I'm literally so rich!

 Hola mis amigos!

The grind never stops as a missionary. The days are starting to blur together and weeks are flying by. Good news is that life is still good here. It wasn't super hot this week which was nice. It's nice being on bike now rather than later during the summer. I will probably die if I am biking during the summer. 120 degrees on a bike sounds pretty close to the fire and brimstone mentioned in the New Testament. 

Speaking of bikes, Elder Rehkow and I went to a member's house this week who is a big bike guy. We had him supped up our bikes so now they're pretty awesome. My $60 bike was good at first but now it's even better! With these upgrades, the work will probably triple! The brakes work so great now, so when I tried them after getting them fixed I almost flew over the front of my handlebars. I've also been practicing riding my bike without using the handle bars. I see people do that and I wanted to try it so that's been cool. It looks pretty funny just riding around without even holding on to anything with your hands. Since we're on bike, we can't drive to go get food so I haven't used my MSF (missionary spending funds) in like forever. It just refilled again this month so now I am just rolling in cash. I don't even know what to do with it all! We never go eat out so I guess I am just going to be rolling in dough forever.:) 

My desk in my apartment

Elder Percival looking at me

Life is still moving on after Harlie's baptism. She left for Oklahoma and we've been trying to get in contact with the bishop there so she can smoothly transition into that ward. She was really excited to move but it was really sad saying goodbye. Gracie wanted to move her baptism from this week to May 1st so that way she didn't miss some volleyball games. Hopefully we can do it May 1st and that way Elder Rehkow and I will be able to see her get baptized. The transfer ends on May 4th. Man this transfer went by so fast.

There was one day this week where we just did service all day. We helped someone move from 9:00 to noon and then afterwards went to another person's house to help them move for an hour. Then we went to someone else's house to climb a ladder and drill a hole in their house. That was kinda fun. We didn't get into our normal proselyting clothes until like 5:00. 

Me on a ladder drilling a hole

We have been teaching Mia this week and she brought her friend Allison which was cool. So now we get to teach both of them at the same time! They loved the Plan of Salvation lesson and were super excited for the next one this week. We gave both of them a copy of The Book of Mormon and asked them to pray to know whether it was true or not that night. They were super excited for it. The other guy that we've been teaching, Bill, is a little more difficult to work with. He has some issues following through with commitments and we don't really know what to do about him. If you all could pray for Bill Duran, that would be fantastic! 

We also had zone conference this week which was pretty fun. We basically learned how to invite others easily and teaching using The Book of Mormon. I learned a lot! There were a lot of zones there which was cool. I got to see and meet a bunch of other missionaries. Afterwards, we had a funny miracle. As we were biking back to our apartment, a lady waves us down and asks if "we have an extra Book." We're like, ummmmm of course we do. So we got to use all of the things we just learned in zone conference in an interaction and it was pretty hype. She was so interested by it that she took two copies of The Book of Mormon. One for her and one for her friend. Haha I love seeing miracles.  

Our Zone my 3rd transfer

The scripture that we shared with her was 2 Nephi 26:33, which is one of the most baller scriptures in The Book of Mormon. It says:

33 For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for He doeth that which is good among the children of men; and He doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and He inviteth them all to come unto Him and partake of His goodness; and He denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and He remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.

After sharing that scripture with her we were like "how do you feel right now" and she's like "wow I feel pretty good" and were like "heck yeah that's the Holy ghost bearing witness of it's divinity unto you." 

Anyways, I'm so glad I got the opportunity to write an email and share my experiences with you all this week. Every day I see miracles and some crazy things happen. Everyday is an adventure and I feel more important than ever before in my life. I hope you all have an excellent week!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack 

My first baptism!!

 Hola todos!

This week was pretty great honestly. Just an awesome week. First of all, Harlie's baptism was Saturday and it was so awesome. We invited a lot of people and probably about a third of them showed up. Which is a little lame but it's okay. But overall, it was just a really powerful baptism. Harlie shared her testimony and talked about how she is so glad she got on the plane to come live here because she never would have run into the us. Her testimony was really powerful. 

