Reclaim and Retain Grind

First, sorry about last weeks post, it forgot to get published, so u get two this week

So if u couldn't tell, the past couple emails home were kind of downers, sorry about that. But the slums are over and it's back to the happy, party all the time missionary grind for the last 30 days. Wait, 30 days!! Still blows my mind, but until those 30 days are done, the missionary grind is only going to be picking up! We have had some awesome experiences this week! Honestly as this week went on I was like "man, I can't wait to write home about this." Idk might sound like a weird thought but it's what missionaries think about when something cool, interesting, exciting, or super boring happens.

1. First about the title of this post, "RECLAIM GRIND" for one reason of another we have been having some good luck with the less active members recently. One sister we found last week, then had two lessons with her this week. When we were calling to confirm the second lesson on the phone she asked us to make sure we could get her a ride to church. The next we actually found like a month ago..... We were knocking doors and she opens "I'm already a mormon, I am sick but would love u to come in" well fast forward a month later we finally are able to catch her again and have an awesome lesson with her and she sounds like she wants to just get back into church activity. She is great cause she just tells us exactly what she needs like, "I need you to find me a good friend I can have at church" and is not afraid at asking questions! I love love people. The Third is a family we have seen off and on, baptized like 4 years ago but have not come to church for four years...... do the math on how long they were active :) haha so when we have a discussion with them this week we showed the video "Approaching the throne of God" and by the end of they were just calling each other out for te things we need to do better. One tried to make the excuses for coming to church then the other was like "Did u just hear that man, we can't make anymore excuses!!" hahah it was sweet. Well, and He came yesterday!!! She was sick and will get her there next week but it is great to have these people rekindling there fire they all once had! Forth is our good friend Troy, I tell u his name cause i know he probably is going to find this blog somehow :) he didn't come to church this week (bailed at the last minute) but he is one that came to church, got baptized, then just dropped off the face of the earth. Anyway, we are best friends and actually went to his church with him on Saturday night which I will talk about later! But he is great! Last but not least we finally got in contact with this member that showed up on the ward roster. We are knocking on her door for probably the 6th or 7th time :) thats just what missionaries do when they really want to talk to someone. So we are able to sit down with her, turns out she is a convert at 19. Went on a mission at 25. Then after coming home she said lost her faith in Jesus Christ. Don't want to tell to much just scary to think that serving a mission doesn't mean u will always even have a testimony of Christ, let alone his church. So we set up a date to watch Meet The Mormons with her so i am sure that will wreck her!!. 
2. Second comes the "RETAIN GRIND" All three of the people that got baptized so far in this ward this year are still active! Ahhh nothing makes me happier to see, and all are working on their family history work to make it to the temple soon. So just a shout out for them, I am so happy we don't have any fall offs like the others have been :) 
3. The rest of these will just be experiences or lessons. The best one I have to talk about is LIFE POINT. hahah so this is a church in the area and we went to their Saturday evening service and it WAS A CONCERT!!! hahah no joke it was literally the craziest thing I have done as far on the mission as that concerns! We literally walk in, granted we are the only ones with a tie one, let alone a suit. Band starts playing, and this dude comes up and decides to put us front row. So let me tell u, this GIANT SPEAKER just rattled my heart for the next hour and a half. It was definitely similar to the concerts i used to go to where ur insides would hurt because the bass was so strong. Enough about the music, it was a decent service, projected on TV.... Didn't feel like a church service Christ would hold.... Definitely one of those "Draw near to me with their lips, but there hearts are far from me" 
4. So it was my comps birthday this week, and what a better way to spend a birthday than getting a Root Canal!! :( It didn't seem to bother him to much but that was definitely an exciting part of the week. 
5. Pranked other elders that live near by us. It included Fire crackers, Air Soft guns, and waking up at 5 in the morning :) yall get just figure it out from there what we did. We had it set up to be one of the better pranks I have done in my life but sadly wasn't.... I'll show yall the video when i get home. 
6. Our Lesson with Ralph this week was great. i am pretty sure I have talked about him in a lot of my past emails cause honestly I love the guy. He is just this 60 old man who I just feel like best friends with! This week we watched Jeffery R. Holland's "The First And Great Commandment." And at the end he is just like, "so when is ur church?" It might be cheating but I love to just let the Apostles do the teaching. 
7. I think it was on Friday this week, We literally lost the phone for 4 hours this week and thought our lives where going to end. Maybe cause we are just dumb but we had not idea what to do without a phone. Honestly feel like the Lord's work could not go forth with out a phone. But we did find it in my comps pants which he had not wore for like a month..... the reason it was there still boggles our mind. The Lord definitly played a role there, just trying to figure out yall :) 
8. Our Buffalo Wild Wings experience was NUTS THIS WEEK! So we had to B-Dubs runs on Thursday. Total of 32 wings which include 6 Blazing, and 4 Mango Habanero..... I was wrecked. I would not wish that on anyone. Actually I vowed that i was going to go on a juice Diet my last 30 days but let me tell u, that already feel through :/ 
9. This is an awesome story, so our appointment fall through around our area so i am just like fetch the city, I love the country. So i get on the GPS and find this place in the middle of now where and push go. HAHA elder Clarkson thought i was taking him some place to kill him :/ But let me tell u, it was a great place to knock doors! It was one of those streets where house are close together, but still in the country so u get the benefit of nice people and close homes. We found a young couple and then a younger african-american lady that has a boy friend that says she wants to get back in her church but the church she's goes to is judgmental and rude..... DING DING DING we found a dime!
10. So while Clarkson was getting his Root Canal elder Lockhart and I went our to find a solid investigator for them. Well 3 doors answer, 2 talk to us, 1 in spanish only :) The first was a 19 year old kid named Pastor Pete. HAHAH honestly he was a really cool dude. Talked to him a whole bunch, gave him a book of mormon, and leave...... He calls us 30 minutes later and tries to drop up.... Lockhart takes over the phone and rips him and their return appointment still stands. :) he went on some anti website when we left but at least was a good enough person to talk through what he found on there instead of a lot of pricks out here we meet that just drop us and don't have the decency to tell us why. Mini-exchange to find Pastor Pete
11. I was on an exchange this week with an Elder Hudson. He is a great elder, I have actually served around him before, he is from Cali, a definite beach bum but I love him to death. We did some good work though, as u can tell from the pictures :) 

