When the winds blow....

 ¡Hola!

I hope you all are doing well! Happy Valentines Day to you all ! And Presidents Day too I guess... This week was pretty wack. Lots of totally awesome and weird stories to tell! Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of pictures so that's kind of sad. 

Valentine's Selfie

Playing frisbee golf on P Day

Spanish Language Study

It started off like a normal week but things slowly started to escalate in craziness. In the beginning, we spent a lot of time looking for people and we actually found a bunch of numbers to contact so hopefully that goes somewhere along the way. It's kind of awesome just walking around and having God place people in your path to run into. I can testify that it's real. 

This week we have been spending more time with the youth and it has been pretty awesome. We got to play capture the flag in the desert and that was the most fun I have ever had in my life. We got to play with a bunch of young men and their leaders in the ward. The desert wasn't a sand desert like you would think but rather a rock desert. There were washes of hills and rock formations which lead to a lot of hiding places. I wish I took pictures because it is so hard to describe. The whole playable area was about a couple football fields in size. There were so many awesome caves and cliffs and I almost tripped off a 30 foot vertical fall. That was pretty terrifying. The 'flags' were literally flags and we got to hide them wherever. My team actually won and I even scored the first capture! I had a couple guys chasing after me as I was running up and down dunes holding this massive flag over my head. It was so fun.

On Thursday, Elder Rehkow and I had a pretty weird experience. We had a dinner setup with a family we haven't met yet and unfortunately they canceled. They weren't feeling the best that day but they still wanted to buy us dinner so they bought Chick-fil-A and gave it to us as we stopped by. As we walked away from their porch, gripping the enormous bag of Chick-fil-A, we made eye contact with a gentleman leaning up against a tree. We said hello and he approached us. We spent a minute or two talking about the weather and stuff and then moments later, he started trying to convince us The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was completely incorrect. He was pretty anti which is totally fine. We all have our free agency. He was actually pretty nice but... he definitely was trying to slam us. 

Elder Rehkow and I just stood there as he just went off. He never even let us talk and we ended up listening to his rant for basically 20 minutes. By then the Chick-fil-A was probably going to be cold. I remember Elder Rehkow having this glazed look over his face, he was so bored. Basically after 5 minutes we both spaced out and weren't listening to anything he said. His main point was that we need to not listen to what people tell us and find truth for ourselves. Which, ironically, is a huge thing in the restored church. You can't just go off what other people and your parents tell you, find truth for yourself! Everyone is on their own journey of conversion. Eventually we wished him well and asked if we could serve him in anyway. He said no and walked off. By some miracle however, the Chick-fil-A was still warm! Oh yeah!! If anything, that experience actually strengthened my testimony!

Later that week, Elder Rehkow felt prompted to go by an investigator (that's just a fancy vocabulary word for an interested person were trying to teach) and see if he wanted to play basketball. When previously talking to him he mentioned he loved basketball. Fortunately, at that exact moment, he had 20 minutes to spare so we played HORSE in the street. It was actually a lot of fun! We got to know him really well and we hope we can share a message with him soon. 

What's interesting is that all day it was supposed to be a huge storm. But the storm only rolled in until Justin, our new basketball friend, left to go back inside his house. Not even a couple seconds after he closed the door, a massive storm started. It rained like crazy and there were some insane winds. It literally came out of nowhere! Either that was a coincidence or the Lord held back the storm for just a couple minutes so we could get to know Justin. I like to think the latter. The winds were so crazy that it blew over a whole tree onto the road!

Seeing that tree in the road made me think of myself and my testimony. Testimonies can be like a tree sometimes. The tree appeared to be really strong, however, when the winds blew, the whole tree uprooted. We need to plant our testimonies firmly in the soil so that when the winds of the adversary blow, we can remain planted. Unlike the tree, my testimony is firmly planted in the rock of my Redeemer and it cannot be moved. 

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." - Helaman 5:12

I love all of you and am so grateful you read my emails! This journey has been really incredible and I look forward to writing you next week!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

Scorpion squasher

 Hola todos! 

I hope you all are doing well. I don't have a lot of time to write this week unfortunately. This P-Day has gone by too fast. Since we had transfers this week, P-Day was actually on Tuesday. I didn't get transferred so Elder Rehkow and I are still chilling. For those who don't know, transfers are basically a process where every month missionaries are assigned a new area with new companions. You have to pack up and yeet out of your apartment pretty quickly. Sometimes, you don't get transferred and nothing happens. So that's what happened for me. 