Originally, I thought Harlie was going to ask me to do the baptism, and I really wanted to, but Elder Rehkow and I told her that she should choose who does the ordinance. It should be her decision since it is her baptism! Her answer to mostly everything is basically "God will choose who should" and Elder Rehkow and I are like ummm.... ok.....:) 

So later that week, Harlie is doing a baptismal interview and in the same building was someone from our mission presidency. It wasn't our mission president, but it was his first counselor, President Thomas. So instantly after seeing President Thomas and talking with him for a little bit, Harlie says "I think God wants you to perform my baptism!" So President Thomas is basically like "Heck Yeah I will" and so yeah that happened. Elder Rehkow and I were both wanting to do the baptism and someone from our mission presidency swoops in a takes it.:) Harlie asked a friend from the ward to do the confirmation which was pretty cool. Elder Rehkow and I were basically just there at the baptism to speak. But yeah, definitely a funny experience. 

Harlie's baptism

Another totally epic experience this week was when I accidently flooded the apartment! Our dumb washing machine is broken and we need to get it fixed. Basically what happened is, I started a load of laundry before district council and it just decided to break and flood the apartment. I was doing personal scripture study when I got up and walked over to the laundry room and there was like 2 inches of water running everywhere. I was pretty angry to be honest. Throughout the hour of mopping it up, I decided to put a smile on my face. I realized that being in the a bad mood before district council would only make things worse so I decided to be in a good mood and laugh it off. 

Our dumb washing
machine

Everyone else we are teaching is progressing pretty well. Not as fast as Harlie though because Harlie was awesome with keeping commitments. Every time we asked her to pray about The Book of Mormon or The Plan of Salvation. She did that night and felt through the Holy Ghost that it was true. Everyone else is just are a bit slower which is fine. We're going to see if we can put Bill on date this week and do a baptismal interview with Gracie, who is scheduled to be baptized this Saturday. Jackie and Adrianna are wild cards at this point. Don't really know what's going to happen. 

Last week, I got to do final exchanges with Elder Linehan. He is such a great and hardworking Elder! He is going back to his original mission in Medida, Mexico and this will be the last exchange I have with him. I'm going to miss him. While on exchanges with him we found a guy playing a guitar in his garage. We talked with him for a little bit and he wanted to learn more! It was pretty hype. Elder Linehan and I set up a time for him and his actual companion to teach him this week. Finding new people and getting a time to teach is always a great feeling. 

For this last little bit I wanted to share a snippet from a talk I listened to all about The Book of Mormon. This Book is so incredibly important! The Book of Mormon and the Bible work hand in hand in testifying of our Savior. 

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ explains: 

-The purpose of mortal life and death,

-The certainty of life after death,

-What happens when the spirit leaves the body,

-The description of the Resurrection,

-How to receive and retain a remission of your sins,

-What hold justice or mercy may have on you,

-What to pray for,

-Priesthood,

-Covenants and ordinances,

-The office and ministry of angels,

-The still, small voice of personal revelation,

-And preeminently, the mission of Jesus Christ,

-And many other jewels that make up the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This ancient record is proof that God doesn't just speak once and forgets about the rest of his children. He doesn't just call prophets, send his only begotten Son, and then call it good and never speak again. That would make this life an eternal waste of time. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God calls prophets and He is still speaking. The only way to know for yourself is to read the book, and find out for yourself. 

Anyways, I am so glad that I could write to you all this week. I hope that you can have an excellent week and see how God's hand is in all of our lives.

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

We got to see little baby chicks in a box at a farm

It's General Conference! We ate giant cinnamon rolls and I got a new bike!

 ¿Qué tal?

This week really flew by so fast! When I was first out on the mission, I would count down how many days I had left just to always see how far I've come but lately I've just stopped caring haha. I realized that the only thing counting down days does it make it go slower. All I know now is I still have a while left on my mission. Besides, I only get TWO years to wear this tag so I'm going to enjoy every minute of it without wishing away any day. 

All the people we are teaching are basically the same where they were last week. Since it's been spring break, everyone has been out of town and we couldn't get a teaching in. Harlie however was in town so we finished up a lesson on commandments. We're all super excited for her baptism this weekend. Harlie is a little nervous, but she says that she is really excited! Keep her in your prayers so she can keep feeling ready for her baptism! It's literally so awesome to find someone, teach them, and then baptize them. Like I can't describe the feeling I have right now haha.

