Sept. 18, 2011

Hello family. Its good to email you yet again. This week has been a relatively slow week unfortunately.

For 3 days of the week we got stuck inside for most of the day. We had a lot of apartment renovations that needed to be done. We had to have our carpets cleaned. We had to have the tiles all along our shower get replaced after they caved inside themselves. And then our air conditioning broke. And to top it all off. We have had some of the most intense monsoons and storms i have had on my mission. I'm talking about things like hail, flooding, not being able to drive. The whole 9 yards. It was really cool to watch but not so good to do missionary work in.

So we had a cool miracle happen to us though. We were just out and about working, doing our missionary work thing. When we get a call from a member we didnt recognize and I talked to them for a moment. Found out they were a Recent convert from Sierra Vista. We talked for a while and found out that she wanted us to go and see her mom who is now intrested in learning more about the gospel. The reason this was such a cool referral, particually for Elder Barner, is because this woman who lives in Sierra Vista, Elder Barner served in her ward and was over at her house quite frequently trying to teach and baptize her husband. So he has had a major influence in this womans life already and the life of her family. So now he will get to teach her mother as well. It was just ironic and cool how the Lord takes care of his children. And his servants. He knows what is best for all of us. He loves and cares for us.

I love you all very much.
Elder Pierce.

ps. it was super weird not being spritually uplifted by my good ol' buddy Elder Moore this week. Love ya bud. Proud of you!

Happy "21st" Birthday Elder Pierce

Hello my wonderful family. Boy it is great to be alive. It is great to be serving the Lord too. Life is just great right about now. How wonderful.

Well this week was wonderful. I had a AMAZING birthday and amazing pre-birthday (Saturday). But overall this last week was really cool.

A quick story i would like to share with you. We got a referral from an online source from Mormon.org. and we decided one night to go follow up on it. Well It turned out to be a little to late for them so we were told to go back the next day in the afternoon. So that is what we did. At first we didn't know how solid it was going to be but we had hope. And another plus is that they had BIG dogs. About 3 or 4 of them. So we prayed we wouldn't get eaten when we went back. Well we went back the next day and it turns out this family is just awesome. The mom is a member and they have tons of family friends that are members. They actually know someone who just got back from a mission as well. So we went over there and we taught a young man named Cameron, he is 17 and he was super interested. He kept saying how he just felt that something was missing in his life. That he needed a more fulfilling aspect to his life. Well that's just what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for! haha.

So he loved everything we were telling him. He accepted every commitment we left him and we are meeting with him again on Thursday. He is really cool. Elder Barner and I bonded with him really well. Everything i didn't know much about (cards, magic, things like that) Elder Barner knew about. Then things like football, sports, video games i could connect with. It was just really cool to see how much the Lord truly does know his children. His missionaries and those trying to find him. He knows us all equally and individually.

I love you so much family.

Love Elder Pierce

Bad News

Hello family. Bad News. I was working on my email to send to you guys, but I accidentally hit discard instead of send. So, this will now serve as the email I was going to send to you.

I will briefly sum up the past week in a few sentences.

The past week has served Elder Barner and I with much success. We have been able to find and teach many new people and invite them to enter the waters of Baptism.
Our Best progressing investigator attended church with us on Sunday and she has, because of attending church, become that much more excited about being baptized. She has fears of being the "outcast" when it came to church, or being the new person that no-one knew. She is doing great!

Then during that same day at church. A man and a woman approached me and informed me that they were new and needed to be taught missionary lessons. THAT was really cool. They both wanted to be baptized. It was sweet.
Well my hour is up. Talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Pierce

Aug. 30, 2011

Well hello my wonderful family.

I wanted to email you this week to let you know that things are going very well down here in the Valencia ward. Or the south Tucson area. Im excited to be with Elder Barner for another transfer, He and I have been getting along pretty well. Our opposite personalities work pretty well together I guess. There are things we are still working on together but we are getting there.

