What a great week in Appleton! The weather was nice and warm, clear skies all week, no wind. I'm being serious; this was the best week for weather. Biking or walking was comfortable in this weather and perfect for fall service projects that need to be completed before the snow dumps on us and we begin to freeze. It might be our last week where we get some natural sun vitamins but whatever, the winter is out of my control and it has to come sooner or later.

Fall has begun -- it will be interesting to see how
fall here compares to "da UP"

A great week for weather and a great week for the Lords work. We had many appointments this week and few cancellations!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were booked pretty solid for the whole week with only an opening or two. We were blessed with the privilege of seeing many of our top investigators and having quality lessons with them. We currently have no baptismal dates but there are a few families and some individuals that we have high hopes for. It may take some time but it'll happen. Outside of planned lessons we had two really great experiences with people that we met on the street. One man owns a karate studio and has a brother who is a member of the church in New York. We talked with the man for a while and answered his questions about the Book of Mormon. We gave him an assignment to read and we set up an appointment for the end of this new week. As we were departing from this guy he gave us a little pep talk and told us that if we believe our message is this important then we should do better to reach out to more people. Fortunately this was the first person we saw that day and so we made extra effort for the rest of the day and we certainly saw miracles from it. Another person we talked to was someone that we had seen weeks previous but didn't have the time to stop and talk to him because we were anxious to catch the bus and not miss an appointment and he was in a rush to get home. We saw him again this week and he asked if we had time then to talk and share our message. Miraculously we did have some time and so we found a park bench and started talking. This man was adopted by an LDS family in Salt Lake City when he was a kid. The family wasn't very active in the church so he never got baptized but was surrounded by the church and the members left a good impression on him. He now lives here in Appleton with his girlfriend and their two year old son. He knew a lot about the church but still had some questions that we were able to straighten out and clear up any confusion. We taught him the Restoration and exchanged numbers and then left him with a prayer before he went home. Miracles happen, and great things are taking place here in Appleton. The next step is getting members involved and teaching towards baptism.

Outside of teaching we had some service opportunities this week. Service was something specific that I had been praying for as a way of getting into members’ homes more often and sharing a gospel message. A prayer answered. We had our two weekly service appointments at the Salvation Army and St. Vincent De Paul. In addition to those two we had one member family ask us to help them move a large pile of wood so that some workers could gain access to their basement windows. This family is lots of fun and they currently have one son on a mission and another that will leave summer 2015. They also fed us burgers. Another service project was helping out the High Priest Group leader at his farm. I had been to his farm before but the other three Elders had never been there before. This was the same farm that I mentioned in June that had the pigs. Yup! We did more poop duty. We separated a pig from its best friend in preparation for the slaughter house. BACON! Then we cleaned up the pig pen and all of their nasty waste. We collected wood and trash around the farm and had a roaring fire that was hair singeing from 20 feet away. Our last service project was helping out a non-member family remove rocks from their basement. They knocked down a wall that was not serving any and they wanted the wall down, so they did the demolition and we did the heavy back lifting and took out the rocks. They fed us pizza, and we also had a roaring hot fire at their place too. Service is good, service is fun.

Happy Birthday to ME! Thanks Dad, this was rather unexpected.

General Conference is coming up and I'm excited. I'm really hoping to get an opportunity to watch it with some investigators in their home or at the church with them.

Scripture for the week: Mosiah 4:10-12

10 And again, believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them.

 11 And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel.

 12 And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.

Thank you all very much; your prayers are greatly appreciated.

Much Love,

Elder Luymes

The sun is out and I can feel its warmth, but the wind can be a bit nippy. This was a very good week for us here in Appleton. Elder McMoore and I had a few miracles as well as some fun moments with the Book of Mormon musical.

"The Musical is entertaining, but the book will change your life."

First off, the Book of Mormon musical was in town from September 16th - 21st. Elder McMoore and I stood outside the P.A.C (Performance Art Center) for three of the 6 showings. We were there with both the Elders from our ward, and the two sets of Elders from the Appleton second ward. The AP's came up from Milwaukee to be with us on opening night. At one time we have 5 companionships of Elders preaching repentance at the front doors of the Theater. It was a lot of fun in my personal opinion. I would venture to guess that it wasn't all that different; we got to talk to some very nice people as well as some rude folk that complained to management and wanted us kicked off the corner. They couldn't kick us out because we were specifically standing on city property not theater property. Most people however were just having a fun time and thought it was funny to see us here. They typically would say, “Hi” and then walk into the theater. A few took the time to take pictures with us, so keep an eye out, I might be famous on social media. Because of how late the play started we were only able to talk to people as they were entering the play. Sadly the play ended after our curfew so we were not able to talk to anyone after the play had ended. All together, we handed out a few Book of Mormons and several pass-a-long cards with our phone number. Now all we can do is wait and find out if there is anybody in Appleton that would like to meet with the real Mormon missionaries.

On Wednesday we had interviews with our mission President. President Cutler is the greatest. He is very loving and patient, humble, and he is a great teacher and uses the scriptures well. My interview with him was just what it needed to be. He and I talked about my personal needs and the districts. Unfortunately we had to end a little early because of an appointment that we had. President drove us to the lesson. Later on at night as he was driving home to Milwaukee he and I continued our interview by phone. That same day we had a lesson with a less active member of our ward that had not been in contact with the church for a long time. We had a fantastic lesson with him and we got to hear on his iPhone a voice mail that was a personal phone call from Peyton Manning. Our less active member operates a company that makes football gloves, and they make the custom football gloves for Peyton Manning. It was sweet! After our lesson with the less active we rode our bikes home, and got pulled over by the cops. She climbed out of the car and answered the question that was on both of our minds: is she really pulling us over? She explained what was wrong - which I'm not going to say because I don't want my lawyer knowing. J Let’s just say that we pulled the "We’re not from around here" card and we got away with a warning. She gave us a nice souvenir of this memorable moment and we were off, headed home.

Not the reason we were pulled over by the police. But---
it matches my red tie so I had to indulge.

Throughout the week we had some quality lessons and we had a youth come out with us on Saturday. The youth is from New Zealand so Elder McMoore loves him and his family. Because he has a car we were able to go visit some key people that we normally have a hard time visiting because of the limitation to buses. While he was with us we saw another miracle where we were able to finally sit down with another less active that I personally have been spending the past 4 months trying to contact. She was super nice and we had a great lesson. She even gave us dinner to take home.

Scripture for the week: 2 Nephi 1:15

15 But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.

Thank you very much for your love and prayers. Enjoy!

Love,

Elder Luymes

Dinner - Large spaghetti and pile 'o cheese bread, BABY!
I slept really good that night.

 

Cheesehead --
One of the Appleton Ward members sent
this picture of Andrew to us via text.

I think winter came early... really early. This week was in the low 50's and high 40's, and it changed all over night. A really bad cold front came through and just caught us all off guard. We were pulling out jackets, sweaters, beanies and gloves, and just about everything else we could to stay warm. Sadly we were pushed out in the cold for most of the week. We had very few appointments so we walked and froze, took the bus then froze some more. Yes, I'm starting to complain about the winter that came early. I had fun in the sun!

Our week was alright; we visited some investigators and set up appointments for this new week. We tracted streets, and spent a lot of time trying to find all the less active members that we are starting to learn about. Our ward counsel is working on this really big project of reaching out to every less active person that we either don't really know anything about or we have lost contact with. The result is we now have updated information on the ward and where people live and other information about them. Then the missionaries and the members are to reach out to all of them and find out if they want further contact from the ward, or if they should be labeled a DNC - Do not contact. This is a great project for the missionaries because it gives us a lot of new people to meet and potentially work with. So far though we have only been used by the less active members as messengers saying that they want no further contact or they want their named removed. It’s a work in progress. We still have a large list of names and families that we still have not seen yet so there is hope for at least one person to agree to meet with us and start coming back to church. All we need to hope for is for one person to start reading the Book of Mormon.

My Appleton Homies - (L-R) Elder Cook (Utah), Elder Ochoa (Guatemala)
my beautiful self, Elder McMoore (New Zealand/Hawaii).

Appleton Homies just hangin' - (L-R) Me! Elder Ochoa, Elder McMoore, Elder Cook.

The Book of Mormon musical starts playing in Appleton tomorrow, this should be interesting.

Short story: on Friday we were at St Vincent for our weekly service project. One of the ladies who also volunteers there asked if all four of us elders were available Saturday to help her out with a project that she and her husband would need help with. She said that if we came and helped out that she would feed us dinner. We set up a time and exchanged numbers. Saturday came and after a Hmong party that we were invited too, we changed into service clothes and headed out to the woman's house... not knowing what we would be doing for service. When we got there we were amused to hear that the project was cleaning out the chicken pen and moving all the poop to another location for composting. It smelled nasty, and the goats were just as bad. It was thick too like a 7 layer dip that had been sitting there for a long time. They worked us hard though and we got most of the project completed. When dinner time came, we enjoyed some really excellent homemade burritos. We set up another appointment to help them with their next project (home demolition!!!), and we will begin to teach them about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon when we come back.

Scripture for the week: 2 Nephi 4:21

21 He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh.

Have a fantastic week

Love,

Elder Luymes

Just messing with the settings on my new camera.
This one makes my lips look big.

The weeks be going by like a fly and its life span. Aren't I funny?

Always look on the bright side of life!

Hello, Elder McMoore and I had a fun week with only one exception... we both got sick with the same virus; the one that you are probably hearing about on the news. It toured Appleton for a special occasion and knocked down about 8 Elders in the Appleton area alone. Wednesday's district meeting was filled with the spirit, coughing, and runny noses. Tuesday p-day sports had a basketball, a net, and hacking up lungs. Sorry, I’m not trying to sound gross but telling you how it really was. We survived though and were super greatly blessed to have a couple members and even investigators drive us around town to buy medicine for us and take us to our next appointments because we kept missing buses (mentally, I was out of it, even loopy on Thursday). The Lord took care of us, we met with many of the people that we wanted to so he took care of both us and the area, it’s because he cares about these people and so he gave us an extra hand while we were both weak and weary.

