Got to Love P-day

Hello family, 

Its so wonderful to email you again. Got to love p-day. I know I sure do. It gives us such a wonderful time to relax and take a break from a week of working. Without p-day, I would probably go crazy haha. But it helps get me ready for the next week.

Well this past week was spring break. Things were SUPER slow. Almost as bad as winter break when there was no-one here. That made things difficult. But this week we were still able to have some success. I'm not sure if I have ever told you of a young woman named Ashley. Ashley is a cool girl who's roots take her back to England. She has an accent which makes it fun to talk to her. She has some mental handicaps that give her the personality of a younger individual. She is a "poke'maniac" as she calls it. (into Pokemon...big time). Anyways. We have been working with Ashley for some time now. Since before i got into the area. But last week we went over and just straight up asked her if she wanted to be baptized. She said she needed some time to think about it so we told her we would come by later that night. So we followed through and went by and asked and she said...yes! It was great. We were shooting for this last Saturday but she wasn't going to be ready. So we are working toward this Saturday but there is no guarantees. But I have faith. She just needs to truly dedicate herself to learning and following through. So we will see what happens.

Nothing really to much else has happened. I feel bad for not being able to write to much to you. Definitely not as juicy as last email, that's for sure.

But thank you everyone for all the support you give me. For everything that you said on the tape recorder...except for you Brando, haha just kidding but seriously. Well I love you all so much. Hope all is well on your side of the world!

Love elder Pierce

The Craziest 3 Days of My Mission

So. I'm going to let you know right off the bat, Ever since Friday, I have probably had the craziest 3 days of my mission. It has been absolutely loco. I will share a list of events, then I will talk about them.

-We had an emergency ZLC in Wilcox

-We had to teach an impromptu Sunday school lesson

-I rope swung and about broke my leg

-I have been sicker than a dog

-We had to take An Elder to the ER

-And we had a surprise baptism

-(this is just like half of the things that happened)

 

-So, the emergency ZLC in Wilcox. That was a lot of fun actually. Normally ZLC's are set up months in advance, but as of this time, it needed to happen NOW. It was set up in like 2 days and we had to all meet up in the central location. Right now, the mission is extremely young. Over 75% of our missionaries are under 6 months old. So a lot of the old leadership has left leaving the younger leadership to step up and take charge. It makes things quite difficult in getting things done. Everything needs to be explained quite thoroughly and a lot of these District Leaders are brand new. So keeping things going the way it needs to be done has been taken to a whole new level. Missionaries as young as 3 months old are district leaders (sound familiar haha) and training new missionaries. Its crazy. But it keeps us on our toes. Trying to keep up with all these young bucks keeps me going strong. haha. I'm a dang geezer compared to some of these missionaries. hahah.

New Pictures

Elder Clark and Elder Pierce

Elder Pierce and Elder Earl

March 16th, 2011

Well hello family.

Its so good to be talking to you again. As you can tell, this email is a little later in the week. Transfers were yesterday but we ran out of time because we had to help transport people to different locations of the mission. So we didn't have time to email or really do anything. So that is why I'm writing to you today. I hope I didn't freak anyone out or anything. I don't think I have ever emailed on a Wednesday before. This is kind of weird actually. I don't like this. See you next week on a Monday!

Elder Thorpe-Almost time to Go...

OK no I'm just kidding. I will email home any chance I get!

So this past transfer, Elder Thorpe left. He is currently at home now. Well I guess somewhere in Utah, I'm not really sure if like he is home but you know what I mean. It was weird being a missionaries last companion, and he wasn't trunky at all. I was actually pretty impressed. he worked hard until the end. He endured. I hope to be able to do that when I'm at my last transfer. But I was thinking about it. I have another new companion. I have only had 1 companion for more than a transfer, and that was Elder Howard up in Clifton. Since then and before then, only 1 transfer. Do I smell or something? Or maybe I'm too cool that they can only be around me for 1 transfer. That is all their body will allow of the EPCI. Elder Pierce Cool Intake. (that sounds pretty good actually).

Elder Pierce & Elder Thorpe

It was really sweet. We had an awesome miracle this past 2 days. Yesterday, we called a lot of the former investigators that were talking to the missionaries for awhile but kind of dropped off. We spoke with one who lives out in Bylas, its an Indian reservation. And we set up a time to meet tomorrow. So he shows up late to our appointment but he brings 4 friends with him! Perfectly OK with me ha ha. We gave them all a tour of the institute and taught them about our savior Jesus Christ. It was great. We let them play in the open gym volleyball and set up a lesson for today. We met with them earlier and committed 3 of them to be baptized. It was way awesome. A simple miracle from our Heavenly Father. It was amazing. It is so wonderful to see people embrace the gospel. To be able to feel the love of their Savior and Redeemer. Its wonderful. Its why I'm here. If this feeling wasn't around then I wouldn't do this. But the great thing is, that I feel that feeling and that love every single day. Its a true blessing.

