We found another cell phone! No joke, we really did. Although this one was not smart and it had no minutes left on it so we couldn't call the people on the contacts list in an effort to return the phone to the owner. This phone was also different, I'm not sure if I would want to return it to its owner because we’re pretty sure that whoever the owner was, he was drug dealing with the locals. There were some really suspicious texts on that phone. I'm glad we eventually got rid of it. In other news...we got in a car crash this week.

I'll explain the car crash. It was a long and cloudy day. Elder Norton and I had been riding our bikes all day because we were so severally low on miles. After biking all day and getting caught in the rain while riding our bikes home we finally climbed in the car and headed off to our dinner appointment. The dinner appointment was pretty far away so I told Elder Norton to put in a CD, get comfortable and let’s enjoy the ride. We pulled out of the parking lot to our complex and headed south on 39th Ave. After a street light I saw a kid trying to cross the street. Since it was raining I decided to be nice and slow down to let him cross. I did slow down and eventually came to a complete stop. BAM!!! My head nearly hit the steering wheel and we are so fortunate that the air bags did not go off. A woman in a Ford F-150 hit us from behind. She too was slowing down to let the kid cross the street but with the slippery conditions she was unable to slow down in time and unfortunately hit us. We were stuck on 39th which is one of the main roads in Kenosha. We approached the woman to see if she was okay and she was! Then we moved the cars off the main road and onto a side road. I'm skipping the boring part of taking pictures and calling the cops and filling out the church paperwork with all the insurance info and stuff. We ended up having to cancel dinner and we were at the scene for over an hour in the rain. The bumper to the car doesn't look that bad surprisingly. It has a few cracks but nothing obvious. The trunk lid got shifted out of position by about half an inch. That night we checked the inside of the trunk to see if it still opened (which it does) inside the trunk is where the serious problem is. You can see that the metal frame behind the bumper is bent and the framework surrounding the trunk doesn't look in good shape. For my third time now I have to file a big report on the church website. This report did lead to a very cool miracle though. We ended up doing the report at a less active family's home. They fed us dinner and we got to meet the mother who I had not met before. So some good has come from this accident. It is still a hassle though. We are both feeling fine. Our necks were a little stiff the night of the crash but were feeling youthful and fine now.

Another fender bender -- #3. Glad we're safe.

With regards to the work; we set two baptismal dates this week. The first is with a 12 year old who turns 13 on May 2nd. His baptismal date is set for May 9th. He is part of a part member family. This kid is awesome; he is fluent in Spanish and has translated hundreds of pages from the English KJV Old Testament into Spanish. This kid is so smart, and he deserves the very best in life. He comes to church every week with his mom who was converted and baptized almost two years ago. The dad is going to be able to baptize him and it is so exciting for this family. The other baptismal date is a 20 year old who is married to a member. They have a kid together and another on the way. I tease him all the time that he is younger than me. He has been meeting with the missionaries for almost 10 years now but has somehow never gotten baptized. We have plans however to change that. We bought a poster today that we are going to write his baptismal date on and tape it above the family TV. This will remind him and the whole family (he lives with his in-laws) that he needs to be working on getting baptized. The work is fun, and bikes are great now that it’s warmer!

Yay! Spring.

Scripture for the week: Moroni 7:32

32 And by so doing, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the Holy Ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father, the covenants which he hath made unto the children of men.

Thanks for your prayers, transfers are next week, but I'm not going anywhere, teeheee. J

Elder Luymes

All Mission Picture from March.
I'm on the back row, just left of center by 3.
You can see my eyebrows.

It all started in a bar, the drinkers were giving us the funniest look and there were three people at the slots in the corner near the door. As I approached the bar itself and waited for the bar tender to come I leaned over to Elder Norton and informed him that he wasn't 21 and therefor was illegally inside the building. So the week didn't start inside a bar but we did go into a bar on Friday. Elder Norton and I were out tracting and we found a Samsung smart phone in the grass. We picked it up, turned it on and were shocked and disappointed that there were only four contacts saved in the phone. We took the phone home and during our lunch break we started going through it till we found a contact that seemed to be a close relative of the owner. Sure enough it was the sister, and they asked us to drop the phone off at a bar. I'll admit this wasn't the first time I had been in a bar on my mission; it might be the last though. We gave the phone to the owner and they tried to pay us but we both refused and then turned away and walked out the door. Smooth move for the Elders, we were teasing each other that we should download the LDS Gospel Library App onto the phone. That was Friday.

