Christmas Eve Gift!!!

I made a very bad decision Christmas morning, I realized that I got way out of the habit of eating my regular 3 bowls of cereal in the morning like I did back home. I had some free time while getting ready in the morning so I decided to eat 3 bowls of cereal just to throw back you know. I quickly realized after I finished the milk in my last bowl of cereal what mistake I made. Not 10 minutes later we were on our way over for breakfast at Elder and Sister W's house, and then we were almost immediately having lunch over at the Branch presidents home, and then a few hours later eating dinner at L's home, we cancelled on the last appointment where members wanted to feed us(we both agreed to do it another day).... I was ready to tapp out for the day after breakfast but it just kept going. Ever since I have not had a desire at all to eat any real food. I wake up in the morning don't want to cook eggs, lunch I only want a bagel, dinner canned soup if i could. I had so much really good, super prepared meals that I just do not have the stomach to eat any thing real at all the past few days.

Every where we go people are offering us food, cookies, candy, brownies, authentic Austrian desert, fruit. We are loaded out of our minds with junk food! After our car was filling up with all of this junk we decided we would reject any thing that people offered us and then we walked in a house taught a lesson and then a little 9 year old offered us some fruit and cookies and we just didn't have the heart to not accept it. TOO much food! Man my life is so hard. We did accept the bag of Venison bacon and sausage though. 

On the way down and back from Mt. Pleasant we listened to a Audio book called "the every day missionary" I believe I loved what I heard from it I hear all but the 4th and last disk of the book. One thing that I thought was a very interesting concept that they brought up is how every single calling in the church is a missionary calling and can be used to help less active and non members. It was awesome hearing a story about how a guy who was called to just bring the sacrament bread to church used that calling to be a missionary. You'll have to check out the book some apostle or 70 wrote it. Elder Christianson I want to say but i don't remember.

This Christmas was very interesting. I don't think I have ever had a Christmas that could be comparable to this one at all. Eating south African food, not having my family around, having snow (for a while it all melted later on), being with people who I never even knew a few months prior. I can't really describe about how I feel about the experience I had, It was very tender and humbling though. 

This could be described as probably the worst Christmas and also one of the best Christmas's I have had. What makes me say that is really only the love and the kindness that people gave me this season because they knew that it wasn't like any thing I have ever experienced. And it's those little kind acts that people did for me that really makes my heart swell with love and gratitude. Like how on Christmas eve we were door bell ditched and there was 2 presents left out for us on our door mat.(It was the branch president i believe because it was kids who did it and they have the whole primary in their family). 

What really got me was when we had Dinner at L's house and she had stockings for us that was filled with fruit and candy but there was a little metal can in the stocking as well that had an ornate snowflake ornament that was crocheted by hand for us. She, being disabled and not able to get out of a wheel chair and who has a million other health problems, spent the time to make us those and cook us dinner that day. It brings me to tears just thinking about how selfless of her that was. Being able to see a few people from my MTC district was priceless for me.

Christmas Eve wasn't fun at all for the fist half of the day, I felt sick, I couldn't even force my self to eat even though I was dying of hunger, i was nervous to sing ( I don't know why that bothered me so much, i have done crazier things in front of much more people and wasn't worried about that at all), My suit got Mud all over it when I vaulted a fence in my suit, I fell more than ankle deep into mud when I landed on the other side (it was raining) to give a guy who was on the corner holding a sign asking for food and money  my food that I bought that I couldn't eat. It all really sucked until all of those kind acts came and being able to see some people who i loved and cared about that I don't ever get to see. That night right before I went to  bed I was just overwhelmed with a tidal wave of the spirit and the song came to my head " I feel my Saviors love" I was so happy that I was given so many blessings that day, I woke up still with that happiness and smile on my face.

I have alot to be thankful for when I think about this Christmas. The Lord knew exactly what was important to me and he blessed me with those things. those acts of kindness, being able to see people, and being able to have letters from Home, Terry Tucker, Rex Zimmerman, and being able to call home meant the world to me, thanks! It was a special experience.

I gotta go, Bye, I love you, have a good day, don't get shot!

Expect a letter home soon.

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Catching Fire

I realized all of the pictures I take are all super detailed and they are cool but when you zoom in they are like 12 times better.

Man they need to make a collapsible electric cello, I was thinking about that the other day and they do that with guitars they need to do that for a cello so i could play, I have heard a few cellos in the music on the Ipod and I really want to play one resonantly.

So I had a interview with my Mission president this week and I found out that I am the reason why this whole mission is why we do car fasts on Saturday. After our car got put in the shop and we 

had to ride bikes every where I loved it and saw many miracles because of it and I talked it all up in a email to my mission president and then that inspired him and got him to come up with the idea that we shouldn't drive as much. =p I'm gonna be selective about who I tell that to because It will probably get alot of missionaries ticked ha ha ha.

