Category: James

I’m going to be honest, I thought that conference was going to have some cooler announcements(18 months for elders?? Iced Coffee is kosh?? There’s a 13th tribe that has been hidden on the moon??) But as they said, announcements shouldn’t take up too much of church time. Reflecting that they didn’t announce much in conference anyways. 

1: Happy (mildly disappointing) Birthday to me!! We had a lot of lessons set up on Thursday (my birthday) and we needed the car. So we tried to get the car, and it took a long time, as 5th ward was with the ZLs on the opposite end of the zone, and blah blah… We ended up waiting on a street corner for an hour, to get the car that we didn’t even really need. We pretty much just stayed on one street, but Elder Randall and I didn’t tell anyone that. Anyways, the majority of our lessons weren’t there. These things combined to a very unhappy me. Until I got back to our apartment and opened the birthday package. That really made my day better. That and a small cupcake/candle really made the day feel special. It ended up being a good day. Thanks for all the gift cards everyone!! <3 <3 <3

2: Don’t give 5th ward your car Come Sunday, after conference, we got a referral for someone at the opposite end of our area. 5th ward had the car so they could say ‘goodbye’ to some of the people in the area. It was raining, and we didn’t want to walk. So we called 5th ward, asking for a ride. They didn’t pick up. We called them again, they didn’t pick up. SO being the good missionaries we are we decided to walk an hour and a half in pouring rain. The person we wanted to talk to wasn’t there. I was angry, and wet. Bad way to end the day.

3: Oh yeah, transfers! So I am going to be leaving Sring-a-ding, and will be going to Coos Bay, For the SUMMER!!! I’m excited, I’ll be in a ward share with Elder Hyer, from our very own Oakridge!

4: Hey Bri! Let’s get some over-hyped burgers! So Bri came up from Roseburg to chat, and I heard that this one place called “Fins” was good. So we met there and had a pretty long chat. The burgers were… okay. Definitely over-hyped, but that’s okay I got to chat with a friend.

5: I like Frogs Frogs are pretty cool animals, and as a result of my appreciation for frogs I have drawn many of them. For no reason. So there.
Yeah, that pretty much sums up the week, kinda weird week, but still fun nonetheless.

Ya Boi

Elder Berky

So the distance between p-days was short, but the days have seemed very long. Don’t know why, we have been pretty busy.

3: The Temple!! After being up here for 10 months I got to see the Portland temple in person! It was great, after our session we came outside to take pictures, and we saw Wendell, a guy from LA who just walked in, wanting to learn about the temple. Guess what we do all the time?? Learn people about the gospel! 

2: Chatted with a comic store owner for an hour  His name was Nick, and had a sweet SHAZAM! Tattoo. I asked him about it and we just spiraled into a big old conversation about marvel comic events, funko pop toys, the Captain Marvel movie, and anything under the nerdy sun. He wasn’t down to hear the gospel, but after a day of nothing, it was good to just have a nice conversation. 

1: Could give a talk on missionary work in my sleep.I wasn’t asleep, but I did give a talk about missionary work Sunday. It went well, only a couple of minutes, and here are my notes;

Missionaries kind of have it easy when bringing up the gospel. We stand out, people expect us to tall about it, but you members are just regular people, to bring up the gospel can be awkward.

Don’t see it as an awkward thing, see it as offering your friend a glass of orange juice. 

Us missionaries have pretty high standards, raising standards, elder Russel M Ballard said: But as we raise the level of expectation for the performance of our missionaries, we must also raise the level of expectation for the performance of all of the members of the Church in fulfilling our missionary duties. We need your help, brothers and sisters, to support and assist our missionaries in finding and baptizing many more of our Heavenly Father’s children. We need you to watch over, protect, and inspire the missionaries, who are servants of the Lord. If the standard is to be raised, it is raised for all of us. We must be more faithful. We must be more spiritually in tune. We must prepare ourselves to assist the missionaries in finding those of our Heavenly Father’s children who will embrace the message of the Restoration. Remember, brothers and sisters, we’re not marketing a product. We’re not selling anything. We’re not trying to impress anyone with our numbers or our growth. We are members of the restored Church of Jesus Christ, empowered and sent forth by the Lord Himself to find, nourish, and bring safely into His Church those who are seeking to know the truth. Viewed from that eternal perspective, what we are to do seems so simple and clear, but I know that member missionary work can be challenging and sometimes frightening. Mosiah 17- story of Abinidi, he didn’t know Alma listened. Planted a seed however.