This last weekend was something super awesome. We had General Conference! So basically, General Conference is a live broadcast when the Prophet and the Apostles speak to us. In the Church of Jesus Christ, we believe that God calls prophets to lead and direct his people. Since God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, he still calls prophets again to lead just like in Old Testament times. Prophets led to the birth of Christ, and prophets will lead to his coming again. So our church is lead by a prophet and 12 apostles. The whole weekend was dedicated to General Conference and we even got a bunch of our friends to watch! Bill, who we did service for last week, watched the Saturday morning session and wanted a recording of all the other sessions because he couldn't watch the rest. He loved it so much! We told Bill to look up the 191st annual session of General Conference on YouTube and he'd find all the recordings.

We ate cinnamon rolls bigger than my hand before Conference.

Harlie even came and watched the Saturday morning session and she really liked it. She said that Russell M. Nelson is really called of God. His talk on faith in that session was particularly great. 

Other than that, not much happened this week. I bought a new bike for $60, that was pretty neat. An Elder was going home after this transfer, so he sold me his bike for real cheap. Later, I'm going to go to a bike shop and see if they can fix some things and make it better than it already is.

 We did service for some guy and made his backyard look like a beach, that was fun. We're still getting a ridiculous amount of cookies every day and we had a bunch of Easter candy. That's basically it. Honestly, it was a quick and good week. 

OH WAIT! I almost forgot! It's getting into the 90s this week and that sucks. No more 60 degree weather.:( Its only up from here! Hopefully summer doesn't come too soon but whatever I guess.

Anyways, I wanted to share a scripture I read in the second chapter of Ephesians in the New Testament. It says: 

19- Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

20- And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

I like this scripture because it easily summarizes how the Church of Jesus Christ is set up. There are prophets and apostles, but they are ultimately led by Jesus Christ himself, Him being the chief cornerstone. In the New Testament, it was Peter, James, and John and then the twelve apostles who received direction from Jesus Christ. I share my testimony that Russell M. Nelson really is a prophet and he receives direction for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Jesus Christ. These gospel truths have really been restored by the prophet Joseph Smith and that there really is a God. I experience miracles every day and I am a witness that the hand of God is in my life and is directing me on where I need to go.

I hope you all have a great week and I can't wait to talk to you all next week! Thank you so much for reading my emails!

Sincerely, 

Elder Pack 

Service Selfie!

  

We helped my cousin put up their crib for the baby

 A weird picture of Elder Rehkow when we were cleaning out Bill's garage. Also since we didn't have a seat for me in the car, I somehow had to lay on the floor behind Elder Rehkow since there was no room for me.

So Many Cookies!!

 ¡Hola todos!

This was the first week of the new transfer and it's definitely been the most different week for sure! We're getting adjusted to the new apartment and new roommates and everything. I have the SIM card now which means I do all of the calling and texting for the both of us and now we're social media specialists for the area (which I still don't know what that means). We've been walking everywhere because Elder Rehkow and I don't have a car or bikes so that kinda sucks. It's still the same area but now we just walk everywhere. We're planning on getting bikes on P-Day! 

The new apartment is pretty nice with just a few downsides. The washing machine is broken so every time you wash clothes it overflows with water everywhere. However, it's balanced because we have a mini-fridge and a couch! Our new roommates are Elder Percival and Elder Jones. Elder Percival is training Elder Jones which is pretty interesting. Reminds me of a couple months ago haha. Those two Elders are pretty awesome! Elder Jones took a year at college before going on a mission and he's pretty cool. Elder Percival is going into the Airforce and he's jacked out of his mind. Every morning, Elder Percival also makes a banana, spinach, and peanut butter smoothie and there's always extra so he gives it to me which is pretty awesome. I get a free smoothie every morning!

Right now, we're doing so well with teaching and finding people! A complete turn around from our first transfer. It feels so good to prepare for lessons and then give them. Watching people progress in the gospel of Jesus Christ is literally the best feeling ever. Currently, we have 3 people on date to be baptized in the next month. Harlie is still progressing at an incredibly fast rate and were super excited for her baptism! Last lesson with her she basically described The Tree of Life story in the Book of Mormon exactly without ever hearing about it so we gave that to her to read this week. Gracie is still ready to be baptized and now we're just waiting for her dad to be ready to do the baptism. What's cool is really soon we're going to be teaching her brother and her step-mom! Elder Rehkow and I are super excited for that. Adrianna also accepted a tentative date to be baptized and we're going to talk to her parents on Monday and hopefully they will let her be baptized. We're a little worried about it but I have faith that it will work out. Everyone else we're teaching are pretty hard to schedule with but hopefully we can meet in the future. 

