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Elder Crockett will be speaking in Church at 9 a.m. September 11th!!

"I HATE TORNADOES!!! THE ONLY THING THATS WORSE IS MY MOM!"- R

I was let into some ones house this last week by using family history in finding, the guy was NOT interested in our religion but when I chained it to family history he opened the door and let us in, I then chained with a " SO what do you think happens to our Ancestors who died with out a knowledge of the Gospel".......GOTCHYA!!! He didn't know and he let us teach but he gander ranted way too much so eventually I made up a lame excuse so we could leave. 

We had a lesson with our investigator. We taught him the Law of Tithing since he had questions about it and he wants to be baptized and he knows he has to live it (minus he doesn't have a testimony so we arent gonna let that happen, till he gets a testimony at least.). before we taught it he told us he finally believes Jesus to be the savior of the world, but he only believes Joseph smith was "a teacher of Love".... So we taught him it after we tried to work that out. We tried to teach it like usual but he wigged out about it. He had a problem wanting to pay tithing because God wanted him to pay 10%; but he was totally fine with it if the church made up a random percentage of money to donate to build it.... Yah he has a lot of work still.

We keep getting soaked here recently, there has been a few huge storms this last week and we have been without the car both storms causing us to be drenched down all the way to the bone. All of the scriptures we carry with us are all water logged and our planners are destroyed because of the storms. I'll tell you about this last one.

We got out of a lesson with a man that only spoke some african language, we left because there was no way for us to communicate at all what we were trying to convey, but he invited us back when his son who could translate would be there since he referred himself. we got outside and the rain was coming down pretty good. We ran over to our bikes that we locked up to the speed limit sign and I put my camera and pocket book in a walmart plastic bag and then put that in my bikes saddle bag (my bag I used to carry I strapped to the Specialized so I don't have to carry anything and since it has a lock on it it's perfect! I am gonna leave it here when I go home because of how useful it is, and it's pretty beat up)

We rode to a couple's house to avoid the rain storm which started to pick up. We were pretty wet by then and we taught a quick principal to prepare her for her baptism. The rain had picked up even more though in our time there, and we had to leave to go to our appointment so we left. He is a man who is into the rougher things in life who I have only seen wear a shirt on 2 occasions told us to be careful in the rain; I thought that was a little too tender for him and not normal behavior so I told him "Don't tell me how to live my life" as I rode away he then burst a huge smile and started swearing at us like usual until He left my view. 

This rain storm was bad, it was worse than the one a few days back. As we rode my road bike started to loose traction on the road and I was hydroplaning as I would turn sharp to miss a huge puddle or a car, which is a unique experience on a bike! Thunder roared over head and the rain kept picking up, in less than 10 minutes we were drenched all the way through.

 We then heard it. The Tornado siren for the city went off. I didn't tell my companion what it meant but it freakin got real when that happened! I started pedaling faster and we tried a short cut so we could get there quicker. a good 5-9 minutes after taking that road the road ended and we ended up under a over pass covered in graffiti. 

We dismounted and took some "thug life" pictures while we could and then we hopped back on the bikes when the second siren went off. I told my companion what that meant the second time he asked. The rain was beating us pretty hard and the wind was picking up, i hit a bump and my back tire popped! We were in a unknown place but we back tracked to find the way back to the house. I said several prayers for protection. It was so hard with my bike not having a back tire or traction but we were faster on them so I worked my self super hard to keep pumping those pedals over hills and through intersections and down infamous steep hills in the city (which was terrifying with out traction and my bike rims soaked with water). 

We had one more steep hill and I popped the bike into first gear in the front and it wouldn't move!!!!! The third siren went off. The wind was picking up. I FIXED THAT STUPID DERAIL-ER PROBLEM THE DAY BEFORE! It never did shift down so I pumped the big hill in 2nd. We locked up the bikes and walked up to the house.

He rushed us in the house where we were there with several other random people who I had never met from the neighborhood before. Most of them were hiding in the basement. He pulled up on the phone and showed us where the Tornado was. It was 1 mile away from our apartment. 

He kept telling us where it was from the news updates and it just kept moving closer and closer to us. The random lady in the house was freaking out and getting all worked up. The others hid in the basement. I wanted to see it so I stayed up stairs with my helmet attached to my belt so I could put it on in a moments notice. The tornado grew closer and closer to us according to the news reports. I said another prayer for protection and then God touched my heart.

The rain out side just kept picking up it got so dense that there was almost a white veil that you couldn't see through because of the water coming down in such amounts. I was making puddles of water every where I sat or stood in his house. There is a small forest behind the house, and I looked again to see now unlike before all of the trees were in violent motion. Almost as if an adult was shaking a smaller new fruit tree to get an apple off it instead of plucking it; it was the same with these fully grown thick 60 foot trees. 


With every one else in the basement but us  and R after he had called every one he could think of, he looked outside and exclaimed  "I HATE TORNADOES!!!! I am so afraid of them! I am as afraid of them as I am Sharks, and Snakes.... And my MOTHER, and..." I busted out laughing at that, which cut him off he then explained that his mom is like all 3 of those combined though. We all died laughing about it! He then sat down with us and chilled and we joked around and told stories and talked. I kicked my leg ontop of my knee and a bucket of water spilled out into his carpet. The next time we looked outside light was coming through the clouds. Who knew even in a raging storm one could be at peace.

The tornado died off and the earth stood still.

We were in R's house for over 2 hours and we didn't teach anything in fact we never even followed up on any commitments, but it was obvious that it wasn't the time or the place for that. We went outside still leaving a trail of water behind us and we sat and waited for the next city bus, since there was no way we would be able to walk to our dinner appointment in time or ride my bike. We eventually caught on that it wasn't gonna happen and the zone leaders picked us up.

We drove around to see trees every where! no houses were effected too bad but the trees destroyed so much! they were all up rooted, on top of cars, and houses, and street signs, and electric poles. but all that damage stopped less than one mile away from the house where we hid. The Tornado stopped throwing trees around when it got within less than a mile of us until it died. I didn't get any good pictures of the damage but streets were shut off and over 27,000 people have been without electricity here because of that. I wish I could say more

Bye i love you have a good day!

Don't get shot!

EMAIL you on saturday!

-- 

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Does anyone else miss their Mom?

We were door knocking a street and me and my companion was joking around like I described to you last week. He saw a kid on a bike and said "Is that my bike?" I laughed and turned and looked at it. And then looked at it more, and started freaking out "THAT IS YOUR BIKE!!!!!!!!" I know that thing better than anyone after the work I put in on that thing, his comment was sad...but true. =p We almost chased him down but I figured the 12-14 year old needed it more than we did, and that the Jesus Sticker already probably gave him more guilt than he could bear. SO we stood and watched him ride away.

Yesterday we were coming home from dinner at a members house and there was a sign that said "free bikes", my prayers were answered! We were able to play with and test 3 different bikes to decide which ones we wanted. We took 2 of them, one of them for pieces and new tubes for the two bikes that we have, or to potentially give to the zone leaders so they can be more effective on car fast. The new bike we got is much nicer than broken down girls bike that was stolen. Has a amazing seat too!!! The church is true!

We had half mission p-day this week on thursday. As we drove there I almost burst in tears as I looked at the forests and the wavy land of fields and old barns and silos zip by me, knowing that I probably wont see that sight in a good while again.  

While at Half mission p-day I said good bye to many friends I wont see again. I also found out from Sis Burk, a sister who used to be a district leader for, she told me that while she was out and about she walked by a lady in the south part of Kalamazoo. The lady stopped her and told her she recognized sis burk. They thought for a while and connected that they met when I brought her to church. It was Marina! The lady who was in awe that me and Elder Medina was Glowing as we taught her, who came to church with all of her kids and her son wanted to join the scouting program, she was progressing towards baptism and then dropped off the map. Turns out she became Homeless and there was no room for her at her sisters and her mothers, so her and all of her kids (3) were homeless in kalamazoo. They set up a appointment after they talked about me and she is now being taught again.

