Author: admin

Soooo, Conference is going to going to be the majority of what I put in here, cause it’s the biggest thing. (I’m excited for 2 hour church)

10: I’ve said 2 hour church a few times now, so I’m going to talk about it. I don’t just like it cause it’ll be shorter, but rather that the gospel will be taught more in homes. That’s the real important thing. Members will have more focused gospel resources to study and teach at home. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I want shorter church, 1 o’clock church is a killer.

9: It has been a rather rainy week, which has been real great, cause I really don’t like the heat. But it really does make it hard to get up in the morning. Everything’s just so dark, you really just want to roll over and keep sleeping. But That’s not what I’m here for, I’ve got to get better at that.

8:We have been having “exchanges” with Medford 3rd. But they haven’t really been exchanges, more like sleepovers at their apartment, to “conserve miles for district meeting” We do use up plenty of miles just getting to district meeting, (Gold Hill is about 15 minutes away from the stake center) so we’ve been justifying hanging out with them, and playing card games.

7: But we actually did a real exchange with Medford 3rd on Tuesday, and it was super cool. Elder Helser (He’s a new missionary from Gilbert!) and I went up to talk to a guy who moved into Medford 3rd’s area, but is staying at his parent’s place in our area. (Ya, weird) He’s on date, but has a problem with smoking. We knew that going in, but we didn’t know that he was so done that he agreed to rip up his cigs and soak them in water in front of us. Yeah, that was super cool. He then wanted us to get rid of all his reminders of his smoking habit, and gave us his ashtrays to chuck. Yeah. This dude is legit as all get out.

6: On the other hand of our exchanges, Elder Randall and Jeanselme went to go teach Bianca law of chastity. That’s fun enough, but it gets even better when y’all learn that Bianca has a crush on Elder Randall. HAHAA!! They went over everything, and Bianca was super embarrased. Super funny.

5: Talked to this one kid on his doorstep for about an hour about video games. That was fun, and apparently I need to play dark souls. Nobody let me forget that when I get home. Gotta play dark souls.

4: One night Elder Jeanselme decided to just keep repeating my name in a crappy southern accent. Over and over and over. Needless to say, it got annoying pretty fast. But because I have five younger brothers I know how to deal with annoying. So I just locked myself in the room and listened to music/journaled while he kept going “Hey Elder BUUrrrKAY” for about an hour. This went on so long, and I wasn’t going to compromise until he stopped that Elder Jeanselme figured out that he was going to have to sleep in the kitchen. And he did! He made a little bed out of the couch cushions with his pants as a pillow… Yeah, I let him back in, after he learned that I know how to deal with annoying. 

3: We finally got a chance to do a real sit-down lesson with Jason (Lourie’s husband)! He’s been in Portland all month for his training. Dude’s gonna be a truck driver, so we haven’t really had a good chance to have a lesson with him. He hasn’t let that stop him from learning the gospel. Dude’s been reading and listening to talks this whole time! Truly elect.

2: I took so many notes during conference, I wish I had taken pictures, or wrote some of them down  because they are actually pretty decent. And I also drew some pretty good stuff! My art is getting much better!

1: I can’t wait for all the conference talks to come to gospel library, so I can re-read them, especially the campfire one.

I love you all, and encourage you all to keep studying conference!

Elder Berky

I don’t know what I can do to start off in a clever and funny way so I’ll just start by starting.

10: We got a new car!! It’s a light grey 2019 Corolla! It’s very nice, even though there’s nothing really new about it as opposed to our old one. It’s mainly just a miles thing.

9: We had to change the car on Thursday, which also happened to be interviews, so that worked out pretty well. However because it took the car guys forever to change out the TIWI so that was kinda a wasted day. Darn.

8: As we have been working with people, I keep seeing things just come up, that makes it hard for them to follow God’s teachings. It’s frustrating to see people who are going through hard times, and knowing that we can’t really help them, but just teach them to help themselves. 

7: We did some mini-exchanges/sleepover with the medford 3rd elders, and that was a lot of fun. 

6: IT FINALLY RAINED!!! I’m so happy that I’ve finally seen rain the rainiest state in the country! It wasn’t a lot, but it should help with the fires, and it just feels real nice. Reminds me of the lyrics “I like to look for rainbows wherever there is rain, and ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again…” Funny thing is that song is called “Baptism”.

5: We spent several hours in this cool army surplus store today, and were just looking at plenty of cool army things, and I spotted a pair of mission-appropriate boots for cheap, which I’m going to need for the upcoming rain and snow. But elder Helser snagged them instead and so I’ll see if they got restocked next week. Army surplus store is very cool 10/10 am shopping there again. 

4: We were at service with the pear farm, but got a call to help someone move her stuff into her house back in Gold Hill. Even though it was a long drive (15 min) we helped her move in some music stuff, and a giant china cabinet. Thankful we were in service clothes and not proselyting clothes.