We had an interesting experience on Friday. Elder Rehkow and I just finished personal study when I get a call on my phone. I answer and say "This is Elder Rehkow and Pack for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, how can we help you?" Some guy we've never heard before answers back and says "Hey this is Bill!" We're just sitting there like uhhhh.... who? We ask for his last name and then it clicks together. Apparently Bill was taught by the Elders a long time ago and he still had our number. He needed some help cleaning out his garage and wanted to do a Bible Study so were like "Yeah absolutely were down for that!"

So we help Bill out for like 3 hours and he goes through his whole life story and its so cool. He's such an incredible person! He also asked us a lot of questions and he liked it a lot, so we set up a time to meet this week! It was pretty awesome. Since it took so long he took us to dinner which was pretty great. Also apparently, this guy worked at area 51 and told us some crazy stories.

So, everyday this week, members keep giving us cookies. Not even joking. Its happened every single day. Members have made cookies or bought cookies and have given them to us. On Saturday, we finally thought we weren't going to get cookies, and then at the very end of the day we stopped by someone's house and they bought us a bunch of girl scout cookies. Yeah so now we have 4 boxes of girl scout cookies.

Another funny thing this week was getting a road sign. There is a member in the ward who is a part of the HOA and takes down the old road signs after a while. So while we were there I asked if I could get a street sign and so now we have a street sign hanging in our apartment.

To finish off, I wanted to share an awesome quote my companion shared with me. I thought it was so cool and I can't help but share it. 

"Every challenge you face, every hard thing you confront, every bad thing that happens to you, every unfairness, every conflict, every sadness, or tragedy, every disappointment and heartache, every temptation and every opposition happens for one purpose only: to give you opportunity to respond by applying the teachings of Jesus Christ in your life. As you do so you are changed to become more like Him."

The name of the person who said this was Lawrence Corbridge or something along those lines. He was a mission president at some point. This is why we are here, to become the best we can be and return to our Heavenly Father. He sent us here to learn and grow and when we apply the teachings of Jesus Christ in our lives, we can do that.

Anyways, I hope you all have a great week and I want you all to know that I am loving working in Las Vegas. This area has been incredible and I cherish every moment. This is the Lord's work and can't wait to write to you again next P-Day.

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

Ayy! It's my birthday!

 Hola todos!

This week has honestly been so fantastic! Sunday the 21st was my birthday so this whole week I have been receiving birthday emails and messages. Thank you all so much, unfortunately I couldn't respond to all of them, but they were all so great. My ward has also been wishing me happy birthday through this whole week. Sunday was actually so fun. We had 5 people we are teaching at church that day! It was literally so cool.  After church I had lunch with the Litsters, then for dinner that night, the Kirkman family made me a cake! Honestly, it was a great birthday. 

Me while the Kirkman family sang happy birthday to me

One of my birthday gifts!

Transfers happened at the end of this week too. I thought that Elder Rehkow and I were going to get transferred but we actually didn't! We're staying in the same area. There were a couple changes however. We switched apartments so now we're really close to our area. We also are on bikes now and don't get to keep the car haha. That's kinda lame but fair I guess. We also now cover another ward really far away in Nevada. But we actually don't go down there ever to find people or teach. We only go down there if there is a baptism. The members will find people to teach and then all of our teachings are over Zoom. Its kinda weird but cool. The newest change is that now Elder Rehkow and I are social media leads. Now we run a Facebook page in the mission. I have no idea how to do any of that so are just gonna wing it haha.

