Week #24

Hey Mis!

Sounds like a fun week! I appreciate the respect towards Five Guys, even though you went to In N Out :P 

To answer your questions:

1. They're doing awesome! We visit them almost every day.

2. Tommy is a little hesitant for reactivation. He's still a little raw from his annulment, so he said he's not ready for church yet. He doesn't want to go to a singles ward (for obvious reasons) and he feels he's not ready for family wards yet. As for Tommy, he wants to get baptized, but he's not sure of exactly when yet. We're still working on both of them.

My week was really good! We are SUPER BUSY. There's so much work to do in this area, I'm excited to be a part of it. Elder Moen works his butt off too, which I love. Tommy and Charlie are doing really well, and Nancy is officially getting baptized this Saturday! I'm stoked. She's come a really long way. We're teaching a guy named Rob, and he's agreed to be baptized! We are SUPER excited for him? His baptism should be the 31st, which is his dad's birthday. I got to do an exchange with a missionary in our district, his name is Elder Winward. He's a really good guy, even though he's verrrrrrrry quiet. It was fun working with him. We also got to meet with a lady named Kim Nester this week. Her fiancé is less active, and he's been wanting to get back into church, and she's been wanting to learn more. They came to church yesterday, and it was awesome!!! We had the most investigators at church this week in this area for a long time. It was great.

During sacrament I sat next to Brother Baird, the ward mission leader. During one of the talks he leaned over to me and asked "do you know who Gladys Knight is?" I told him yeah. He was like "do you know what she looks like?" I told him I sort of did. He was like "she looks like the lady across the aisle. I'll introduce you to her afterwards." And that he did! It was pretty awesome. I got to talk with her for a little bit and shake her hand, it was pretty neat. Last P-Day the ZLs organized a zone activity. It was sort of lame but I'll send pictures in a separate email anyways haha.

That was my week! I hope you have a great week.

Love ya Mis!

Trev

Zone Activity (Sent 2/29/16)

Zone Activity (Sent 2/29/16)

Week #23

Hey Mis! 

I'm glad you had fun in NY. That's a bummer you had a bunch of midterms, but at least they're over! That's funny all your friends are getting married, at least Marshall is holding out! Tell that bum to email me haha. That's cool that you switched to Poli Sci! What're you planning on doing with that? I am pretty jealous you guys are going to spring training without me... AGAIN.... But I hope you guys have a great time on those trips! They sang Lord I Would Follow Thee in church a couple weeks ago too, I always liked that song. I forgot I used to nudge you about that hahaha. 

I had the COOLEST experience this week. Elder Moen and I knocked on a door looking for a potential investigator named Johnny. These two guys answered the door. One was a black guy wearing a wife-beater with an Afro and beard, and the other was a tall skinny white guy, with some tats and wavy hair pulled back by a sweatband. Before we could say anything, the white guy said "Elders! Looking for Johnny?" We were surprised, but told him we were. He told us he wasn't there, but that we could come in. As we walked in and sat down, he asked if Johnny was a potential investigator or an investigator. We thought "great, this guy thinks he knows it all". We told him he was a potential. We started to talk to them, and they turned out to be pretty cool guys. They're best friends named Tommy and Charlie. We found out the white guy's name was Tommy, and the black guy's name was Charlie. Tommy knew a lot about missionary work, and so we asked him if he was a member. He smiled and said that he is. We were shocked! It turns out Tommy served a mission in Anchorage Alaska from 2011-13, and then got married shortly after. He then told us that his wife then got an annulment shortly after, and he came down on some really tough times, and made some poor decisions. He and Charlie just recently moved to Vegas three weeks ago with Charlie's family. 

Since they had moved in to that apartment, we had stopped by like twice a week looking for Johnny. I guess Tommy has been teaching Charlie the gospel when they were kids, so the last time we stopped by, Tommy had told Charlie to let us in the next time. So he did! As we were talking to them, Charlie stood up and walked over and looked closely at Elder Moen's tie. Tommy looked at it too, and he was like "is that Egyptian print?!?!" Moen said it was. Charlie was like "NO WAY!" and showed us their kitchen. It was covered with Egyptian stuff! Charlie is obsessed with Egypt. Then as we talked to them more, I asked if Tommy new a girl that I knew served in Anchorage. It turns out he knows her really well! There was wayyy too many coincidences, it was awesome! We've been teaching Charlie every day now. Charlie agreed to be baptized, but he doesn't know exactly when. They're so cool though! It was almost like we knew them before we met them, with the Egyptian tie and mutual friends and stuff. It was crazy! That was pretty much the highlight of my week. I was sick a little bit Saturday morning, prolly from food poisoning, but I'm doing a lot better now. Some members really took care of me, which was awesome. I miss you! I hope you have a great week!

Love you Mis!

Trev

Week #22

Hey Mis!

I'm glad you had a fun week. Hopefully she'll grow out of whatever funk she's in. It sounds like from what you and Dad told me he really enjoyed his birthday. I'm glad. I got the package too! Thank you so much! We used the Valentines to street contact random people haha. It actually worked really well, so thanks!

I had an awesome week. Elder Moen is awesome. He's got a sort of dry personality, but he's got a great blue-collar work ethic. This area is about to explode. The members here are AWESOME. The members were saying that there were some really crap missionaries in this area before, so they didn't really want to help. But Elder Moen and I have really seen it get rolling now, and I'm super excited. We had five times the amount of member present lessons this past week then they had any week the past few months. And most of them were unplanned lessons. Like we just showed up to investigators doors and they invited us to teach them. Both wards have great ward mission leaders and awesome ward missionaries. Members make a HUGE difference.

