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Sunday, November 16, 2014
Whitewashing, New Car, and Sharing a Townhouse with Three Other Elders
Hey Guys
I'm in West Kaysville now.We whitewashed into the area, so both of us are getting used to it here. My companion's name is Elder {} . He's from the Tri-City area of Washington state, played football in college before his mission, and came out to the field the same day as me. Our apartment is in NW Kaysville, on the border between Kaysville and Layton. We've got an older, but still nice three-story townhouse that we share with two other elders (Elder {}, from Rancho Cucamonga, in SoCal, and Elder {}, who's american, but grew up in Belgium). We've also got a 2014 Toyota Corolla with bluetooth for the phone, so that's pretty nice, too. We cover 14 wards right now, and the stake and ward leadership seems pretty missionary-minded. We're working hard to stay on top of things and pick up where the last elders left off. In a lot of missions, whitewashing is kinda rare, and it's normally something negative that provokes it. Not always, but that's the connotation it has. President Hansen whitewashes fairly often. The last elders serving here were good guys. One of them was named Elder {}. He's from {} and was serving here as a trial missionary. He has really bad social anxiety, so they sent him to this mission for two transfers to serve in two different areas with two different companions to see how he could handle the stresses of missionary life. This was his second area. Before that, he was serving in my old area in Centerville, with an Elder named Elder {}. Side note, Elder {} also came out the same time as me. He's from Tucson, AZ, is 19, the oldest of three kids, and has a brother who's 17 and a sister who's 13. In both looks and personality, he reminds me a lot of my best bud Eric Nugent. Elder {} , Elder {}, and I were really close last transfer. Larry's a good guy, and if I do end up staying in Utah for school, we talked about rooming together in SLC while going to the U. Anyways, Elder {} did well on his trial mission, and was approved to finish out his full two years. He got his mission call at the transfer meeting a week ago, and ended up getting called to serve back in this mission! That's pretty rare, and we were all happy. Trials that go full-time always go state-side, but it's rare that they stay in the mission they served their trial in. It's different, for sure, but pretty cool.
I'm in West Kaysville now.We whitewashed into the area, so both of us are getting used to it here. My companion's name is Elder {} . He's from the Tri-City area of Washington state, played football in college before his mission, and came out to the field the same day as me. Our apartment is in NW Kaysville, on the border between Kaysville and Layton. We've got an older, but still nice three-story townhouse that we share with two other elders (Elder {}, from Rancho Cucamonga, in SoCal, and Elder {}, who's american, but grew up in Belgium). We've also got a 2014 Toyota Corolla with bluetooth for the phone, so that's pretty nice, too. We cover 14 wards right now, and the stake and ward leadership seems pretty missionary-minded. We're working hard to stay on top of things and pick up where the last elders left off. In a lot of missions, whitewashing is kinda rare, and it's normally something negative that provokes it. Not always, but that's the connotation it has. President Hansen whitewashes fairly often. The last elders serving here were good guys. One of them was named Elder {}. He's from {} and was serving here as a trial missionary. He has really bad social anxiety, so they sent him to this mission for two transfers to serve in two different areas with two different companions to see how he could handle the stresses of missionary life. This was his second area. Before that, he was serving in my old area in Centerville, with an Elder named Elder {}. Side note, Elder {} also came out the same time as me. He's from Tucson, AZ, is 19, the oldest of three kids, and has a brother who's 17 and a sister who's 13. In both looks and personality, he reminds me a lot of my best bud Eric Nugent. Elder {} , Elder {}, and I were really close last transfer. Larry's a good guy, and if I do end up staying in Utah for school, we talked about rooming together in SLC while going to the U. Anyways, Elder {} did well on his trial mission, and was approved to finish out his full two years. He got his mission call at the transfer meeting a week ago, and ended up getting called to serve back in this mission! That's pretty rare, and we were all happy. Trials that go full-time always go state-side, but it's rare that they stay in the mission they served their trial in. It's different, for sure, but pretty cool.
That's all I got for this week. Hit me up with any questions! This work is
amazing, no matter how challenging it can get. It's all about love. The
atonement's real and powerful, and helping people tap into that is what this
work is about. love all you guy!
Elder Jake Lusk
He Really is Straight Outta Compton, Fried Chicken, Grape Kool-aid, Watermelon, Socks and I Only Have Nine Months Left
This week was good. We were correlating with our senior missionary couple
in the stake this week and we counted up all the people that we're working with
and we've got 9 less-active families, which was a bit of a surprise to us. I
guess we're working with more people than I thought we were, so that's a good
thing. One of the families we're working with is the
daughter and son-in-law of one of our ward mission leaders, who was also a stake
high councilor before the stake was reorganized. She's a blonde-haired blue-eyed
Utah girl and her husband is a black guy from south-central LA (straight outta
Compton!). We've been working with them for about a transfer now, and I look
forward every week to going over there. We've connected with them a lot. The husband grew up in the hood and moved to Utah when he was 18 for
work. We were laughing last time about how different it is here than there. He
said he went to a party in Rose Park his first week in Utah, and someone warned
him that it was a rough area and he should be careful, and he got there and
thought the person was joking with him. I've been saying that, too. Rose Park is
like Kent St. in Winchester. It's a rougher part of town, but that's totally
relative.
We're going over there for dinner and
family home evening this week and they asked what we wanted for dinner. We
texted him and said we wanted fried chicken, watermelon, and grape kool-aid. He
texted back and said that made his day.
So...for christmas, all I can think of for right now is socks. I hate
socks, imma be straight up. But if I gotta wear them, I like to be comfortable I
them, and when they get old and frayed it drives me crazy. As soon as they get a
hole in them they're gone. I threw them out. A lot of my socks are getting old,
so if I could get some pairs of plain black athletic socks, that would be
great.
In the meantime, this work is amazing. I've only got nine months left to
serve, I gotta give it all I got. The gospel's true. God's love is real. The
atonement works. Love all you guys!
Elder Jake Lusk
Teaching the Little People and You Can Never Go Wrong When you Strive
Yesterday we were going to attend Sunday school in one of our wards, but
felt prompted to stay for another sacrament meeting instead. We cover ten wards
right now, and so we obviously don't make it to every ward each week. It's good
just to get your face out there so members can be thinking about missionary
work, and they know who we are. It ended up working out really well because when
we were sitting in the chapel waiting for sacrament meeting to start, we met a
really young couple. The girl is from here in Utah and the guy is from South
Carolina and they met each other in San Diego at a little people convention.
They're both legal midgets (I guess the PC way of saying it is little people),
and they're engaged, which to me is pretty cool. The girl is a member, and the
guy is officially [a member of another church], but isn't satisfied with his church and says he
wants to learn more and potentially be baptized to support his fiance. We're
going to start working with them soon and I'm pretty excited about that.
That's all I can think of for this week. Hit me up with any questions, as
usual. This work I'm doing here feels amazing. You can never go wrong when you
srive with all your heart to live by the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, I can promise you that. I love all you guys!Elder Jake Lusk
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