Pretty Little Song Bird

To start out we got transfer calls and I am staying and training still.

I am so glad we bought those bikes! they help us out so much! And it's super healthy for me to be able to ride places, explore, and fix up the things! Especially fixing something. But I am still partial to the Gary fisher back home and would never replace that or my specialized for the thin I am riding.

This week we had what was called "the day of service" It was one of those Mormon helping hands events, it was awesome! It was like a eagle scout project for grown ups on steroids! =p It had like 15 different projects that was to help beautify and help the people in Lansing all of which where about eagle scout project size. I was assigned to Reutter Park which is right next to the capital building. that was so much fun!

What happened is they have this beautiful fountain that wasn't being seen so they chopped these trees down and chopped huge limbs off so people could see it and the beauty of the place. And our job was to drag these massive things and throw them in a huge wood chipper. Man that chipper was a beast! I saw it eat a log bigger and thicker than me like nothing! I am not that thick but point made we needed 4 people to carry it to the thin. We were rained on for 5 hours straight too and those things got us way dirty! loads of people took pictures of me so you should look it up on the internet to try to find something because I know I am in like 12 of them at least.

So I told you about NIIIIGHT EEEEEYYYEEEE!!!! last time but just like I was trying to say, I wasn't the Hero the whispering pines appartments needed, But I was the one it deserved. I battled valiantly to take out the ear wigs and the spiders but eventually the hero that was needed came and our apartments got poison gassed. So the tallys on my blow gun are at a stand still. I took one out this week by taping it to the floor and spraying it with axe body spray ha ha.

Since we are on the subject of creatures brutally biting the dust that leads me into this next thought.

These last few weeks I have been really feeling odd, I knew something was wrong in what I was doing with our investigators and it was irritating to me because the spirit just wasn't there. I was being obedient, I was focusing, I was helping my companion with everything and we are getting along great. It was cutting me every day because I was seeing our pool of 18 investigators get close to baptism and then fall away, and there was a downward trend. I realized the importance of Revelation through reading, praying, and keeping the Sabbath day holy and loving the people we are with. 

I look back and I now see those key ingredients missing was that love and the deeper follow up on what we committed them to. We have been doing that for like 2 weeks now. It was horrible seeing our area and investigators sliding down and getting lost. It's like we were doing "the dance steps but we weren't feeling the music" and they couldn't either.

It continued even after we started to emphasize those things, but that all changed yesterday. =p

We have a investigator who has basically had the gates of hell open to try to get him. Love of his life who he had been married to for 40 years divorced him is forcing them to sell their beautiful house, he got in a car accident, health... We found him at a all time low and he had no faith that there was a God he didn't believe that a loving heavenly father would allow this garbage to happen. He was ticked at the world. Super busy and stressed with work and the divorce. 

One day we came over when he was thinking the end of life, for him and his technical "wife". If you know what I mean, we were prompted to go there without knowing it. the spirit calmed him and that didn't happen. We are the only church people he can even stand to be around. And to us it seems like we have been beating a dead horse for a while. But we kept going over because He wanted faith he wanted that light he saw in us (he still does). 

Finally he broke and kept a commitment and listened to the book of Mormon. And with out telling us has been listening to it every day while he works out. He argued and yelled when ever we would ask him to pray. But this week was a stormy week. And one of the days was really bad! It was pouring rain hard. He prayed to know If "Elder Crockett was a sign" sent from him (since I have been in every lesson with him while my companions have shifted around from trade offs). A while later he heard a loud thump on his window. He looked out to see a blood stain on the window and a small song bird lying dead. It tried to get out of the rain quickly and hit his window. He sat there and cried as the bird lied motionless on his porch. 

It really carved into his heart and he prayed for the bird (he later told us he would have never done that EVER if it wasn't for us continuing to come back and loving him) And he prayed that the pretty little song bird would be able to sing again for some one. A half hour passed and the bird still lay motionless on the porch now with a empty bladder in the same position. It Wrenched his soul to see it dead. He prayed again and he prayed like I do "dear heavenly father" and when he closed in the name of Jesus Christ, he saw the tail twitch and the head snap up and quickly it darted out of the weather into the trees.=p

We met with him yesterday and he told me I know God lives =p, he said he wouldn't convert that easily but that is a huge leap forward! And really that is why I am out here that very specific reason because I know God lives and loves me and I want other people to feel that joy and experience that through the True Gospel of Jesus Christ that was restored. That was super fulfilling especially after the garbage we've been getting!