Honestly my last area we struggled getting members out at first, but we love it when they are able to come out. We met some awesome people this week too. We taught one lady named Sharifa. She's AWESOME. She has five kids, from nine years old to toddler age. They're a lot of fun! We also had four people at church!!! We're teaching a lady named Nancy who is getting baptized next month. She's hilarious. She says "in the blood of Jesus" at the end of every sentence haha. She's been coming to church more often than some members in our ward haha. Another lady named Debry came to church for the first time yesterday! It was awesome. She really enjoyed it too. We had some people introduce some of their friends at church to us too! I'm friggin excited.

We visited this lady named Anita too. She's less active, and she has a slot machine hahaha. I'll send a video of my inner-Mandarino in a separate email haha. Also, we went to Five Guys this past week, and all of a sudden a member stood up when we walked in and paid for our meal. AND he used to live in NY. He lived in Syracuse in the 70s and 80s. Crazy right??? I forgot his name, but he said he dated some girls from Binghamton too hahaha.

That was my week! I love and miss you guys! Travel safely to Utah!

Love you Mis!

Trev

This is the link for the missions FB page if you want to check it out: 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/702797056486944/

Channeling my inner Mandarino

Week #21

Hey Mis!

I'm glad you had a good week. It's good to stay busy. I'm glad you guys saw the commercial haha. Our ward gave us trophies for having the best commercial. This week was CRAZY. I met Elder Moen on Tuesday. He's from St. Louis. He's a good guy. He has a different personality, but he works hard. His last companion was realllllly lazy, so he had a difficult time last transfer. The area is nice. The members are AWESOME, and they're missionary-minded, but the work is tough. There are tons of gated communities. There's even a gated community INSIDE of a gated community. That's where Gladys Knight lives. It's also difficult adjusting to two wards. There's more work in Castle Ridge, but Shadow Canyon has some potential too. It's definitely tough because we have to split our time and we can't focus on just one ward. Also, our wards meet at the SAME TIME in DIFFERENT BUILDINGS, so we have to go on splits for church. So I went to Castle Ridge with the ward mission leader there. It was super weird, but it's a really awesome ward! The bishop is super cool too. We didn't really have any appointments this week. There's only like seven investigators combined in this area, so it should be an interesting challenge. I met a family that almost moved to Binghamton in 2014! The dad's name is Micah Nielson, and I forgot the wife's name. He's a radiologist, and he almost took the job at Binghamton General before someone offered a job here in Las Vegas. They're an awesome family. His dad was actually mission president in Korea around the same time Dad was there! I can't remember which mission though. Our district is pretty cool. We have three companionships, one of sisters. I'm district monkey (District Leader's companion), and it's awesome. We had Zone Training Conference on Saturday. Our zone seems pretty cool. Elder Robinson from my MTC district is in my zone! He's awesome. I don't know the ZLs very well, but hopefully they're cool. That's pretty much my week. I'll send you pictures in another email. Have a great week!

Love you Mis!
Trev

Trevor with his new companion, Elder Moen (Sent 2/8/16)

ZTC in Green Valley, Trev's new zone (Sent 2/8/16)

Kadin Warner, bishop's son. He's a really cool kid. (Sent 2/8/16) 

With Kadin Warner (Sent 2/8/16)

Warner family (Sent 2/8/16)

Becky and Wade Spendlove; awesome couple who would go teaching with us (Sent 2/8/16)

The Grahams; an awesome family (Sent 2/8/16)

Week #20

Hey Mis!

Sounds like your week was busy! At least it's productive though. So, the big news..... I'm getting transferred. I'm going to the Black Mountain/Green Valley zone, near Henderson. My area covers the Castle Ridge and Shadow Canyon wards. I have no idea how to cover two wards, so it'll definitely be interesting. My new companion will be Elder Moen. I have no idea who he is, so it'll be interesting. I heard a rumor that Gladys Knight is in one of those wards... We'll see! I'm excited for a change, but it's tough leaving behind the people here. I've gotten close to a lot of members and investigators here, so it's going to be pretty tough to leave. I leave Tuesday morning. Today we're going to stop by some people to say goodbye. We made two stops last night, and I'll send pictures in a separate email. Other than transfers my week was busy. We had a car!!! A 2012 Dodge Caravan. But, the sisters left us with only 130 miles for this week out of the 900 miles per month. So that was annoying. Plus, they needed rides almost every day, so it was a little frustrating because it was wasting miles and time away from our own area. I got permission from my district leader to go a little bit over the limit, but it was still frustrating. I didn't want to go over by too much, so me and Balajadia went back to bikes on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the week was fun though. We did another service project at Three Square. We packed produce this time. It was funny because they gave us a two-hour job, and we were done in less than an hour. So we got off early haha. Then the Flipper Bowl was Saturday. It was a paper football tournament, and it was awesome. Balajadia and I were referees, and it was a blast. It was a pretty intense tournament too. They had a youth bracket and an adult bracket. A member of the bishopric, Bro. Graham, won the adult bracket, while one of the Foremasters won the youth bracket. In between rounds they played commercials that people made. Elder Balajadia and I made one, it was pretty funny. We won trophies for best commercial hahaha. It's on the Friends of Sierra Ranch Facebook page or something like that. Sister Foremaster knows where it is if you want to check it out. Bro. Graham and I are pretty good buddies, so when he found out I was leaving he had me bear my testimony. It was a neat experience, and pretty much all of church was awesome. Manish and Velia Waite came to church, we were really happy. Velia hadn't been going, so it was great to see her there before I left. Manish is progressing very well. I'm bummed I'll miss his baptism, but it doesn't matter who teaches him as long as he receives the same gospel. That was pretty much my week! Let me know how the weddings go. I hope my new area will be fun! Have a great week!

Love you Mis!
Trev

Tammara and Brandon. An awesome couple we taught.

The Sinks: Caden, Jim, Lisa, Nate, Brandon, and me.