The rest of the week was amazing. We had so much success and we finally are starting to see the results that we had been hoping for; slowly but surely is the Lords way. We had our two top investigators come to church on Sunday. We tracted a street that yielded a perfect 100% on Saturday. We taught a lesson to every single resident on the street, set up a few return appointments and gave every home a Book of Mormon. I have never seen so much success on a single street. The street was short too, maybe 10 homes. If nobody was home then 10 homes would take us 10 minutes at most. But this short street filled two hours.

On Sunday as the Aaronic priesthood was passing the sacrament a thought came to my mind. A very simple thought, as simple as this: The Savior knows... The Savior knows all things. He knows why we are worried or scared or excited. He knows what we are worrying about or what we are excited about. He knows our thoughts, and He know when were sad. He knows our weakness and our mistakes, and he knows our strengths and our skills. He knows our prayers and our hopes. He is so perfectly aware of us and our surroundings. I guess what I got out of this is that since he knows perfectly, he can give perfectly too. Of course he won’t give that which is not beneficial to our spiritual progression. And he knows so much better than us that sometimes things are or are not given but we don't know why. Life really is in his hands.

Thank you for your prayers. Have an excellent week, good luck on finals!!!

Elder Luymes

The weekly Update from Kenosha B Inc.

President: Elder Luymes sc
Secretary: Elder Norton jc

This week at Kenosha B Inc we outdid ourselves. However none of the glory goes to us because this week was for certain in the hands of God. We had a very humbling experience this week. A week where we both learned that even though what we thought we were doing was right (and it was to a certain degree) We just were not doing it all the way with the Lord by our side. We were stepping out of line. The week started out very normal. Normal as in: nobody was home, we were maybe teaching one or two lessons a day, and our plans were mainly tracting because nobody was home. However on Thursday we had our weekly planning session. Elder Norton and I discussed back and forth the many struggles we were having for our area. We talked about what was frustrating us, what wasn't happening that should. As we talked I could feel the direction of our conversation move more and more to the realm of "We don't know what to do, and we don't know what God wants us to do." We did, after an hour or so of talking finally admit that we had no direction for our area. Elder Norton suggested that we pray about it, which we did, and my experience during this prayer was that of peace. I felt reassured that God was well aware of the lack of progression that we were having/seeing. I felt comforted to know that God was very aware of our frustrations and struggles, He was aware of my many prayers both specific and general for the people and families that we are working with. From this prayer Elder Norton and I came up with some specific goals, and got some major organization projects completed. Then the whole atmosphere of the work changed. We went from one maybe two lessons a day to four. We went from seeing nobody that we had hoped to, too seeing every person on the list in three days’ time. We had an investigator at church, taught two member present lessons Sunday night, and 21 "other lessons" by the end of the week (we average 10 a week). Humbling? Absolutely! This was a great learning and growing experience to show that we absolutely need God in this work and life in general. We accomplished two weeks’ worth of work in three days.

I got my flight information on Saturday. I'm flying home with another Elder, a Hmong Elder. I kind of know him. It will be fun to have someone to talk with during the whole flight time. He'll help me keep my mind of the weird thought of "I'm going home, now what do I do"! 

Scripture for the week: Ether 8:26

 26 Wherefore, I, Moroni, am commanded to write these things that evil may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power upon the hearts of the children of men, but that they may be persuaded to do good continually, that they may come unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved.

Thank you, have an awesome week! Love,

Elder Luymes

Oh snap, what a fantastic week! General Conference was great! The work is going, slow like the hour hand on a clock but still moving forward. On the drive to the Library today we were listening to one of my BYU Men’s choir CD's. The song had the lyrics "I feel the work reviving!" This captured my attention and my thoughts immediately went to the question that the Zone Leaders asked us last night during weekly follow up calls. Their question was: How are you and your companion going to keep the momentum now that we have had a new transfer, an all mission gathering with a visiting general authority, and now general conference? What a great question, Elder Norton and I have had little time to counsel together yet on an unified answer, but my answer would probably be: to feel and listen to the spirit of revival. We have to believe that the work is not only being hastened, but that for our area specifically there is also a revival of spiritual energy and interest in the Restored Gospel. Faith, Hope, and diligent work will make the work go forward, but by the will and power of God we know that the work will truly become hastened and revived.