I’m sorry if it doesn’t make all that much sense , it did when I gave it, ýou know, stringing it all together and such. 

Love you all, here’s our photo shoot that we had at the Portland temple. 

Sorry for not getting to ya on Monday this week, but P-day was moved to Thursday today, on account of a temple trip. I’m really looking forward to the Portland temple! Anyways, let’s get into it!!

7: But can yours do THIIIISS??? As we left a good lesson with Todd, we saw a nice gaming chair sitting out in someone’s yard. We went up to the house and asked if it was abandoned, it was so we took it. We were kinda far away from our apartment, so just wheeling it back wasn’t the best idea. But we were close to a member, and shared a spiritual message about the plan of Salvation. Then we asked for a favor. Now we have a chair that is in need of repair, some screws, duct tape and the removal of the arms. 

6: Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven Sacrificing a few minutes of dinner led to a good night. We talked with a former Atheist, and then with a cashier who got kicked out of the marines for medical reasons and worked with missionaries to help lift his spirits!  

5: No hãblo Éspanõl We went on exchanges with the Spanish elders and I got a taste of Spanish work! It’s a lot of racial profiling, and me being confused. You know, one semester of me not paying attention in Spanish class didn’t really help, but I picked up a few things. There was this one guy who saw a red devil dog, a lady who had 3 children (Wednesday worked best for her) and a woman gardening who really liked the First Vision. 

4: Burn Pile! We helped out the Birdsalls again this week, more gathering branches, tossing them into a pile, then Molotov’d it. Afterwards they fed us a light lunch and talked with us about poetry. Brother Birdsall wrote a little book of his poems and gave one to each of us! (I’ll have to use those when I get home

)
3: Call us up DC! We got bored one night, and started to plan out a DC movie universe. Wrote an outline, and started scripting a Clark Kent: Superman movie. It’s not fantastic, but it’s fun. 

2: Exchanges with the zone leaders! Always fun, especially when one of them is your previous companion. We tracted a good amount, and met some interesting people. A nice lady who didn’t need help moving, a guy named Bill, a very humble and rich man named Jarrett (super solid), and a man who thought we were Jehovah’s witnesses for a good 20+ minutes. 

1: I need to learn more about cars We have talked about cars to sooo many people, this couple of guys who were working on their Ford Focus who were interested in the temple. We taught them about the book of Mormon, and compared it to their ford focus that they were working on.

I love you all, and want you to know that Christ loves you as well. 

5: People have really been down to chat this week! We have had plenty of door-step conversations that lasted for quite a while! Which is a good thing, because we talk with people, but a bad thing because it takes up all of our tracting time. Our nights have gone something like this; Door 1: No answer Door 2: Took a pamphlet Door 3: No answer Door 4: Talk for a couple hours about life stuff. It’s nice to talk to people and be seen as human, but at the same time, we haven’t been finding as many people as we did last transfer.

4: We did not have a dinner Sunday night, so we had one with the Spanish Elders! Elder Griffith made some good pasta, and we played a game of Bible trivia that they found at a good will. (The Old Testament questions were the hardest) 

3: Elder Randall without his meds is nuts! Because Elder Randall’s ADHD meds need to be taken on a full stomach, he decided to skip them on fast Sunday. Because his meds take a day or so to kick in, he was going nuts for a couple of days, which is what the video is. He’s fine now, but I was really worried to be tracting with him for a bit!

2: Service is picking up branches for hours on end!! A member in our ward had a ton of fallen branches due to the snow from a couple of weeks ago. So the zone leaders and us spent forever picking up sticks.

1: We saw a door chicken! As we were tracting, we saw a house that was being worked on, so even though we knew that no one was living there, we knocked it anyways. Right after knocking, Elder Randall noticed a chicken sitting in the screen door. He got scared, and I don’t blame him, after all, we weren’t near any farmland. A chicken is the last thing I would expect to see. (pic attached)

I love you all, and encourage you to read Alma 36:12-21. Repentance is rough to get through, but the joy that you feel is so much better.

Ya boi, 

Elder James Berky

Due to the snow, our transfers were delayed by 3 days! People were packed up for 3 days, and living out of their suitcases. Elder Tarazon was not happy about that. I doubt anyone was happy about that.

5: Elder Randall enters the fray!! My new companion is Elder Randall. We have served around each other before, but not been companions. So it was cool to know the guy that I was going to be living with beforehand. He’s always ready to go out and talk to people, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good because we get to talk to a lot of people, bad because he insists that we knock doors even after 8:30 (Nobody will talk to us, because it’s too late) 

4: I listened to “Conversion of a Catholic” while waiting for the transfer van. If you have not listened to this talk, or even heard of it, I highly recommend you do. It’s about an hour long, but it is a fantastic story. 

3: Talked with a guy, Mark, for a few hours to help him stay awake As we were out contacting we saw this dude who was grinding some rust off of a trailer. We went up to him and asked what he was working on. We found out that his name was Mark, he used to be a scrapper, but when that became an unprofitable business, he became a truck driver. He had a been up since the past day, just working on stuff, and we chatted with him about all sorts of things. (Who knew that LASIK surgery involved hooks??)

2: There’s a reason those ribs were $10 While grocery shopping (on a Thursday, how odd.) Elder Randall spotted a rack of ribs for only $10!!! It was a pretty good size too, so he didn’t even think when he snagged it. So we gave it a Good Ol’ Rub, (

?)and marinated it overnight. Come district council, when everyone came back with Arby’s, or Subway, we were sitting fine with a rack of ribs. As the prayer was finished we dug in, and found why it was ten bucks. These ribs had sooo much gristle and fat, there was barely any meat to speak of. Sure, had we BBQ’d it, it would have been fine, but because we could only roast it in the oven, that fat and gristle didn’t fall off quite right. 

1: It’s nice to just have a gospel conversation. Often times, when we get into Gospel conversations with people, it’s not really a conversation but a debate. I get really tired of this, of making sure that I watch my words so that I don’t say something that people will misconstrue (If that’s how you spell it) So just talking about the nature of God and his love, is really refreshing. Even if we don’t end up baptizing them, we let somebody know what it is we believe, and we know what they believe. I guess it’s nice to be seen as a person and not “One of those Missionaries”I am very thankful for those opportunities, and I make sure that my Father knows I’m thankful. IN fact, that’s one of our companionship goals, to pray for thanks more often! I invite you all to do the same. After all, D&C 59:21 says “In nothing doth man offend God, save he confess his hand in all things” God is really not a dude that you want to offend, so show him you’re thankful!I love you, and I miss you…HHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNGGGGGgggGGGGG

Ya boi

Elder Berky

Yeah, it has shockingly snowed in Springfield! Like, a lot. About 14 inches overnight! Because of that, the entire city is on shutdown, they just don’t have enough infrastructure to deal with this. The power is going out, the church building is getting… colder… there is little food… a fat tray of brownies, some slightly frozen salad. We might have to resort to eating each other. It’s getting darker as the snow begins to pile up against the doors. I fear we won’t be getting out unscathed.

5: Helping out at the Bishop’s Storehouse!  For service, the bishop’s storehouse needed some hands moving microfilm from truck to truck. Took a while, and it was good work. We tried to convince the bishop to let us grab a few rolls of toilet paper and sugar, but they said no. 🙁

4: Oh yeah, Transfers!! So I will be staying, (Shocker) and Elder Tarazon will be heading to New Port to be in a tri-pan!! (Triple Companionship) He’s excited, mainly because it is the nicest apartment in the mission. Elder Randall will be replacing Tarazon! I’ve served around Elder Randall before, he’s a good kid, we’ll get some good work done. 

3: The snow situation as of 10 o’clock We are at the church, hoping that there would be wifi/power, and there was for about 5 minutes. But it started to flicker, and went off about 30 minutes ago. It’s kinda cold, but we have jackets. The walk here took a while, which was cold, but fun. I brought some stuff in a p-day bag, but I was worried about the snow getting it wet, so I threw a garbage bag around it. I probably looked like a homeless man, but whatever I will be playing settlers of catan, and they won’t be! HAHAHA.

2: Helping people out (cause they don’t know what to do in snow) When we woke up this morning, there was snow everywhere, and without even really thinking, I put on some jeans, some spare boots that were lying around the apartment, and headed out to go shovel some snow. All our neighbors were just looking at it, and being wary of the falling branches. (Even the trees arn’t accustomed to changes in weather. C’mon you dang plants! Evolve faster!!)  I asked one of our rather salty neighbors if he had a shovel, he grabbed one and I set at it. It was small and crappy but better than nothing. I tried my hardest but could only do a little bit, the big branches that had fallen really impeded progress so I only got a little done. Hopefully that makes it a little easier for the landlords. As we were walking to the church we saw a car stuck in the Walgreens parking lot, with two dudes behind him trying hard to help. We went over, and got him into a parking stall cause he was not going anywhere. It’s a good thing that he was working at Walgreens, cause we would not have been able to get him out if he had to go anywhere else.

1: Had some really good, genuine conversations about the gospel You have no idea how nice it is to just talk to people about Christ, not having to be in some sort of intellectual battle of the scriptures, and that’s what we had this week. We knocked on a door, and started talking to Brittany about the gospel, she’s Catholic but doesn’t go as often as she should. Then her boyfriend came out, and so we talked with Robert for a while about all sorts of different religions, what God meant to them, etc. they said they would love to come to our church (Didn’t show up (Hopefully because of the snow)) Then, later we talked with Andrea, who is a Pentacostal. We just chatted on her doorstep for a while about Christ, different interpretations of the Bible, Keanu Reeves, and the nature of God. She’s a cool lady, we’ll talk to her again if the weather permits. 

Today will be a long day of playing Catan, and wondering when the power will come back on. 

Love ya! Ya Boi

Elder Berky (P.S. We found a playground. And played.)

5: Yeah, big news, it’s kinda weird So I called home this morning as soon as P-day started, and talked to Mom for 20+ minutes. It was kinda weird, as the only other time I’ve called home was on Christmas. Surreal is the best way to put it.

4: Put somebody on date on the doorstep!! We were talking to this guy named Brenden, who has very little gospel knowledge, so after describing what baptism is to him, he accepted to be baptized on march 30th! Now we have to meet with him to actually teach him about how much God loves him, and the blessings that are in store for Brenden!

3: The Spanish Elders got kicked out of sacrament meeting! (and Relief society) The Spanish Elders who we share our ward with got kicked out of sacrament meeting! Why? Did their phone go off, playing loud Mariachi music? Did they bring chips and salsa and hold a fiesta during Gospel Doctrine?No.They were “too loud” while translating for the Spanish people who they brought to church. Yeah, the ward council told them they can sit out in the foyer to translate, but not in the back. This isn’t the first time that they have gotten backlash from our leadership, Bishop has repeatedly said that he thinks they shouldn’t be speaking Spanish at all, as they are in an English speaking country. Well, sure, but it’s better for people to learn the gospel using language that they know! We teach to understanding, not integration. Our leadership is wack.

2: Elder Tarazon and I found a game-breaking exploit in one of his card games Elder Tarazon has a game called “Smashup” it’s a lot of fun, and we have been playing it at night. The game is card based, of different factions, which are things like; Zombies, Dinosaurs, Superheros, bugs, Mythical heroes, etc. The way to win the game is by getting 15 victory points. These are gained by putting cards on bases and scoring. There is this one faction, the Aliens who score victory points just by playing one card. I figured out how to exploit this by picking the scoring cards up, and playing them again! This makes for a quick game, and a huge oversight on the game devs part. So we have added them to a ban list of other combos that are exploitative.

1: Interviews went well! (And late, as always) President and I talked about my potential as a missionary, I feel like I’m trying, but not hard enough. Going to be working on that more, studying harder, praying more fervently, and focus on getting out of the apartment more. That was the majority of my interview with president, but Elder Tarazon’s went for 30+ minutes. I really don’t know why President tries to keep to schedule, I’ve never had an interview day go according to plan. But that’s alright, it went well for everyone, and we got Mongolian Grill afterwards, it was pretty cheap too! (only 2 bowls tho)

Well, I’m going to call home right about now, so see ya next week!

Ya boi, Elder Berky

This week was pretty good at the start and then got crappy towards the end. Lets get riiiiiiiiigghht into this email!

6: Do u play fortnite?
As we were cleaing out our areabook, we texted this one number, and here is how the conversation went;

Me: Hey is this Ken?

Not Ken: No

Me: Sorry, wrong number then, God Bless!

Not Ken: Do u play Fortnite

Me: Haven’t in a while, been doing other stuff. You any good at it?

Not Ken: No I only have 2 wins
…

Me: Darn, I’d love to help ya boost that, but as a missionary, I just don’t have time for video games

Not Ken: Ah
Well I hope you have a great day

Me: You too buddy. Just remember when playing, do a double ramp rush. It’s easy but intimidates the opponent.
God bless

5: Actual snow!! Wow!!
After missing out on a white christmas we had a good snowfall this week! Unfortunately nothing really stuck, so kinda disappointing, but whatever. Which leads into my next thing;

4: Oregonians are a weak race
This one needs a little background. The Oakridge elders had a baptism on saturday so they came down to Springfield, on account of their building is lacking in the baptismal font department. They stayed the night, and we had district council and exchanges Friday! Come Saturday, the Oakridge elders got lots of texts and calls from their members telling them that 6 inches of snow is enough to postpone a baptism. The best part? The girl (9) who was getting baptised was coming in anyways to visit some family! After considering going forward with the baptism, but not because members would get angry at the elders, we finished our exchange, and they headed back. They encountered no snow. On Sunday Oakridge texted in that church had been cancelled. For the same reason. Bad Drivers + light snow + no testimony = church cancelled

3: I finally burned a tie for my 6 month mark, 2 months late.
The tradition goes; burn a tie at when you hit 6 months, burn a shirt when you are at a year, and a pair of slacks at 18 months, then a suit at 2 years. Of which I probably will not do, cause I don’t have the resources. But I might if I find the right stuff. Which I did for the burning of a tie. Elder Tarazon was igniting his pants, so I grabbed a spare tie lying around the apartment and joined the party. It seemed to be primarily plastic, so it stank.

2: Interzone Gatorball today!
So we got a call last night telling us that we will be doing p-day activities with the Eugene zone, mainly a big gatorball tournament. It’ll be fun especially since it’s pretty balanced.

1: My Phone is kill
So during zone lunch on friday, mt phone was losing power oddly quickly then it just died at 30%. Kinda odd, I guess the battery didnt charge enough last night, and the phone was just displaying the wrong percentage. When we got back to hte apartment and I plugged it in, the phone said that it was at 90% during the charging screen. Okay, that’s really odd. So I unplugged it, and the screen went black. Plugging it back in seemed to work, and the phone started up, and started up, and started up… just this constant cycle. So I called Elder Klingler, one of the office missionaries and he sent me some directions to perform a hard boot. Still nothing. It’s got to be a problem with the battery. OUr next course of action was to head to a sprint store, since that’s where the phone was originally bought from. They told me stuff that I already knew, and sent me to a better equiped store in Eugene. After going the wrong direction a few times we made it there. (Saw a couple people who looked like they were from the Witcher 3, or Oregon, either one.) My boy Jose was going to hook me up with a brand new battery, but this saleslady was asking if I wanted an upgrade. I said no, she told me it was free, and I said something to the effect of “I’m not using sprint cause I’m using the churches sim card.” She shuffled quickly to the back and told Jose to not help me. Luckily cause Jose was cool he let me know where I could go to get it fixed. But being about $20 short I had to wait until today for my loving mother to spot me. (Love you Mom! I’ve told you it already, but I cannot state it enough!)