Sorry I know this is a long email, I feel like y'all deserve one cause my recent ones blew. One last thing though :) a spiritual thought.


I want to close with one simply, important, and hardest concept in todays world..... PUT GOD FIRST IN ALL THINGS. So we have this inv. that is really struggling with this ************

Love, ELder CJ YOung

These pictures are from a Laser Tag place,

Elder Hudson and I after our exchange

Elder Hudson, I, and Lockhart

Fun time watching the Root Canal

Selfie for Dayzzzz

This is the epitome  of Virginia. #Tabaccostate

I was able to pull this chunk of ice out of my cup. IDK looked pretty cool

I, Lockhart, and my poor comp :""(

It was his birthday!!!

HAHAH the smile, love this brother

One our B-Dubs runs this week

The Patience Grind

HAHA this week was one that i can definitely could tell God is getting me on the patient grind. it was a struggle this week! Actually, not to bad but I definitely see my patience growing. We have been able to come in contact with lots of people but taking the next step and teaching them is a whole other story. I guess a lot of that has to do with the 4th! I do have to say that they don't do holidays as big out here but it still was a party, we had lots of fun. I am including lots of pictures this week so u can see the fun stuff we are up to!

We do have some great people we are still working with. A great family from Ghana is progressing nicely. We had a great lesson with him this past week and bore a pretty powerful testimony to us as we were explaining to him what a testimony was. He didn't really understand what a testimony was, then after he got done talking we were like "that's your testimony!!!" ahhhh that was so great!

Other than that.... the picture of the Krispy Kreme Donuts explain the next best part of the week. So there is this brother, IDK if i told u about him but he is not looking to join the church because he loves his church family to much he says but still likes us to come over. Well The next lesson we committed him to Live the Law of the Tithe, then The Law of Chastity, and then the Word of Wisdom. And we promised him a box of donuts if he went without smoking for a week. Well he did, so he got the donuts. The only bad part, and the reason we took the picture in the first place is there was a fly in the box of Donuts..... Tisk Tisk Kripy Kreme :)

But that was the week. i hope yalls 4th was swell. Definitely missed the Eagle wood Fireworks but I will get have to be there next year :0 Love yall, take care. and have a fun life!!
- Elder Young

15 down 1 TO GO!!! $$$

Man, elder Holloway and I, after we got down just both looked at each other and literally said this to each other. HAHAH IT NUTS, ITS INSANE, IT UNREAL! But hey, I knew it was coming all along so now is the time to start going HAM. :) This week was great though, to skip to the End I was able to go back to my home for a baptism on Saturday (pictures coming next week) and then the spotsy elders had a baptism also with a cool brother. So being able to attend two baptismal services in one weekend...... NOTHing beats that!

During the beginning of the week, life missionary work was great to. After not having many people at sacrament last week, that grinded our gears so we went hard with just setting people on date, and now we have two great families on date! So I am definitely excited to be able to witness at least a few more people get wet before i deuce out of Virginia.

Like I mentioned last week, Keeping the Sabbath Day holy is something that the brotheren are stressing and now the member are hearing it to. Just yesterday the High Council delivered a message on it and that was great. It is just crazy how important Sabbath day observance. If you have not checked out the 10 Commandments Video the church put out here it is, watch it.

But keep that in mind, we have been counseled that the church is never going to put out a list of do's and don'ts on the Sabbath. It is different for every family! So don't make that mistake and do in ur church meetings, instead we have counseled on ideas and ways to keep the sabbath day MORE holy. I know if we do that we will be bless, have the spirit more with us, and people will recognize each of us as disciples of Christ.

I love you all, thanks for the great example you have set for me, Take Care, and God Bless!!!

Always fun filling the font!!

Elder Holloway and I taught the resto at the baptism

This is the Zone last P-Day on the volleyball grind

Haha these are just scary storm clouds :) 

It time to buckle down!!

Well everyone, it's has already been another week, time is flying by!! To put into perspective as a missionary. Transfer calls are this up coming Saturday which is crazy they are so close, but even more crazy is that my last comp is heading back to Utah next week! :0 that is just crazy to think about because that means this is my last transfer call that matters :0 honestly just blows my mind, but it's not time to turn it up!!

This has been a fun week, as far as missionary work it has had its ups and downs. We had a zone conference right in the middle of the week which was awesome but kind of threw everything for a spin. I'll tell u about the conference in a sec. Our investigators that we currently we have are doing well, we are just trying to get a feel for them if they are going to progress! Especially with in the next six weeks. Oh, let me feel yall in on a plane leer Holloway and I came up with. So we are both going home together, we live right next to each other and attend the same building. Our plan is to make August 8 just a baptism day! So for the next 3 weeks we are just going to go home to find those prepared to get dunked on that day and make it just a great, giant service :) hahah may sound a little crazy but it's going to be sweet!

Back to the zone conference, that was great! Probably the best part was that I got to see all my favorite elders!! And the meeting we definitely worth It. Let's just say we spent all day at that chapel which consisted of like 8 hours of meetings..... To feel u in though on two big things I am taking away

1. Sabbath day observance

2. The importance of the spirit




I do have to head, but think about those two principles because learning them, studying them, and living them are the best things we can do! I love yall and God Bless




- Elder Young

So one day this week we started out by mowing two lawns.... hahah so this is one of them, Sorry for the Ratchetness

This was an awesome pic elder Perkins drew talking about the importance of the spirit in conversion. It is everything!!

My favorite Elder and I

Dinner on Monday we had a member bring us each one of every sonic kids meal! Bomb Members here!!

Just a nice picture of the sky. The Sky is really beautiful out here

This is actually outside one of our inv. homes. But another nice picture on the pad

And last but not least, the baptism we had last week!!

