Ridiculous!

HELLO Everybody, and HAPPY THANKS GIVING! Well this is it, what a great time of the year and its time to start breaking out the Christmas music! :) #JBiebalbum To be real I don't even know where Time has gone this past year, I feel like it was just a few months ago I was up in Staunton loving life during the Holiday season and now I am in the heartland of Virginia! LOVE IT! This week has been, Well you could just say interesting, very similar to my week like 2 weeks ago with lots of fun miracles all during the week and then the weekend came and things got really. So hey, I guess i will just tell you all of Tuesday. So

at 10 the Zone leaders call and say that they are going to be a hour late coming down to us to exchange (ps missionaries are always late and let me tell you that grinds my gears). So Me being my antsy self decide to finally go to the church library and go print off something I have been meaning to print off for the past like 6 months of my mission. I made little insets from the page in Preach my gospel titled "The Book of Mormon Answers Questions to the Soul". So I print these off to put in the Books we are going to give out to people.  

So I am on exchange with elder Malone, he is from Box Elder and I guess knows many of my cousins up there so that was cool! #smallworld! We have a pretty average day, you know; teaching, healing, baptism :0 hahah but the best part was the end of the day!

The last few minutes of the day we go to find this former investigator and the GPS leads us right to a apt complex. Now let me tell you a little about Dillwyn Va. THERE IS NOTHING HERE! So to find a apt complex for us was like heaven. Se we park, stoked out of our mind and the first door we knock on let us in. We give them the spill, the ladies BFF is a member that lives up in Richmond so that was great. well when we present her with the Book of Mormon and show her the Questions. We ask if she has asked any of those recently, and she just started crying. She goes on to tell us a great story about how she has truly been searching for truth!

I do have to attribute this golden find to my mom, she taught me always be doing something and even though most of the time I didn’t love her for it. But hey, She is the reason i went to the church during that hour to print off those questions! So lesson for this week, Be Anxiously Engaged! Thanks for reading, sorry no pics. I promise they will come next week! Love you and good luck with life!

Elder Young

Buckingham week 4

Well everyone, I can not believe it but I am already on my fourth week in Buckingham Virginia. Time is flying so so fast! Sometimes I want it to slow down, some times to speed up but then i realize hey, Just enjoy it as it comes. We had a couple of good training this past week in the mission about making sure to have the spirit when u are visiting with people. And the first requirement usually for them to feel the spirit is for them to be comfortable. Good lesson I guess i learned there. :) anyways, as far as the week was concerned it was great!

- So we were in a lesson this past Saturday with couple who has not been to church in some time, when out of the blue these 4 hunters come in and..... well lets just say they were not doing much hunting, instead just social drinking. But anyways they are all like what are u guys doing, what's going on, and we try and explain but hey, how much can u do when people are like that. I do have to admit that it was sad to see the lack of care those men had. On one hand they could be building up the kingdom of God, but instead they opt out and go with the world. Well, news flash! The world is failing to "Come, join with us." :)  

- i went on exchange this week with a great elder by the name of Crowley. he is a great missionary and we had lots of fun. It was cool cuz most of the day we spent with the youth of the branch. Seeing the examples that we can be to those kids is just awesome, makes me think of my many good examples and leaders growing up.

- We got in contact with this preacher from another denomination the other day and it was great. This guy you could just tell has been prepared his whole life. He told us a little about how he found God and then about how a few years ago he just felt like he needed to study more and more into religion. Also so go along with that many of his friends in his past home were members of the church so he is totally down for our message. At one point in his life he even had to stand up for our church against his pastor in criticizing us.  He is sweet! I will definitely keep u updated on the progress on him. We will call him Todd for privacy sake :)

- This past week has been awesome as far as service. We have been able to help out lots at the food pantry's in the area and I love it. Just on Friday morning alone we were able to give out food for more than 500 people. What a great feeling that is!

- Best part of the week was when we got a call from this unknown number. elder Miller was on the phone with him and I guess he just starts apologizing a ton and is is just so so so  sorry. Come to find out, we knocked on his door probably like a week ago and he just waves and slams the door. And now he is just feeling so so guilty and calls us. i feel bad for the guy cuz I am sure that God worked on him pretty hard that week.

But hey, that is a great lesson for the week! Never be afraid to share the gospel. One, Because I know that when we get in thee spirit world we will have those we invites come and thanks us. 2, God will make them feel guilty for not accepting the message, sometimes it doesn't come as fast as this guy but that seed will always work in those people!

Thanks for all ur love and support and have a great week!

@Chandles_iluvu

Wild Wild Buckingham

HOLY SMOKES WHAT A WEEK IT HAS BEEN AS A MISSIONARY. K, I will just start off by saying this has been one of the most emotional, stressful, and intense weeks as a missionary for myself. SO, if this post doesn't make complete since I am sorry, haha a little scattered brained!

I'll tell you all what we did this morning, So every P-day we go to this member ranch to do our laundry and today we were asked if we could go and split some wood. so we go down there to the spot and we see just this deer leg hanging in the fence..... :( sad day. So we call the owner over and we get it out, but it can't run so we elect to shot it and put it out of its misery...... So you could stay my day started off on a sad but interesting note.....