This was certainly a short week though. Last week Monday was Labor Day so our proselyting week was short. Elder McMoore and I are finally starting to get into contact with our investigators that went out of town for the Labor Day weekend; last minute summer vacation. We both want to help these families see the importance of this gospel, of The Church, and of the Book of Mormon. Many people investigate because they want to learn more but don't have an interest in joining the church. We want to start helping our investigators to search, to spiritually look into the church and not just learn about the doctrine and move on with their life. The biggest and greatest way to accomplish this overwhelming goal is by teaching from and about the Book of Mormon and inviting them to read the book individually and as a family. The Book of Mormon is the key to conversion, and a guide to true Christianity and discipleship. In a nut shell, this will be the focus of our companionship together: helping our investigators to learn but also to want to be a better Christian. It will take time and perhaps I may not see the fruit that comes from this but perhaps a stronger seed of faith and hope will be planted in their heart than ever before.

Not much else is new, Elder McMoore and I found time to laugh a little in-between coughs and we are riding our bikes for as long as we can before the weather turns really bad for the winter.

Scripture for the week: 1 Nephi 11: 21-23

21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

 22 And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.

 23 And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul.

Thank you very much J

Love,

Elder Luymes

Our DVD player broke so I took the liberty of taking
it apart.  I won't be putting it back together however.

 

 

Welcome to the new transfer, and a Labor Day weekend that pushed P-Day back to today - Tuesday. Transfers came and went; Elder Allen is now serving in Milwaukee where he will continue to ride the buses. Elder McMoore is now serving with me in the Appleton First Ward. Elder McMoore is 19 and originally from New Zealand. He started his mission at the age of 18, so he is a younger Elder. Elder McMoore and his family moved from New Zealand to Hawaii at the age of 13 (He lives across the street from BYU - Hawaii). He plays Rugby and Football. His High School team won state back to back his junior and senior year. Elder McMoore has a scholarship to play football at BYU Provo after his mission. He stands 6'2'' and he speaks Samoan. Elder McMoore has an older brother who is currently serving a mission in Italy. Serving with Elder McMoore has been a lot of fun so far. The Polynesian people are a bundle of joy and Elder McMoore is a hard worker with a great understanding of why he is here and what he should be getting out of a mission as well as putting into it. Our first couple days were slow because people were still out of town, and we had no appointments. But once Elder McMoore begins to catch the atmosphere of the area, than his experience as well as mine will be a great blessing to the people and the members here. Elder McMoore has been on a mission for 10 1/2 months, the most experienced missionary that I have ever served with. He came out of the MTC three transfers after me.

Elder McMoore is all settled in and Jammin' with me.

Goofin' with Elder McMoore

 On Friday, we got a strange call from the missionaries serving in Neenah. They were asking for help for us to move a member’s son from his apartment in Appleton. When we arrived we found that the son was a Garage Sale Treasure secure. He had odd ball stuff in his garage and in the apartment. Some of it was pretty cool like a ball in chain, a CD collection that was very impressive (a lot of originals from the 70-90s, most of the major bands) We also found a cool sign that said "We Be Jammin!" the members let us keep the sign, so Elder McMoore took it upon himself to improve the quality of our tiny apartment by hanging the sign just above our beds. I must admit, it’s pretty tight! And when we put glow stick behind it last night before going to bed... it was a sweet sight but not good for photos because of the low light. Attached are three photos: one with me and the ball in chain, another with me and the Jammin sign, and a third with the Jammin sign hanging above our beds.

 

The old Ball and Chain

 

Short Story: Last week P-Day, right after we finished up with emails. We went shopping and I found a three foot sandwich for only $10. I had to buy it, which I did, and I enjoyed my three foot sandwich. The Hmong Elders were pretty jealous. I shared some with Elder Allen :)

School starts today; this should make schedules a whole lot easier for us and our investigator families. Elder McMoore and I have spent a lot of time talking about the struggles of the area and also what good things we do have. We both see that this area has a lot more to offer and that there is potential for this area to be baptizing every month. We are blessed right now with some good families to be teaching, and a few other choice individuals that we are working with they just need to read the Book of Mormon a little more often and accept a baptismal date. Elder McMoore and I really want to tap into the potential of this area and we know that it will be very hard.

Scripture for the week: 1 Nephi 8:10-12

 10 And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy.

 11 And it came to pass that I did go forth and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen.

 12 And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit.

Thank you all, please continue to pray for the missionaries serving all throughout the world.

Love,

Elder Luymes

Elder Pounds on the left with Elder Allen on the right.  
MTC companions and best buds and I got to work with both of them.