My last part of my tale this week has not been a miraculous or enjoyable one. My 2 points of friction here is Satan, and the missionaries here, it's been like that since my first week here. I went from having 7 investigators progressing solidly towards baptism to now only having 2-3, Satan has been giving us a beating there; but those 2 are super solid. One is being forced to auction their house this wednesday. R is having the gates of hell rage against him too and I am not sure I will see him join the church soon enough, but I am sure he will in a few weeks.

I did just write for like 10 minutes about the missionaries in the area and my friction with them, but I will give you the cliff notes version, since I don't believe thee other version is appropriate for me to tell the world about.

 Basically number 1, I was stupid and prayed for humility, never do that unless you wanna get into a crazy fight with people. Number 2 I prayed for Charity for missionaries, because I have been having a hard time with these ones. Number 3, missionaries were being stupid and tried to boss me how to work my area and join their secret combination, and as you know I have big beef with people trying to tell me how to live me life if they aren't teaching me a correct principal. They wanted me to shun a member of the church who I invited to help me with my missionary work, for reasons that were the missionary's fault. 

Which led to me having huge debate with my zone leaders last night for like 12 minutes on the phone, and since I won on every point of the debate they had me call up the chain where I then had to contend with the assistants for 14 minutes until I bashed them to pieces on the argument and they had me call president even though all of my questions were answered and i now understood their point of view and was living accordingly to the rule, but since they couldn't beat me they had me call president where we debated for 20 minutes. 

That discussion then turned to him trying to debate with me as well and I destroyed his argument which ticked him off and caused him to go off on how I don't understand a topic I wasn't even talking about, and how I need to obey him anyways..... But he wouldn't listen, it was the way I presented it the first time that set him off. I ended that boss battle by shutting up and letting him rant for several minutes and then thanked him and told him to have a good night, since I am not guilty I just stopped and let him prove his point that I wasn't concerned about.

So yup I have successfully ticked off every one except my companion because he actually understands and gave me the time of day with out trying to debate with me unlike every one else. That night I realized it was my freakin prayers!!!!!!! I hate praying for Christlike attributes! I always pray for him to just give me the gift without the effort or pain, it never works! I wish all people could listen and understand like people who know and love me do. I am sick of missionaries! 

Does any one else miss their mom?

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't worry I am not a demon child

Don't get shot!

Love

-- 

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Is that my bike?

When sis p had me punch in your phone number to send you that picture, I accidentally did it wrong. We quickly got a text back " you got the wrong number, but im Mormon too, GO ELDERS!!!" ha ha. 

This week has been a week.

My companion likes to make fun of me, it's because I forgot how to tie a tie. My knots used to be really nice, but I forgot how to do that and now they are very one sided and awkward looking. You would think after two years of tieing a tie a person would never be able to forget how to do it well.... my life is so hard!

My companions bike got stolen. We on p-day changed in the zone leaders war-torn apartment that was damaged by the sprinklers from the fire alarm going off. While there, my companion lost our keys there and we left not knowing we didn't have them. It was easy enough for me to break into my apartment complex at the end of that night so we really had no need. The Zone leaders said they'd come over and give them to us in the morning... Yup the Zoneleaders never came, I guess it's in their job description because thats how it is with every zone leader ever. SO because of that I opened the garage with out a key so we could get out bikes out and we left. Yup... we also didn't have they key to the Disk Detainer bike lock, and there was no way I would be able to pick that so we didn't use it because we couldn't. Yup and his bike went missing eventually. Again they stole the broken down girls bike that could only use it's front breaks and half of it's gears; it also had a sticker of Jesus on the handle bars, I hope they can live with themselves as they continue to see that sticker. But yes they left the fully functional road bike, my pride, my joy, my ability to race cars was the only thing they took because now I had to walk with it so my companion could keep up.

Now every where we go there are two comments made when we see a bike. "Is that my (your) bike?' or when ever we see a bike without a owner "free bike?!!!". 

I don't think I can accomplish my goal anymore. The only way I could is if other people who I used to teach miraculously join the church in another area. But it all depended on one lesson this week, let me tell you about it:

We had been struggling to keep in contact with F since she got her new job. We always seem to contact her if we sit at a bus stop and call people. So we called all the people on our to do list while sitting at a bus stop. A bus pulled up and I said here she is.... nope. Not 30 seconds later did she walk around the corner and walk up to us ha ha! 80% of the time, it works! We got in contact and we set up a appointment at the library the next day. We called the lady who I wanted to be her fellowshipper and we got it arranged right then and there, It was a miracle! I have tried that for over a month now and it hasn't worked this whole time!!!!!! I was so excited I was thinking it through: we finally contacted her and she now has a schedule so we can learn it and meet regularly, she has a fellowshipper now who is going to bring her to the YSA activities like F wanted. and the lesson for her was perfect and would have helped her progress loads. THis was perfect, the deck was STACKED!!!! From there the only outcome I could see was her joining the church soon after I left if not before. 

So we showed up the next day and found her at a computer like usual. She was a little busy and so she had us go get the key to the study room. I did and we waited for her in the room. Like 15 minutes passed and we went out and asked her to join us, she snapped "give me privacy, I am busy!" as she was watching a youtube video of a guy singing and facebook messaging. 

Not wanting to make a public scene we went back into the room. We waited..... I went out and told her we only have a half hour before we have to go somewhere else and she could do that after our lesson, she told me she was busy and she could only do it now, as she continued to scroll on facebook. I went back and like 5 minutes later I was sick of it and went to invite her to the YSA pokemon dance that night and to leave the building to actually go do work. When I walked out she wasn't there anymore.

I was ticked. we left like we planned. I was so ticked. That was the lesson. that was the deal breaker. That was the one lesson that was a for sure we had in the bag to help her become converted. I was so ticked. I thought the whole rest of the day and ever since about that, it still frustrates me. Because of her inability to abstain for 30 minutes it ruined the lesson, it ruined her path to conversion, it ruined our contact again, it ruined my goal,.....But it taught me a valuable lesson that I had only had slight promptings to. 

Christ-like attributes are essential to some one becoming converted, and some one can't be converted if they do not exercise those attributes. Because of her inability to be Temperate she wasn't able to progress, same with every one because of their inability to be Humble they don't accept correct principals and they don't progress. Because of their lack of work Ethic they don't know How to be diligent enough to get a answer to a prayer.

That ran through my head the whole rest of the day.

That night Sis P took us out to one of her investigators she picked up when she was a ward missionary. ( a amazing example of a member missionary, not only did she know how to teach and what PMG says but she had her own teaching pool too!!! It was a Missionary present lesson, not a member present. I want that.). And I was able to get one of them to spit out his concerns, all of which were questions of the soul that he didn't understand that I slayed tactfully. '

But He got ticked (i didn't recognize this but Sis p did) because he didn't want to believe what I just expounded from the scriptures Sis P then helped him recognize he was being prideful and then taught him how to be humble and he then accepted my teaching that it could be true. I was in AWE! I had been thinking about that all day long and it was a perfect example of how to teach some one the Christlike attribute they needed so they can become converted. If F didn't create a need for that concept I probably wouldn't have learned from that at all, which would have been terrible because I have been studying that for over a year now.

My problem now is I am struggling to find out all of the attributes and their opposites and how they are expressed and I have been racking my mind about it all week since, and today I am in a bad mood because in my personal studies I thought I was gonna answer all of my questions, but no I kicked over like 30 more rocks and found endless tunnels when I thought I was reaching the bottom of it all. I just wish I had a smart phone, it would make it possible to find these things out and life would be so much easier! 