Happy Easter -- by the way. Having General Conference on Easter Sunday was a real treat. The members took great care of us on Sunday. We enjoyed both sessions on Sunday at two different member’s homes. We were fed excellent meals, and we were able to have a great memorable time with them. I (and the rest of the missionaries in the Kenosha and Racine areas) was totally caught off guard by the amount of emphasis on eternal marriage and having an eternal family. It seemed as though we were being bombarded with an eternal marriage ray gun on Saturday. That was all they talked about. Of the 12 missionaries serving in the above mentioned cities, 10 of them go home this year. One of my favorite quotes from conference was from Elder Joseph Sitati of the quorum of the 70; he spoke second to last during the Sunday afternoon session. I loosely quote him, he said "set goals appropriate to who you can become" I really liked this because President Cutler has asked that I start thinking about goals for when I return home that are specific to my first full year home from my mission. This insight from Elder Sitati gives me some relevant direction as I ponder over what my goals might be.

Aunt Joanell, Uncle Mike, cousin Krista Rawlins made a side
trip from Chicago to visit me in Kenosha. HUGE surprise!!!

I had some really amazing family experiences this week. One of which was so shocking that it took me forever to write it down in my journal. It was Monday night and Elder Norton and I had just finished our nightly planning. The buzzer to the door rang and for a moment I thought we were going to have another experience like the one I had described last week with the crazy guy buzzing us on Friday morning. I cautiously buzzed back a hello, and listened as the voice specifically asked for me. My reply to that was that we would be down in a moment. I grabbed the essentials and put them in my pockets, then we walked down stairs and I had the biggest surprise of my whole mission. There before me were my Aunt, Uncle and cousin from Sacramento California. What on earth were they doing at my apartment! I burst through the door and gave each of them a big hug. They explained why they were in Kenosha, and they figured they would give my apartment a try and see what happens. We talked about the Luymes family and what the area is like; it was so great to see them -- I love my family, both Hyer and Luymes. They are the bestest! On Wednesday Elder Norton and I were coming from an appointment when we started driving by a cemetery. I asked him if he could tell what cemetery it was. We saw that it was Green Ridge and I quickly pulled off the main road and found the entrance to the cemetery. We spoke with the guy in the office who politely showed me to the location and burial of my Great Great Grandfather and Grandmother. Theodore and Cornelia Luymes, they are my relatives that moved from the Netherlands in between the two world wars and settled in Kenosha where they raised their family and eventually my grandfather was born in Kenosha before the Luymes family moved to sunny Southern California. Good move if you ask me. It was a beautiful sunny day in Kenosha so I was able to get some great pictures.

Gravesides of my great-great grandparents who immigrated
from Holland to Kenosha. My grandfather would later be born here.

Even though he didn't know about the Gospel of Jesus Christ
I'm sure Papa Theodore is proud of me now. There is a
good feeling here at this place.

Scripture for the week: 2 Nephi 33:10-12
 10 And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.
 11 And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness.
 12 And I pray the Father in the name of Christ that many of us, if not all, may be saved in his kingdom at that great and last day.

It was a great week, and I do look forward to this week and the many unexpected adventures that it will hold. Thank you for your prayers and love, love,

Elder Luymes

We got a surprise text message from our cousin Krista Rawlins last night that was fun to get. The Rawlins family was in Chicago visiting the new baby grandson/nephew, Kaje.  They realized it was only an hour to drive to Kenosha and hoped to find Andrew. SUCCESS!!!!
He was super happy to see them and the gas station cookies and sweet rolls that they brought.  How cool is that!!!!!

Transfers came and went really fast. I had no more than 20 minutes to say hi to people at the Milwaukee transfer point, and also say goodbye to some of the missionaries that were heading home (one of which was my trainer, another was a former companion, and a third was a missionary that had been in my district way back in the beginning of my mission who I have become close friends with.) It was really sad to see my trainer leave; I can't believe that he and I served together over 21 months ago. It has been so much fun seeing him every once and a while and be able to catch up on some good old U.P stories. Thank goodness for Facebook and being able to reconnect with mission friends and members that I meet and serve with here in Wisconsin/Michigan. Then they kicked me out of the building and said go back to Kenosha, transfers was fast.

