You know it’s bad when your fellow missionaries are emailing you and calling you by your first name and asking if you’re "trunky"? Trunky is a word we use for a missionary whose mind is at home and not on the Lords work. Am I trunky? Only when I have to plan my return trip home such as how am I going to get all my stuff home and what am I going to do for the summer, and saying goodbye to people. Essentially I am only trunky when I get bombarded with the question by my fellow missionaries. To some I tell them to ask my companion, because he is the one who would know best if my mind is here or there.

Service project with E. Norton (L) and E. Brand (R). We helped a member
clean out storage lockers that she rents to students.

Our Memorial Day included some fantastic weather. It rained in the morning but then the skies opened up to some warm sun and the humidity. Riding the bikes was wonderful until.... Elder Norton's new bike broke. Two weeks ago we had the tire get punctured, but yesterday his entire peddle decided to fall off. Once again, we were stranded in the furthest possible area from our apartment and not a member for miles around to help us. We did a jimmy rig fix so that Elder Norton could get his bike to the closest member’s home, but they weren't home. So we chilled on their lawn chairs while we called a bunch of members until one was able to come and help us. Hurray for Bro. Boston!!! Elder Norton rode 300 meters and it broke again!!! Does this make us sound pathetic now? The car gets taken away, buss stations closed, bikes get stolen, and then bikes break twice, all sorts of transportation troubles. I'm not convinced that we will ever have a smooth week of transportation ever. Something has to go wrong!

This week is packed for us fortunately. Monday was Memorial Day so we had regular proselyting. Today is P-Day. In the evening we will be disk golfing with the Priests in the Ward - Fun! Tomorrow is my last Zone Conference. That will take up nearly all of our day, and then we have three appointments in the evening to fill up our entire Wednesday. Thursday we have a service project and our weekly planning session. This week will go by quick.

Pday Lunch!

That's about all I have. Scripture for the week: Jacob 4:12

 12 And now, beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things; for why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?

Thank you, love,

Elder Luymes

Every week I write down the topic of my emails as "weekly update" but often times I find myself laughing as I have an image of Colonial Klink from Hogan’s Heroes coming out of his office yelling to Sargent Schultz "Report! Report!" Can you imagine Colonial Klink yelling at me asking for my weekly report of my mission. I can kind of picture my mom thinking "where is it, where is the report?" She's anxious kind of  like Klink is to get the report. LOL it’s a funny thought. Hogan’s Heroes is a great show, I'll need to watch more when I get home.

We had a couple great surprises this week. It was nothing like the disaster and chaos like the week before. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Santos. He is an Elder that just got transferred to the Ward. He is from Phoenix Arizona and has been out on his mission for 14 months. On Wednesday we were biking to an appointment that we had out East by the lake. On the ride out there [Pause: I should mention that Elder Norton got a new bike on Monday from a member] continuing with Wednesday, we were biking to the appointment and Elder Santos was behind me about 20-30 feet and all of a sudden I hear him yell out "is my tire flat?" I slowed down and to our misfortune his tire was very low. We checked it out and pulled out a small piece of wood that was no longer than an inch long. This tiny piece of wood hit the jackpot. It penetrated all the way through the tire tread (mountain bike tires) and it penetrated the air tube and blew out his tire in a second. What a lucky piece of wood. We walked to the closest bike shop and fixed the tire, then continued biking to our appointment. It worked out well; we weren't thrown off the schedule too much. It made for a good laugh actually.

Kenosha is the home of Americas oldest operating Velodrome (bike racing on a track). It is in our area, and Elder Norton and I pass by it all the time. So we took a quick minute and raced around the track. It is so much fun.

On Friday Elder Norton and I had the privilege of going on exchanges with President Cutler. He texted us a few days before and asked if he could come out with us on Friday. How could we ever say no! President drove us around in his car (which was a nice day of rest for our legs); we had an amazing time together. We had two appointments while we were with him and we talked to three other people who we met. One guy we helped put a fridge into his car, then we struck up a conversation about religion. He had met with LDS Missionaries in the past but it had been a very long time. His views of the Bible were a bit skewed; he was convinced that the Bible taught more about King David than it did about Jesus Christ. You could tell that President Cutler was "rolling with the punches" with this guy. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he gave us his phone number. It is always great being with President Cutler, his knowledge and testimony are such a great inspiration. At the end of our exchange, President Cutler was answering one of Elder Norton’s questions and President made a joke about me going home. Ha! He is such a great guy!

I would estimate that we biked ~60-70 miles this week.