Some pictures of my new apartment

We're still teaching the Pernyak family and Harlie. The other people we have been trying to meet with are slowly progressing but its just not working out. Jackie keeps forgetting about our appointments and Adrianna is really hard to schedule with. It can be pretty frustrating at times. On the bright side of things, we had an incredible lesson with Harlie! Some recent converts were there at the lesson too! (Recent converts are people who have been baptized into the church in the past year) there names were Destiny and Michael. Destiny shared her testimony about the gospel with Harlie and the spirit was so strong. She bore witness that the Book of Mormon was really the word of God and it has brought so much peace and happiness into her life. Then we asked Harlie to follow the example of Jesus Christ be baptized and she said yes! Everyone was like LET'S GO! Its so incredible watching these miracles click into place. 

Our whole district is having so much success right now. If we keep striving and everyone keeps making commitments, we'll have multiple baptisms this transfer. I am so excited for this transfer! Its going to be incredible. 

The weather here has been slowly rising in temperature. I noticed a few days ago that it was actually kind of hot outside. That has me worried because pretty soon, summer will hit and the weather will be insane. Like it was 79 degrees and I was sweating a little. Hopefully summer is shorter this year but well see haha. 

On Monday, a member took us out to dinner. Brother Beck wanted to take us somewhere we have never been so he took us to a Ramen place. I've never had real Ramen before so I was intrigued. Plus, Elder Rehkow and I don't like fish so this was an excellent opportunity to try sushi for the first time. I was excited because I love trying new things, but Elder Rehkow was not. He is super plain, so he doesn't eat anything new. His diet is basically pizza rolls and macaroni and cheese. He is one of those guys that doesn't like anything on his burger and he's super stubborn about it. haha! Nothing wrong with that but now you can imagine how going to a Ramen sushi place would go. I can say for certain, I don't like sushi. Elder Rehkow wouldn't even try it haha. Brother Beck thought it was funny though. So yeah, that was something interesting this week. 

I wanted to share a spiritual thought that another Elder shared with me the other day. Elder Flores and I went on exchanges and ran into an individual who was confused about tithing. He tore the idea of tithing apart pretty hard but it didn't shake my testimony or anything. I gave great explanations to his questions but he refused to listen to anything I had to say and only wanted to speak. Afterwards, Elder Flores told me that whenever that happens, whether it shakes my faith or not, I need to turn to divinely appointed sources to seek answers. Meaning, the answer to any question is in the scriptures. 

It's similar to counterfeit money in a way. Circulating throughout the economy is fake counterfeit money. You can tell the difference between real money and fake money if you know what you're looking for. All counterfeit money looks different, however, true money looks the same. You can spend your life studying fake money but that won't get you anywhere, to learn what fake money is, you need to know what real money looks like. It's the same way with truth and information. You need to know what real truth is and study that, so you can tell what's fake. Studying fake information is never going to help you understand truth. So after running into that situation, I found truth and the answers to the man's questions by studying the scriptures. 

Study REAL money, not FAKE money.

I'm so thankful for all of you! This truly is the Lord's work and I can't wait to write to you all again in the future. 

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

Transfer selfie with Elder Rehkow

I broke into my own apartment

 Hola!!

Its so nice to finally be able to write an email this week! This week has gone by pretty fast but that doesn't mean some awesome things didn't happen. This week was full of miracles and some awesome stories! 

First of all, the people previously that we have been teaching are still super hard to schedule appointments with. Adrianna still hasn't been able to get baptized since her mom won't let her, so we don't really know what to do there. Jackie is dodging our calls, texts, and even our door knocks. We had dinner with Justin, his family, and another members family. The dinner went well and hopefully he will let us in to give a lesson. So we have been slowly inching forward with progressing our friends, but still have a long way to go. 

This week something interesting happened. So we got a call from the Sister missionaries from another zone to tell us about a referral. A referral is basically someone you have been teaching and you 'refer' them to other missionaries for one reason or another. The Sisters have been teaching this young girl named Gracie and now she really wants to get baptized! Turns out, her dad and step-mom live in our area so technically we should be teaching her. The Sisters referred them to us so now we get to teach them and help them progress. Gracie's friend is a member of the church and she invited Gracie to come to church. Gracie really liked it and decided to take missionary discussions. Now she wants to get baptized! What's even better is that her father was a member a long time ago and now wants to come back so he can baptize Gracie. Plus even her step-mom and her brother want to take the missionary lessons as well! It's literally so cool! All because that one little girl wanted to be a missionary for Gracie, her entire family is coming together. We taught her two lessons this week and got an opportunity to hear her testimony of the gospel! Her testimony was so strong and incredible. Just listening to it strengthened mine as well. Gracie is literally so cool and Elder Rehkow and I can't wait to teach her and her family. 