That same day we had a appointment with a Messianic Jew who we door knocked into in a Rich neighborhood. We got there and he was there, he let us in, he prayed that he could be Humble and receive our message, at the end of that lesson I determined he has all the attributes some one needs to be converted and If he gets a answer to his prayer I am pretty sure he will join the church in a matter of weeks. I haven't stopped knocking Rich neighborhoods ever since =p. We've been having good success there too which is funny because most missionaries hate knocking those places because they aren't compelled to be humble, but we've done pretty good and I believe all you need to do is understand correct principals of finding in order to have success there.

I have 6-7 p-days before I got home. 2 this week, 1 next week, and 2 my last week and then all the other time that after transfer calls take place I assume will be a p-day too.

Well I gotta go

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot!
 (I had a dream tonight that my companion shot some one, it was terrifyingly realistic! I was relived when I woke up) 

-- 

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

But Stings like a Bee‏

I have gotten so serious about my goals now my companion prays vocally about my goals too.

I still don't know what to do with Atheists yet, I only knock into a small amount of them, any tips from online or your missions on what to do in that situation. Because I have never seen success from what I do (which I learned from other misisonaries) which is a good indication that I don't use a correct principal.

2 days ago I went and locked our bikes up to a stop sign I stepped back and a Bee attacked me stabbing me with it's stinger a millimeter from my eyeball...It was so close to hitting my eye. That thing got pretty swollen. I am so greatful it didn't get my eye though!

My companion points out every airplane we see, kinda funny because it's supposed to be the other way around where I make fun of him for how much more time he has left, but I aint about that life, so he tries to do that to me. SO it makes it kind of odd and doesn't work but... I swear we have seen like 15 planes in the last 3 days.

We have been riding bikes this week. When ever we are at a intersection I try and race the cars to see who can get to the other side of the intersection faster. The Specialized is a beast and I win some and loose some it greatly depends on what gear I am in and how fast I react to the light change. Those sports cars never loose though ha ha.

I have been reading the power of the everyday missionary alot this week. Our mission approved it and gave us all copies this week,  i am at pg 100 somethin. I like it alot because I have been trying to think of how I will continue missionary work back home and I could easily keep it up or even be  more effective of a missionary than I am now by living by those principals. Because one of the big things about me going on a mission was I knew there was no other place I would be able to learn missionary skills near as well as here and I have always had desires to do missionary work but never had the skill and because of that I had fears and hesitated to do so. That and as I have talked to a whole bunch of missionaries on my mission I have always heard them say " oh when I get home I will go out with the missionaries every week...Give them rides... feed them every month..." I just think, "Yah, what ever! you'll probably do that for like a month if that". So in my case I don't want to do that, I would much rather find people for the missionarys to teach, so they help me with my goal of helping as many people join the church as years I live. Thats one of the reasons why I am still seeking knowledge about missionary work that I don't have because these are the last few weeks where I can practice it for hours a day.

This week we had a lesson with our investigator. Turns out I caught all 151 pokemon, He caught all 151 pokemon, and my companion caught every pokemon that has been created (which all of which don't exist except the original 151 =p, but yet he caught all like 900). Who knew that 3 pokemon masters would have been brought together like that!

My zone leaders had breakfast and studied with us this morning since we are having a zone pday today. We got talking and one of them started to try and convince me that I shouldn't do Family History in Finding... Oh I flipped a biscuit hard! (People in this zone use "flip a biscuit" in their vocabulary and none of them heard it from me!!! One of my companions must have rubbed off on some one and it spread. I was shocked when I heard like 3 people use it in common conversations. None of them whipped out a frying pan like your saposed to but still!) I "bashed" him to pieces on that subject (only i didn't bash, I never bash, I instead taught him of how it is a correct principal every missionary needs to live, created a need for it,  and then showed him the blessings, and testifies of all the many miracles we've seen from it) there was no "putting me into my place" after that! =p 

My goal is going well. It's been hard because now all of my investigators are going through tribulation. One is loosing her house, I found out that they won't make her move for 6 months though so she will be here for her baptism. Another is being persecuted by family and coworkers, one of his friends died (it's scary how much I see that one come up when people are on the path to turning their testimony to being converted). One got a new job where she makes jewelry, and while she makes jewelry her company brings in preachers to speak to them all, she is kinda forced to listen to it all, her phone broke, work holds her late which keeps causing her to miss our appointments.

We have a investigator who really wants to be baptized but there is no way he will pass the interview... Doesn't believe in God consistantly, one appointment he will, the next he wont; doesn't believe In Jesus or joseph smith...... He has felt the spirit several times and I have helped him recognize it during lesson but he keeps forgetting it and almost pretending like he hasn't felt the spirit. He almost pretends to act nobel and says he will act in faith by being baptized so he can have a great spiritual witness after....I got so ticked off our last lesson, I kept telling him I wont baptize him and he wont pass his interview. He finished the whole book of mormon and has prayed to know if it was true the whole time. He just doesn't accept that he has felt the spirit. But forget my goal (in his case), I don't wanna be the shmeep that baptizes some who will never be active in their life just for a number.

Please pray for my goal and my investigators.

If I don't accomplish my goal now on my mission, I believe that it is still possible to accomplish it and probably will be accomplished by my companion. But i worry about that because I can't have influence on that.

Well I gotta go Bye i love you!

have a good day!

Don't get shot!

Or stung in the eye!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

♫Family History! Finally Mastered it!♫‏

I like my new companion loads! He is actually experienced as a missionary and I do not need to train him at all, but he observes me like a hawk and eats up everything and applies it quickly. it's sweet! He is so chill too, every night we sit and drink juice and talk untill we have to go to bed.

This week has been so humid!!!! Yesterday I could almost drink the air!

Hey Robby you better watch out! I have been doing P90X recently and if you think I am coming home a softy, thinking I will loose in any arm wrestling match you are mistaken. =p You better watch it dude, my flexing muscles in my arm move when I turn my hand the other direction =p ha ha

All I can think about is my goals. In fact I now have even more goals to think about too. It has become such a obsession that the only thing my companion thinks about is my goals, not even his own goals but he think about my goals all day every day!

WE have been seeing so many miracles!!!!! I swear I am not worthy enough to have all of these miracles happen, I mean yah I am obedient but I am never seeing anything but MIRACLES! I still suck at keeping some rules and yet I am still blessed beyond belief. But to be fair too my new companion E.A has been serving in BadAxe Michigan for the last 6 months a place that is very sad when it comes to missionary work, so he is probably cashing in all of his unused persecution points for miracles too. Keep Praying that I can accomplish my goals!

I think I did it! I think I mastered Family History! I have been giving those FH pass along cards faster than I do regular ones now because of how many people are receptive to it. I have been doing it in several diffrent ways but my finding through using questions of the soul and restored truth questions, and family history weave in and out now and are truly one finding tactic. 

 

I got a lady super interested in family history and followed it up (after I found out she was religious) with a " So what do you think happens to our ancestors who die with out a knowledge of the gospel?" and totally got her with restored truth too and we should be teaching her the plan of salvation in a few days. There is no way she would have been interested if I didn't go a family history route. I am planning on writing it out and sending it to all of the many missionaries who I have talked to about this to help them all be more effective.

The thing that is getting me now is I realized every missionary I know sucks at helping Atheists agree to meet with us. How do you do that? because what I learned how to do isn't effective and I have never seen success from it.

One of our top investigators who is on date has had some experiences this week.  At the end of our lesson last sunday I forgot to set up a return appointment, so we stopped by after correlation (miraculously we had time after that) meeting a few days later. We dropped by and he answered the door and said he was right about to call us, he let us in and he told us all about what happened at work with his coworkers. 

 

They saw him reading the book of Mormon during his break and they tore him to pieces about how we aren't Christians and other stupid not true beliefs about us. It really got to him and he was thinking about calling us and dropping us a few minutes before we arrived at his door. We resolved his concerns and prepared him for even more persecution and tribulation to be coming as he prepares to be baptized. It may seem odd but I rejoiced in the car that happened, because he is now having Tribulation and persecution  which is an essential thing for some one to go through to become converted to anything. It brought me alot of peace knowing that he isn't going to be baptized with only a testimony and not being converted. But we still have more time there.