It has also been a great blessing of being able to work so closely with all of the members of these wards. We have been going over and encouraging all of these students to work on their missionary efforts. Like tasks as small as sitting next to a non-member in class. (theres a lot of Mormons here). So any effort they can do to help bring others closer to Christ. Its been a wonderful opportunity to do such things. I just love being a missionary!

I love you all so much. I hope you are all doing great. Have a great week and I will talk to you soon.

Love,

Elder Pierce

March 7, 2011

Well hello there my wonderful family. It is so nice to be able to talk to you again. I hope all is going well where ever it is you may be in the world.

Things have been going "OK" here. Not to much great things to report on. A lot of our solid plans and investigators have yet again fallen through. It makes missionary work so much tougher. Yet so much more rewarding in the long run. For example, our baptism that we were supposed to have on Saturday fell through. His girlfriend (that is a member) broke up with him and he was pretty shaken up about it. So every appointment that we set up with him fell through like the lesson we were going to have with him at the temple. His baptism and other monumental events that were supposed to happen in his life, didn't. The sucky part is that he knows its true, he knows he needs to do this, but there is something holding him back. And Elder Thorpe and i just cant seem to figure out what it its. Things were going very well until all of this happened. And now for some reason, we cant get in contact with some of our other investigators to help progress them in their journey towards baptism and eternal salvation. So this week was just really tough.

I need some Love down here in Thatcher...

OK, family, here is the deal, I will write you an email, but I need some compensation. I need some love down here in the (928). So, whenever you are free you can write me. Even if you are not free. You can write me. I give you permission.

Anyways, now that that is taken care of, how are you? I hope everyone is doing well. I know I am.

First off, Happy Birthday Aunt Karen, Hubby, and Elder Moore!!!

Things are going great here in Thatcher. Just like McDonald's, I'm Lovin' it. We have a lot of work going for us right now. We have a lot of good solid investigators as well as some good solid potential investigators, so now the task is to just Baptize them all. Hmm, nothing that i cant handle. Anyways, things are going great with Daleray, he is such a stud. I love that kid. He is still working towards the 5th as of right now, but we might need to push it back a week or so just in case. We want to make sure he is ready and willing to make these important steps in his life. He wants to invite some of his family to is as well so they can be a part of this spiritual journey with him. He is an amazing individual. He is completely ready, I feel, to make these steps and to progress continually in the gospel. So awesome.

So the other day, we saw a lady in our apartment complex that we see all the time. She is usually out with her dogs letting them "take care of business" if you know what i mean. But this time we saw her and said hello and then she responded with something I wasn't ready for. She said "You guys are just always so happy and in such good moods, I'm jealous"....That really hit me pretty hard. People know who we are. They know what we stand for. And most of them know what we teach. But they don't know why. They don't know why we do the things we do. Why we believe the things we believe. Or why we are in such good moods and what causes such a strange phenomena to the eyes of the natural man. Through are dedication and obedience to the commandments of God, we are blessed with so many things. We are blessed with one the Holy Ghost and its guidance, but we not just have the Holy Ghost. We feel the Holy Ghost, we literally feel the love of God in our lives and have a greater understanding of his purpose and direction. We are blessed with a purpose in this life, a reason for living and going through the things that life puts us through. We know where we are going after this life. We know where we came from. And we know why we are here. This is why we do the things we do.

As we are obedient and desire to follow our Heavenly Father, he watches over us. He takes care of us, and blesses us with his love. Why would we not want that in our lives? Why would we not want to be literally guided in all that we do by his loving hand? Why would we deny him the opportunity to bless us with his care? This gospel is so simple and so easy to understand and follow. I would not want my life to be any other way than guided by him in all I do.

I love my heavenly Father so much. I love his influence in my life and hope to always live worthy of his direction. I love my Savior, Jesus Christ, and what he did for me. Through him I can return to live with my Loving Heavenly Father once more. Without the atonement of Jesus Christ, without his suffering in the garden and ultimate sacrifice on the cross, without him conquering the bands of death and being resurrected, none of this would be possible, the world would cease to continue and the plan of happiness our Father laid out for us would have been useless. I love him. I love this gospel, and I love all of you. I hope we will all continue in our lives relying on our savior Jesus Christ just a little bit more and turning to him more frequently in our times of need. I love you all. So much.

Love, Elder Pierce

Fore.....