The Sister Missionaries and us teaching Gracie and her family

This week we had exchanges again. Exchanges are basically a day where you and another missionary swap areas for a day. It gives missionaries an opportunity to learn about other missionaries during a transfer. So I went to Elder Linehan's area and Elder Michaelson and Rehkow went together for a day. Elder Linehan is such an incredible missionary. He inspires me to be better. I even got the opportunity to put someone on date to be baptized while I was in his area. After the lesson as we were walking outside, our mission president calls us. He asked how good Elder Linehan's Spanish was because his actual assigned mission opened up again! Elder Linehan is headed to Mexico again! Medida Mexico was his original mission call, but because of Covid-19, he was reassigned to Las Vegas, Nevada. Now he is able to go back to Mexico! 

Selfie with Elder Linehan

Later that night, we needed to get something out of Elder Rehkow and I's apartment but Elder Linehan and I didn't have the keys. So we called them but it was going to be another 20 minutes. We decided we couldn't wait that long so Elder Linehan busted the window open with his fist and there were glass shards everywhere!     Haha, I'm just kidding. Turns out the window was unlocked so we slid it opened and climbed inside. We basically broke into our own apartment. Elder Linehan then got a little frisky and hid Elder Rehkow's bed. He put the box spring in the shower and the mattress in the closet. I'm not a big prankster person myself, but Elder Linehan was apparently. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty funny though. 

The bedframe and a special note to Elder Rehkow

The mattress in the closet

The box spring in the shower

Another mega fat miracle happened this week too. As we were walking from a lesson, we happened to cross the street in a neighborhood and run into a 25 year old woman named Harlie. She was on her way home from work. We talked for a little bit and then she glanced at the nametags. "Oh... You guys are Mormons!" She said. We laughed and corrected her on the name of the church and all that. Turns out, her ex-boyfriend was a member. We talked for a while longer and then she said how we were fun and cool. She said we had some "great energy and vibes!" Yeah so what's even more funny is instead of us asking to get her number, she asked us. She basically was doing the missionary work for us! We set up an appointment to teach her in the park on Sunday. She warned us however that she was a very spiritual person and had many strong beliefs.

Now the miracle doesn't end there. So we're in the park on Sunday meeting up with Harlie and talked for a long time. We got to know her really well. Turns out, she is just saving money in Las Vegas to go back to Oklahoma. She has had a rough past and so she was just living here trying to get money. So then we get to teach her a lesson and she warns us before hand that she has some specific deep rooted beliefs that she believes in. We start teaching her about the Plan of Salvation and she was really into it. She starts talking about her own beliefs and turns out, everything she said, is part of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She literally described the Plan of Salvation, without ever hearing it before, exactly. Like not even joking. Harlie described heaven and degrees of glory exactly. She said that she prayed with Heavenly Father often and said that was what she felt was truth. The doctrine we teach! We finished the Plan of Salvation lesson and she loved every bit of it. The spirit was so strong. 

"I had no idea you taught all of this. I always just saw you guys as Mormons. But there is more to it."

Harlie then said that she wanted to join the church. Right then and there. We were like so happy and excited. We gave her a Book of Mormon, told her to read Moroni chapter 10, and told her to pray about whether the Book of Mormon really was the word of God. We promised her that she would receive and answer. She was ecstatic and said she couldn't wait to meet with us again!

I know that The Bible and The Book of Mormon are the word of God. They work together to testify of Jesus Christ. I know for a FACT that this is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ on earth. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints truly is the same church Christ established on the earth. Miracles are real! I promise you that if you want to find happiness and truth, read The Book of Mormon. If you want to know where we came from, why are we here, and where are going, read the Book of Mormon. I know that it is true, and I know our Heavenly Father does as well. 

I love all of you and hope you have an excellent week! 

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

We did some service and helped Robert and his wife hang some shelves

Street Contacting (Night Time Edition!)

 Hola todos!

This week has definitely felt like my longest week for sure! But it's so nice that it's finally P-Day and I can just chill. Having this opportunity to write to you all is also such a blessing. 

