Monday, October 26, 2015

Basic Principles, Stick to the Basics

I can't believe it! We locked ourselves out a-(freaking)gain. This time I had my wallet out with me. I felt like David marching up to Goliath as I pulled my wallet set out to try and crack a SCHLAUGE. I swung my sling, I hit the pins, I raked with my might, cast the stone, and the bad boys face cracked!  In the wrong direction and relocked the door..... "Dang it!" I then tried the other way so it would actually unlock and got nothing it was way hard. I realized I never even tried to credit card the dang thing, it popped open in 5 seconds..... I am constantly being reminded how important it is to stick to the basis in missionary work (12 wk) and life.

I was sick on my microwave smelling bad because of burning bread in it for several minutes on accident. So I went and cleaned it and then after like 15 minutes of working on that thing IT catches fire!!!! Dang I am never cleaning anything again =p. Not only did it now smell worse but the house did now too.

Got ear muffs!

Are we related to a C.Webb Crockett?

We have this Investigator, we picked her husband up as a potential and then my companion dropped him on trade offs 9 weeks ago. We then got a referral from his wife wanting a bible. We gave her it, placed a Book of Mormon and picked her up as a investigator. 

This week we committed her to live the word of wisdom and that was a miracle that we got her to do that and to desire to quit smoking. She told us no once and then the branch president (who had to quit all of the don'ts of the WoW) started bearing testimony, sharing personal stories, and then I bore a testimony of the Do's and she committed to quit and got a priesthood blessing. But I bring this up because of how sweet it was all of her kids joined around for the blessing and was quiet (miracle) and then I gave the blessing. 

I love the kids, they are so funny every single time the word prayer is brought up they start talking about the pledge of Allegiance and their hands will go on their hearts. =p ha ha That's because of the church some one brings them to they will say a opening prayer and then the pledge, the Mom hates it! So after the blessing the kids started and Mom flipped a biscuit (smaller sized) on how that's not a prayer. 

But I got to hear it in English and Spanish =p. It was really touching after the blessing the one who said it in Spanish wanted to say the closing prayer and he prayed really hard that his Mom could quit smoking and be baptized. As we were leaving the littlest girl was pretending to smoke a sucker or something and Mom came up from behind and whacked her on the head with the WoW pamphlet and said "we no longer do that!".

I have been thinking. Yup that's about it =p
Just kidding, we went to Traverse city this week for District (stake) Conference. Elder and Sister White came and picked us up and gave us snacks as always on long car rides and then they taught us using a article from a guy online about being successful and 7 attributes of successful people. 

This is not a first for things like this they are always trying to teach us and be a good example to us of a good married couple and teach us what they have learned throughout life so we could have and be better fathers and spouses. I thought about Sr. Missionaries and what role they have played in the past 14 months of my life. I am super grateful for all of the Sr. Missionaries I have been around: the Swensons, The Whites, The Ekins they truly helped me in ways NO one could have. They truly bring pure wisdom, and I learned From them things I could have never learned in 80 Trade offs and blitzes about how to teach and how to be aware and how to listen to the spirit. 

And that's just in the teaching aspect of what I did with them. I learned and gained a testimony of principles of the Gospel that no zoneleader could have taught me. I cannot even begin to scratch my love and gratitude I have for them and the help they gave me and the lessons I learned from them. It's just like how for missionaries like me when we come out in the field we are molded into husbands/fathers/priesthood holder/workers/..... The exact same happens to Sr. Couples in a different way; They learn how to be active members of the church/better parents/....(I don't know all the other things I haven't experienced that Yet, Sister White could tell you though). 

I heard from a Member who was talking to Elder Ekins he said "Going on a second mission has really screw'd up my priorities in life! All of my Horses are up on the mountain for opening day of the hunt! And I need to see my mother again, so I am going there instead". I encourage ALL to serve a Sr. Mission there is nothing that could help more people and do more good for you and the church and the people. I am out of time but could go on for ages on this.  

Well I gotta Go Bye I love you
Have a good day!
Don't get shot!
- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Monday, October 19, 2015

"Welcome to the Snow Belt"

Ella your essay is great! It deserves to be carved into white marble and hung on a racquetball court. So to edit it a little, lets be real It did not take me that long to pick the racquetball court lock, we had like a good 20 seconds before security whooped around the corner... Drama Queen =p. With the softball field we had to romp through I don't remember having to back up out of the mud but the inching around the corner is very accurate. Those tracks were in the field for months to come nonetheless. It was a most excellent adventure though! One part of the story that I don't think is in the story is what we did with the couch after that, my journal should tell that part of the story, but we turned that court into what we called "the bat cave" welding a look out ladder to peek over the wall, put a candy stash in there,trash can, and would hang out during stuco. Try not to get me arrested though ha ha!