We came by a few days later to hear that he was surrounded by 4 co workers at work again and they tried to bash him to pieces the next time they saw him read during his work break. But this time he was aware it was satan and he laughed at the stupid things they said about us. " those Mormons don't worship God, They worship Mohamed!....." he responded "Who the Hell is Mohamed! they teach me about God not him!". He later during the lesson asked us Who Mohamed was because he was still confused on who they were talking about.

Our other investigator almost dropped us, she was getting confused because the book of mormon sounds alot like the bible and she wasn't willing to make the commitment to be rebaptized. It was a pretty quick fix when I went back to mosiah 18 and had her read the verses where she felt the spirit and she humbled herself and changed her mind because she knew what she felt. She then at the end of the lesson gave us 10 bags of groceries!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dude the church is so true here! I havn't seen any thing but miracles and huge blessings since I got here. My companion told me that this week we did more missionary work than he did in one of his transfers in Bad Axe. This week is scheduled to be even better.  Our key indicators were amazing!

Well I gotta go

 Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Transferrrrrs!

We got our transfer calls and I am staying and E.Kratz is leaving. No shock he was here for 6 months and I was going home. That was my last transfer call. I have 6 weeks left. E.Quintana the last missionary I trained Got a transfer call up to Alpena, the area where I was trained! he had a million questions and I spent most of my email time telling him people to hunt down. "son" is going to fix up his "father's" mistakes. 

I think I can accomplish my goal! It's still difficult and not secured but I think it can work out. Currently I have 6 people on date to be baptized and 6 progressing investigators. There is alot of work for these people but I think I can make it, But i am not going to be devastated if I don't make it because I would rather they be converted than only having a testimony and being baptized and going less active.

I love how in PMG under Gospel dispensations it talks about prophets learning things by revelation; I mean they use the scriptures to teach it but they learn it from revelation. I see that ALL THE TIME! All of the big truths I cling to I learned in that way and later found scriptures to back it up to teach to people. I had that happen a million and a half times. It happened with the Godly Sorrow thing, I read Repentance in True to the faith and it says in black and white super clear that it instills a desire. =p Before I could infer that from other things but that was undebateable. But it sure does help when you have the right resources that can straight up give you the answers to all of your questions!

We had so much success this week! I am way too blessed to be here! I don't know if it's I racked up so much Persecution points my whole mission that I now have to cash them all in before I end, so thats why I only see miracles or.... Church is true here! Especially when you drive a 2016 Ford Fusion! I honestly feel like I don't deserve this much success but Everything has been working in our favor! 

E. kratz door knocked into a guy months back and he gave him a pass along card. We got a call a month or so ago and he said he had to do a report on a religion in one of his college classes and so he wanted to interview us. We agreed. He interviewed us about our personal lives, our family lives, the Mormon lifestyles, and beliefs of our church, church organization, how it came to be... 

He had an LDS friend growing up, his friend never talked about the gospel and he decided to study us since we showed up. He is agnostic, But NEVER has any other religion ever made sense or had him feel like this before, and he used to go to school for religion major of a sort and tried many churches before he lost his beliefs. 

We went hard in our interviews, we had 2 of them, the first one we taught him the plan of salvation along with all of his questions about us, and we taught the restoration the second one. He went to church and was fascinated on how we actually respect communion (the sacrament), he learned about temples there, and everything made such sense.  =p.

He finished his report. Got a 97% on it because he was so fascinated by it he couldn't stop thinking about it. We shot him a text after his report was turned in and asked if he read the Book of Mormon that we gave him. He said he did and there was a thing that really meant alot to him from it. He wanted to ask us more about it not over text, so we went back to the church to meet with him yesterday. We picked him up as a investigator yesterday. 

We will have taught 13-14 lessons this week by the end of today, most with member present, 2 are less active lessons. and we still got like 11-12 hours of door knocking and 2 p-days in there! This week has been number 1! I think next week will be better too. Since we will have the car all week long, no p-days, and many appointments. 

pray that I can accomplish my goal of helping 20 people join the church before I end my mission. Because no matter how ridiculously good =p I am at missionary work, there is no way I can accomplish that feat but only by Gods power can I! 

 I should be getting my new companion Monday

I gotta go clean the apartment and do something fun

Bye I love you!

Have a good day!

Don't get shot!

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

4 baptisms in 7 weeks. I can do this!

THis week has been pretty sweet! Full day p-day for the 4th of july, zone confrence (took a whole day basically), Maria's baptism (which I made it to miraculously) 

I heard from E.Quintana that Maria was getting baptized this saturday and that she wanted me there for it. I didn't really do anything about it right away because I figured it was best that I waited until correlation for ideas on who could give me a ride to Kalamazoo. We had 2 lessons scheduled though on accident right before correlation that would make us way late for the meeting. We went to the first one and we had to sprint on our bikes to be 5 minutes late to the second one. We had it planned to be at the public library and we walked all around the library and couldn't find him for once. And so we decided to head out to correlation. 

The second we stepped outside of the library The bus pulled right up. We ran and I waved it down and it stopped and gave us the time we needed to unlock our bikes and put them on the bus. If we didn't make that bus that would have probably caused me to not be able to go the baptism. It was a miracle in it's self that I was able to come to the baptism.

With Maria joining the church this week I am pretty sure I can accomplish my goal of helping 20 people join the church, but it is still gonna be pretty difficult, How many people do you know got 4 baptims in less than 12 weeks start to finish? (not all one miracle super prepared family either) I think about it so much! I pray about it like 30 times a day. But as of yesterday I now have 4 people on date, it's just a matter of getting them there.

Maria's baptism was awesome! I heard parts of the story that I had never heard before. She told us about before I knocked on her door. She saw us walking down the street and she kept telling her son to stay away from the door so she wouldn't have to answer it. SHe told him that several times. But I came and knocked on the door and he ran up and lifted the curtain up from behind the glass door and I waved at him (like I usually do when I see people peek from their windows and try and hide and be sneaky so I don't see them). Maria thought "great.... Now I have to talk to them...." 

she prepared a statement on how she is Catholic and not interested but when she opened the door we were glowing. We radiated something she wanted and we helped her see there was things that she didn't know so even though she prepared to shut us down it didn't work and she accepted =p. As she walked away the verse of scripture was brought to her mind from Heb 3:7,15 (or Psalms 95:8-10, or Jacob 6:6 as she later found out it was a combination of such). 

You have heard the rest of her story though. But to add more to what I said in the past... Before the baptism I talked to her and she told me that she posted on facebook that she was being baptized and invited others to it, all she got persecuted hard online for it. She got a email the night before she was baptized from a friend that was full of anti literature. It really got to her and she knelt down and prayed about it. She layed awake most of the night because of it. She decided she would pray about it in the morning. 

She woke up and all of her worries about the anti was gone, and she realized how stupid it all was and how not true it was, Maria thought of all of the changes and all of the love she felt from God as she followed our teachings and the power of God that did many miracles to help her get to where she is. She knew Satan had his one last struggles to try and derail her, but she didn't give in. I have never taught anyone who was persecuted more than her to try and stop her from joining. 

I arrived and saw that she was in a White dress, the very thing she wore in her dream and watched her walk into the font with E. Quintana (who she always told that he looked very familiar to her). I got to see her vision fulfilled, in the very font that she dreamed of. 

I gave my departing testimony at Zone Conference this last week. We get our transfer calls this week, it will be my last t-call, I have so much I need to do and learn still! We get 2 p-days this week =p I am pretty sure my companion will be transferred. 