Scripture for the week: Alma 22:13

13 And Aaron did expound unto him the scriptures from the creation of Adam, laying the fall of man before him, and their carnal state and also the plan of redemption, which was prepared from the foundation of the world, through Christ, for all whosoever would believe on his name.

Thank you all, have a fantastic week!

Elder Luymes

Directions -- U.P. Style

This was a week to remember in the worst of ways. In the thick of it all it seemed as though the weight of Satan was going to squash Elder Norton and I. So much opposition, so much going against us it was ridiculous. By Sunday, so much had happened and we were clearly on the downward slope that all we could do was laugh and joke about it. It was a good week, a testimony week and one that I won’t forget for a very long time.

On Monday as you are aware of, we didn't really have a P-Day. Of the normal 8 hours that are given to us for emailing and shopping and sports, and all the other fun stuff. Instead we only had two hours to do all that. Monday morning got occupied with a service project that went twice as long as it was supposed to. Then we had a lunch appointment with the Sister missionaries and the Elders as well as a member. Then we had a lesson with one of our investigators. We only had one hour for emailing, followed by dinner and then 10 more minutes of emailing and then an appointment with another member. It was crazy and stressful.

Tuesday started out on the wrong foot. We got a call during studies from the vehicle coordinator for our mission. He was informing us that the mission was taking away our car (not because of the accident) but because the car was need elsewhere and we would now be full time walking, busing, and biking Elders. Our area is small enough where it is kind of manageable without a car, but this was the worst week in the world to get a call saying "you’re losing your car". We had three, four, or even five appointments back to back every day this week. Those appointments are all over town, some of them are 15 minute car rides, it would be impossible to try and bike that same distance in a time frame that would also allow you to have a solid lesson. We racked up the miles on Tuesday and drove to all the people that we knew would be hardest to visit once the car was gone.

Wednesday, the car went bye-bye. We had to turn it in to the body shop. When the car is finished I will need to sign the check on behalf of the church and then the car goes to the Kenosha Spanish Elders for good. From then on we walked. The senior couple did help us out though; they drove us to several appointment on Wednesday and Thursday. We didn't make all of our appointments however but it was a whole lot better than walking to them all. I am very grateful for the senior couple. Thursday was the best day of the week.

Friday, was supposed to be even better. But somebody decided to steal Elder Norton's bike. This left us with only walking. I didn't have the money yet to buy the bus passes so we walked all day Friday, missed a few appointments and just kind of was in a daze at how this week was falling apart. It was unreal!

Saturday, I finally got the money to buy a bus pass, we prepared for the day, hopeful as can be that this day was going to be the turnaround. And then... the bus station was closed. We can't buy bus passes, we can't ride the bus, and our entire day’s plans went down the drain. We just kept on walking, mile after mile. Eventually we did figure out a way to buy bus passes on Saturday but it still messed up the schedule a whole lot.

Sunday, nothing bad happened. A member has agreed to give us his bike; we got to Skype our family and see their smiling faces. We had a great dinner with a member family. Sunday was great. This new week should be a lot better. Hopefully less opposition, less drama with the car and bikes being stolen and bus stations being closed. It should be a good week. We hope!

Wall of Inspiration - Jesus Christ, Coach Green (aka You a Pony),
Adrienne (post wisdom teeth still on drugs).

Happy Mother’s Day, love you all,

Elder Luymes

May the Fourth be with you!

Hamming it up with Kenosha B team!

 

This P-Day is not even a P-Day. We got a text early in the morning asking for some emergency help to help somebody from the Racine area move. We volunteered and didn't know what we were getting our self into. 4 hours later and we still need to go back tomorrow to help move the final load. Then we show up an hour late to our lunch appointment with the Sisters and one of the members. Then we had a 3pm lesson, and now we have a 5pm dinner and we are literally just now getting to our first P-Day activity. Our day is shot. Essentially, we have a 2 hour P-Day.

Today starts the first day of my last transfer. Yeah, that is all I really feel like saying about that.

Spring has come, the weather this week was absolutely the best. We had sunshine all week, and the temp was in our favor. We walked a lot and biked around a lot. The tulips are blooming, and the dandelions look really beautiful with their golden yellow flowers that show up everywhere.

Tulips = Spring!

The work in Kenosha is still going strong. We have two baptismal dates. One, a boy, had his birthday this past Saturday so we went to Wall-Mart and bought him the Meet the Mormons movie. Elder Norton and I are still together this transfer. This helps a lot because we both have an understanding of the area, and we have a vision of what needs to be done.

Thank you, I'll email longer next week, today we have essentially no P-Day so this email is short. Love,

Elder Luymes

Sweet ride, nice grill. We found this along the way.

 

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