Zone selfie

I really like this area so I'm super glad I'm staying. The people and youth are so cool. Our ward has a variety of interesting people too. We met a guy who believes the earth is flat and so after talking to him, Elder Rehkow and I spent hours talking about the flat earth theory. The guy was so cool though, and such an awesome person. After dinner with him and his family we just started talking about crazy conspiracy theories and that was one of them. I've honestly seen some crazy things here in Las Vegas. 

This week so many awesome things happened. Like one day Elder Rehkow and I were outside at a park doing some studies and a bunch of kids went up to us and asked us to play baseball with them. It was pretty fun. Luckily Elder Rehkow and I were on different teams because we kind of 'carried' those 5th graders. It was pretty funny popping home runs in front of them. We also got to hang out with the Deacons on Wednesday and we carved soap. I carved a cool skull. I also found a baby scorpion in the church and totally smashed it. Turns out there's a lot of them during the summer so that's cool. Honestly, just a lot of fun things happened. 

My skull carving

The scorpion I killed

We're still teaching Adrianna. She wants to get baptized which is so awesome, but her mom doesn't want her to. The Elders before us taught her a bunch so she is super ready. We asked Adrianna to share her testimony with her mom and hopefully her mom will let her get baptized. 

I wanna share an incredible story that I had the opportunity to experience this week. I was on exchanges (or splits as they used to be called) with Elder Linehan. We were on a phone call with an individual who was really having a hard moment in her life. She was at her lowest low. She was raised Catholic and has been taking the missionary discussions for a while. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and I felt the spirit in my chest like I have never felt it before. Then out of nowhere she started talking about how whenever she is with us or at the church she feels really good. A feeling she can't describe, but it feels really good. A warm feeling in her chest. Hearing this from someone who has never felt the spirit or even knew what feeling the spirit is, was so powerful. She never even knew what feeling the spirit was but perfectly described it. That's the same feeling that drove me to serve a mission. Then we extended the invitation for her to be baptized and she accepted. 

She said, "When you started praying I felt so good, and I felt I needed a change, I am lost. I am so lost. But, every time I am around you and when you teach me I feel so good and I can't explain it."

My testimony was already rooted firmly, but this experience only cemented it. This is the true Church of Jesus Christ. The Spirit is real. This is real. 

I love all of you and wish you well this week. Keep being incredible people!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

A funny sign on someone's door. (We knocked on it anyways.)

Me unlocking the power of light :)

I made my own banana bread!

 ¡Buenos Dias!

I'm so excited to write an email to you all! Writing is literally one of my favorite highlights of the week. This week has been the slowest week of my life! Like wow, it just was so slow. It wasn't a bad week by any means, but it just didn't have a lot of things going on. 

Last week I said that I gained 5 pounds and unfortunately, I lost the 5 pounds I gained. Apparently it was just a food baby. Come to think of it, I did eat a big burrito that day. Also the tie dye sweatshirt that we made also looks kinda cool. And that's about it this week... not much unfortunately. 

The Tie-dyed sweatshirt

We set up 15 member visits throughout the entire week and then half of them got sick so we actually only had 8. When someone would cancel we would end up just walking around and talking to random people. Its fine though, it wasn't horrible or anything, just unfortunate. Sunday was the worst though! We had 4 lessons set up and 3 of them canceled on us. Fortunately for us, our dinner didn't cancel so that was pretty epic. Honestly, Sunday was just a sad day. Earlier that week we met an interested person in Las Vegas over Facebook and they asked to come to church. It was pretty hype! Until they didn't show up Sunday for church and then they ghosted our messages. That wasn't very hype at all.

So Sunday was pretty lame. When we got back to the apartment I was sad so then I made banana bread. Banana bread was always one of my favorites back home. I had some fun making it and it tasted delicious! I did pretty good for my first time making it. The bread looked pretty sketchy but it was actually really good. Elder Rehkow was a baby and didn't try any. Even after 30 minutes of slaving over and providing this delicious homemade banana bread, he refused it. Man... 

My banana bread

We're still hoping this interested person we met could go somewhere but we don't know. This week we finally got in contact with an individual the previous Elders were teaching. Her name is Adrianna and she is pretty cool. She just started high school and she has friends who are members. She was interested in learning more so now we've been teaching her every Wednesday. She has been taking the lessons for a while so we hope she can get baptized soon.

We've also been going to early morning Seminary every Tuesday and Friday. We are with the seniors in high school and they're pretty cool. This Seminary class has way more kids in it than when I was in Seminary. It has like 40 kids and they're all just seniors! Seminary has been fun and I hope we get to spend more time with the youth. We're going to play capture the flag with some young men later this week so that sounds awesome.

A massive bag of candy a member gave to us.

Turns out I'm taller than Barbie's boyfriend Ken.

Just driving on the road next to a horse who was walking down the street.

This week I have a great spiritual thought I wanted to share. I like to start my personal study with a question or a thought. Sometimes, I'll even get answers to questions I didn't even know I had. One day I was doing personal study and I was frustrated that I was required to do personal study at all. I have a lot of scripture knowledge and figured I was an exception and didn't need to study in the morning. If anything, that time could be devoted to learning Spanish. However, I read this scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 11:21. 

21- Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men

Before speaking to the people, I first need to obtain knowledge. Only then will I be able to speak with the Spirit. Personal morning study is a commandment, the Lord has required it of me. Only then, will be have to ability of convincing men. Its interesting how this scripture came almost instantly to answer my frustrations. I promise you all that if you read the scriptures with a question in mind, your questions will be answered. 

I hope you all have an excellent week and I wish you the best!!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

My weekly selfie

It's Nerf or Nothing baby!!

 ¡Hola!

I hope you all are doing well! This week has been an excellent week in Las Vegas! It's always so hard to sum up everything that happened in the week so hopefully I don't forget anything. Unfortunately, we still haven't found anyone to teach. Last week, we found individuals to teach and it fell through. They decided not to meet us which is kinda lame. Its fine though, I have faith there is someone in our area who is ready to hear about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Since we have no one to teach, we spend a huge chunk of our time looking for people and meeting with members. 

This ward is huge! We still haven't met with everyone after like 4 weeks. Everyone that we meet is so cool. The families really like having the Elders over so that's pretty awesome. We are still getting fed all the time! I weighed myself yesterday and I gained 5 pounds. Which is good I guess, I could use the weight. The youth in this ward are super awesome too! We got to go to early morning seminary during the week and teach some high schoolers. Its so funny because they treat me like I am so much older than them but I'm like only a year older. A couple months ago, I was literally just working and playing video games. I'm not that much different than them haha.

Elder Rehkow and I went to Walmart this week and Elder Rehkow found a sweatshirt he wanted to buy. We went to the self checkout and turns out it was only $1! We asked to see if it was supposed to be a dollar and a worker said it was. So Elder Rehkow looked at me and told me to run and grab another one haha. We took it back to the apartment and cut the sleeves off of one of them. So it looked like a tank top sweatshirt and it looked so funny. We're basically custom fashion designers. We then called a member and asked if we could come over and tie dye the other one. Its not done drying yet so you will be able to see the final product next week. Hopefully it looks good!

Tie dying our sweatshirt

There was a bunch of other fun stuff that happened this week too. We did some service for a guy in our stake. We cut down a bunch of trees in his front yard and installed some sprinklers in his backyard. I totally went ham on the trees in his yard.

Just working hard cutting down some trees

Elder Muraski being a stud

Later on P-Day we had a nerf gun war in the church gym. We turned the tables and chairs into barricades and walls. It was pretty wild.

Our Nerf course in the gym

Also some guys in our ward took us golfing for the first time and I just wanna say, golfing is actually kinda fun. I was awful, but it was fun. Elder Rehkow was decent but we both basically sucked. We got to drive the golf carts and pretty quickly we found out how to do some Tokyo Drift maneuvers around the courses. Those carts had some kick!

Golf Selfie!

Towards the end of that week we had zone conference. For people who don't know, its basically the whole zone gets together and has a conference on how we can be better missionaries. This conference had like 6 zones so there was a lot of missionaries there. It was really good and I learned a lot. 

Our Zone at Zone Conference

I want to you all to know that I love and care about you. In this world there is a lot of darkness and its so easy to feel lost. Especially now, I feel times are uncertain. I believe though that there is a way to find light in the darkness. That light can be found through Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings me so much light and I want to share that light we others. If you ever get the time, I recommend you all watch the video "The Miracle of Hope" by Jeffrey R. Holland. You can find it on YouTube or on churchofjesuschrist.org. Elder Holland really is an apostle of Jesus Christ in the Latter-days. I recommend you all watch it and ponder about its message. You can even share it with others who need a message of hope right now. 

I love you all and pray for you daily, keep being incredible people!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

I Wanna Be A Rattlesnake Hunter

 HOLA!

Life here is really great in the mission field! Not only am I working hard, but it's also a ton of fun. I am very blessed to be in a fantastic ward with so many people. I love meeting everyone in the ward because literally everyone is so interesting. I have only had to make food a couple of times, which has been pretty epic.