Yesterday I took a RM who used to be the Assistant to President like 10 months back, he is back in the area until the week I go home, for work. So we took him out teaching and for a first in a long time actually learned from a "trade off" I haven't learned anything about missionary work from tradeoffs in the past few months, I tend to teach more than I learn (and I try hard to learn from them!!! I am not just prideful and unteachable), It was healthy =p. He had a mind like I do in finding truth from every one and he had some awesome insights!

I have a investigator who is dying to be baptized but we have to keep rescheduling his appointments... He would be baptized tomorrow if he could, but we haven't even hit a commandment yet. He came to church yesterday.

We have another lady who I door knocked into my first day here, we have been teaching her in her fellowshippers home, she loves her fellowshipper! She came to church yesterday too and should be coming to a "empty nesters"  event at the church where they feed me (=p) and share messages and have fun. SHe hasn't accepted a date yet but I am certain she will join before I leave.

Another couple are also doing well, I believe they can join before I leave too, they love us like family! The only problem there is our lessons have been WHAKO and I have been fighting 4 people trying to keep us on track and not speculating about other worlds and who lives on them and Jesus visiting them and...and... If we can get them to live the Word of WIsdom and truly repent they already have been taught these things are true and they both agreed to being baptized. I believe they can make it before I go, IF SATAN STOPS GETTING US TO WASTE TIME IN OUR LESSONS WITH THEM!! I am so fired up about that last lesson. 

And a lady From Kalamazoo should join this transfer, They are trying to get her husband to be worthy to baptize her and they are both working on the word of wisdom together, from the sounds of it they are really pumped about it too. 

 Sorry I am out of time and I realized I didn't write any good stories, but all I can think about is my goal and doing the Most good that I can before I can't do this full time. 

Well I gotta go, 
Bye I love you

Have a good day!

--Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Too tired but still obedient

I found out this last week that one the investigators who I taught and put on date that joined the church, one of his kids join the church this last month, I only taught his son once because he was taught by another set of missionaries over at his moms house, but he always seemed to be around and was really goofy and gave some of my dance moves a run for it's money. =p

I forgot to mention to you as well that this area has Sr. missionaries here too. They are not assigned to my area but they live 3 buildings down and we see them at church when the spanish branch comes in. So this week on our p-day we went over and spent some time with them to get to know them better. They are only serving for 6 months and this is their last month.

Mom, no I havn't gotten my birthday present yet. you know 2 months later ha ha =p. There is a Zone conference this week and I will get it there though.

Maria my investigator from Kalamazoo is being baptized this week. I may or may not be able to get there for it.

There is like 6 members here who has approached me and said that they used to live in Mesa, all of them knew people who I know and was able to tell me about changes in our stake that even I didn't know.

It's crazy here, it is so much like home. The houses look nothing like mesa, but the city looks like gilbert with all the grass and trees and organization just not as nice as gilbert, alot of my area has houses that a new family would live in or old people. But there has been so many times where my heart would drop to the floor because where i was looked exactly like a place from back home and I was shocked thinking I was at home or in Arizona.

I asked every missionary I know in other missions about family history and none of them had answers on how to use it in door knocking...

We had to many things planned thursday morning so we weren't able to do weekly planning at it's usual time. It became a back up for our last appointment after dinner. The appointment fell through and we did weekly planning right before we did our planning for the next day. So while planning I got sick of my study chair that was stolen from relief society I believe and I layed on the couch. That day we rode like 10 miles on bikes and it was hot... So i fell asleep during weekly planning on accident. I opened my eyes 2 seconds later any my companion was talking to our district leader on the phone I asked what step of planning we were on and he said he finished weekly planning AND nightly planning. I thought I only had my eyes closed for a second but... nope it was like a hour later =p. So i was tired and planning was already done, and hey I was already comfy So i closed my eyes and was out in like a minute and just slept on the couch.

I woke up the next morning. I was in my bed though, wearing everything:shirt, tie, name tag, socks, tie clip, wallet, planner, pen... My companion informed me that when it hit 10:30ish pm I got off the couch and kneeled down by my bed (which I never do without changing) and slept until my watch beeped that it was 11 which is when I normally wrap up my long nightly prayers and I got in bed and slept. =p ha ha I don't remember it at all! Who knew you could get so trained in the missionary schedule that that could happen. Even when I sleep I am obedient! ha ha =p all i ever dream about is missionary work anyways...

We had a lesson with our investigator (the one who almost died in child birth) we have gotten her husband involved in the lessons now and he is interested, so this last lesson we taught him the plan of salvation. He doesn't like Christians or religions and hates what people think about God and hates mainstream Christianity. But His mind was blown when it came to the plan of salvation and it all was things that he inherently seemed to believe (minus the kingdoms of glory). 

 

There was times that he stood up to yell at and throw his dog in a room where he left us and his wife outside in their garden to talk. This was her second time going through the plan of salvation and she wouldn't stop talking about how much of a difference the plan of salvation makes to her, and how it has helped make her life make sense. At one point in the Lesson her husband went off on a rant on how is dog is stupid and dreams and rolls around and and does stuff while it dreams and then he turned and said that his new daughter does the same thing too. 

 

He talked about how his daughter doesn't open her eyes  or ever see anything and doesn't understand anything and or know anything, but when she sleeps she will smile and and find great joy in her sleep. It didn't make sense to him at all how could she find joy in her dreams if she has seen or experienced nothing except maybe a little light through her mommy's tummy. She then kicked in and explained like a tender loving mother would to a young kid "She lived with God before now and she dreams about life with him" The spirit touched my heart at that moment. I determined at that point she truly does have a testimony and probably would join before I finished my mission.

All I can think about is my goal of helping 20 people join the church before I finish my mission. Pray that I can accomplish it! It's in every prayer, fast, study, determining plans for my day....

I sat and realized how much I love Michigan, I watched fire works sunday night from my window and just thought about when I flew in to Michigan, when I flew over the grand canyon, when I saw endless water and trees from my window..... I had no clue any this could have happened  2 years! I am so grateful for it and for the hell I went through, and for the.......

ak! I am late!

Bye!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

    

"Thats you in 2 months!"

I hear that comment every day. I hear that comment 6 times a day at least, it always comes when we see a guy kiss his wife, or when marraige is talked about it church, or we see some one doing something really fun that I can't. my companion thinks it's funny... But i do too so I join in ha ha! IN fact I might have started it =p.

We have had alot of cool sucsess this last week. Infact I probably could have wrote a whole email about it by tuesday on all of the miracles we saw and have that take our whole emailing time. But I didn't write those ones down so they are only gonna be in my journal.

We had to book it from a lesson on our bikes to be able to make it to a less active lesson on time. Yup we wern't on time, infact this is the first week my companion has rode a bike in the last 10 years.

But I am kind and I took the nice specialized and left him with the beat up girl road bike anyways =p. I payed my dues right? I deserve the nice one=p jk he doesn't know the diffrence and it has a nicer seat anyways. But because of us being 20 minutes late no one answered the door and we went to do our back up plan and go to the bus stop and call people while there. While we did that a investigator who we havn't been able to contact in a while walked up to us and told us she wants to meet with us and still wants to be baptized. We were ment to miss that appointment.

We had a dinner appoint with the zoneleaders and several older members. They were so adamant that we come durring out p-day it really bothered the zoneleaders but we went and was on time like they Demanded.

When we showed up there was the 4 members and a girl my age there. It was obvious this was one of their grand daughters who was my age. We ate dinner and None of the 3 other missionaries even tried to talk to her! It was obvious she wasn't a member and they never even tried. I talked to her alot and then I found out she has been training in MMA recently and we really kicked it off!

I started asking her questions about religious back ground making it obvious to the other missionaries on what I was doing... Nope none of them even tried to talk to her. I kept subtly working it and taught a little and tried passing it to a zone leader. Nope they were so dumb! I tried passing it to all 3 and none of them had the guts to talk.

