I Only Have 18 Months Left, Some Advice to My Dad, and Reaching Out to Welcome the One

 I've got a whole life to listen to music I like, but only 18 more months to serve the Lord with all my heart, might, mind, and strength.
Also, Dad, I got this impression recently to let you know this, so if you get a chance, see if you can go out on splits with the Elders back home every now and then. I think you'd really enjoy it. Keep up the good work.

Love you all. this work is amazing, and the Atonement is real!

Elder Jake Lusk

More From Elder Lusk:

Yeah, we've got a rice cooker, so we've always got rice going to eat. We also have a deep fryer in our apartment, so we fry up a lot of fish. Our favorite meal to eat in our apartment is deep fried tilapia filets over calrose rice with sriracha sauce. It's super good. tilapia filets aren't super expensive, and you can fry them the same way in a pan with oil. 

As for cool stories, I need to start writing them down before I email. There's always good stories, I just can't remember them all when I come to email. I do know that one of the guys I helped teach when I was in the Layton West Stake got baptized a couple weeks ago, and then recieved the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday, so that's pretty cool to know. We also have an investigator named {} that came to church yesterday. She has Parkinson's Disease, and has had it for a while. She understands everything we tell her, but it's really hard for her to speak in a way that you can understand. She can really barely speak above a whisper. She usually has a CNA with her that can understand her a little better and helps to interpret. Anyway, she came to church with us yesterday and I think she enjoyed it. There were quite a few people that introduced themselves and let her know they were happy she was there, which is what her fear was, so it worked out really well.

The Need for Inner Peace, Viewing it Through a Christian Lens, Safety Tip of the Week, and Yo, Adrienne, I did It!

It's great to hear from you! And yeah, it's crazy that I've been out for six months. It's gone by super fast. It's been a busy six months and I've had some good times, some crazy experiences, and I've learned a lot. 

So yeah, I'm back up here in Layton now. I'm actually serving in the stake that's bordering my last area, and I'm living in an apartment across the street from my old apartment. It's good to be back up here in Layton and see how things have progressed in my old area since I left. It's a little bit of deja vu, but it's cool, though. Layton's a good area, and I'm excited to be back up here. There's a lot of good people up here and there's good work. I had an interesting conversation with a guy we're working with up here that wants his son to get baptized, even though he himself isn't christian. The  was brought up in the Asian culture, and is into martial arts, and meditation, and all that. his apartment is full of swords and Buddha statues and other Asian decor. The conversation I had with him was just about how he doesn't believe in God and all that, but has respect for our religion as long as we respect his beliefs. For me, that's like preaching to the choir. He's a really spiritual guy, he just believes in meditation and karma and all that. I told him that I have similar beliefs about the need for inner peace and finding that balance in life, and I'm into relaxation and meditating and stuff like that, just for me, I view it through a christian lens. It just shows that just about every religion or philosophy out there has pieces of truth in it, just not the fullness of it, and it's often missing that vital piece, which revolves around the love and Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. 

So my companion is this guy named Elder {}. He's from Indonesia, and he goes home the end of this transfer. He's also the district leader, and he's a really cool guy. He speaks English almost perfectly. Turns out that Indonesia is pretty westernized, especially in the big cities on the island of Java, where he's from.  I'm pretty excited to be with this elder not only because we like the same music, but because he truly understands his purpose and is an obedient, dedicated, diligent servant of the Lord that likes to laugh and have fun.

Safety tip of the week: when opening a new bottle of crushed red pepper flakes, after you take off the foil wrapper, make sure you put the shaker lid back on before you go shaking all over your ramen noodles. Otherwise, you're barely going to be able to finish it without using a half gallon of milk to wash it down. I will say, though, that it's great for your sinuses. 

That's all for this week. If you have any questions, hit me up. This work is absolutely amazing, and I know that Jesus loves us and he died for us, and that because of that, if we do our part, learn what we have to do and do it, and are willing to go the distance even if no one else has, and regain the eye of the tiger whenever we might lose it, we can live with him again and one day we'll be able to stand up and say, YO ADRIENNE! I DID IT!.

Love, Elder Lusk

Serving the Homeless...Cats, All According to Your Faith and Willingness, Six Months, and Surprise...Going Back to Layton!!