I have been on a hunt for all of the cool fall colored leafs this year. I have been collecting them to flatten and tape up and put in my letter journal. I have had the hardest time getting a dang pink leaf though, they must be a different type of species comparatively to other leaves because every time I pick one it gets bruised and turns brown.

October 16 2k15 was the first sight of snow for this year. And you guys had 100 degress ha ha! I actually had to put on gloves and wool socks this week. I am going on a hunt today for ear muffs, I searched all last winter and never found any but they are THE most necessary things out of all. well no they arent but they are way nice!

I have never had to actually retain new members my whole mission it was either handed to me way easily or I just missed the baptism so It wasn't even something that was a worry to me. But now we have 9 recent converts that the Ekins used to work with who are now dished out on us. We have been working to get alot more member involvement because of it. 

We were out door knocking and we hit this one house that was an apartment or a duplex type of thin and the two front doors were facing each other. While we took on the first person who came I noticed behind us a person quickly moved by to see us. I started thinking "oh no she will already have prepared what she wants to say to us and we wont get any ground at all.". We turn around and knock on her door and she comes to the door and goes "Hi Elders!", 
 
I knew she knew something that i didn't so I immediately started questioning her and asking what she knew about the church. She then answered my questions and said " I saw you guys so I made you Hot chocolate, If you'd like to come in" =p. Talked to find out she was really good friends with a member of our church, continued to dig to find out that she actually had a favorite chapter in the book of Mormon, to find out she was actually a baptized member of our church who wasn't on our records at all! I got all of the necessary info that I needed to get her records shipped here and set up a time where we could come back =p. I love! it when that happens, it seriously is my favorite thing to find members of the church not on record.

We were out door knocking on Saturday and it turned out to be the worst possible time in the world to be knocking. It was around dinner time and the sun was threatening to go down. Every door was"Your interrupting the Michigan State Game!", we continued to knock "Your Interrupting the Michigan University game!" Turns out they were playing each other.... Kept knocking on the same street "your interrupting the (insert really big baseball final game name here)!" The guy got so mad at us he wanted to know our "home" address so he could come over with like 20 people to teach us about his church and he got us a pen and paper to write it down on.... SO i did. He was ticked when he read "Mesa Arizona" and stormed away to watch the game ha ha! Don't worry I wrote the old address, so if they get 20 Catholics at their door it's my fault haha.

One thing that I am not that fond of is how little control I can have in a situation, And I am not talking about the little Agency thing that every missionary hates. I am talking about how I can preach the Gospel by the spirit, melt their hearts, they can receive a answer to their prayers and things will still be at a halt because all hell breaks loose. And there is nothing I can really do about it, Satan is so dang powerful. 
 
I have been on my knees so much this week so things like this stop happening. Here is some examples of what I am talking about S the lady who I just baptized said like my first visit there "the dumbest thing is when people are sick they still go to church, I will never do that because it gets all of the old people and babies sick" she has a point. But what happened after that is for 5 weeks STRAIGHT there was some one sick in her family and she wouldn't go to church because of it. 
 
I had to sit down with her and share 1 Ne 3:7 and then tell her how when ever people are preparing for baptism the gates of hell open I swear and no matter what you have to be committed to following Gods commandments. That week when some one new was sick she changed her policy, ditched the kids on husband and made it to church.=p
 
But to give you More examples of ones that we haven't solved: We committed a lady To be baptized, she has gained a VERY strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and wants to join. We have never gotten her to church for some crazy reason every single time. Car broke down when she was heading out. Another time she tried calling us on Saturday 4 times to get a ride, none of which went to our phone. We even called her that Saturday twice and none of the calls went through and so when Sunday came she didn't have a ride. Another time we had it set up for her to watch general conference and she was watching the opening hymns being sung until the screen turned grey and all the sudden she found out that her cable company cut that one channel that day on accident. Took a week for the technician to fix it.  Another time she had a ride to church, Her friend who she invited was on her way to pick her up. She got T-boned by a drunk driver before she made it to the house and went to the hospital. By the time we knew no members were down there....
For realzies I am ticked at Satan, every single time we get progression! I can prepare and warn people for anti material but I can't stop a car crash 40 miles away...


Well I am out of time
Bye I love you have a good day!
Don't get shot!