This week we had a pretty cool experience. We have been working with this one less active family pretty recently. We had the father go out on exchanges with us twice now and we have had dinner over there once. They have come to church 3 times now. Well this last time on exchanges we were finishing up with the night and he begins to tell us how he has met with the Bishop and was talking about them going to church again. Then he told us how his son is now  9 years old and he wants us to start meeting with his 3 kids to teach them the lessons. His younger two are twins that are going to now get baptized at the same time as their older brother. Now I know finding a 9 year old kid to baptize is not a huge miracle. The real miracle is that now this family will have the opportunity to work their way towards the temple. To be a family forever. That is the true miracle of the gospel. Why the plan of salvation was crafted through the loving hands of our father in heaven. Why we can all have this opportunity to find our way back home. To the home that is waiting for us.

I love you all very much. I hope you have had an amazing week. Talk to you soon!

Elder Pierce

Semi-Eventful week

So family. This week has been a semi-eventful week. 
Im just going to start with the best news and then that is probably all I will share. 
On Friday, we went over to visit with Hans. And we talked with him for a good amount of time about his baptism. We were talking and we were setting up everything. We were setting up what everyone would do...for example, people to say the prayer, songs, and talks. Well I asked him who he wanted to baptize him and he looked at me and said "well you were the first one to bring me into the gospel so I want you to do it.". It was such a cool feeling to have such an impact on someones life. He truly has made such a change. 
Well Saturday rolled around and we were preparing and setting up the chairs and getting ready and Hans came and he showed up with 2 of his best friends. They were not very interested at first, but once everything started happening they seemed like nothing could distract them. It was really cool. We are going to contact Hans and try to meet up with them again. 
Also, Julian was able to show up to the baptism and he had a great expierence. Im not sure if I mentioned the struggles he was going through but he really didnt want to even talk about church. Well he showed up to the baptism and I talked to him afterwards and he said "you know, I think I'm ready, I want to be baptized." So we set up a time for him to be baptized. It was just such an awesome experience. 
Well I have to go. Time is short.
I love you all very much. 
Elder Pierce

G-Ma, This One if For You...I Love you!

In Loving Memory
Mary Wharram
Dec. 10, 1942 - Aug. 11, 2011

Hey family. 
Gma-tron. This one is for you. I know you have left us from this earthy time. Your passing will be remembered and we will remorse. But oh what great joy we can receive from knowing where you are going.  What love our Heavenly Father has for us. So you may be gone from us here on earth but we know you are in a better place. A place where you can learn and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. The love our Savior Jesus Christ has for us overcomes all that we endure in life and in the life after this. Gma. I love you so much. I love who you are and all the times we had together. I love all the crazy stories you would always tell of me and my sisters growing up. I love being your favorite grandson. I love you. You will always be remembered. 
The rest of my family. Always remember what Jesus Christ has done for us. For every single one of us, he suffered and died so we can return back to our Heavenly home. Through his atonement and sacrifice we can be happy. We can be with the ones we love. The ones we care about. These blessings and this happiness is only available because of our savior. Always remember that. 

Well this week has been quite a fun one. We have been through a rough patch in finding some new investigators. We are taking a new approach in finding. The investigators we had are no bueno. So we are starting fresh (besides Hans, he is doing great). But We are going to be picking up a brand new batch of people to teach and bring to church and eventually baptize. Its just what we do haha. Its what i would call my specialty. 
Like i said, Hans is doing really well. We are meeting with him this next Tuesday to set up and get his baptism set up. He has made a great change in his life. To willingly follow the Savior and to keep his commandments. Its great to see. 
I hope all is going well back on the home front. Remember i love you all very much. 
Gma. Again, I love you.
Elder Pierce

Aug 10, 2011

Hello Family.

Sorry I missed emailing you this last Monday but I just wanted to send this email out really quickly giving you an update of my week. Things have been going very well recently. Its been an exciting yet dull week. It has been raining here a lot. We get pretty wet from time to time if we get caught out in the rain and we are not by our car. It keeps things exciting though. I love the weather that we have been having here lately. Besides it being really hot. That's just never fun. We played football this last Monday and that was a blast. WE lost unfortunately but we kept our heads up and played a tough game. I scored half our teams points so I'm not too terribly upset about losing haha. Anyways. Our investigators are doing well. The closest one we have that is approaching baptism is Hans, he is a stud. He came to church this last Sunday and loved it. So the work will continue to press forward.

Well I have to run. We got people to teach. I Love you all.

Elder Pierce