Well I'm off to go play some Jesus ball!

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get Shot!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

NNIGGHTTT EEEEYYYYYEEEEEE!!!

 

 

Oh man it was healthy to hear from all of you! thank you! Ella I am so excited about your MMA training I don't even know what gym your at or how many people you are training with (which is important, because of the quality of the learning is effected accordingly). Do they teach you submissions or are they teaching you just the stand up and when grappling the ground and pound style? Oh man you better learn quick because I really get neglected out here because no one wants to fight me =(. I even brought my mouth guard and boxing raps...

I am not going to lie this week was a week... Our teaching pool took a beating, all of our lessons canceled on us before we could teach any one. All we really had to do was pound the pavement and pound the doors. Door knockin for days! And all we really got was a few potentials, but some seem promising. All of our lessons but 2 was from door knocking I really could leave it at that for this week.

While we were out door knocking we walked by a ice cream joint and you are only in Michigan once, YOMO you know so we got some Ice cream and tried to fellow ship with a lot of people. Man it was so funny this lady keep looking over her shoulder to see us and was super obvious about it and before we walked away to keep knockin she came up and she ITL'd us! (invitation to learn) She gave us a business card that had a picture of her and her information and said she would love to see us at a certain coffee shop. It was so funny! But she obviously didn't want to learn about the gospel so, I don't think she intends for us to teach her a lesson at the coffee shop so we didn't commit to anything.

But it's so cool now because Elder Hartley basically understands how to create a need while trying to find people to teach and so I have been working on things like bearing testimony and discerning their real need instead of talking the whole time to find it. We sent out like 3 referrals this week from it.

So that little taste of me riding bikes was awesome and we both have been dying to ride some more but we didn't want to have to ride the same ones that we borrowed last time. So we talked to the ward mission leader and he knew just the place to go. We got permission to go and so we went over to MSU campus and went to the MSU surplus store! It was freaking number one! It was like GoodWill on steroids! They had all of this Lab equipment that was out dated for sale, they had loads of computers for cheep, they had a billion and a half mini fridges and chairs, foot ball jerseys and pants, But the part we went there for was the fact that every bike that gets left locked to something way to long gets it's lock cut and they sell the bikes there. There was a lot of Gander bikes that was eaten away by rust and the chains were frozen solid by it. But it was sweet! I got a mountain bike my size with new breaks front and back, all of the gears work, it has a big seat way comfier than our tandem bike seats (and those are good), it had a water bottle holder, both tubes were good, and it wasn't even rusty. All for 25 bucks! UMMMM YES PLEASE!!! Church is true with a find like that! My companion got this sweet oldschool road bike that has front and back head lights and had a generator on the bike that you could flip on so when you spin your wheels it powers the lights! perfect condition and all gears work, bottle holder, and switches all gears. The only thing with that one was one of the tubes were popped, but that's a small price to pay for only 60 bucks for the thin! We are so excited to go ride our bikes! I even scored a bike lock recently after a member said if I could pick it I could have it, 2 minutes later it went in the satchel =p.

Our apartment complex has been infested by ear wigs, spiders, and occasionally Ants of unusual sizes! It is so gross! And because of the dire circumstances there arose a need for a hero to rise up, I am not the Hero Holt needs, but the one it deserves (I forget how batman says it). I have taken to grabbing my PVC pipe and nerf darts to fend off the terrorist attacks. After one is spotted there is normally a sudden shriek "NIIIIIIIIGHT EEEEEEEEEEEYYYEEE!!!!!"  which is normally followed by the spraying of honey nut gas (freeze) and a endless barrage of nerf darts until we have a confirmed kill and several tries of running/ jump/ dive shots. I have just started to film the combat situations, I wish I had thought of it before, I already have like 13+ tallies on the blow gun and I only started counting yesterday.

 

Well were off to go play some ultimate Frisbee,

we'll catch you later

Bye I love you have a good day

Don't get shot!

NIIIIIIIIGHT EEEEEEEEEEEYYYEEE!!!!!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

The Adventure of Service

How do you fix the bindings on books? My quad is starting to not stick to the glue of the binding and it's really sad! I want that to be in the best condition it can be in because that thing is a major tool and I want it to last forever.

That's So cool that Sterling Pendleton is going to Argentina on his mission! I love that kid so much and wish him well on his adventure of service. 