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Monday, October 12, 2015

Hey Success Does Happen =p‏

K so Dude what the heck man! Thats like the 5th person I found out these past 2 weeks that are married. Facebook is weird because I don't recognize peoples names and then all the sudden I find out it is some one I know but they are just married! haha

This week was pretty eventful
On Friday we were car fasting and Elder and Sister Ekins where bringing us everywhere because we STACKED our day. 6 lessons later the old man was beat and wanted to take us out to his favorite place in celebration of them going home this tuesday. He pulled up to a place I wouldn't normally try for food but hey. Walked in to see a straight up bar... But Hey it was all you can eat fish fry day! I have NEVER had fish that Good in my life!!! OH MAN! It was ah RRREEEAAAL nice! It was interesting seeing the little kids run around in there too while people sat at the bar. It was also very interesting to see a active member of our church come in as we were leaving...they showed the Ekins the all you can eat fish fry, don't worry they live the word of wisdom.

While I was down in Lansing my mission president came up to me and asked me how much money I have in my MFS account. I told him I have over $500 in it because of my budgeting. He was so confused how other missionaries are already out of their funds and I have so much. He got real worried and told me like 4 times that I don't need to go skimpy but I should get myself a tie and go to a nice place every once and a while... So maybe next transfer I will go back to the bar =p ha ha
 
My area is being POACHED! This is the second time this has happened, on my mission. The petosoky Sisters have been coming to the far west cities we have. We got 5 referrals from them this week when they found out they were poaching. It's way cool they were actually led to a potential that I found a few weeks prior and placed a book of mormon while there, thing was we way forgot about him and maybe even dropped him while I was away on tradeoffs. We came back and set up a appointments when followed up of the referral.
I went to the temple on Saturday and had a very long car ride with the Ekins both ways. I love those getting E. ekins to tell me about what crazy things he did the ride was a blast! I was really amazed at how much I learned this time while doing a session. Because of me working so hard on a mission on learning how to focus and listen to people and organize things in my head, and the teaching skills I have developed, and the understanding of the gospel..... I was able to piece apart LOADS of things I have never thought of or understood before at all. To be fair when I went into the temple the first time for a endowment I never knew Jesus created the earth, my understanding of the gospel is Loads greater than it was before. While in the Celestial room after E. Ekins told me all he knew about the temple he grabbed us and pulled us into a room. It was a sealing room and every one else in the branch was in there, I didn't even know that a couple in the branch was getting sealed that day, It was way cool to see some one get married for eternity.
So this Sunday was a big day. First of all it was a baptism, and potluck sunday, and the Ekins last sunday. I was able to baptize S.
S was found by doorknocking. It was a cold winter day and ElderHJ was on a trade off and E.Ekins was hauling them around, E. Ekins drove out into the boonies away from the city and made them jump out and knock the street driving them from house to house. He got nothing but winning out of h and he pulled out every excuse in the book (this is what E.Ekins tells me, I've heard the story 12 times this week) he kept doing it until he was way happy and got told to come back in two weeks, he was then jumping up and down and no longer giving excuses. 
 
Transfers happened and E.Ekins woke up at night and could think because he was worried, he realized that they didn't follow up with that lady. He drove all over in the boonies to find the place, got there set a return appointment and got the new Elders there. Taught restoration, first vision "WOAH I just got the chills!" she said. Went to church and found out one of her school teachers was the relief society president, and the Branch Presidents Wife had one of the Foster Children that she has now. At church she was confused because she already knew everything that the speaker was telling her, she then realized that it wasn't dejavu but that Last night she had a dream and she dreamed about that exact talk that was given. Elder Schmutz continued to teach her until he finished his mission, 
 
I then came in and she was smoking, we fixed that. Her whole family (extended, nephews, Grandchildren, Fosterkids) was pushing for her to quit smoking so she could get her deceased Father baptized in the temple. Found out her Nephews were Former investigators from a different area, started teaching them until they had to move back down state, they left sad because they were wanting to get baptized on the same day and we haven't gotten their new address yet and the missionaries have no clue where to find them. 
 
We forgot to follow up on smoking and then one day we did and she was like "Ya i am 16 days without"! But there is actually way more to this story than what I have told, and I am still learning about all of the stuff that happened before I showed up. She once "kicked the mormons off my door step, the Jehovah's witnesses told me all I needed to know about them and that they were bad news".=p. She is all about wanting to do family history and get her relatives to the temple, we got her started on it this week. The day of her Baptism she dropped her nephews off in Grand rapids and she was handed her grandma's family history that goes all the way back to the 1500's. =p Church is true.
Well I gotta go
Bye I love you have a good day
Don't get shot!
- Elder Truman Rex Crockett
    

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

"I bet you thought you were going to America for your mission! Little did you know!" -Elder Ekins‏