One of the coolest people that I've met here is a rattlesnake hunter. This guy, FOR FUN, goes out and captures rattlesnakes alive. The dude just picks them up with a hook and puts them in a bag. Then when he gets back to his house he puts the bag in a freezer so the snake will curl up and look cool then just die. It's pretty awesome. He showed us all his rattlesnakes in his freezer and they all look alive which is freaky but totally awesome. I wish I took a picture. Elder Rehkow is super scared of snakes so he wasn't having it. Since the rattlesnake hunter is in our ward, I asked if we could go snake hunting with him but Elder Rehkow vetoed that. Lame.

Most of the people grew up and still live in Las Vegas. I don't blame them, this place is pretty cool. I mean, I am in the perfect season right now. Even though it's winter, it's 70 degrees. It's so nice! Nights get pretty cold though, especially when your riding a bike and get blasted with some wind. Every time I bring up how nice it is, people can't wait to be negative about the summers here. Apparently the summers here make people go insane. I bet I can handle it though, I'm a tough cookie. Yeah but anyways, it's so nice here.

What my area looks like.

What my area looks like when there is a sunset

Speaking of bikes, WE GOT OUR CAR BACK! The previous elders crashed our car so that's why we were on bikes. I wouldn't mind it if the bike I rented from the mission office wasn't garbage. If I ever get stuck on bike again I'm going out and buying my own, this thing literally was the worst. The best part is that Las Vegas is basically a giant bowl so you feel like your always going uphill. Anyways, we got our car back. They fixed it all up and now it's good as new. Being on bike really gave me a perspective though, I will never take a car for granted. The car is super nice too, it has like bluetooth and stuff. Growing up, I never had bluetooth in my car. What a blessing.

Picture of my bike. It looks big in the picture but its super small. 

Friday was Elder Rehkow's birthday which was pretty cool. Someone in the ward dropped off a ice cream cake and we have been eating ice cream cake every night. Elder Rehkow and I have been getting along well. We are both very different people so sometimes I want to give him a knuckle sandwich. But we are patient with each other so it works out pretty great. One thing weird that I do is I'll just zone out or something and my brain is just completely inactive so I'll end up staring at Elder Rehkow. Every time he thinks I'm mad at him or something but I'm actually just lacking any brain activity.

Elder Rehkow and his birthday brownie
while we were hanging out with some members 

This week a miracle happened. I have been praying for someone to teach because all we have been doing is hanging out with members and that's great and all... but I wanna teach. We were street contacting (basically you just walk around and talk to people and see if there interested in a message about Jesus Christ) and we asked this guy if he was interested about hearing a message about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And he looked at us and was like, Sure. So we set up a time Tuesday when we were going to teach. I'm actually so excited to teach it's crazy. I'll let you guys know about how well it goes next week. 

A tree with some yellow fruit (I don't think they're lemons)

We get fed all the time so this is one of the first meals
Elder Rehkow and I made

Another picture of the bike I had to ride for the last few weeks.

I wish I could express in words my testimony. I am so thankful for my savior Jesus Christ and this opportunity to be a missionary. It has been so awesome and fun and hard at the same time. I know that Jesus really did walk the earth and die for us. And I'm not just saying that, I know for a FACT. I'm grateful for a Prophet in the latter-days that could guide us. 

I love all of you and hope that you can feel God's love in your life. 

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

A selfie of me walking around

I have HUGE legs!

 Hola!

I can't believe that this week went by this fast. Like seriously, what? I still have yet to have a horrible day so that's super cool. Everyday I'm learning and doing all I can to invite all to come to Christ. It's the most awesome and important work ever. Everyday I am studying and learning how I can be a more effective missionary. Ever since I have been ordained an Elder, I have been more motivated to strive to be like my Savior, Jesus Christ. It's hard to describe, but I am so motivated to do everything I can. I can retain information from my studying and share them without thinking of it. It's actually so cool. I know that I couldn't do this by myself, I have never been good at this kind of stuff. But now it feels natural. 

Each week I want to focus on a Christlike attribute and harness that in my life. This week is humility. I have been doing really well with thinking about the needs of my companion and others before myself. I hope that one day I can be super humble and never have any prideful thoughts come across my mind. Humility, in my opinion, is one of the most important attributes. Through thinking of others more than yourself, you can live a happier life. 

I still have yet to teach a nonmember of the church, right now, Elder Reykow and I are focusing all our efforts on inactive families in the Stone Mountain Ward (our first assigned area). Just today, we had a lesson with a family who have showed interest in coming back to church. We had one of the most awesome lessons I have ever had. I came into the lesson completely unprepared and words and phrases came out of my mouth and I have no idea where they came from. The lesson was so awesome and I could feel the spirit the whole time. The message was clear and I am still in unbelief how we did it. My companion and I never even stuttered and bounced off each other perfectly. 