So I was making German pancakes, mixed it up , popped it in the oven and stared at a cook book while it was going until we both heard a loud buzzing sound start to happen. We stood up puzzled not knowing what it was from. We opened to see the element of the oven (now broken) Welding it's self to the bottom of the stove... those pancakes could have used like 1 minute more! 1 minute! ugh my life is so hard. We ate them anyways =p. It was really cool though I haven't been flashed by the light of weld in ages, that Melting metal, mmmmmmmhhhhhhhnn smelt so good! It was healthy for me. 

We got a new rule in our mission this week. We are required to Door knock or Pc for 3 hours every day. My new companion was no too happy about that because he has never seen any thing good come from it yet. It's because we have been so busy we haven't really had much time to go and door knock and there is never any one to Pc walking around. So we planned it out and in my prayers at night I really pleaded that we would have a really good fun time door knocking and that we would see several miracles when we did it. And it happened =p. Elder H now is super pumped and excited to go door knocking again he loved getting into some ones house and helping them feel the spirit and picking them up as a investigator. And since he likes to do it now he is involved a lot more in it all which helps us out a lot! I am excited to do some knockin!

I was getting my camera out to take a picture and while the lens was coming out it hit a book and said lens error and then wouldn't go back in the camera. It took me like 30 times of turning the camera on and off to get it back in. and since then it does this weird clicking every time it gets to that point that it used to be stuck at and doesn't work some times. it makes it hard to get a good pokemon snap on occasion. 

Speaking of bad things that has happened to my camera I guess this is a really important part of this week. I had a baptism this week! In fact I was the one who performed it! I baptized her on June 13th. She is in a partmember / less active member family and because of us teaching her it has been reactivating her whole family. 

 

It is super cool to talk to them all because you could see the spirit working on them all as she has been wanting them to read scriptures with her, and take her to church. I really wanted her father to baptize her but he asked if I would since he has loads of things happening in his life and wanted the ordinance to be perfect and didn't want to be doing it if he wasn't worthy. We had lot going on that morning! We got  asked to give a blessing and they were coming like 15 minutes before the event started. 

 

The mission President and the Ap's were there too, there hasn't been a convert baptism in Holt for almost a year and a half. We quickly got in some pictures before the event started. I totally forgot to take off my name tag for the baptism. I also forgot to take my camera out of my pants pocket... But it's all good because I am a Giant and it was just splashed a little. Oh but that baptism was number one! we had several non members come and because of that we will be teaching her Aunts kids. 

 

Her Aunt hasn't been to church in years but went there and felt the spirit and felt really bad and asked bishop and my companion for a blessing (I was talking to every less active and nonmember there and inviting them to learn). And after that she wanted her children to have the gospel in their lives, she talked about her seeing the world in a downhill spiral and doesn't want her kids to be like that any more (bus driver for public schools). I also got the girl's Uncle's girlfriend to accept missionaries to teach them up in Cadillac. It was also cool because the Mission President was working on several people there as well. He made sure to come and report to me before he left what he talked about and what he did. By the end of the day I had several referrals to give out and every single one went to people who were in my MTC district so it was way healthy being able to talk to them!    

That was cool though because I have never seen any of my converts get baptized yet. And that is the first not in proxy baptism that I have done.

But I knew Bad was just around the corner because that much good never happens without some serious "persecution points"  coming. We got home from the baptism and immediately we got a call from our Investigator who is on date to be baptized next Saturday and of course the garbage came...  He told me that him and his wife argued over the law of tithing and that he wasn't going to be baptized and there is no way he can "pay $300 a week for tithing" I talked to him and told him that I am almost certain that math is wrong (he's old and forgets things sometimes) and got him to not drop us entirely. 

 

We are going over later this week so we have really been praying for a good miracle to sort this out so he can be baptized. And it has to be this week end because he will be having surgery on his cancer and will be bed ridden for 3 weeks after. So we are a little excited to see if we get him to make it! We have already been dropped by a investigator who was preparing for baptism this month and I don't want it to happen again!

Well I am off

Bye I love you!

Have a good day!

Don't get shot!

 Elder Truman Rex Crockett

"I HAVE NO BRAKES!!!!"‏

That is so cool that Miranda got her mission to Tampa Florida! And I am super excited about that because it's super funny and weird, but there is a definite relation ship with people in Michigan and people in Arizona and Florida. So I can guarantee that she is going to meet some Ganders down there in the winter time. There is so many Snow birds (old and young) that escape the cold to go to the heat. So I don't know she may or may not meet some one I have met we'll see.

It's kinda cool/ weird there has been a lot of cotton wool flying off the trees. It's like it's snowing but its warm out! But there is piles of it in many places on the side of the road. It's not near as much as the snow but it looks a little like it.

To start out all I can say about this week, is that it was a week.....('sigh'). But forrealzies though this week wasn't the best at the start of it. We were dropped by like 3 of our investigators one of which was progressing towards their baptismal date... (my companion now uses forrealzies regularly in his vocabulary =p, I have only used it like 2 or 3 times too. ).  Yah the start of the week was pretty sad for us.

One thing that Happened was we showed up to A's house (the less active I door knocked into) and he ran out side his house to see who we are and he came up to us super sad and pitiful. We went inside and found out that his girlfriend took his paycheck and ran away. There was a lot of problems that happened because of that. He had been alone for 4 days not knowing any one in Michigan but her and her family and they were all out of his life now. He was no longer able to pay the bills, he would only had like 100 dollars to pay a 900 dollar rent and all of his income for the whole month was gone... he started smoking anything and everything to get his mind away. We showed up let him talk to us and tell us everything,  turned off the tv that was showing not uplifting shows and was encouraging that behavior. Wrote him a list of Gospel movies to watch on Netflix. And got Bishop to talk to him.  We had a lesson we had to go to and we were not comfortable to let him be alone to much more so we promised him we would come back.  

 

That was not a fun situation at all! We came back to talk to him and see what he thought about the joseph smith video and gave him a priesthood blessing. We talked to him yesterday he is in Phoenix Arizona now on his way to California to live with his addict sister.... He sold all that he could and left. Personally I wouldn't have done that  from listening to his side of the story. But after that happened I felt that he was being pointed back to the right path that he needed to be on so what ever it will work out.

Also This week I woke up in the morning to see a big red bump on my left hand. I had no clue what it was, but it looked super gross! We went on tradeoffs and I showed it to my district leader and he told me that it was a spider bite. For like the rest of the week at random times I have been trying to see if my spider powers and web slinging ability has developed yet. So far nothing yet has developed from it I'll tell you next week if I do develop them till then I will keep trying to web up my companion and climb on the ceiling. =p

I now have a calculator watch tan, I feel like Andrew Chapple, he always had a watch tan!

Man this week has been pretty sad though! I was driving on some dirt road out in the forest going to a dinner appointment and some cars were on their way toward me, I thought nothing of it of course. I then see a big chunk of black top broken and on the road (not a unusual sight because the weather here destroys the streets) and I kept going and I was going to move my wheels a little so it didn't bump up and hurt the bottom on the car. kept going the cars got closer. AND CLOSER!  And I realized like 6 feet away from the chunk of black top that it was a TURTLE!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! ...................................=( the cars were so close to me I couldn't move to straddle Mr. Turtle, it was really sad, we are afraid to look under the car =(. Man you never even get to see to many wild turtles out side. My first road kill.

So you know those cookies you sent me in the mail I was about to throw them away and my companion guilted me into not doing it even though they were solid and destroyed. We have been eating cookies like cereal since then though!  It's great!

I've gotten to pick a lot of locks recently, all of which are bike locks and I don't even need tools for but I have gotten to pick like 3 in the past weeks. Speaking of bikes... 

We don't have bikes in our area and we had no way to get up to south Lansing in time for a appointment that we had so we called around and no ride... But we got some one to let us use our bikes. My companion didn't have a helmet but I did and I took it with me because my Mommy taught me to and it's important even if you are experienced. I am so glad I did ha ha! Oh man it was bad. I got on the bike and started riding to the appointment. I squeeze the brakes and nothing happened... "that was weird" try it again nothing. I then try my front brakes and that slowed it but would not stop the bike at all. That bike ride got real! I was crossing the street and some lady pulled up to go onto the main road and I zoom by uncontrollably cringing and she honks at me even though I had the right of way. Kept going "ok I need to slow down before a street intersects" I keep going trying to make it to the appointment on my bike that the gears are broke too apparently. We come up to a Hungry Howies and it is clear so I start crossing the road and then a crazy lady WHO IS ON HER PHONE(!) turns to go in without signaling and I jerk my handle bars to avert the car as it wizzed by me before she hits the brakes. I hit the curb end up on top of a grass hill and was still clutching my brake.  No harm was done to either so we kept going after doing the fist of rage at her (fist of raaaagee..... =p remember that?). We kept going. I was super skeptical about everything after that on that freaking bike, SO much that I ended up being beaten by a tree branch in the face because I was looking for cars, the Helmet was number 1! I have a strong testimony of those things! I let my companion know many times how good my Mommy and Dad did at teaching me to use a helmet after that.