One more bits the dust :)

Hey everyone :) i hope that y'all's week went well. We did have a baptism this past week so that made this week great! If we didn't have the baptism, I don't know if i could say it would have been a good week. Honestly a lot of it is just a blurr. We did a lot of knocking doors during that day and teaching at night. A better way to do missionary work if any of you were wondering would be to teach during the day and knock doors at night. One, more people are home at night. Two, It is less hot during the night cause let me tell u all, THIS IS A HOT SUMMER!! Like for reals, I think it is hotter this summer than it ever got last summer. Maybe that is why i don't remember anything :0 

Hmmmmm I don't really know what else to say about his past week. All i know is now we have to go on the FINDING GRIND. We still have a couple of people that could progress towards baptism in the coming weeks but we need to go find more. Besides the sister that got baptized no other investigators came to church. I know ur probably thing "what happened to the five there like two weeks ago....." Idk we are working with them :) its just life. 

Kids did just graduate here. So that made me go back and read one of the talks from my graduation, let me share a little with u on what i like and then I will weave it into the gospel somehow! 

"You're trying to decide whether you're crying because you're going o miss highs school so much or if you're crying because you can't wait to get moved on with life. Either way, we know that today will be the best day we had had in awhile. Looking back at all you have been through, it all guided you to this moment."

I think about just that snippet, and how this straight up applies to the mission. For some reason or another u the times that u grow the most is when ur not with ur parents.... there is a reasons they don't encourage parents to sit with there kids at school, take their tests, and do their homework. I know many of our parents wanted us to but thats just life a time to grow. Thinking about our heavenly father, we had to be separated from him to not only gain a body but to really live and grow. He would have loved to walk us through everything we had to do in life but then we will just be like those kids that are sheltered the first part of their life where they are not really learning much. And finally when the time comes when the get to the real world and realize that not everyone wears modest clothes, doesn't cuz, acts like Christ. When it comes down to it most people don't even really care whether its u or that raccon getting ran over...... 

I am grateful for my parents that let me learn and grow even before the mission. That really was the greatest blessing that they gave me :)

Well Idk if any of this makes since, u might have to read it a couple of times or u can just move on to sports center, either way. Take care, Love u, and Good luck!!

- Elder Young

This is the group. Every Night!! #CoverUrA$$ETS

"The Face" hahaha

Great Group

Haha we have a good time. Picture this just every night :)

Two a days can really kill u!

Myself, Manuma, and My comp

Pictures from the baptism will come later :)

Lots of Meanness :,,,(

This week..... Hahah I don't really know what to say about it. It feels like just yesterday I was emailing yall. Guess that is just because it was short week. It has been a great week though! I remember telling yall how this was going to be a really tough area the first email, then the last email I probably made it sound pretty easy?? Well it's back to tough haha. This week we have had a lot of mean people talk to us. Some doer slams, other just flat out rude people I want to cuss out..... But I don't. I will share with yall something my comps and I have been contemplating.... Is it better to:

1. Be nice even if they are mean. And leave them just with the impression, or their respectable.

Or

2. "Get in their face a little" so we can really say we literally put our life on the line? And maybe leave them with a bad taste in their mouth.

You can see both cases of the savior demonstrating both scenarios. So yeah, if u have anything profound idea HMU me. If not its all good. But really, this hasn't been that bad of week. Actually we have found some pretty prepared people. One of which we have one of the most solid first lessons with, he closes with "I miss how my old church we used to call each other brother and sister" haha party went off in my head, that was awesome! So next day comes around after lunch and he calls to drop us. Lemme tell u what I think happened; he got so stocked from the lesson we had with him that he began to tell his friends and other church family and they just anti-Ed him up and down! Oh well, sorry cuz that was another downer story but he is one I am wondering if I should go get in his face a little (out of love) or just let him suffer in an average church till the next life.

Oh I guess I do have a big plus to write about. That girl that showed up at church a few weeks ago is getting dunked this Saturday, June 13, 2015. She will be the first one I have found, taught and baptized in 3 weeks. And it definitely feels that way hahah we have taught her less lessons than anyone else I have baptized out here but she is just so prepared and fits for Doctrine & Covenants 20:37 and that all that matters!

So please keep her in her prayers that all goes well that week. And that I am able to keep my head up the rest of my mission. God would send me to the meanest area the last part of my mission :) all good though, I still love him :) and love you!

A good friend and I

So we didn't know what to do one day so i figured, hey i am sick of the city so we drove to the country part of our area to do work..... while there we found this. This is more like it!

HAHA another pic of Elder Holloway and I 

P.S. I added more pics to the update last week to check out!!

P.S.S. if anything is spelled wrong or sounds weird, its autocorrect on this iPad :) 

Life is full of funness!!

What is up everyone! I told yall about how this week was going to the

be the bomb and it totally was. It definitely had its up and downs

like every week as a missionary. But let's go over some over the high

point guess the lows point can all be bunched into the category of

reacting and either no one is home or just ruin people. That's really

the only thing that can get u down in this area if u let it! Enough

with that, here are the goods!!

We got iPads! So that is what I am writing this email on now! They are

great, we just got them yesterday but we were able to already teach 2

lessons with them and have another 3 lined up for this evening. I am

sure the lord is anxious to increase the people we will be able to

reach as he has trusted us with these machines.

Next fun part of the week came on Tuesday evening and then on Sunday.

So Tuesday we were suppose to have this lesson with this awesome

sister, but apparently she had to go up to Detroit so we have the

bishops son and daughter out with us with no one to teach. So we were

reminded of this lady that asked for a blessing of strength because her

room mate was crazy sick,  and she didn't want to get it! Anyway we go

over, then the really sick lady comes down and wants a blessing. Keep

in mind she investigated the church a few years back and said it

wasn't for her, but now that she is sick as a dog I guess she got

humble. So we give her a blessing, heal her pretty much on the spot,

she gets up from the chair fine and goes on to show us her birds.....

So we were like cool, and then she shows up to church Sunday. I

probably didn't tell the right parts to y'all to understand but we just

had to laugh at it. We run into lots of people similar to that that

only come to the church or elders when they need something..... Oh

well, I am happy to offer them help :)

So on Friday we had a great day. We have a whole mission conference so

I was able to see all my good friends out here! We had elder Zewick

from the 70ty address us and he is a classes guy. I always am amazed

at people that can crack jokes, have fun, and laugh from the stand,

and still have a solid spirit with them while they speak. It was a

great meeting in which I learned a lot!

We had 5 investigators at church on Sunday which was great, already I

see this place turning into Tappahannock round two :) it is great, the

members really are great at fellowships get and invite these people

over. Things are just going great right now, I am sure my bubble will

be popped soon :/ but I continue to pray it does not! Especially

anytime before June 13 because that is when we have the next baptism

in this area!!! Her name is Erin and she is that awesome sister I

mentioned earlier! Just so solid and great testimony. One of those

that's testimony has grown because she has had to stand up for the

church so much in the past couple months!!

So funny story, we headed over to this brothers house who got baptized

like a year ago but is now going back to his old church that he was

going to before he joins ours. Anyway we have seen him a few times

before and we are friends. So the first few minutes we get there he is

making these sarcastic remarks and stuff which don't bother me but he

just thought I was taking him seriously..... So fast forward another

ten minutes, he agrees to take us to b-dubs as long as I stop my

sarcastic remarks :) hahah over that 10 minutes I just railed him....

Idk why, i probably shouldn't have but hey, that's what I do.

Let's see, what else! Oh I totally forgot with everything else going

on, I was able to go back down to Tappahannock for Emily baptism!! So

yeah that was super fun, able to see everyone. Most of them never

thought I even left :) but I loved it!! That place definite feels like

home!

Other than all that we had just some awesome lesson and had great

follow-ups with people that had contact with the church previous but

for one reason or another didn't join. So ur prayers are working.

Continue to pray for this area and the great work of salvation that is

going on here! I love yall and enjoy some of these old pictures I got

from crowley's camera!

The Baptism I was able to attend in Tappy

My new comp, he is a fun guy!

Ahhhh Jerrell, I love this brother

Got my bag with my shades back that had been gone for like a week :)