Also speaking about the Miracles that came from the car crash I am still seeing the impacts of that. I don't know If I told you about the guy who saw us riding bikes and then a few hours later I knocked on his door and said like 6 words and he let me in and we taught him a beautifully golden lesson. Well I havn't been able to contact him since, UNTIL NOW! 

 

On friday we traded back from our trade offs and Me and Elder A just like caught on fire we had the spirit with us and we got super over the top pumped! WE BURNED a trail every where we went that day. 

 

I felt like we needed to go to the Branch mission leader's house so I drove us to Hillman and we helped him out around in his back woods house and then we talked to him about missionary work and we shared with him what we call "The Vision" It is a super inspired plan that Elder A just threw out to me while we were on the way to Hillman and it turned out that I was studying near the exact same thing in the Scriptures and PMG and then we were overwhelmed by the spirit and we got super pumped.We shared this with Bro W and I have never seen him so excited about missionary work, He was burnin up he was like itchin to go and share the gospel.

 

from there we felt like we needed to visit another member in the area so we did and we found out that their basement was flooded and we spent some good time with them (their basement floods just like our does but it gets alot more, we spent like all of Saturday with a shop vac dumping gallons and gallons of water out of there to watch it still come through the cracks of the concrete) But we had to reschedule a teaching appointment because of it and so we drove down to Alpena and we were about to drive all the way down to Harrisville and we got a call from that investigator wanting a rain check, So i am super glad we set it aside because that 40 minute drive down to harrisville for nothing would have sucked. 

 

I then had a thought, to see that family that I door knocked into when we had no car and we got in and taught a even more golden of a lesson where at one point they explained to us the Word of Wisdom pretty much, and their idea of what happened before and after this life was a piece of the truth, and it was awesome getting to explain that they were right, but there was more!  

 

I then felt like we should go and try to contact a referral we got asking for a bible a while back and he was like impossible to contact me and Elder W tried to contact him like 12 times. But Elder A and I contacted him a while back and gave him a Book of mormon and a bible. We went there that night and he was super excited to see us and he told us to come back in a hour and so we did. And that lesson was even more Golden! He was devouring the book of mormon, he loved it! He was like bearing testimony of the truthfulness of the book of mormon to me and Elder A. He is in his 40's and he is dying of cancer. And that is why he ordered a bible from Mormon.org for free because he wanted to make things right with God. And then we came and we found that out and we shared with him the plan of Salvation....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That lesson was number 1. it was so cool! 

 

He had no doubt that that was Gods plan for him, I felt like i needed to so I did it, I invited him to be baptized and he accepted. He then said "wait you guys don't have the proper priesthood authority do you? you aren't the pastor of your church you're to young" And then I have never even heard of some one actually having the chance to use this and I was talking to several missionaries who are going home at the end of this transfer who never had heard of any one actually using this as well. Elder A Whooped out his Ministerial Certificate and the guy was Amazed when he read that we have that Authority and then saw the signature of the Prophet. 

 

Oh man that was a good day! It seemed that that fire that we had with us caught on every one else we met with and every one was just getting super pumped. I think this area is about to explode with work, we keep seeing Miracle after miracle here it is amazing, I just begged my mission president not to transfer me because I foresee like 6 baptisms in the next 4 months. 

For Christmas Eve we are going down to Mt. Pleasant for a half mission Christmas party so all of the missionaries from the Traverse city zone and the Middland zone and the Lansing zone will be there =p. I AM SUPER STOKED! I know for a fact that I will get to see a few more people from my MTC district that I haven't seen since I left the mission home. Every district has to perform a musical number and every one in Gaylord tapped out saying none of them can do anything, so it fell over here for our district, Elder A is really musically talented too but he just got sick and sounds worse than a chain smoker. and we still need to plan it out hymn 112 is what our plan is right now but I may or may not be going Solo in front of 80 missionaries at least...........

So for Christmas I have 3 meal appointments... We had 4 but we decided to tap out  on one of them who would have over fed us as it is. But we are opening Christmas presents at the Whites in the morning and being fed for one of them. I realized that tis the season for Ugly sweaters and the weather permits it and I havn't been rocking one yet so i bought one at good will today. And Since we do our laundry at the "White house" I have showed up there in a different outfit every single time today ha ha ha

Aight well I gotta go Ill talk to you soon! Christmas!  Be there! Come prepared to talk it up.

Love  

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Single Speed Saturday

I am always amazed how many people I meet from Arizona up here, I have made hundreds of connections with people just because every one up here at one point of time viewed Arizona as the Celestial kingdom and they moved down and back or they are Snow birds and go down there as much as possible. But I swear I was prepared for Michigan ages ago, and the people here were prepared for me. I mean look at my tooth! =p

I have been in a really good mood basically always recently, my Jamm sessions to no music at all have been most excellent the past two weeks.

 

This week one of the members (the one who has us pray for his cat that ran away) was sent to the hospital, and we went and visited him and had to get dressed up in loads of doctor gear because of the illness he had was contagious or something. We went over and read him a chapter in the Book Of Mormon and he gave us a few things to do for him. One was to pick him up some fish food from Gaylord (70 Miles away, but we got it when we went to go to our district meeting over there) and he wanted us to call him from his house phone and let him talk to his cat. 

 

We did what he  asked us to do and I held his cat in my lap and we called him and it was really sweet hearing him a have a conversation with ... nothing, the cat was purring because I was petting it but that was it. He was really grateful though that he got to talk to his Cat =p.

 

We had our branch Christmas party this week and we had 42 people there and 7 of them were in Wheel chairs! It was really fun but I was conducting the music and helping people who were in wheel chairs so I didn't really get to eat more than a piece of Ham. 

 

This Saturday since we don't drive on Saturdays we planned on contacting less actives and that was an awesome plan  that we set up. But Man It was SO HOT! I was in my regular door knocking gear but with the Lama hat from Denton on. I was sweating hard core! I had to keep on taking off my gloves and my hat and scarfs and jacket to not die. I was riding a single speed bike and we had to keep romping over snow banks and we were riding constantly through ice and mud that wasn't frozen and we rode I don't even know how many miles. 

 

And basically all of our plans fell through. Our bikes took a Beating! We took a beating! we were covered in Mud and were super sore, we hit the couches and were done for after we planned that night.

 

Yesterday we were trying to contact some of the people we were assigned to as Home teachers and so we went down south to Ossineke and Harrisville and man we were in straight up back woods and there was no one around for miles. to get to one of the Less active member houses (every on our list is a less active) we had to go through a forest. 

 

Now in Michigan they used to cut loads of lumber and send it elsewhere which makes sense, there is a tree every 3 feet in the woods and after that area was cleared the companies would plant trees all at the same time and so there is alot of trees that are the exact same type and height in some parts of the woods, 

 

there was one of those on the way through to this members house and it was on a dirt road that wasn't even 6 feet wide and there is things every where in the way and so we went super slow. But Since the trees were all planted at the same time all of the branches were dead except the ones near the top and so there was no branches on any of the trees except the top ( i have a pic of it in the light) But Man that is the freaking Slender man forest at night! 

 

I thought of that and said it and my companion started freaking out. we both got chills and were dying we had to get out of there! that was all we could think of the whole drive back after the visit, we went faster the second time =p.

 

I love Elder A, we get along SO well. we were out in the middle of no where in the farm land areas and you could see straight down the street for miles on both ways and there was no one, and so I turned left and stayed on the wrong side of the road for a while and yelled "FIRE POINTS!" I quickly moved to the right lane and he was like "NO WAY YOU PLAYED BURNOUT AS WELL!?!" ha ha ha I have never actually met some one before now who has actually played that game except our family it was awesome.

 

In my many journeying to different city's this week I thought about scary things like when I fell from a tree 12 feet in the air head first last year and didn't even get scratched when I hit the ground, or when..... I have a few other stories like that from before my mission that it really makes me feel sick thinking about just because I should have been really hurt or something, and I made me think of so many Miracles that has happened in my life to just get me here where I am today.

 

Me and My companion Jam out to "How great thou art" By Elvis  all the time ha ha =p, He doens't like anything but classical for the most part but I have gotten it so that is always stuck in his head.

Well Bye I love you have a good day! I gotta go! Don't Get shot! (or go into the slender man Forrest)

Love,

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Frozen Glass Wave Attack‏

Well I have a new companion, his name is Elder A he is from North of ogden Utah,I love the kid to death he is so great! He is only about 2 inches shorter than me. Oh but man he is great he is basically like Napoleon Dynamite just he doesn't dress dorky well i guess I only see him in a white shirt and a tie. But man I love it he is such a nerd! I can relate to him so well. What i think is hilarious is day one he said " don't take offense if I don't talk to you to much I am a quiet guy, I don't hate you I just don't talk alot". But After I saw a stack of pokemon cards in his suit case...=p.

We never have anytime that we aren't talking I swear I have talked more this week with him than I did the past 2 transfers with my last comp. Dude he is such a nerd! I love it so much!!! We are out door knocking and he tells me all of these great things about the deep doctrine of Lord of the Rings, and we have had many Star wars conversations, He even told me that he took a Anatomy class just so he could learn of the real body structure of humans and animals so it would help him with the drawings of mythical creatures that he likes to draw =p. 