Whelp I'm off to go play some Volley ball, Jesus Ball and board games with the Zone.

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot! 

Have a better week than me! =p

Elder Truman Rex Crockett

#whendoorknocking "what do you think the purpose in life is"... " to get you Mormons off my door!" 'slam!'‏

This week as been a week. I don't necessarily know how I would categorize it but it hasn't been a bad week so I guess that's good. We have a lot of people up on our white board of investigators who was a miracle to get and then all the sudden we can't meet with them or get them to answer our calls or text us back... But we have been really busy as is even without out all of those people who we are having a hard time getting in with them.

So Elder H has been doing great and we get along really, really well. I love hearing him pick up on the little phrases and things I use I think it is so funny because It makes people so weird ha ha. I have gotten him converted to the Idea and the practicality of a calculator watch. Hes been going around and re arranging our furniture to help us be more comfortable and use our space more efficiently. I love the changes, I wish I wasn't so content with things and saw the need to more these things in a different place earlier. 

 

It's also great because Elder H is very passionate about not wanting to loose his hair on his mission so he's way on board (even more than I am) on my whole cook things our self and not be starving. We've had like Enchiladas, German pancakes, French toast, and then of course we have on our menu to cook some GRS soon =p. I love real food for lunch. I also am really grateful for my District leader because he got me like 6 boxes of Honey bunches of oats!!!! problem now is I need to eat every thing I make, ugh my life is so hard! =p   

I made it very clear to myself that I would never do anything to overpower my companion or be constantly preaching to him when I trained, And now that I am here I am still on that track. Because I hated that a lot how I never could have a real conversation with any one around me, and every one seemed to be trying to teach me stuff I already knew. So I have been living accordingly to that to help him have a better transition into mission life and would only teach him things I knew he needed or he would ask me about. 

 

But a few nights ago in the middle of my sleep I started teaching Elder H how to talk to Less active and Active members. He woke up and just listened to me and he told me he learned and thought it was very interesting, But I was not fully conscious at all ha ha. But I do remember looking at the dark and saying words but I couldn't stop saying things, and It  was really hard to stop talking and like hurt me to keep talking in my dream. It was weird. In the Morning he immediately brought it up to me. I think it's funny because if some one asked me how do I talk to less active and active members effectively I don't really think I could answer that well at all.

This week I had trade offs and Elder N came over to my area, we had about a half hour of not teaching in our day.  And that's like how it's been all day every day recently. I jokingly tell every one I feel bad for my companion because we don't have enough time to door knock. Every one takes me way too seriously when I say that. But I am not actually sad at all that we have like zero time to go and find people to teach, in fact we probably knock too much, and we have a lot of potentials we need to be trying instead. We had a killer week almost the same as last week, but we have more progression going on now that wasn't happening before.

I learned from Elder N how to tie a tie (officially). it's like the world actually makes sense now! because my tie is now even and not way lopsided to the left. It's like I haven't been fully living. It's healthy. it's congratulating. it's refreshing. =p

So a while back we were at A's house the less active I found while door knocking and when Elder(Bro.) B and I left I told him "you know he is only 23 years old, if we could get him to change he would be able to go and serve a mission." I then set that as what I want his goal to be. A few weeks pass and we got in his home yesterday and while we were there A kept asking us questions about Missionaries. " How do you become a missionary? can missionaries fight? where do missionaries go? why...." and as we kept talking to him he eventually broke down and told us that he doesn't feel right in life any more, he doesn't feel like he should be in Michigan, he wants to stop things with his girlfriend, and he wants to go and do good with his life and do good in other peoples life...... "and I just want to be a missionary!" was his final statement. We then taught him the word of Wisdom and committed him to it. But I loved that! Oh man it's like the church is true or something, you know. We are planning on working with him way more than we have been recently because he had that inspiration himself and it's so cool to see the spirit working on him!

I gotta go I have like a million other things I could say but I forgot to write them down during the week on my pocket book so I could remember and type more.

Well off to Ball it up

bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot! 

Elder Truman Rex Crockett