3: Speaking of service in Proselyting clothes, we did do that! We got the prompting to visit this one sister after dinner, and saw a guy throwing branches and stuff into the back of his truck. We helped him out for about an hour, even though it was dark, and he really appreciated it. We gave our number and said if they needed anything more, just to let us know.

2: Elder Jeanselme got drugged.

1: I’m not just going to leave it at that, don’t worry. So the story behind #2 is; while we were at Medford 3rd’s, Elder Randall gave Elder Jeanselme a vitamin gummy. This vitamin gummy had Melationin in it. Elder Randall didn’t tell us this until Jeanselme had already eaten it. So Friday I got to deal with a rather sleepy and loopy Elder Jeanselme. That was funny. No videos tho, he just passed out when we went back to the apartment.

Bonus round: I found this funny decoration in the bathroom of a Mexican place.

So, I didn’t forget to email you guys, its just that p-day was moved to Tuesday this week because today we get to go to the temple! Woo Hoo!!

10: I had a weird dream that we had hot pans on top of our cabinets in the kitchen and we were cooking bacon on them. Really weird, mainly cause the only thing that I was worried about was how much the bacon cost.

9: We had exchanges this week with the Zone Leaders, and we spent the most of the time at a big charity event for Alzheimer’s. It was a lot of fun, even though we were there since 5:40 in the morning. A lot of people were really impressed (both staff and attendees) with how nice and genuine we were. 

8: Elder Jeansemle met his primary-school teacher from Wisconsin! She has moved over here fairly recently, so we met her at church and they talked for a while! was really fun to see how God puts these little “Coincidences” in our way to show us he’s really there for us.

7: So some other service we did was at the Church’s Pear Farm! Harvest time is over so we were just doing a lot of clean up for next picking season. Namely washing out and stacking all the bins that they use for the storage of the pears. Lot of fun, and I got to use the pressure washer to clean the bins. Those guys are a lot of fun to use.

6: Another thing that we did for exchanges is meet with guy who the Zone leaders have been working with for a very long time. He loves everything about the Gospel, but just can’t come to terms with paying his tithing. UUUUGGGHHHH!!! Tithing brings soo many blessings, why can’t people see that??

5: We had a lot of fun at the Hall’s (Bri’s Family) yesterday, with teaching everyone individually, and helping them prepare for baptism on the 3rd of November. 

4: Another reason we were over there is because they signed up for dinner! When Lourie (the mom) asked us what we’d like to eat I said “Chicken Pot Pie” and even though she had never made it before, she came out with some really good pot pies!

3: Because its getting darker much sooner, and we’d literally get shot if we went tracting after dark, we have been doing a lot of study. Just reading the word of God is the greatest thing that you can spend your time doing. Please, if you haven’t had time to study the scriptures, make the time. It really will bring you more peace and joy than anything else.

2: A sister in our ward really likes to bu things in bulk, and long story short, I got a bag of regular razors. Those dudes shave sooo much more clean and close than electric shavers. 10/10 very smooth face.

1: After helping out with the Alzheimer’s walk, they had a bunch of balloons that they were just going to throw away/let loose. So Elder Jeanselme with Elder Goyen (we were still on exchanges) took this massive balloon arch and shoved it in the car to put in the ZLs apartment. Elder Olsen and I didn’t know, we were getting Jimmy Johns. So when we walked into their apartment to eat lunch, there were balloons E V E R Y W H E R E!

I love you all, and hope that you have a great week!

Elder Berky

P.S. I found a really nice spider-man mask for cheap at Goodwill. Of course I bought it.

Well, Elder Willits has gone home, and that was really hard to see him go. But now I have Elder Jeanselme! Yup, its French, and it’s pronounced “John- Salm” He’s got to explain it every time we talk to someone, its fun. Anywho, i’m going to get started on my top 10!

10: Well, this week was transfers, and Elder Willits went home. I’m going to miss him a lot! The worst part is that when we were saying goodbye at the transfer spot it wasn’t really goodbye, since he was coming to a ward event with his family. He was doing a mission tour, meeting everyone from his previous areas, and so we met up and did our final good-byes on Friday. Miss that man.

9: So this is the first time I’ve had a new companion, and it’s very weird, he has a totally different style of tracting, is a very different type of personality from Elder Willits, and just everything. It’ll take a while to get used to the differences, but that’s okay, He’s a great guy, and I can’t wait to work with him.

8: This p-day we went on a little hike, up to “Table Rock” check the pics below.

7: Had dinner at the Medina’s, which was funny because they are very well put together, and I forgot to tell elder Jeanselme about it, and he was just in awe of everything they had. They are a very musical family, and let me check out the Lute guitar that they had gotten from Athens, Greece! Very cool.