Also so i totally forgot to shave for a few days this week and I started growing facial hair, LIKE WHA? hahah i didn't even know that was possible :0 well to bad I can't grow anything out while out here, so I will have to wait till I get home to see how I look with it :)

Mainly I guess this week I will talk about church yesterday, It was the primary program! Let me just tell you all, even though I am in a small branch with not a lot fo primary kids, those kids knew how to sings and did great. It was so so so cute! It was all about families and we had a lot of part member families there whose kids where in the program, and I know they felt it! I guess I had totally forgot how awesome kids primary songs about families are! One of my favorite lines from a song; "God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be."

So lets all just step back and think about this for a sec, even if this church is not true, this church would still teach the best morals and standards for kids now days. Well, I am here to tell you all that it is true and this church is the only way you can find anything close to complete JOY

Hope u all have a FABULOUS WEEK!

Love, Elder Young

PS. Well sorry for the short email this, week but hope you enjoy all of the pictures!

Some of my good Friends

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Elders Apartment in Farmville

Gotta love me some Elder Crauley

This was the sweet sister that reminded me of my mom :)

Selfies for dayzzz with these cutiezzz

love these two. Great examples

This picture COULD even be more blurry, AND it would still be my favorite!!! Cuz these people are seriously the Bomb missionaries I hope to be. #greatexamples

Sleepin Selfie

I definitely trimmed this beautiful hedge :) 

Eating my feelings away :0

Love this place

Hang loose and enjoy

I love being on a Ranch :) never thought I would ever say that. 

To the left of me is that poor baby deer! 

Log splitting all day errday :) 

Some sweet long-horns on the Ranch

Hope You all enjoyed the pics!

McLovin it :)

Wow, wow, wow what a week it has been here in Buckingham Virginia. Even though I feel like I am out in the middle of no where I have already grown to love it! The peace and beauty out here is what gets me! Elder Miller and I have had a great week meeting new people, providing some service and sharing some great experiences!

- The title of this blog is because there is only one fast food restaurant in our area and it just happens to be McDonalds so that is always fun. Talk about the super-size me diet :( 

- Most missionaries in Virginia right now I am sure are doing lots of leaf racking and such, well instead out here in Buckingham we do log splitting and wood cutting :) so what is great fun. I feel like I have been sore most of the week here just from the affects of that. But it is a great service we get to provide!

- One of the great people I got a chance to meet this week was a very nice homosexual guy. We just knocked on his door and he was a little stand-off-ish. We introduced ourselves and he just responded with well i think you guys are just going to judge me and I am not wanting to hear that. It was just great chance for me to bear my testimony that "HEY, you are a son of god, we are not here to judge you, just to help build you faith." After that he gladly accepted a Book of Mormon and said we could come back in a few weeks to see how his faith has grown. 

- I learned how to change the car battery this week. i know most carsit is pretty easy to do. But we changed it in an old Buick and well it was a challenge, but with the helpand guidance of a member we were able to do it!

- I don't know what it is but a lot of the people that we come in to contact with are older people and so it makes u wonder..... Are we just preparing these people to be "completely converted" in the spirit world. That is just a thought that runs through my head sometimes. Guess we will just never know the full effect of our efforts. 

- This week elder Miller get the feeling that we need to see this member that we were already planning on seeing the next day. But we go the day he gets the feeling and as we pull into his drive way he is out by his mail-box and passes-out! So we get him inside and he calls the EMTs to come and get him. We sit with him to make sure all goes well. Glad we were there to be able to help him out cuz he was alone! Spirit definitely working through us :) 

- we stopped by this former investigator this week just to see how things have been. I guess she was meeting with the missionaries about two or three years ago. Well we get taking to her she just complains about how she went to church with us for 3 Sundays in a row and all she heard was Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith. I apologized to her and we talked about how the main focus of our church really is Jesus Christ and building faith unto repentance in him. 

But now as I look back at it I realize that having a modern day prophet is a BIG THING! Not that the whole meeting should be about it, but that it is not a bad thing; we should be telling EVERYONE about it! Someone that god has as a mouth piece on the earth at this time, what could be better? FLAUNT IT :) not really but do realize the importance of it! 

- So this past Saturday we go over to this members house to to met him and get to know him and I guess he has been letting a friends mom stay over for the past 3 weeks while she is figuring stuff out. But guess what!?! The lady is my next best friend, hahah IDK why but we just get along so great and we have been able to tell her all about the church and she even came to church on Sunday! She is from Atlanta Georgia but hey, I am so lucky I got to meet her. Actually she reminds me a lot of my mom. This may sound weird but I have meet a few people that remind me of my mom and we get along amazing :0 hahaha

- There has been a lot of sad experiences since I have been here. in the past month there has been over 6 house fires and personal we have come in contact with two of the families. It is so so sad to see the devastation that has gone on :( I am glad that the Lord has sent me here to hopefully help these families out! 

- So lastly just wanted to mention a little more about what I wrote about last week. As we have been looking through old records and meeting member I have seen 3 things that is going to improve the work in this area. Not that there is one solution that can get everyone back to church but these three things I feel can move the work along in the area rapidly! BEING RESPECTFUL, CALM, AND LOVING. These three things I have seen are what soften peoples hearts. Honestly most people here just need a friend and to feel loved. Well, I guess that is one of our callings as missionaries :) I LOVE IT

Well thank you for reading! hopefully you enjoy and please keep me in ur prays!

Love Elder Young

P.S. Lots of Pictures next week :)