His Ideology of missionary work is just like mine though and we have been working hard! We have been using every single moment of our time effectively and it is amazing to see the "fruit" of it all. I also really like his mind set on several other things, we tend to be thinking the same exact thing quite often. Forrealzies he is basically every thing that I've been praying for in a companion for the past few weeks.

This morning we put our laundry in the wash and we could hear Lake huron really loud and so we went up to the docks to go and check it out and MAN! Lake Huron is mad! 

 

For the first time there is waves that you could surf on but they are a little to scary for me to want to surf on them seeing as they crash into rocks and ice. But it is SO beautiful out there! the waves pushing against the beach caused ice to build up the beach is like 20 feet longer than it used to be of all ice but it all looks like pieces of glass either in piles of oval shaped or they look like huge panes of glass and they stick out like death spikes out of the water. 

 

We were walking down the break wall and admiring the icicles hanging from the metal railings and then the waves came crashing into the break wall throwing water and ice at us and we just booked it! it turned into temple run. The waves were plowing into the break wall throwing water and ice up 12 feet in the air and over the break wall. And the waves exploded at us to our sides we made it to the end where the waves couldn't beat but there was no way to get off from there so we had to sprint back through all of this ice on the concrete that was in clear glass oval shapes that went half way up my calf. I was super fun =p Good rush we would have been freaking freezing if we were hit by one of those waves.

We've been doing some finding out in the back woods of Hillman, we stumbled upon a small community a few miles out of there and we door knocked it. I have finally met a bearded lady! Oh man it was great She had more facial hair than I have ever seen dad have.=p

It hasn't been snowing up here this past week, but all of the ground is basically ice but it's good because it makes driving at least 84 and a half time safer when there isn't a foot of snow on the road.  What I think is cool is how some people didn't rake up their leaves and then the snow piled on top of it and then a while later that snow was moved and you can see stain marks from the colored leaves on the side walks! It's like some one was stamping the side walks with paint.

 I love those Kid quotes that you sent me, They are so weird and cute =p. I also like how Emma like the "Birdy song" Black bird is one of my favorites it always reminds me of Dad, Uncle Jared, Michael, and Jeff all around a camp fire jamming on their guitars while we were out on one of the Dude fishing trips.

Whelp I gotta Go. Bye I love you have a good day, don't get impaled by an ice wave =p

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

"Transfeeeers!"

I have basically have no time at all today I am leaving to Mt. Pleasant in not even a hour because Elder W got transferred,  hes going to be companions with Elder C one of my best friends in the MTC. I am SUPER EXCITED to get my new companion! His name is Elder A, and hes been out about 6 months, he is pretty tall (not like me tall though) and thats about all I know about him.

Yesterday was so great we were going and Elder W was saying good byes to people and he thought to go see two of our investigators who are always super busy and never are home because of all of the schooling and all of the jobs they are working, we got there we had a thanks giving meal with them. But the cool part of it was that D wanted to go to church the day before but when it came to Sunday something happened and he didn't come I forget what he said but his wife wanted him to invite us over for dinner when he saw us there at church. since he didn't come he didn't invite us over, but then all the sudden we showed up there for dinner =p. 

They are graduating from college in a week or so and they will have lots more free time so they really want to see us again, we didn't even have to ask they asked us to come back. It was pretty sick they thought it was so cool how we were totally guided to go over there at that exact time.  We then had dinner at the Sr Missionaries house not even a hour later, oh man I was dead they fed us some amazing clam chowder and steak! Dude I get fed so much, My life is to hard! =p

Thanksgiving here didn't seem like thanksgiving at all, but I ate my fill. I spent most of the day walking through snow in my new snow boots.

That is SO COOL that Miranda wants to serve a mission! I am so happy for her, it really will change not only her life but hundreds of peoples lives, I've already seen my mission have huge impacts on people and myself as well.

We have a investigator who we finished all of the lessons with and says he will be baptized, it's just he wants to feel that confirming witness that the Holy Ghost will provide him, we've really been working on helping him understand the Holy Ghost and how it speaks to people, and you can tell that he is feeling it it's just getting him to recognize that he is feeling it. He got super sick and didn't come to church yesterday because he was in the E.R. which he felt really bad about he loves the feeling he gets at church (...THAT'S THE SPIRIT!), 

We went and gave him a priesthood blessing yesterday and taught him a little about what it is and how it works. I am Praying so hard that he heals quickly and that he felt the spirit when we gave it to him, he is right there on the edge of baptism, and I am so excited for him! I love him so much, he will really help build the kingdom here!

I gotta go, But I love you all! I'll send a letter home to make up for this little baby email.

Don't get shot!

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett