Category: James

I’m going to try a new system of writing weeklies, which is to do a 1 sentence summary of the number, then go into further detail. Starting off the bat is…

#10: No more member dinners! So, the area authority came and met with all the mission presidents in the west coast, and talked about how he made a change that drastically increased the rate of baptisms. That change being No More Member dinners. The reasoning behind that is; the times that we usually are eating dinner, 5-7 is also the time that everyone else is home, eating dinner as well. So instead of chilling with members, talking about their dogs or whatever, we will be finding people while they are home. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that, but I’m trust the Lord and his servants.

#9: Going to be making our own dinners now! So our new dinner plans are to start at 4-5, and after that go out and start finding! We are going to need some recipes, I think they are going to get traded around the mission like Pokemon cards. This’ll be good, I can learn how to cook a little better, and find out what I like, what is easy to make, and most importantly, what produces the least dishes!! My only concern with cooking however, is that we have no oven, or counter-space, or real shelving, or cabinets. I can show you our entire kitchen situation in 2 pictures (see below) It’ll be a hard adjustment, but a good one, if anything it’ll be a good learning experience for being in a crappy apartment for college, or something else like that that will surely come along in life.

#8: We met a lady in the Fred Meyer parking lot who needed a prayer, that was really cool We were walking back to the car after buying our food, and this lady pulled up in her mini-van, and asked us if we were missionaries. We said yes, and asked what we could do for her. Her family was going through plenty of hard times, and she really needed a prayer. So we prayed with her, while she was still sitting in her car, and we were holding bags of groceries. I hope she’s doing well.

#7: Interviews! (I could be training!) During interviews, President Orton implied that I could be training sometime soon. I really hope I do get to train, but I really can’t do it in Merlin. This place is just waaay to hard to train somebody in. It’s hard just getting up in the morning, knowing that we can’t just go out and randomly tract a street. This area needs a little bit more planning, and planning we have done. Elder Sant and I created a system of rating streets based off how long they are, how many gated driveways it has, how many houses are on it, etc. So we are going to be spending some time each day just going around, and rating the streets, because information begats Revelation. (We are writing all this info down in a binder for the next elders to benefit from)

#6: Zone Conference is this week Zone conference is this week, (right before Thanksgiving!) and I hope that we are going to find out more information about the whole dinner change.

#5: Exchanges with Cave Junction We had exchanges with Cave Junction, which was fun, I got to hang out with Elder Haws, and he got a break from his companion, who is always going 100% Elder Haws and I talked a lot about music, Dungeons & Dragons, and video games while we were driving in between contacts.

#4: Winter is here, and it hates us So, winter has come, and we can tell. Because our apartment is really a retro-fitted garage, we have no real form of central heating, or any heating at all, besides a space heater that we didn’t realize we had until last night. What doesn’t help is that our water heater doesn’t heat up the water fast enough for us to take hot showers, so we have no real relief besides pajama pants, and sweatshirts. BRRRRR

#3: Everyone is playing Settlers of Catan For some reason, that is the game that the whole Grants Pass zone just adores! I can understand, it’s a fun game, and I am going to be playing in a minute as soon as I’m finished with my emails! (Development cards are the best)

#2: Emily is a chosen one! Emily is a mother of 4 who had met with missionaries in the past, but was pressured out of it by her mother who wished that she would stay Catholic. (Even though Emily’s mom isn’t religious at all!) We met with her in a younger families home, while their kids played. We taught her the restoration, and she really liked it! It all made sense to her, and answered her question of “Where are all the prophets that were in the Old Testament? Why would God take them away?” So that was awesome!! She came to church and even though we were talking about some weird things in Gospel Principals (How we can become like our Heavenly Father, this is a Missionaries NIGHTMARE! Everyone takes this the wrong way, and thinks we’re nuts) Emily loved coming to church, and so did her kids! We have another lesson with her on Tuesday, and we can’t wait!

#1: We Painted a member’s house for service, and there was no accidents! Clothes are clean! That’s the reason that I sent this email so late, we were painting a member’s home Opal Silk. However, nobody really got any paint on their clothes, and it came out really well, even though we had to bail a little early to go shopping and do emails and stuff.

I’d like to do a really in-depth scripture/spiritual thought, but I really want to play Settlers, so I.O.U; one in-depth scripture though, instead, how about this? Ponder Daniel 3, and how it can play a role in your week until I can give a better scripture thought.I love you all! The work is hard, and changing, but this life was never meant to be easy, it was meant to be hard. From hard things we grow the most.

-Elder Berky

p.s. I just heard about Stan Lee. RIP, the world just lost a fantastic man, and a brilliant, creative mind. Excelsior!

So on Saturday, the Hall family was baptized into Christ’s restored church. That was the biggest thing that I could ever write. That night, in my journal (yes, I am keeping a journal Mom) I wrote that If they were the only baptisms I had on my mission, I’d be okay with that. But by saying that, I feel like I have much more to do. So there are no brakes on the mission train!!! Choo CHoo!!

8: Halloween was pretty fun, but we couldn’t go out and trick-or-treat. (Which sucked cause we had the most perfect costumes!!) But there was a ward party that we could go to, and a chili cook-off. I got to be a judge of the cook-off! Which went really well, the other judge and I couldn’t figure out who won, until we had a sister come in with her pot of chili asking if she was too late. She wasn’t, and she won. It was incredible chili, and that was a really easy decision. And it solved our tie problem!

7: Also on Halloween, we found this GIANT spider in our room, and so we trapped it in an empty jar, and then I guess it suffocated. It’s dead as dirt now.

6: We helped the Gills rake their yard, and that took several hours, the whole time sis Gill was hyping up this Spicy Italian sandwich from a local place, and she was constantly asking how okay we were with spicy-ness. So I was expecting this sandwich to be like death on a bun, but it was about as spicy as carrot. I was sorely disappointed.

5: We had to wash the car today, which is usually fun, but it was cloudy as an English Gothic novel, so that took all the fun out of it. 

4: WE were heading to dinner, and for some reason, I got the wrong address. So we pulled up to this random dude’s house. And I thought that it was dinner, keep that in mind. So this younger dude comes out, and I was thinking that he might be dinner’s son or something, he was super friendly, but as we got to talking I started realizing that THIS ISN’T DINNER and so about 20 minutes later, we told him that we had to go, and told dinner why we were late, and they thought it was really cool.

3: Another dinner story, we went to a sushi conveyor place! And yes Dad, I did ask how pricing worked. (It was a buffet, so we had no pricing) But unfortunately the sushi wasn’t that good. 

2: A member that we were having dinner with decided to show us their archery range, even though we were on a time crunch. It was pretty cool, but the bow that I was handed had a 60-lbs draw, which was very hard to draw. But I did it, and was fairly accurate. But we were still almost late for the baptism.

1: First off, we had to get a ride bc the baptism was all the way in Central Point (about 40 minutes away) so that was fun figuring that out the night before. (Thank you the Colemans) We showed up just in time, and I had to get changed really fast. I had to use the white pants that were there, because I forgot to bring my ones from home (oops) so I was holding them up slightly the whole night. But other than that, the baptism went very smoothly. The spirit there was so strong, everyone was feeling it so strongly. I legit couldn’t stop smiling, everything was so great. But I did break my shoelace while changing back into my regular clothes. Ooops, guess I’ll have to buy a new one at Wal-mart or something.

I love you all, and want you to know that Christ wants to be a part of your personal lives, all you got to do is let him in. 

Elder Berky

P.S. I drew this picture during weekly planning. I hate weekly planning so much. I get legit delirious.

Yer a Wizard, Harry! You see, it’s funny because the area that I’m in is called Merlin, but it’s not as funny because Harry Potter doesn’t have a Merlin character. (I think, I’m not entirely sure, I remember Ron commonly using the swear “Merlin’s Beard!!” So he might have been a real person in the Harry Potter Cannon, but I don’t trust anything outside of the Original books, ’cause J.K. Rowling will say anything for a little bit of publicity)ANYWAY…. I’m going to get started with the actual email.

10: My first move went pretty smoothly, nothing left behind, except for a bag that I’ll be getting on Saturday. Speaking of which, is the day that the Hall family will be baptized! And I got permission to go back and baptize them!!

9: Our living arrangements are pretty nice, yet cramped. We live in the Garage of some members, which has been retrofitted to be a nice little studio apartment. It’s pretty dang small, and has no oven, stove or washer/dryer. So whenever I want to make food, I got to plug in a hot plate, and find counter space for it. 

8: The area of Merlin is a lot like the area of Gold Hill, with a lot of space to tract, but not many doors to knock. Also Merlin has waaaaaaaay more gates than Gold Hill. But it is VERY VERY pretty. So tracting will be hard, our plan is to do a little bit of tracting each day, and do mostly less-active work, and referral contacting. It will be hard, but that’s what I’m here for.

7: My new companion is Elder Sant. He’s a really good guy from Texas, and has been out for over a year. The group that he came out with had 30+ missionaries in it!!! That’s a crazy amount! Every zone in the mission has at least 1 or 2 of them!

6: The ward here is rather small, we barely fill up the chapel, but apparently, we deserve a building all of our own! It’s one of the smaller ones, but it’s nice, and only a few miles from our place! 

5: Merlin is a little further up in the mountains, so we get the most beautiful mornings, with fog, low laying clouds, and a light sprinkle of rain. I’d want to go out on a walk/jog in the morning if it weren’t for cougar sightings around our place. Yeah, so I might get to see/get mauled by a cougar. I’mma need a big knife.

4: The whole Grant’s Pass Zone (My new zone) is fairly young, with none of the missionaries being over their 18 month mark. So that’s pretty cool! A lot of (fairly) young faces, and people who are enthusiastic about the work. It’s hard being with a zone that has a good portion of it leaving.

3: Don’t worry mom, we’re getting fed, and very well too, the Dinner calendar is already full for next month. We have a family that has signed up for each week, and they are super chill and funny. They are so comfortable with the the missionaries, we don’t even knock, we just walk right in as they’re eating dinner! It’s weird to me, I’ve got to knock before I walk in, even if I don’t wait for permission. That’s just weird. We talk a lot about video games, and one of the kids showed me some gameplay for the new OverWatch characters. (yes, it’s okay)

2: I’m glad to be in a new area, it’s been an adjustment, getting to learn a new area book, and new members. But that’s okay. Change is good. That’s how we grow as children of God. Through change and trial we learn to adapt, improvise, and overcome.

1: Elder Jeanselme gave me his Spider-man 2 promotional bobble head!!! I LOVE THAT GUY!!

Elder Berky

Then IiiiiiIII’MMMMoving out!

Yep, I’m getting transferred out of Gold Hill.

10: So transfer calls came Friday at 4:20 (heuhue) and I found that I will get sent to Merlin, Grants Pass. The funny thing? The Gold Hill ward boundaries touch Merlin’s boundaries. So I’m not going far, but I will be in a new Zone.

9: This whole email is pretty much going to be about transfers, and the joys of leaving my first area! The first thing that I’ve noticed about leaving, is that I have stuff to pack all over the apartment. It’s not even that big, but I just have little things spread out, that I’ve had to track down and figure out how to best pack them.

8: Another thing that I didn’t think about is how much stuff I have in my desk. All of the wonderful letters that you guys send to me, I can’t just throw away, so I got a binder and put all of the other important missionary stuff with the letters.

7: It’s hard leaving your first area. Saying goodbye, to other missionaries, to ward members, but I get a feeling that I’ll be back. Maybe not in Gold Hill, but in the central point zone.

6: We had zone exchanges, which is basically where we get a random companion from the zone and go out in a random area to work for a few hours. It was fun, I went with Elder Anderl to eagle point, and had fun, met some cool people, and found the Eagle point sisters a New person to talk to!

5: So Elder Jeanselme’s new companion is going to be….we don’t know, he’s going to be training a new missionary! He’s excited but scared, it was  funny to see his face when he heard.

4: I got to  plant plenty of peach trees! The church has a welfare farm up here, and they wanted to get some peach trees planted before the winter, and so many volunteers showed up that the planting was done in about 10 minutes! Many hands really do make light work. 

3: It was Elder Randall’s birthday this week, so we stayed the night over at their place. For his birthday his family had sent out a big box of glowsticks and little glowstick accessories. So we had a bit of a mini rave, of the four of us. With no drugs, just some accidentally purchased energy slushies. 

2: This wack chair scared the crap out of me when I sat down on it. (pic below)

1: As I was reading The Living Christ, and pondering on 2 Corinthians 13:1, I came to the realization that the two or three witnesses that the scripture talks about are these: Personal Revelation, Ancient Revelation, Modern-day Revelation – by looking at those all together we can gain a true testimony of Christ and the gospel. So, going off that, I’m going to issue a challenge, read a scripture, and then ponder on it. Try to connect the dots and find more revelation that God wants you to have.
I love you all, and can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for me in Merlin, Oregon!

Ya Boi

Elder Berky

I’m not sure what I can do for a cute little intro, so I’m just going to start.

10: We did service for a member in our ward, and we expected to help take out a tree. However the guys with the big machine didn’t come that day, so we just split wood and stacked it for the members instead. Was fun.

9: Also they had chickens! It was fun trying to catch them, and kinda made me homesick. (pics below)

8: I don’t know if I’ve told you guys this, but the Hall family has SOOOOO many cats. They’ve got about 12 cats just wandering around their property, and some of them are very friendly. (Also pics)

7: Zone conference was this week, and it was great! We talked plenty about studying, and staying physically and mentally healthy. It was really good, and I took a lot of notes. It was also really good to see some of the other missionaries. 

6: Sunday night, we got a call from Bri (who’s in California right now) and she was talking with her friend about the gospel, but being a recent convert, she doesn’t know everything about the church. So we had a good hour-long conversation with Bri’s friend about the Restoration of the gospel, all over the phone. Man we really are living in the future. 

5: We did some more service! This time, it wasn’t for a charity event, it was just for a marathon. BUT we did get these really cool safety vests, and construction flags. I got to stop some traffic so the runners could pass. The funny thing is, I didn’t even have any authority to direct traffic. People just trust you if you have a safety vest. 

4: So our shower broke. I got in, and pulled up the rod to have the shower run,  but the whole contraption just fell apart. That was fun. So hopefully the housing guys will come over and we won’t have to do sponge baths.

3: We (no, I) made some mac ‘n’ cheese. But not from a kraft box, but like from scratch. It turned out really well. We just were out of milk for the rest of the week.

2: Elder Jeanselme just barely (like 20 minutes ago) locked our keys in the trunk of the car. He really didn’t want me to say that, and spread his shame. So I am.

1: For a spiritual thought, I want to talk about the women’s session of conference. We’ve been asked to apply the challenges that have been extended to the women. So I’ve been re-reading the BoM, and reading the Relief Society charter since those are really the only things that I can do. (Can’t go to the temple, already not using social media) But I want Y’all at home to be doing the same things. I can promise that as you do so, you’ll feel an increase in the spirit, and further clarity in life.
I love all of you, and will email you next week

Ya Boi,

Elder Berky

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