Week # 51 ~dum, di dum dum dummmmm!!!

This week was freek-en weird!!

Thursday,  We worked all day with habitat for humanity.   We were putting up sheetrock and we did the entire house.  It is a three bedroom home with  and a kitchen and living room.  We sheet rocked all the walls and ceilings and I was tired!!  But it was cool to learn and work on my skills at building. 

We are in a tripanionship for the moment.  Which is that we have a third elder for another week or so.   Until his comp gets here from Mexico. 

Any way on Thursday I almost got to kiss a girl!!

So the third elder in our companionship is a Spanish speaking missionary and he got a call about moving a piano.   After we moved it a very pretty girl came into the room and leaned over for a kiss on the cheek….and kept leaning in for the kiss.  Meanwhile I had on a “duh” look and my heart jumped and I was freeking out in my mind.  All of that was happening at the same time. Come to find out, I didn't kiss her and she was from Italy and this was her first time being in the USA and the kiss was part of her culture.  After I found that out I was kind of sad that I didn't kiss her.  It was a free kiss and a girl wanted one from me!! uuugggg!!  Hopefully it will happen again after the mission.   Hopefully she will be American and want the kiss just because I am incredibly handsome.  

So as for my comp. We are working on getting along.   I was thinking about him and have decided that the closest thing that relates to him is Jim carry.  The crazy actor, just the crazy part not the funny part.

The H’s are  doing great!  They are progressing very fast and we are almost done with the lessons. As a companionship, we  are reading in Ether and it is a very weird book it is full of people who just want revenge. I recommend reading it, with Dad.   

Love Elder Vance

Week #50 ~About my ward

 Hello my Family,

So this letter this week will be about my ward.

Our ward secretary is like a tan Santa.  He is awesome!  He has a fluffy white beard and mustache and no hair.  He also secretly slides a tootsie roll into your hand when you shake it.   He carries a Cain around that I don't think that he uses ever.

There is also another man that is totally super cool.  He can speak three languages I think and he is a retired Cuban special forces commander.   He was kind of a secret agent for the Cubans and he has told me a couple of his stories.  They are crazy but somewhat believable!!  His name is Malcolm Leal and he wrote a book about his life and testimony.  I'm not really supposed to know that he wrote that book because he doesn't want it to become widely known, but I hear it is an amazing book. I will have to get it to read when I return home. 

The bishop is really nice and wants to help us whenever he can and so does the rest of the ward. It is very nice as there are a lot of less active members that really need some support and help.  We are very blessed.

And that is a little about my ward and week.

My health is great and I have been riding my bike a lot and it is kind of getting easier each time.

To answer your question about school.  I am thinking that I want to go to Utah State.  Definitely not Weber State, during the tour of Weber State everything was really gross.  Thanks for all you are doing to help me.  I love you tons. I have to go now.

Life is good here serving, I am happy and healthy and love you all.

Love Elder Vance

Can you find me??? Where in the world is ATV?

Week # 48 ~UGG!

Hello family and friends,

Here is my quote from Pres.

"Your criticism may be worse than the conduct you are trying to correct" (Unknown)

This week has been weird and different,

I have been having some trouble with my companion, but we are working it out.  This has helped me grow because, I have seen and experienced some weird and patience testing things.  Things are getting better now because we are working out the kinks of our companionship and it is going way better. 

The weird.  I saw a man walking his dog while riding a ride on lawnmower.  That through me a little bit.  I had to look twice.

I also now have my shoe print permanently in the middle of a road because I stepped in some tar that was very squishy because of the intense heat.  It sunk about 3 inches down.  Then while we were walking on the sidewalk, I saw some birds squawking at us in the trees and sure enough a white poop came flying down at us and landed right on my shoe and made a splat noise.  Gross!

I have also been riding my bike a ton and it has been kicking my butt. The bike rides that we do everyday is super exhausting but it is keeping me in shape.  I cant wait to go biking in Moab again with all of my biking training that I am doing.  It will be awesome.

Thank you for those cd’s you sent.  Those talks that you sent me were awesome and if you could send me some other ones that would be nice.

The H’s, they are great, they have been coming to church every week.  They had some bad experiences with other churches and this ward has been super for them and their kids love it.  We are teaching them the first five lessons and answering all of her questions that they have.  They are planning to get baptized on labor day weekend by her nephew.  My cloths are holding up great, sister H got me a couple of new pants that are around my size and she gave them to me for free.  They are a variety of colors like dark brown, grey, black. 

This is a picture of a rain storm.  This is pretty much the normal rain that we get all the time here. 

and that was my week.

Well I have to go, love you all.

Love Elder Vance

Normal rain storm in Nebraska

Week # 47 ~Ups & Downs

Hello Family,

Start off any good day with an uplifting  Pres. quote.

"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit... we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts." (Aristotle). And may I add, "Christ-like, by doing Christ-like acts!!"

So this week was kind of a downer.  A guy that we used to teach died this week.   I don't know how he died, but we are in contact with his wife if she needs any gospel in her life.  Also someone from my school died on his mission in Madagascar from internal bleeding from the brain. That really threw me around the corner and back so that was kind of sad.

But on a strange note, I found out that my comp. loves to eat paper, literal paper, like notebook paper, tissue paper, the paper that hamburgers come wrapped in, that stuff and it really grosses me out.