6: Bri’s family has a bunny apparently, and so when I asked to see it, they brought it down. and then told me I could have it! But I kinda can’t, because I’m doing too much missionary stuff to take care of a bunny. But they said that I could get him after my mission!!! Sweet, I can have a low-maintenance pet for after the mission!!

5: This week has been long, and weird. Getting used to a new companion, taking over the area is hard. But it’ll be good, I’ll learn how to be a BIGE boy.

4: After finding out that it’s really hard to get gospel knowledge into a whole family, we have started to teach the Hall family individually. It’s been great, we now have planned lessons laid out almost every day of the week.

3: Speaking of the Hall family, they will be moving really soon! NOOOOO!!! but not until they are baptized. So now the pressure is on to get them through all the lessons, and get them dunked as fast as we can.

2: We are getting a new car! The one that we are currently using is getting a little up in the miles (50k) and the church likes to sell them at that point. Our new car is going to be a 2019 Toyota corolla. Nice. because of that, we’ll have all our miles for the month refunded when we get the new car, so we’ve been planning plenty of boonie tracting. Gonna be sweeeet!

1: I am just very happy for life to be going on, for everyone. Don’t ever doubt that. No matter what happens, life will keep going. Just keep going with it.

Love you all,

Elder Berky

Nope, not me, but Elder Willits just had his last week. Yeah, it’s hard. I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. Well, keep going on, but it just isn’t going to be the same. Anyways… Top list time!

7: I’m sure some of you might have seen this on good old Facebook, but Bri has gone to the temple! After just a week of being baptized! That’s nuts! This kinda thing just doesn’t happen! She wanted to do some family names, but couldn’t get the right permissions lined up, so that was sad. But who cares? Temple!

6: While playing gatorball (a combination of soccer and rugby) I got the ball kicked into my face, and it jammed my glasses into my nose. Which caused me to bleed, and might leave a scar. So that was pretty cool. Luckily it stopped bleeding so I didn’t get any blood on my clothes. In fact, I didn’t even notice until we stopped playing and somebody said something.

5: Bri’s whole family, who hasn’t really been fans of the church have now all committed to be baptized! That’s so great! They’ve come a long way! 

4: That’s really all we’ve been doing. Like all week we have been teaching them, either all together (doesn’t go so well) or by themselves (goes very well)

3: Got to spend a couple days with Elder Allan! He came out with me, but he’s going to the Philippines! He’s just staying here while he waits on his visa. We got to hang out, and he went to the Temple here in Medford, while Elder Willits went up to the one in Portland. That was a weird day.

2: I got to do service in in a homeless shelter, feeding people, and some dude brought in all these freaking pies! I kinda wish I was homeless now, I want some pies!

1: Sometimes i think “what am I doing out here?” But seeing the change that the Lord has brought to people, just because I’ve simply showed up where he told me to, has totally changed me. I am so thankful to be here today.

I love you all, and want y’all to read from 2 Nephi 31! Do some homework guys! 

Elder Berky

Yeah, this has been a great week! Bri got baptized! And her family, who hasn’t been the biggest fans of the church came to her baptism and confirmation! Woo! List time!

10: I’m just going to make #10 the paragraph above.

9: Got to do exchanges Monday , and be a real missionary, riding a real bike! It has been a HOT MINUTE since I’ve ridden a bike so that was fun to get back into that. I had to borrow Elder kays bike, and he is a BIGG BOYE so I had to drop the seat so much!

8: Got to help out at the pear farm, and pick on the platform! It’s basically a big machine that lets us grab all the parts at the tops of the trees! It was really scary, but fun! 

7: We met a former Nun! She’s down to chat, but not read the book of Mormon, so we’ll see what happens after our first meeting. 

6: Zone conference was this week! It was a bundle of fun, and we got to see a bunch of the other missionaries! Because a lot of the missionaries are going home this transfer, we had a lot of great testimonies borne. Nobody cried that hard tho, so that was surprising. 

5: Mí mama sent a bunch if music, and for some reason my phone just wouldn’t recognize any of them. So after a while of messing around with my phone trying to get them to work, with no real progress, I finally tried adding “.mp3” at the end of the name and viola! It worked! Thanks so much Mom! 

4: in the morning I’ve been developing my artsy talents by working on a superhero collage. And I finally finished it! See if you can name all the characters!

3: On Friday, as I was getting out of the car,  I saw a little dead bird! That was sad, and I’m glad I didn’t step on it.

2: Man,  the gospel just blesses us so much! The peace that we get from simply following Christ is incredible. You can also get sooo many solutions from just listening to God and his prophets.

#1: Stefán Karl Stefánsson. RIP

I love you all. Remember that Christ loves you too.

Elder Berky