This has been a week of ups and downs it’s been hard, but I’ve met some really cool people who probably wouldn’t have heard the gospel if we weren’t being diligent. That’s the lesson I’ve learned this week, Diligence. Keep doing what is right always, from small things of doing the dishes (still don’t like it) to following through on promptings.

I love you all, have a good week.

Elder Berky

Wow, this week has been pretty spiritually fulfilling.

10: Zone Conference was great! We talked a lot about finding, and how we need to have more faith while being out.

9: Elder Tarazon got scared by some cool kids So there were some 12 year olds riding on scooters a couple blocks down from us, and Elder Tarazon just booked it. I was really confused, and followed him into the burger king parking lot he was being all sneaky in, and heard him muttering “Oh crap, it’s the cool kids, we can’t let them see us.” Apparently he would do that joke with his last companion. Just a weird experience and overall. Oh well, it’s whatever.

7: I found a cool “How to Play Hymns” piano book So whenever we are at the church for P-Day or District council I’ll bring it and practice. I’m sure it will be a useful skill to have, especially on the mission.

6: I got sick! Yaaaay! Nothing really bad, but more of a pile of inconveniences that led to a unproductful day. We did a little phone contacting, just to start on cleaning out our area book.

5: Had housing inspections today It was the most chill inspection, Brother Birdsoll didn’t really look for anything, he just walked in, checked the smoke alarm, and asked if everything was working. I am glad that I spent plenty of time after hours making everything clean though. It feels good.

4: Elder Tarazon really wanted to watch the superbowl, but we didn’t have anybody that we could go to. So we just heard the news (RIP the Rams) from other Elders that night.

3: On exchanges with the Zone Leaders we found a new, played some Catan, and helped some old people! Elder Leifson and I talked to this guy named Terrance, who had been through a lot o crap in his life, we played some more Catan, but it did not take 3+ hours, thankfully, and did service at the Eugene Old Folk’s Home! We helped set up and serve lunch, it was great!

2: It snowed!! WoW!!! A light sprinkling of snow awaited us this morning, not enough for anything fun, except maybe a snowball or two, but it was nice to see some snow anyways.

1: We talked to a guy who had a ton of Batman logos plastered all over his car. He was pretty cool, we talked about Batman for a little bit, some comics things, and I found out from him that Ben Affleck might be hanging up the cape! Darn, I thought that BatFleck was pretty cool, oh well. He said we could come back, and I think that was because we shared common interests. It will be cool to see where this goes, as he wasn’t too interested in the Gospel. I’ll have to make sure that we establish that expectation with him.

I love you all, and hope that you have been able to see the blessings that the Lord has sprinkled all over this week for you! That’s something that I have noticed, you need to notice the things that the Lord is doing for you.

Ya Boi, Elder Berky

So this week was really normal, mission-wise. Nothing really funny happened, so this email is going to be kinda short. 

5: Tracting was fun, we found 7 new people, who were kinda cheese, so I’m not really counting on them being solid. We might not meet with them again.

4: When we headed to uptown Springfield to drop off some mail, we stopped by the famous Simpsons mural and took some pictures. Very cool

3: Last night we spent the night at the Zone leaders, and because elder Leifson wanted to play Tarazons settlers expansion we played. Now, as you play settlers with one other person it goes pretty quickly. However, with 4 people, it will keep you up till 1:30. Once we hit 12:30 I just started giving away my stuff to help the game end faster.

2: We put 2 people on date to be baptized! A younger kid named Alejandro, and a single mom named Tonya. Nobody came to church, so that felt awful, but we got plenty of administrative stuff done that had to be.

1: In the closet of past missionaries stuff, I found a nice pair of boots that fits me! I have been worried about what I would do if it snows, but now I’m covered!

I love you all, and hope you all have been doing well.