At the beginning of this week, Elder Rehkow and I felt that we needed to try something different. We have just been going at it and were not experiencing any fruit from our labors. No real 'New People' to be teaching. So this week, instead of making a goal to find 1 new person, we made a goal to find 5 new people! We did this to show the Lord that we have faith enough to find 5 new people and we were willing to work for it. So everyday, we contacted at a breakneck pace. Every free 10 minutes we got, we were out walking around. Instead of doing our language study at night, we walked around until 9:00 pm. Even though it was super dark out, we were still walking through neighborhoods and parks until 9:00 pm. My feet basically hurt all the time now so that's cool. It didn't help that I got a blister on my foot too.

Throughout the whole week, we didn't find a single new person. It was pretty discouraging, I was convinced that we would find 5 people throughout the week haha. I remember getting back to the car on Sunday night after walking for 3 hours and just being so tired and sad. But honestly, its not too big of a deal. We worked really hard and I'm sure it made a difference in someone's life. There were also a lot of funny and awesome encounters for sure, especially when your walking around at night in Las Vegas!

For the most part, most people we talked to were either using drugs at that time or may not have been the most sane people. But every once in a while we had a good discussion! We actually handed out 4 copies of the Book of Mormon during the week which is pretty great for our area. On one night in particular, at 8:55 while we were heading back to our car, we ran into a guy taking something out to his car. His name was Gabe and he was super nice. We talked for a little bit and turns out, he was actually a convert but hasn't been to the church in a while. He wasn't from around here though and he was just staying with his parents for a week. We asked to share a lesson with him on Friday and he said yeah! His parents weren't members so we were hoping that they would be there during the lesson. 

When we got there on Friday, his parents took one look at us and went inside the house. Gabe came outside and said we should do the lesson on the front porch. Luckily, everyday in Vegas has super nice weather! We shared chapter 32 from Alma and talked about faith. I don't know how to explain it, but the spirit was there that day. It was so strong and Gabe felt it too. He started to cry and said he needed to hear that. After a few years of not going to church, he wanted to go back to church and start reading the Book of Mormon again. It was literally a miracle to meet him at 8:55 pm before we left the neighborhood, and then be able to help him on Friday. It was an amazing experience!

A bunch of other fun stuff happened this week! We saw a cat while night contacting which was pretty awesome. He just followed us for 30 minutes and basically became our best bud.

Our new cat friend

We are still playing basketball at the park. That's been pretty fun. Next time we play, I wanna write Helaman 5:12 on the bottom of my shoes. I want everyone to see my firm foundation in Christ as I dunk of them. I also played basketball with my cousin on Saturday. That was pretty great. Oh and I had a really weird dinner with one of the members in my ward. He made us these massive steaks and supersized potatoes! These things were huge. He also said that if we ate a whole steak and a supersized potato without puking, we would get 60 bucks. Unfortunately, I didn't finish the potato. Like not even joking, those things were like tanks! My companion however ate it all and got 60 bucks. Usually he's not a big eater but he's also super competitive. He'd rather die than let anyone beat him in anything. 

Me and my potato

This week, I also had a story that I will cherish forever. It really shows how service and never giving up really can help you do anything! So Elder Rehkow and I ended up knocking on a members door We don't knock doors during Covid-19 but if they're a member we can. We've never met with him before and it said in our records that a member lived there. His wife answered and she was super nice but adamant that they didn't want us sharing a message or anything. The family was Baptist now and really did not want to talk 'theology' or whatever. We somehow convinced her to let us do some service for the family.  It was a miracle we even got to do that for them. So the next day we showed up to pull weeds in their front and back yard. We asked another member who was a youth to come help weed so we had him there to help too. After finishing, the lawn looked really good and we kept our promise of not talking about church! What's interesting is that after we left, the family texted us and told us that we should come over for dinner sometime! They even said we could share a spiritual thought! So the next day, all three of us had dinner with them and it went super well. They were super nice and we shared a short scripture with them. We read James 1:5-6 and talked about how we can ask God for any knowledge we lack.

It goes to show how service can really soften the hearts of people. They didn't care about us, until we showed them that we really cared about them!

I love you all and am thankful that you read my emails! I know that this church is true and there is nothing that is going to stop me from sharing its divinity. I hope you all have an excellent week!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

Night time selfie