The weather here in Michigan is WAKO (as E. Ekins would say)  It was in the 70's and 80's last week and then in one day it dropped down to 40 degrees and has stayed around there ever since... But all of the trees are now changing color!
I realized what it is I like about my new companion, he has "greenie fire" (I HATE the word greenie)
I have never had a companion who has had it yet. My last few I have really had to push along and get motivated basically ever since I left Alpena. But hey This is way healthy if anything hes pushing me along at times.
I learned something That they should have taught me in the MTC! I have been with loads of missionaries the past week and a half and one a trade off I learned that the Big white box doorbells that NEVER work actually do work...You have to hold down the button for 3 seconds hard to get them to work! I have been living a lie! I would always try them to but they never work. Now they always do =p
I was over In Alpena today for district meeting and Sister White told me about how when she was first meeting me she thought "there is something Mentally wrong with this kid"! I actually wasn't to offended, there might be some truth there =p.  She went on to explain how when I sit down She would notice how I would sway back and forth and back and forth all day every day. She was really worried until she got to know me and figured out it's because I cannot get music out of my head. After that all of her worries went away, It then became a game for her to when ever I would start swaying to ask me what song it was in my head or guess ha ha.

I went on a trade off last week and we did work and then a few days later the Zone leaders came and blitzed my area. I went with Elder Saure and missionary who used to be my district leader down in Holt and we went up to Grayling to go teach the Former Investigator who we had just miraculously found. When we arrived there there was some other guy there too and we started talking to him and introduced ourselves and he asked if he could join in our discussion... "Um yes please!". As I started asking questions about his life I got him to open up and turns out he actually used to be a investigator too! I got him to keep talking about that experience and he told me he was baptized even! But the thing was he never went to church the next week to get confirmed... We taught a lesson to them both and then set up a appointment to teach them both together again. It was Sweet!
Elder and Sister Ekins are goin back home next tuesday =(((((((. I am not to excited about that because I love them so much, They are hilarious! E. Ekins came in the other day and sadly said "I have a departing gift for you two" and then he placed 2 squirt guns in our hands and then yelled " Defend yourselves you Sorry Suckers!!" and whooped one out and started squirting us. Doors opened, chairs instantly went flying and he ran to another room; and the battle commenced until he was on the run down the stairs trying to do a Han Solo shooting and running down, To bad the Old man is ...Old ha ha couldn't really run as we blasted him. 
 
He told me the story today of how he named his daughter brandy. He grew up with 2 sisters and hated the Idea of having girls because of it. He was Way disappointed when his first two were girls. He then had 2 Boys and thought ok it evens things out... Until he got another girl. He then got another and was so bummed that he didn't get another boy so he could raise more men, it made him want to go drink, but he is very active and would never break the word of wisdom. He decided that he wouldn't drink but he was gonna name her after a drink, he thought beer and whisky was a horrible idea so he named her Brandy. ha ha ha, And he tells her that story as much as possible. Forealzies and youre like 70?!? =p Hes an old man William.=p
Sorry I didn't email on Monday, we set up a temple trip so we gave up our p-day. Yesterday was Way crazy. I went over to The Kalkaska Elders apartment to have a sleep over and so we could go down to a MLC meeting in Lansing together the next day and our companions were going on a trade off. I slept on the floor since a lack of bedding, I had enough padding to make it bearable with all the blankets I brought, but it took me some time to fall asleep.
 
 We then woke up at 4am to get ready and drive down to lansing for our meeting that they wanted us there for at 8:30am. We then sat in hard metal chairs until like 5pm that whole time with a 40 minute lunch break. I learned a whole lot But I was Sick of sitting! It was way cool I gotta my MTC companion for the first time since we got our trainers, and some of my best friends out here, it was way fun but we eventually had to make the trek back up and that was Brutal! 
 
I was Back In Kalkaska at 8:45pm and I was even sicker of sitting and was super tired. Our companions weren't back yet and so there was no way I was staying in the Jeep any more, i went to their apartment and picked the lock and crawled into one of their beds ha ha. When our companions came back I got up and packed the jeep and then kept driving. I got back at 10:32pm and then I went straight into bed. I am still way tired but am better because I gotta sleep on the way to District meeting in Alpena.
This week is pretty busy still, i was supposed to have a trade off today but we had a miscommunication and thats not happening but I am glad I would be way swamped. I am baptizing S on Sunday and going down to the temple on Saturday and Still have things to arrange for it. This week has been loads of fun! 
 
Cops just got called here, crazy guy came in, i was on my toes ready to jump in but the Librarian resolved it, no chokes needed.
Well I am off on another crazy drive to two different cities today
Bye I love you have a good day!
Don't get shot!
Or get Cops called on you!
- Elder Truman Rex Crockett