Hey guys!

We had a good week this week. I helped a member family make a nice warm house for a homeless cat named Mr. Pickles, which was pretty cool. Pickles liked it, so we were pretty happy. We gave talks on Sunday with Brother Christian about faith, the atonement, and missionary work, and that went really well. We met a couple new people that we're going to start teaching this week that show a lot of desire to learn more. Tonight we'll be teaching a less-active member the 15-step stop smoking program (dad will probably know about that from his mission), which i'm excited about. It was developed by some elders back in the early 80s, and it's scientifically and spiritually designed to completely break a smoking habit in seven days, according to the participants faith and willingness to follow all 15 steps for seven days. It's really cool. So coming up this week, I have teaching that to look forward to. In addition, I hit six months on Wednesday. 

oh, and we received transfer info this morning, and SURPRISE! I'm going back to Layton! totally came as a surprise, but yeah, I'm getting transferred tomorrow and heading back up to Layton, just in a different area up there. I guess I'm excited about it. I liked Tooele a lot. It's beautiful out here, I like a lot of the people out here, there's a lot of good work out here... Anyway, it'll be good to get back up to Layton. I like it up there, as well. We'll see how it goes. 

So yeah, that's my week. hit me up if there's any questions. I know this work is amazing, and the atonement is real, and the church is true. love you all. 

Elder Jake Lusk

Hi Guys! My Companion is the Best!

Mission mind-shift, One of 80,000, I Dig It and Keeping Up With the Maryland Batlimore Mission, too!

Hey guys!

     Things are going well here. We had zone conference yesterday, which was great. We got a lot of good training about important stuff, like keeping afternoon time effective, and using key indicator (our reporting numbers) goals to help investigators progress. President Hansen has been working on a mission "mind-shift". The focus now is on "being on-plan", and working on getting people to the "next step". It's about spirit of the law vs. letter of the law for both of those. if all missionaries understood their purpose, the white handbook would be significantly shorter, and the USLCM mission standards would hardly exist. In the same way, the focus is no longer on just getting baptisms and reaching key indicator goals to get good weekly numbers. It's about helping people achieve their next step towards eternal salvation. That means helping investigators get baptized, and working with them to get them fully engaged in church, ordained to the priesthood if applicable, and to eventually get to the temple. For people who have already been baptized and have fallen away or may be struggling, it's to help them achieve those next steps. Because of that, the work is slowly but surely evolving, and it's pretty cool to be a part of that. I love knowing that I'm a part of 80,000+ people who are helping those in need all around the world. This work is truly amazing, and I know God's behind it. 

    That's all I got for this week, aside from I figured you'd dig the fact that over the past six months I've kept in touch with Elder Gooddell, Elder Martin, and Elder White. I've also been emailing Elder Moore, so I keeping up with the work ini the Maryland Baltimore mission as well. Sounds like things are going great back East. Tell everyone I love them to death.

Love, Elder Jake Lusk

Used to Hold Half the World's Nuclear Weapons and Now One of the Top Ten Friendliest Cities and Will You Please Come Back, We Miss You!

So,  Tooele is probs 50/50 Mormon to non-Mormon. The highest percent of nonmembers is almost no doubt salt lake city. It's more like 30 percent. There is an army depot here, and at one point contained half of the world's nuclear weapons, which is an obscene amount. I actually heard a test of the nuclear warning sirens the other day and it was kinda freaky and cool at the same time. The whole valley echoed with these stereotypical nuclear bomb threat sirens and a computerized male voice saying that it was a test of the nuclear alert system. The whole thing had a very Orwellian feel to it. I'm mainly in the residential areas of the town, but our stake spreads out and covers some countryside. it's pretty cool. According to Forbes magazine, Tooele was rated on the top ten friendliest cities to live in America. I like it here a lot.

Everything here is going well. We're meeting with the () family tonight and we're working on getting them back on date. Their dad is a good guy. Originally he told us to check back with them in a month once they got some things figured out, but he contacted us the next day and asked to meet. We had no idea what was on his mind, but what he told us was that he missed having the spirit in his home and could tell a difference when we weren't there. I'm not too worried about this family getting baptized.