added " I didn't learn anything". I proceeded to explain that they really only shared one truth, Jesus is the Christ, and that they needed more truth in their lives and especially in their worship. Then I told about the Book of Mormon and how they could find a lot more truth in it. I committed them all to read a little bit of it but they wouldn't. I left one under my seat, we prayed with them and left. It was a crazy experience!!! I learned a lot about other faiths and realized truly what it means to be a good person that is "blinded by the craftiness of men".</div> <bR> <div> About what he's leaving in Clearlake he added, "Elder Strobel is getting a good Elder that I think will get along well with him. Elder Twiggs is going to be a District Leader, after only 3 months in the field that's faster than me!!! He's a good Elder and will do fine. He'll only have 2 other companionships to watch over since their calling another DL out in the Kelseyville Lakeport area". He added, "So I am out of Lake County after almost 6 months here. It's been a good stand but I really didn't feel like I fit in here. It wasn't really my flavor, I liked Vacaville more, but I did come to like it more and more and try and find the good in the lazy people that take disability when they look fine". </div> <bR> <div> <B>April 9, 2007 - "Early Changes in my Zone" - </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Michael said that his "Dad" Elder Bennett from Otoe, Nebraska has been called as an assistant to President Stoddard. As such he leaves Clearlake tonight and goes to Santa Rosa to join the current assistants for training for a week before transfers take place next week.  As such his companion Elder Twiggs is joining Elders Haslam and Strobel as a "threesome" for one week. It also means that they will have use of the Zone Leader's truck for the whole week. Elder Twiggs has been in the mission for about 12 weeks, so he is still on the green side as well as Elder Strobel who is completing his sixth week.  Michael is excited for Elder Bennett who returns home in about 3 months. He is also excited to have access to the truck for a week.</FONT></div> <div> Michael said the met with Linda to teach the 1st discussion. She had so many questions they spent 2 hours with her.  Michael wishes they had not done that since at the conclusion she told them, "I am more interested in the Jehovah's Witnesses". After she said that Mike indicated,  "I felt terrible. It was too much information for one evening, she was overloaded." Additionally we were unable to contact Jessica, she seems to be very busy. </div> <bR> <div> During a meeting with a less active member a mouse ran into the room. Michael kicked it and then the member got a dust pan and took it out. Michael said, "the mouse ruined the spirit". Michael added, "I haven't committed anyone this whole transfer for baptism and I don't know why. It's been frustrating me. I guess it's because I'm always worried about my greenie and teaching him how to do missionary work but I don't know. I'm sure this week will go better with Elder Twiggs. We're basically calling Elder Twiggs his Godfather since every time I go on exchanges with the missionaries I go with Elder Bennett at the same time since I don't have a car and so Elder Twiggs and Strobel are together."</div> <bR> <div> Michael also sent a letter in the mail. In that letter he included <A HREF="march_2007_being_a_dad.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Mission March 2007"><U>a photograph of himself and Elder Strobel</U></A> (See the entry for March 5th).  In the letter Michael. Michael says Elder Strobel is an expert in Polish History! I guess he learned all about it when he brother served a mission there. For a kid that grew up in Rexberg he's been to study in lots of places including England, the Czech Republic and Rhode Island. He still doesn't speak much, but he's getting better.</div> <bR> <div> Michael added, "Working with Elder Strobel I learned patience, charity and love. He concluded, "I love the work but I pray for more success".</div> <bR> <div> <B>April 2, 2007 - "Conference Time" - </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >"I loved Conference. I was sad to see it end. I wish I could comment on all the talks but I can't. Here's my attempt. The very first talk was so powerful!!! It answered my prayers in a very weird way. It answered them by telling me that I won't get an answer! I just have to go forward with faith and wait for the spirit to confirm the truth. Another good one was Elder Pace's talk on encouraging everyone to find out the truth about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He said that for those who grow up in the church it's harder to recognize the powerful spiritual impressions we get when the spirit does testify of truth because it has happened so many times already and we expect something spectacular to tell us again it's true. That is definitely me. Sometimes I feel like I can't testify very well because I can't tell somebody my "conversion story". I'd have to tell them my life story! There is just too many witnesses to go through. I also enjoyed the talks of Holland, Bednar, Ballard, and Elder Neil L. Anderson. </FONT></div> <div> "We had a good week as we picked up some good investigators and taught some good lessons". We picked up a 20 year old named Matt. He came to a conference session at the church.</div> <div> Training is progressing. Elder Strobel is getting better at asking questions and asking for referrals. He also talking more and explaining things better.</div> <div> I told President Stoddard that I was sometimes having a hard time balancing everything and he said "You will the rest of your life." I told him that my bike is falling apart and he said "Did you get it fixed?". So I guess you could say he's not really worried about me handling things. As for my bike it is starting to creak and crack and it will probably need a new crank in a month or two (if I'm still on bike). </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>