The spiritual thought came and the zoneleaders did the thought and they totaly ignored that she was a nonmember and the members set this up!!!!!  As they testified on the role of fathers and was about to close, I kicked in and changed that to the Gospel blesses families and individuals and then testified and invited to learn and she accepted. I have not stopped giving any of them grief for that, they didn't even try... Well shes in my area anyways so I guess thats my blessing!

We had a lesson with our new investigators  (the ones who has been feeding us who we knocked into on my first day). We brought 2 members with us to that lesson and they ate with us. They turned out to be PERFECT fellowshippers. One was Lutherine gone non denominational, and the members one used to be Lutherine and the other used to be non denominational. One used to be a nurse and our investigator used to be a nurse. They had so much to talk about!!!

And all of them are old so they were able to talk about old people stuff too that we couldn't. =p Durring the lesson we opened up to mosiah 18:8-10 and my companion started using his new found teaching skills. After the verse my companion asked what they thought about it, and she had a odd responce which was drowed out by the members responce.

My companion then tried to kick up, but I shot right back after the member was done and asked her about it and got her to bring up that when she read the verse the spirit touched her heart and told her "SO what do you have against being baptized?" She told us about it and I asked her if she knew what that was, she responded that it was the spirit and thats what God wants her to do. Boom, baptism invite.

But I couldn't get her to accept (the other sister already accepted). She told us she wasn't sure what our religion was all about and I tried to resolve that concern. But we eventually had to book it to our appointment that we were terribly late to so we ran out. But E. kratz ran back in to use the bathroom. They thought we were gone and he heard the discussion between the members and the investigator said " I know what I felt , that was God telling me to do that! But I know nothing about your church still, and I am not sure what will happen with the people at my other church if I leave. But I know that was God...". =p They were pretty determined to see our church next week. I bet they will join before I leave.


One of our investigators almost died in Child Birth. I figured that was a good excuse to cancel our appointment.

I have so much more to say miracle wise this week but I don't have time!

Every night I can't go to bed on time any more. It's just like How it was when I was back home how I would lie awake with my eyes closed for hours. My tiredness has gone away basically, but I can't sleep now.

I keep thinking about my goal of playing a essential role in the baptism of 20 people. I need to improve, I need to learn more! I am not stressed about it, but there is a sence of urgency. I flipped through PMG the other day and I looked at every main subject in it. I can honestly say I have mastered all of it (my opinion) but like 3 principals. And I have been racking my mind on how to master them my whole mission, but I don't know how because PMG doesn't teach you at all on those subjects.

 I am making good progress on them but I need to master them! So can you help me? One of them I wanna hear from parents and RM's about; On PMG pg 8 theres a quote by e. holland about being devastated when people don't read the BOM. Now I can do that with the BOM sometimes but I am not good at it.  The spirit taught me a while ago that Being "Devastated" can Instill Godly sorrow which can give people desires to act in faith and eventually repent. How do you do that!?!? Mom how do you be devastated so us kids know that we did something terrible and need to change? I wanna be able to do that with any principal of the gospel or life. there is loads of mothers who I am certain has mastered this, help!

The second one I wanna know about is family History in finding. PMG sucks with that topic there is only 2 sentences in my opinion that is actually useful info. I wanna know what other people in other missions do if there is some one who has posted something, because I have NEVER seen another missionary try and use it in finding here at all unless I taught them what I know about it and I suck at it!

But the times I have used it good was SUPER succsessful and it totally broke barriers that you wouldn't be able to break by teaching about restored truths or questions of the soul. I basically need to master this one so I can pass it on to help others here since NO ONE uses it. ANd if its that important that the prophet put it in PMG...! So if you can I wanna know good questions to ask and how other people do it. I have been working on this one all week and I have made good progress but I have worked on that my whole mission and I still have only got 1 potential from it my whole mission and passed out maybe 12 Family history cards.

My goal is I wanna get in and teach some one and start them on their family history, basically all I need to do is be able to create a need for it and get into their door and I can do the rest. When ever I ask any missionary or my mission prez i never hear anything that works or that they actually tried. specifically doorknocking.

Help please?!

Well I gotta go Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot!

Love
--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

MMA missionary

"Oh, yeah, I  have definitely been listening to the music you gave (advised) me!  My Spotify playlist is named Truman Crockett because of you! XD"-(former companion) Zack Baker =p

I realized this week that for months now I have been using body wash for shampoo... I thought it was the same type I bought before, just a different bottle..... My life is so hard.


My toothbrush snapped in half this week =(


I realized that I am doomed my whole life to teach the gospel and to teach people how to teach, Because I can't stand going to church and not feeling the spirit because the people who teach have no teaching skills at all...

I know thats harsh but when I have investigators at church and they are teaching exaltation, outerdarkness, confession to bishop, the word of wisdom, how to recognize the Holy Ghost....in a lesson that was supposed to be on baptism and baptism was never taught once except for reading the first paragraph from the book.......no questions, no scriptures, no involvement....... I was about to walk out.


This place is number 1! We wake up and play basket ball with  members and missionaries in the morning, our car has a touch screen set of buttons on the outside door to punch in a code incase you lock your keys in the car (and we know the code). The cars air conditioning is cold in 4 seconds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am like converted to this thing!

We had a member tell us at a dinner appointment that he thought that he knew some people who we could teach, he went over and home taught them (without us) picked them up as investigators for us, and put them on date to be baptized and then told us about it! =p

The first door I knocked on here a nice older lady came to the door and said she had a sister who was taught by the missionaries a long time ago in Cheboygan and that it did alot of good for her and she wanted to meet with us later that day. We came back and taught her and her sister and picked them up as investigators. "Oh that makes so much sense why there is so many different churches now!", " You know I believe what you say he must have been called to be a prophet if all of that happned.".

We came back for our second lesson with them and they had a meal prepared for us (we just came from a dinner appointment where I stuffed myself....My life is so hard! I ate even more!) and they invited both of their neighbors to join them for the lesson. It was hard teaching all 4 of them especially since we had to rehash the restoration to make the plan of salvation make more sense to the neighbors. "THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE! We lived with God before we lived here! thats amazing!". They are pretty sweet!=p they have fed us every time we go over now too. Hungry howies, burgers, spagetti... I wish every first door I knocked on was like this!

I had a tooth ache this week! I was devastated!!!!! I hated it! I couldn't chew on anything with that side of my mouth! It was a constant pain too. That was my one fear of being on a mission that I would have cavities that would cause a tooth ache... 3 days went by and I kept beasting it out thinking "only 3 months" ha ha. Yah I got sick of that thought pretty quick and begged for my tooth to be healed in prayer. I woke up a day later and it's been like 4 days and I havn't felt any pain in it since. =p

So my district leader (by the way I am not sure how I feel about not teaching district meeting any more, but it is SUPER nice to be able to study what I want for once!!) was transfered in when I was, He decided trade offs and so right after our first district meeting week 2 I was staying in my area for trade offs with a brand new missionary. He had no clue how long I have been in the area (I know Now).

Also turns out that wednesday was the day we had to do car rotations and I had to give up the new love of my life. So My companion would not stop annoying me on what I needed to do and where I needed to go to give the other set of missionaries the car. Well all of that annoyance was for nothing! I took my companions GPS (he wanted to take it on trade offs... "Yah whatever give me that, they already have 2") and called the elders to get their address since there was no way I was going to be able to remember those directions my companion gave me to their appartment.

When I called They told me to "meet us at the church", So I went to my church and waited there since they live close to our area... I waited like 10 minutes and called and they were TICKED!!! I had made them late for their appointment because they didn't commuicate to me that they wanted me to go to the stake center. So We punched it in the GPS and drove there. WHen we got there they took off immediately...

Yes...we were alone... not in our area... neither of us with any clue where we were.... or how to go home... I didn't have the oppertunity to plan for being there.... no clue what to do.... 40 minutes away from our area...members at work... I started to miss my mom =p...