I had this idea to compare driving a car to following the commandments . The commandments are like stoplights and stop signs. We are required to follow the rules of the road even though we really don't want to. It's so tedious to not just blaze through the stoplight. Because of our obedience though, we can avoid dangers that we never even knew were there. Because we stopped at the stoplight, we didn't get into a car accident. Sometimes though, due to the choices of others,  we get into a car accident anyways. We need to show them love even though it can be hard and be an example of a good driver.

The hardest part about this week has been the biking. We don't have a car because the previous elders crashed into a stop sign and messed up our car. So now we have to bike everywhere. Our apartment is 5 miles out of the area we are assigned, so that sucks. So everyday we bike 5 miles to the area and bike around to appointments until at night, then we bike 5 miles back to the apartment. Even though this may seem like it's pretty bad, my legs are going to get massive. The members make up for it though, there are so many in Las Vegas and they are so nice and feed us all the time. Biking with Elder Reykow has been fun too. Not gonna lie, were are both pretty hilarious, so we run into a lot of great situations. 

Well, I love all of you and I'm so grateful that you listen to my emails. Just know I think about you guys and wish you the best. 

Until next week,

Elder Pack

The cows here

Selfie

Me in an XXXL shirt

A local park

New Years in Vegas!

 Hola a todos!

It has been quite some time since I last sent an email and I'm so sorry about that. These past few days have been pretty insane and I can only email on p-day, which is Mondays. I have to send emails from my phone too since I don't have a computer so hopefully by the time you read this my mom can catch all of my typos. 

Last I wrote to you all was before Christmas so that's really weird. It just shows how fast this year will fly. Since then, I had an excellent testimony meeting with my district and we all said our goodbyes. It was pretty hard saying goodbye to all those people. I felt the spirit in that meeting and I know that all of those people are going to do great things. Then on December 30th, I headed to the airport with my family to say our final goodbyes. It was so hard. But I know at some point in life, we all will have to walk down that lonesome road all by ourselves. For some of us, we already have, and for others, it has yet to come. 

Saying goodbye to my family

That day was one of the longest days ever. After driving and dropping me off at the airport at 5:30 AM Illinois time, I was on a plane and in the airport until 12:30 PM Las Vegas time. I remember the first plane ride and the layover were shorter than I'd thought they would be but still pretty long. My plane had like 10 other missionaries on it so that was cool. 

After arriving in Las Vegas, we all met up with all the other missionaries that arrived that day. What's awesome is I ran into Elder Zuniga (my companion from the MTC) in Las Vegas! It was an awesome reunion. We got to catch up and then we both got a ride from the Mission President to the Las Vegas Temple and then had lunch. After lunch I said goodbye to Elder Zuniga and met my new companion, Elder Rehkow (pronounced Rico). Elder Rehkow is pretty fun and his Spanish is pretty great. Listening to his Spanish kinda makes me feel like trash, but I'm getting better. 

President and Sister Reese

The new incoming group of missionaries

My first apartment is actually super sweet. Elder Rehkow is new to this area as well so that's interesting. When we first got here, it smelled so horrible inside and there was trash and stuff just everywhere. But then we spent the whole day cleaning and now it is such a nice apartment. The previous people in there must have just not cared at all. The other elders in my apartment are nice too. Elder Thayne and Elder Whipple. To describe them just think about some stereotypes of people with those last names and you're probably right. They're great though and we've had so many laughs. We've also gotten super great at playing Jenga. All four of us celebrated New Years Eve by playing Uno Flip and Jenga. 

Elder Whipple about to lose at Jenga

New Years Jenga

Pics of our apartment

 

Most people think that the Las Vegas mission will consist of us going down to the strip and trying to preach to sinners but that is not where we will go ever. Las Vegas has so many members of our church and it's pretty great. I have been fed by them almost every night. One night we were all four walking around  Walmart to get some food and a member offered to buy us so much food. She literally bought us bagel bites, pizza rolls, and basically everything. I feel so blessed to be here. 

Well, before I head out to a new week in the field, I want to share a spiritual thought with all of you. Words of Mormon 1:7 "And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, He worketh in me to do according to his will." 

I do not know all things or anything which will come. I'm putting my faith in Him to carry me through this. My life is in completely in his hands now. 

I love all of you, and hope you all had a Happy New Year!

Elder Pack