So long to my trainer, Elder Thompson, who returned home.

My new companion is Elder Norton from South Jordan Utah. He has been on his mission for a little over 18 months. He came out with Elder Baird (who I trained). Elder Norton is a 2013 High School graduate; he did one year of football and three years of marching band. He has not done any college but he plans on attending LDS Business College after his mission ends in September of this year. Elder Norton is the second oldest in his family of four siblings. His older brother returned from a mission in Missouri just a few months after Elder Norton started his mission. Elder Norton and I have served around or with some of the same people. I know, or have served with most of his companions. It sounds really odd to say, but Elder Norton will probably be my last companion. Unless President Cutler pulls some big stunt, both Elder Norton and I will both finish our missions here in the Kenosha B area. (I already know I'm finishing here in Kenosha, the question is whether or not we will serve together two transfers, but President seemed to imply that we will.)

We had interviews with President Cutler on Friday. He is such a wonderful man. He can also be really funny when he isn't trying to be. During the opening prayer to our interviews President made mention "to bless Elder Luymes' future family". This caught me way off guard. He exerts so much effort into helping missionaries stay focused on their missions and not about home, yet he is the one making mention of home and post mission stuff. Later in the interview President said to me "Elder Luymes, I am so excited for you to start having kids." AARRGGGHH! President Cutler, why? In truth, he is such a great Mission President, an inspired leader, and a fantastic example. Eternal Life is Family Life.

Elder Norton and I had a once in a mission life experience. It was Friday morning, early Friday morning. The alarm went off at 6:30am and like a good boy I climbed out of bed, and knelt down to say my morning prayers at exactly 6:30am. Obviously I'm still tired and I'm pretty sure humans don't think clearly when they wake up that early, but just as I'm bowing my head to pray, the door buzzer rings. I was ticked off as I thought it was the other Kenosha Elders buzzing us so that we would hurry up and come down for morning exercise. I thought to myself, “how dare they buzz us this early in the morning”, they know we will come down as soon as were ready to play basketball. Buzzing us right as the alarm goes off, that's just wrong! It buzzed again, and Elder Norton climbed out of bed and answered it. A voice came through the intercom and it was not the Elders. Some guy was panting and telling us he was lost, he was cold, he needs our cell phone to call for help, he asked us to call 911, etc. Is this a joke, or was he being serious? We couldn't tell. I listened (still on my knees) while Elder Norton talked to the guy over the intercom system. Finally I got up and put on my sweats. We went down stairs and sure enough there was a man who showed the outward signs of distress and being cold. We approached him cautiously and begun talking with him. This guy was maybe 26 and was born and raised his entire life in Kenosha, yet he had no idea where he was. He explained his story to us about how he had been up all night drinking with his girlfriend, then he insulted her and she dropped him off at the side of the road and left him with no cell phone. He told us that he had been walking for over an hour and was lost, and wanted us to call 911. Clearly the alcohol was messing with his brain (we later got his address and we discovered that he was only a mile away from home.) The other Elders showed up at the door and we continued to talk with this guy to calm him down. We called his brother who eventually picked up and came to the rescue. This guy asked us if we could come over to his house and begin teaching him the missionary lessons, and we also found out that he is the son of a less active. A pretty crazy way to start off the morning, the story continued on Saturday when we actually met him at the house and we taught him and his friend, and brother the Restoration. Sweet!

Scripture for the week: Mormon 9:11-13

11 But behold, I will show unto you a God of miracles, even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and it is that same God who created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are.

 12 Behold, he created Adam, and by Adam came the fall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man.

 13 And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ, they are brought back into the presence of the Lord; yea, this is wherein all men are redeemed, because the death of Christ bringeth to pass the resurrection, which bringeth to pass a redemption from an endless sleep, from which sleep all men shall be awakened by the power of God when the trump shall sound; and they shall come forth, both small and great, and all shall stand before his bar, being redeemed and loosed from this eternal band of death, which death is a temporal death.

Thank you all so much!

Elder Luymes

Of my many talents, taking hot pans out of the oven is not one of them.

Wow what an amazing week! It was a packed week with a lot of amazing things that took place. By far the top two highlights from last week were this: the convert baptism that took place from the Kenosha A Elders. The second was the all mission gathering that was attended by 220 missionaries, and Elder Christensen from the Presidency of the 70.