On a GREAT note….we are getting closer and closer to a baptism with the H family and I’m really excited about that.  They are a great family and are growing in the Gospel. 

That is pretty much what happened this week.

I am doing well and am keeping on.  I am not in need of money or clothing, just letters from home. Thank you all who are sending love from home!  I really enjoy hearing how everyone is doing.

Love,

Elder Vance

Week # 46~ Hot.Hot.Hot.

Hello All,

Quote from pres.

"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact." (William James)

So about this week.

It is so freak’in hot!   The tar on the streets and parking lots have melted and it squish around with my shoe. What a mess.

The Hamm's, the family of four that we have been teaching are going great.  They have a little boy who is 6 and little girl is 10.   The wife works during the day and husband works at night.  They have a ton of questions about everything and we have most of the answers.   To answer your question, do we know what we are going to teach ahead of time…Yes we do plan specific topics that we are going to teach them ahead of time.  It changes a lot and evolves as we go. 

The forth of July we ate with some members home.  A potluck kind of thing and then went home at 9 and it took me forever to fall asleep after that.   All of the legal and illegal fireworks that people were setting off all night. 

While riding my bide on friday I hit the curb and fell off and rolled off of my bike.   I didn't even get hurt or tear my pants.   Later we were visiting a less active and their dog jumped on me and tore a little bit of my pants :( but she offered to sew them back together for me.

I have been doing a lot of research on my heritage the Tribe of Manasseh in the bible.  It has been really interesting and I have a little challenge for you when you have time.  See what you can find out about your tribe.

My new companion is fine. Yes, he is nice to me.  He has re-arranged our entire apartment and can rebuke me really good.   He follows the rules to the extreme.  I will be fine, we are working on things!

My money is great, I have plenty and I don't think that I need anything else. 

That is my week and I love you all,

Love Elder Vance

Week # 45 ~ Blessings

Hello family,

I am feeling good and fine!

This week was an unofficial P-week. That is what some of the missionary's call the week of transfers.  It was full of making sure that Elder Bailey didn't forget anything (which he did) and saying goodbye to everyone that he knew.   He is now in Omaha and I have a new elder and his name is Elder Millett from St. George Utah. 

I have not figured him out yet..???   When we are just talking to each other he randomly switches from a Russian accent to a regular voice a lot and is very random at times.   The good thing is, that he is a clean freak.  He is cleaning everything he can touch, so I don't know what to think yet.  Today we went on a tour of Hornady and I took some pictures and I will email them to you.

I have been reading my patriarchal blessing a lot lately.  I actually read it all the time.  I am still finding things out that are meant to help me. I just read it this morning and found something in it about my mission. What I’m supposed to do with the people that I am teaching and my companions both junior and senior.  I learned that I am to never destroy their faith in me.   I am to let them know that I am here to help put their life's course back on track.  Pretty Awesome!!! I will work hard at making it be.

I am recently reading in Genesis about my heritage in tribe of Manasseh and it is very interesting.  I learned that Manasseh is a sort of bad kid and got his younger brother put first ahead of him so that he got the bigger blessing.  I will read more and fill you in. 

I recently got my bike tires filled with foam so I will never get a flat ever again.  It cost quite a bit but should even out in the end in years from now when I still do not need to change a flat tire. 

I did not get your package yet, I think that it will come soon.   We are going to a members house for the 4th to watch fireworks at 5pm for dinner and firework fun. 

We are still teaching the family of four and are in hopes that we will get them all baptized before I leave this area. 

I love you all and know I am doing great.  Take care and read your scriptures.

I have to go…

Love Elder Vance

Week # 44 ~"OH HAIL NO!"

Hello Friends & Family,

Quote from Pres.

"Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is." (Aleksei Peshkov)

I think that we will get a whole family of 4 baptized!!  We are working hard teaching them.  I will let you know.  This week with teaching lessons was very slow, we only got 3 lessons in.

So the rest of the week was interesting, the temperatures were up and down the whole week.   Every day was a tornado warning or severe storm warning with hail.  There were 30 to 70 mph winds with the storms traveling at about 5 to 30 mph.  So all in all it keeps us on our toes.

We had planned a softball & potluck at the park event.  It was to get people to come together and share in some food and fun.   We wanted them to bring their friends and family that are active and not active. 

We finally got our first potluck/softball game started last Friday and it was a total mess.  It started to rain a little bit then to downpour and then to storm. If it was not bad enough, the tornado sirens then went off which freaked everyone out.   We took shelter in a nearby outdoor bathroom which I didn't dare go into because of the smell.  Our rubber bases that we bought at the dollar store blew away also.  After the sirens turned off we packed up and went home and there we found gigantic hail the size of golf balls. We were freaking out about how big they were. It was crazy!

Saturday, we wanted to try something crazy because it might by my comps last week here in this area, so I did the gallon challenge with another elder.  I didn't finish but the other elder threw up three times, we kept telling him to stop but he said he had to finish what he started, it was super funny. I was crying it was so funny.

I am pretty sure that I will stay here because I have not been in this area for 6 months yet. Could you send me some of Hank Smith cds please.

My time is up and I have to go…

I love you tons

Love, Elder Vance

My apartment Grand Island NE