I racked my brain to remember the bus route since I have been staring at the maps so much, I remembered that there was a bus route that went close to the church, I just had to go East! I looked at the sky to find out where the sun rose from... It was about 1pm and directly above us... We worked the GPS untill we found out the directon we needed to head and we walked untill we found a bus stop and just sat and waited.

We bought bus tickets the day before and used them to get on the bus about a half hour after we got to the stop. It was like 91 degress and 40% humidity or somethin we were dripping wet! While on the bus we asked around to know what to do to get out of Grandrapids and into Wyoming. A lady just happened to take that route ever day, so we rode the bus to central station and there we had to get off. And turns out the only other bus that was there was the one we needed to get on so we basically studdied the map to find out what stop I wanted and then jumped right on. It was awesome!!!

Elder Burgous (who is also from arizona and knows exactly where we live) has had a pretty adventurous first week being on trade offs with me! I really worked to brain wash him with the short time I had! All we did was walk in the heat that day, we thought we were free from it for a lesson, we went in and their airconditioning didn't work. After that we did service and was in a atic for 2 hours. We showed up for the dinner appointment that night and every one could smell us=(.

I got to fight my district leader (trained in MMA for years)! His companion who had the bus adventure with me is dying for his turn to fight me now (wrestler for 5 years)=p. I am pretty sure I am gonna be whooped! Elder Maufil'o was a hard fight! he is 90 lbs heavier than me, it was so hard to push that guy off of me! he was so strong! Neither of us tapped out but we both got super beat and gave up, he would have won point wise though. His companion is even more experienced and heavier.....


I have been so beat up and tired lately!!! (at one point he picked me up while I had him and guard and slammed me on the ground...but thats not why I only have like one bruise from that) I don't know what it is! The heat? walking alot? I have been sleeping at like every opportunity I have because I am so beat!


Well I gotta go

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

This place is Number 1!

I love this place it's so nice! I am now in Wyoming Michigan, a city that runs right into grandrapids. I share a ward with 2 other sets of missionaries. I am fed EVERY day and I always get to have dinner with either one set or both sets of the other missionaries, it's a party! I like live 3 minutes from the church and the zone leaders.

My apartment is the nicest apartment I have ever had! It's clean, not dammaged, I have a garage with a garage door a washer, dryer, dish washer, bench press, large bathroom, my apartment is a buzz in where I only have 2 neighbors and so my place doesn't smell RAINK like the others have. We already have bikes!!!!!!!! My bike is a SWEET specialized road bike, i would take it over my one back home thats how nice it is, already has bike locks and helmets, no repairs necessary!!! I have a comfy couch.

We drive a 2016 Ford Fusion!!!!! I love that car so much!!!!!!!!! It is the best/nicest car I have ever driven. It has everything! A backing camera, all wheel drive, electrict adjusting seats, blue tooth to our phone so I can talk while I drive or chill in the seat without holding a phone to my face (I feel like freaking Captain Kirk when I do) I can adjust the sterio volume and settings from the stering wheel. I can pop it into stick shift (sport) mode and the shifters are the cool hand ones on the steering wheel.


I popped it in sport mode so I could do it to beat some one off the line I went from like 0-50 in like 2 seconds!!! the Robot the monitors our car freaked out!!! It reported it to the mission office as "aggressive driving" but Yolo swag that was sick! The seats are super comfortable too. I love this car! I want one =p.

I was a little sad because I didn't want to leave my sour patch melons in Kalamazoo, and I wasn't wanting to carry it all day long so I left it there. Thats the one negative.... But positive to that though is we were invited to the zoneleaders for lunch one day and they gave me a bag of sour patch melons that they didn't want =p. Church is true when it's like that!

The city is as close to Mesa as you can get in Michigan. The neibor hoods are insane and curvy and don't connect, but the main roads are a grid and intersect at every mile; the east west ones are numbers and count down by 8 every new main road! I already know every main road and how to get there in my area ( you know all like 30 square miles of my area, if that)


Elder Hartley and Elder Miles are in my zone!


This place is number 1!

I rode the city bus the other day for a first time in my life! They have a great city bus system so we used it on carfast day. There is Loads of spanish people every where here. Like every 4 people I talk to I get some one who only speaks spanish (so they say, I've caught a few lying to me) So there is a sets of spanish missionaries who give us referrals all the time because they knock and find english people for us to teach.

"Cotton wool falling like snow in..." June from like every tree.

My first day here I was in a trio and to celebrate transferrs we went out to a Mexican food Shack (just like back home) It was so ghetto the menu was partly in spanish and when I asked what cow toung can be in they didn't understand my english and started listing off diffrent types of meats =p. I had a HUGEEEEEEE Smothered burrito and cow toung tacos! Yes my food was tasting me as it went down.

My first day we had a lesson with a investigator, A member came out with us. TURNS OUT that he is Alison Linfords First cousin!!!! He is also our ward mission leader and he is great at his calling ( from what I have seen so far and heard), We even have ward missionaries too!

This last week has seemed like a month, not because it sucked, infact it was actually fast but the weather changed from like spring to summer. It went from around 60 to 91 degrees and humid this week.

I havn't unpacked at all, I have unpacked socks as I need then and garments, bathing supplies and study materials... Yup I have even worn the same white shirt like every day. The only reason why I unpacked and Ironed a new one was because while we were getting our bus passes a guy threw a foam cup full of DR.Pepper  and pegged me in the shoulder with it causing it to explode all over the both of us. even then It didn't seem to dirty so I almost kept it on for another day =p.

 I don't know why but I have been so beat here!!! Every lunch break I have to have a nap , I fall asleep right after planning unlike usual pushing off bed untill the last second.

My companion has been out 11 months, I know president told me I am not training but... he can plan... =p #betterthanstartingatthetop I guess... He has been eating up all of my discourse on missionary work though, I have been brain washing him HARD on how to be a effective teacher and finder.

We went shopping (because we have nothing at all, not even basic things like measuring spoons) I went in the vegtible section and my companion said " vegitibles are so much more expensive than chicken and rice!!!"... yah I aint about that rice and chicken life, So i bought loads so I would have more than the 20 lb bag of rice and frozen chicken at home.


I got to take a toilet off the ground and ripp off the lamenent tile flooring and cut out pieces of the bathroom wood floor to install a new subfloor!!!! I even learned how to fix a door so it hangs how it's supposed to without taking the whole trimm appart.

This place is number 1 and I havn't even told you about the people we are teaching yet But I now don't have time I gotta hit the road so I can chill with every one else in the zone. To be quick I don't have to rebuild the area, we already have a teaching pool and I found 4 new investigators this week too that are SUper solid, I am certain I can accomplish my goal now.


Bye I love you have a good day

Don't get shot!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

. There is rest for the wicked! Who knew?!

I got my transfer call and I am being transfered to Wyoming (3) which is in the Grand rapids Zone. I totally called that I would be transfered to that zone since they are only at 37% of where they need to be to accomplish their part of the mission goal of 280 baptisms for the year. But I was surprised when They released me as a district leader and a trainer. So for the first time since before I started training last May I am getting a experienced companion. And I can go back to falling asleep durring district meeting =p jk.

 But I will be in the biggest ward in the mission from what the assistants told me and I will be working it with the Zone leaders and the Sister Training Leaders, so that should be fun!


I will be on the transfer van on Monday So I wont talk to you untill next monday.


Quote of the week "...(she) Ignores me like Mom ignores the Laundry!". =p HA ha hahAA HA HA HA ha ha !!!! I died!


While we were doorknocking for days we had a rabid squirrel chase us! It was freaky man!!!! It had a funky evil face it did weird things with it's paws and would run really close to us. We were freakin OUT!!!! It also looked like It had part of it's tail smashed buy a car. It followed us for like 5 houses and we tried to avoid it but it would keep comming!