The convert baptism was held on Friday night. Baptisms are always great occasions where hard work pays off and smiles are limitless. We had 50 people attend the baptism, and 20 of those 50 guests were not members. Those are some staggering numbers! The Bishop and Ward Mission Leader were speechless that so many non-members showed up.

L-R: Elder Baird, Me, Elder Thompson, Elder Pounds, Elder Pou jumping in.
Generations of former companions, my trainer, my trainees.

The all mission gathering. This is a one-time deal where the whole mission gets together to receive training at the same time. We were expecting Elder Perry from the quorum of the twelve apostles to come and preside over the training. But due to health and the upcoming General Conference Elder Perry was reassigned to attend to some other tasks. So in his stead was Elder Craig C. Christensen from the Presidency of the Seventy as well as Elder Waddell from the first quorum of the seventy. I simply cannot describe the feelings, emotions, and power that was both seen and felt as you saw 220 missionaries catch up with old friends, stories and memories, and when we all started singing the opening song for the meeting. Wow, that was something special, something I will probably never hear ever again. I was filled with joy as I got to see Elder Thompson my trainer one last time before he goes home on Thursday of this week. I also saw Elder Baird who I trained in Manistique Michigan (U.P), Elder Ferney who I served with in DeForest and Elder Pounds who I trained in DeForest also. I got to see Elder Allen, Elder McMoore, and Elder Stevenson and say goodbye to him because he also leaves to go home on Thursday. I talked with Elder Merrill, the whole nine yards. I talked with missionaries who came out with me who I haven't seen or heard from in a couple months or a couple years. It was so amazing to see so many smiling faces and to just be filled with the spirit together. And if this wasn't a god enough treat. I got to see some Bishops and Elder quorum presidents who I served with in past wards. Such as Bishop Blotter and Ben Chaney from the Marquette Ward. I have never mentioned these people before but when I was serving in the U.P in the Germfask group. I got to become great friends with the Chaney family and Bishop Blotter from the Marquette Ward because I would have to do weekly reporting to them because of the lack of Priesthood in the Germfask group. I also saw Bishop Rhodes and the Priesthood leadership from the Oshkosh Ward. Being able to spend just a few minutes with each of them and catch up with them and how the wards are doing was bitter sweet. It felt like I was on cloud nine all day. Sister Cutler gave the first training in the meeting and she started off her training with this: "This is what heaven is going to look like". The Cutler love is unmatchable, and never ending. Sister Cutler was in tears seeing all of us and you just knew that she was imagining all of us gathered together in heaven with each of our spouses and the Cutler kids and Grandkids. Eternal life is Family life; I am so blessed to have served with the best examples of love and dedication to the Lord that could ever fill the office of Mission President and spouse. As a whole, Elder Christensen gave an amazing training and taught me more on how I can better help my investigators to better understand the importance of the journey that they are taking. He also gave a great training on the Atonement!

 I got my anti-trunky trunky papers this week. That basically means I'm going home soon. L

Guess what! I got to see the Luymes building this week. Thanks to my family and relatives, I know have the address and locations of historic Luymes sites. My Luymes family heritage roots from Kenosha and I was able to make the first stop of many to a Luymes family site. The Luymes building was built in 1927 and was used as a general store. Today the building is a bar (not the best use for a building like this). I didn't go inside but I plan on soliciting the help of some members so that I can speak with the owner of the building. I was so stoked to see the building, Elder Reynolds was really confused why we were standing outside a bar until he looked up and saw the Luymes name on it.

Thanks to Aunt Lorinda for information on the Luymes Family,
Here is the Luymes Building that was once a general store and now a bar.
I think it was built by my great-great grandfather.

It snowed today... but we still went Frisbee golfing. J

Scripture for the Week: Alma 12: 24-25

24 And we see that death comes upon mankind, yea, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek, which is the temporal death; nevertheless there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead.

 25 Now, if it had not been for the plan of redemption, which was laid from the foundation of the world, there could have been no resurrection of the dead; but there was a plan of redemption laid, which shall bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, of which has been spoken.

Thank you for your prayers, thank you for your love, love,

Elder Luymes

220 missionaries reconnecting - what joy!
Eternal life is family life, this is what it will be like.