Livin On a Prayer!

Tommy used to work on the docks, unions been on strike, he's down on his luck its tough, oooh so tough. 

Gina works the diner all day, workin for her man, she brings home her pay for loooveee. oooh for looovveee. 

She says we gotta hold on to what we got, it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not, we got each other and thats a lot for love. 

WE'LL GIVE IT A SHOT!

WOOOOAAAAHHHH  were halfway there!! WOOOOAAAAAHHHH LIVIN ON A PRAYER  

take my hand and we'll make it i sweeaaarr WOOOAAAAHHH LIVIN ON A PRAYER. 

haha jk this is the real weekly. 

But you guessed it, Thursday was my year mark and it was weird. 

Wednesday night a missionary here in the VRM came and stayed with us, his dad died the week before so he was going home for a few days and going to the funeral and he comes back tonight. But Elder Jones and I had him stay at our place cause we live the closest to the Richmond Airport. We had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to go and drop him off Thursday. He is handling it like a champ, sad situation but he's doing okay. But yeah exactly a year from when I left I'm back at the Richmond airport. Talk about weird... Anyway. Last Wednesday was zone conference and it was awesome. We talked about the power and authority of our calling. President talked about the apostasy and the restoration of priesthood authority which we hold. And how we and the sisters act under the authority of the Prophet and the Twelve to do missionary work. We then talked about power and personal purity, it was basically a call to repentance for the entire mission. Fun stuff. But President Zobrist, the 1st counselor to Pres. Smith gave a training on the natural man, and how we can not only ignore him, but conquer him for good. It was awesome. On Friday we taught Michelle, Ryan and Mia again, we taught them the law of chastity and the word of wisdom which was super awkward cause Michelle is the mom and Ryan and Mia are 12 and 14 but it went really well. They're on date for September 8th. Friday night we taught Tamika, and it was the coolest lesson ever! We planned on teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ but we started talking about baptism and authority, she started asking really good questions, like what happens to all the other people who aren't baptized into your church? So we got to explain all about the spirit world and baptism for the dead, we taught all of this out of the Bible and she was mind blown she had never been taught this before. You could just see the light bulb hit her and she just said "Hold on y'all, this is crazy I'm having a panic attack, this just makes so much sense" especially how we explained were all going to be resurrected and and then judged and then receive our eternal inheritance. Not just you die and then heaven and hell, and then we'll be resurrected at some future point, but we'll have already been judged? Doesn't make sense but thats what everyone else teaches. I asked her "can you see how what you've been taught even contradicts itself?" I then proceeded to show her in the bible and the book of mormon the correct doctrine, it was powerful. Saturday we went to meet a potential investigator named Hani, he's from Jordan. We went to meet him at his restaurant, he let us in the back, thinking we were going to be able to teach him we got all excited but turns out he just wanted us to fix his printer and hook it up to the internet. After doing that and standing awkwardly in his store for a while we left hahha, you had to be there it was WEIRD. I love you all! This next year is going to be great! This past year I've learned so much about the scriptures and have really grown to love them. I’ve learned so much about the life and atonement of Jesus Christ, and how much he loves me. I’ve felt God's love and never ending kindness towards me. I’ve learned to love everyone here in the ghettos of Richmond. And most of all I've learned to build my foundation on the correct doctrine and the only true and living church in all the world. The gospel is true everyone. This past week we also ran into a Jehovahs witness and of course he let us in and tried to convert us. We (kindly) roasted him with correct doctrine about the spirit world and the afterlife, out of the same bible he was using(new world translation) but we bore our testimonies and left. And that was just a testimony builder to me on how correct our doctrine truly is and how happy and perfect the Plan of Salvation truly is. Love you all. 

chillin in Hani's store fixing the internet

richmond airport, quick snapshot as we were leaving 

brother Edwards (aka the guy from the chess short at the beginning of bugs life) 

What a Week!

So this week was transfers. Monday we packed all of Elder Bakers stuff. Tuesday was pretty normal, not much to report on there we tracted a little bit. Transfer day! Holy cow we almost died like a million times trying to drive across Richmond in the minivan restricted by tiwi. If you've ever tried to drive on I-95 you know what I'm talking about, plus when the flow of traffic is going 20 over and you have Tiwi barking at you ever 3 seconds to check your speed it gets a little nuts. We only got flipped off twice. Downtown traffic is insane. Nevertheless we made it and my new companion is Elder Jones from Las Vegas. He's cool we get along really well, plus he's from Vegas which is so close to STG we have lots to talk about. Thursday we taught Tony and committed him to come to church. He texted us Sunday morning saying he didn't have enough gas and no money to get more. excuses excuses..... smh. After Tony we taught Carol, she is really awesome she loves reading the Book of Mormon and learning about church doctrine, she just kept saying, "I've never heard this in my baptist church" Oh yeah we absorbed the Meadowbrook B area and all their investigators so now we just have one giant area and a million people were teaching. Only problem is about half are actually solid. Thursday night we taught Gabe, a guy me and Baker found last week. But his buddy (who was abviously high) sat in on the lesson and he kept telling us his beliefs about God, and how God is the sun and all energy goes back to the sun and how the birds inspire him and how he feeds off universe energy. fun stuff. But the lesson with Gabe went well. We talked a lot about our relationship to God. Friday we taught Michelle and her 2 kids Ryan and Mia, they're on date to be baptized September 8th. They came to church this week and stayed all 3 hours which was awesome. But we taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ and they loved it, Ryan and Mia are reading the Book of Mormon on their own and they take super good notes its awesome they're 12 and 14.  They comprehend it too. Friday night we taught Tamika, we had planned to teach the plan of salvation but we got in there and the spirit said to read Alma 32 with her so we did, we testified if she would "experiment upon the word" and "plant the seed in her heart" she would see changes in her life and receive an answer. Thats what I invite all of you to do. Numerous promises by general authorities and prophets have been made as to the blessings and promises of the Book of Mormon. if you have any doubts do as Alma taught and Excercise a particle of faith and experiment upon the word.

Elder Jones with a Barack Obama doll. 

News

Hey family and friends, hope all is well back in Zion. First off congratulations to Lindsey and Brad, who probalby won't even read this because honeymoon lol. Anyway, super bummed I missed the festivities but it looked like a blast and I love you both, so good job on getting married! woohooo. So this transfer we set a goal to find 10 new people to teach, (were not supposed to call them investigators anymore, they to be called "people being taught") anyway this was the last week of the transfer and we had a solid 4 new people bieng taught so we were bummed because we were six away from our goal. So we set out tracting and we found 3 new people in one night which was crazy, One of them, her name is Tamika, she was super curious and couldn't believe the stuff we were telling her about the restoration and all, so we had a return appointment and taught the restoration, it was awesome. The bad news is she decided to do her own "research" while we were gone, and the only thing that comes up when you start to google mormons or anything like that is just anti, so she got a face full of it for like 3 days, but at our lesson we told her none of its true and annswered all her questions and told her about how everyone just has negative things to say about us, becuause when you're the ones carrying the ball you get tackled. She was super cool and was like"yeah I don't know why eveyone hates you guys, everythinig you're telling me is okay" she was super confused because of everything she read on the internet was telling her we are basically satan spawn, and when we visited with her she could feel the spirit and the truth we have. So ill keep you posted on her. The next day we got a referral for a woman named Michelle, she has 2 kids and they are all super interested, they all came to church this Sunday and we've taught them the first two lessons. Its been awesome because they have a christian background but they've just bounced from church, "kept from the truth because they know not where to find it." but they just believe everything about the church and its awesome, they're on date for sept. 8th. Also I'm now going to be covering 2 areas and have a lot more people to teach and stuff to do. So it should be a good next transfer. 

This week on Kaydens critter, the most enourmous spider I have seen that was not in a zoo, seriously this thing was a monster, my comp is 6'3 240lbs so he has mammoth hands and it took up his whole palm, gross. 

Also a member has a copperhead as a pet, straight up, he caught it in his yard and now he keep it as a pet, its name is fang, he says if you want to test your faith put your hand in the cage, I think I'll pass.

Hey Y'all!

Hey y'all, another week has come and passed and once again. Not too much to report on. This week we found 2 new investigators, we ended up dropping both of them by the end of the week. Its super easy to find people who are willing to have "bible study" or just have a conversation about Jesus but that's about all their willing to do. On Wednesday we had lesson with Cat and Jeff, we taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ and it was probably one of, if not the best lesson I've ever taught, the spirit was soooo strong it was amazing, we read 2 Nephi 31 with them and when we got to verse 20 Jeff just lit up, verse 20 talks about pressing forward with a steadfastness in Christ and enduring to the end, "feasting upon the words of christ" it was awesome, Sadly Cat is going to have a bunch of spine surgeries here soon so she'll be out of commission, and out of state for the next few weeks. They also PROMISED they would be at church this week, and they didn't show, and didn't asnwer our calls or texts so we were just super confused cause we had such a bomb lesson with them. Friday and saturday we had exchanges with the zone leaders, they are spanish so we got to do spanish work all day, which I really liked, spanish is awesome I wish I could learn haha. But it was super cool and I was able to say a few simple things and introduce myself, fun stuff. So I guess this is like a fashion trend here in the ghettos of Richmond, but to me it looks like these ladies are wearing straight up just a shower cap, but idk. also we saw a guy wearing 2 pairs of underwear and then his pants and they were sagged successively so you could see them all, his pants were like mid thigh. I'll never understand.... Also we just happened to be in this complex knocking on this door right when the cops busted someone and arrested him for who knows what right next to us, and everyone thought we were cops, even after they left. They had some "nice" things to say about the police to us after that hahaha.  

Thought for the week. this week while reading 36 it just stood out to me how much Christ can change us, Alma went from wanting to cease to exist to seeing the throne of God and his angles and "[his] soul did long to be there." The gospel can truly change the world. 

It rained like you would not believe for like 4 days straight. 

this week on Kaydens Critters, i caught this baby snake