We got a call from a member in the K1 ward and she wanted to give us a gift before we went and before she moved. It was a picture of a bunch of us missionaries none of us looking at the camera or with eyes open or ready for the picture. While there she told me that she found another missionary post about me on their blog.

 I was a little shocked but she pulled it up on her phone and she went all the way back to this missionaries email from when he was in the MTC (when I was there too) and she read it to me "A couple nights ago we all saw Elder Crockett (left for Michigan today) freaking lockpicking this door and we all watched." that is a direct quote I took a picture of it. I burst out laughing when I saw it. Yes, yes that did happen.

 He must have been in my zone or something in thet MTC. I am AMAZED that this lady found that. She then as we were about to leave said she wanted to keep in touch and said it would be easy for me because she can just read my blog, I again looked at her weirdly and she pulled it up on her phone. Hi Sis Jarvis. DId you know there is a website that streams every missionary blog to one website and you can look up peoples blogs by mission? I didn't until she explained how she found me.


So we were door knocking for days this week and we knocked on a door and I was really working at creating a need and trying to help this guy realized there is stuff he doesn't know about the gospel and eventually a lady walks up from the side walk to us on the door step and she asks if we are Mormons. We said we are and the guy we are tallking to was like "Oh I was baptized into your church!"....... and then the lady said the she was too and then showed me a picutre of her favorite sister missionary, a missionary who I met before. We set up appointments and got info to put them on the directory since they wern't.


We came back for the lesson with the guy and me and him got along well, he was planning on taking some fighting classes in different weird forms. but hey, it's fighting. And I noticed that he had a game cube under his tv with a whole bunch of games in a glass cabinet. we talked about it a little and we played alot of the same games (he is like 60).


Before we started the lesson he went to use the bathroom and I immediately crashed on my knees and opened the glass cabinet to look at all the games. When he came out I was still on my knees looking at all of his stuff he had the Gameboy advanced so he could plug it in the game cube to use it on Animal crossing and other games he had controlers memory cards and several games I love, he even had the thing to plug into the bottom of the gamecube that I had never seen before.


 He then told me that he was looking to get rid of it all and said I could have it all.=p The Little kid in me was SCREAMING and jumping for Joy!!! =p So after the lesson he boxed it all up for me. I threw away all the game cases and put the games in a cd case that held them all, donated the console to good will and everything else is now in a package on it's way home to you guys; cuz I don't need to carry around that junk. Happy Birthday to me! (in 3 months). Even though I doubpt I will play with most of it the Keyids will like it.


Later that same day (the day before transfer calls) The M's had us over for a steak dinner out side. OH MAN!!! that was WAY good! After wards we had a lesson where we read 1 Ne 8 and 11. It was amazing all I did was I prefaced that chapter 8 was "very symbolic of different things" and then we read the chapter. When we finished reading and we asked what they thought about the chapter T jumped in and told us not to tell her what it means yet.

She then explained to us what the whole chapter was about and hit the freakin nail right on the head! We didn't even need to explain!!! She told us that something really clicked in her head while she read it. DANG STRAIGHT IT DID! SPIRIT! SPIRIT! SPIRIT!! The only thing she didn't know was what the great a spacious building, the fruit, and the iron rod. It was way cool. But I Still went hard on that chapter because I figured I would get transfered and I wanted to really tell her the garbage she is going to get and what she needs to do no matter what people say or what happens. After that she told us that at work she had a co worker make a snarky comment about her about to become a mormon..... But it didn't phase her, and it really showed her the truth of what I was saying.


They then took us out to get Icecream! It was like the best day in the world. Got a game cube and everything I ever dreamed about getting for it as a kid, was fed a steak dinner, had a KILLER lesson, and finished the day with a sun setting while eating turtle Icecream. Church is true when you have days like that!

 I was totally fulfilled and knew I did the best I could for This area. Got my transfer call the next day and now it's 2nd p-day!!! Saturday is a special day, it's the day that we have our, sec-ond pppppppppp-day! ive been singing that all week.=p After this I am going to the beach, then to dinner with a member when pdays over, then church the next day dk for like 3 hours and then I am off to a new area that I don't even have to flipp! With a companion that I don't have to brain wash to my philosophies (I probably still will) that actually is teaching people. Church is true, church is true!


Gained the Lead. Lost the lead.

12 weeks remaining

Runnning RIOT!



Bye I love you sleep good an have nice dreams!

Love you all!

Don't get Shot!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

No what!?!

This week has been pretty fun! There was times that it was a roller coaster though! For example the assistants told every one that During week 6 there would be no p-days.... I had to tell every one in my district about that and every one flipped a biscuit!!!!

My companion raved about it for like 8 hours.... They got so much complaints they realized it was a terrible rule and they changed it so we have 2 p-days week 6 from now on! So I will also come  and email on Saturday too! I will have my transfer call by then so I will update you on the news.


But it was pretty cool I hated the idea of that new rule. But I have been studying a whole lot about the conversion process and I keep learning LOADS about it which is cool because like 6 months ago I thought I peaked on my understanding of it.

I have specifically learning alot about how diffrent Christ like attributes effect people becoming converted and how if they don't posses certain attributes they can't progress in the path to conversion.

I realized that Humility is the start of gaining any type of knowledge whether it be Mind , Heart, Or Soul knowledge, you need Humility to develop it. I realized I was being stupid and I humbled myself and prayed to be able to accept the new stupid rule and got over it without even needing to take a nap. (I like to say "take a nap and get over it" to people, but most of the time it sounds super rude so I don't get to use it often, and it's easy to say but it doesn't actually always work to get over something)

 I thought so much about how this upcomming week is going to be so hard without a p-day and how my companion will never get over it and..... But after I humbled myself, it didn't seem bad, and 1 hour later they took away the rule and gave us a extra p-day. Hey, I wish every trial was like that! I think I am gonna humble myself more so that God doesn't have to have me go through a trial for me to learn a new lesson. If only it worked like that though...  


I LOVE those bikes that the sisters gave us, after they were fixed they were awesome! I would say the one I ride is my second favorite bike I have ridden on my mission. It has no shocks but the seat is so thick of cusion and it is spring loaded and so I never ever get phased my the crazy roads.

But I love the road bike it's so much better than the huffy! Sad thing was this week we parked the bikes right behind the huge dumpster by our apartment and we ran inside to use the bathroom without locking it... and one minute later E.Q.'s bike was stolen... Yah we were pretty bumbed expecially since we were going to give that one the k1 elders to help them with their carfast week.


M came to church this last week. I taught a lesson on Missionary work in gospel principals and she loved it. She went home that day and went over to her neighbors house and started talking to them about the Book of mormon and how it's helped her and she got shut down....

But then she went and called one of her friends and tried to teach her about the book of mormon. She got rejected again....

BUT she was so excited it didn't matter that much to her. She was tellling us about it in a lesson with her and she kept asking us questions how she can be a effective missionary and what not. Her brother then walked in the room and she convinced her brother to meet with us next time we come over to teach her. Shes sweet!


We helped a less active install a wood floor in his house. we layed down a thin mat and then put all of the vinal wood planks down. I wasn't happy about how we were doing it the whole time, I wanted to be the task master so that we could work more effectively and more efficiently; but it was his place and floor, even when I got him the measurements one what pieces to cut he still went and redid that and all of the work I did, even with him getting the same results I did every time...I eventually just let it be... So it was slow, and not efficient, but we did it! AND it was so much fun!


I found out this week another sister missionary in my district is going home... Today is her last day in Michigan and so we are all spending p-day together.


I love screen peaking on my companions screen when we email president Jacobsen, most of it is him talking really good about me. =p


well I am gonna go, all of the missionaries keep reading my messages and looking over my shoulder and it's driving me crazy since we are in the family history center today to use computers.


Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett