Football, volleyball, and cross country seasons and baby pics

Football season is here and Andy is ready to go.  He's playing wide receiver on varsity this year.  The first game is this Friday at home against Lander.

Andy is on the third row next to the coaches

Lucy is also starting volleyball and had her first practice on Monday.  Eric is doing cross country again and his first meet is in Lovell on Thursday.

Sweet little (well not so little) Van is nearly two months old.  I love this picture with his shoes on.

Elder Edholm week 63

Last week Palmer had zone conference and thankfully I stole this picture from the DR West Mission Facebook page.  Palmer is on the second row second from the left.

So good news about this week is that we are finally starting to find some really great families. We have been blessed with one incomplete family and one entire family this week. Our convert Sonia is awesome and she is sharing the gospel with all of her kids. Her oldest daughter, Sonia, just left her church and is a little confused, so she met us at the perfect time. She went to church with her three sons on Sunday, her husband couldn't go. We went over that same day to teach them and she pretty much told us that she believes it all. Her husband hasn't quite gotten there yet, but he is open to it. He's attending another church right now, but he's not super converted and he's open to change. The other family we found, the mom is a less active member and so is the son. Her daughter is pretty excited about going to church and everything. Finding families is probably the biggest blessing a missionary can receive.

Elder Powell and I have really been trying to work with members more often. But actually good and effective member lessons. Before I just got use to leaving with youth for the whole day. It's a good thing to do, but each investigator has a different personality and if we can plan effective lessons with members we can help our investigators more in there conversion process. After being failed so many times by so many different members it just gives me so much excitement to keep doing this work after my mission too. Because members have just as big of a part in the process of conversion as the missionaries do.

Well sorry for the short email this week, everything is normal here!

Love you all! 

´Till next week!

Elder Edholm -- week 62

We went to a zone conference this past week and we did a lot of practices, one of the most important things I learned at this zone conference was the importance of understanding somebody before trying to teach them.

So there is this guy that called us over one day named Victor who wanted us to pass by his house. We passed by and I shortly found out that his desires of wanting us to pass by weren't the best. He's Methodist and knows so much more about the Bible than I do. Just from the beginning I think he was just trying to tell us that we don't need another book, that it says in the Bible that God's word is perfect. I went home frustrated and angry because I didn't have the same amount of knowledge that he does about the Bible and just because contending makes me leave with a pit in my stomach. We had set another appointment, and the whole three days leading up to that appointment I was just feeling so anxious and not good because I knew he just wanted to maybe prove to us that our church is wrong. I decided I was going to go over there just simply to understand him and ask him what his intentions were in wanting us to pass by.

The day came, and my companion and I said a prayer before going into his house. We prayed that we would be able to feel the spirit and that our testimonies would touch him. We went in and I asked him that same question. He pretty much said his intentions were to learn, which I didn't believe all the way. But I told him that our purpose as missionaries is to teach those that will here and accept our message, that if we spend time with somebody that doesn't want to here or accept our message, than we are wasting our time. After I explained all that he understood very well, and it impacted him a lot, I could see him just kind of shrink a little bit, maybe realizing that his intentions weren't the best. We took advantage of this moment to show him 2 Timothy 3:14-16 that says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. We explained to him what the Book of Mormon is and our testimonies that we know that the Book of Mormon is scripture and that he can to if he reads and prays about it. He even accepted a Book of Mormon.

It was amazing to see how much more receptive he was after we took the time to understand him. We didn't show him any amazing profound knowledge we have, but yet he seemed extremely impacted by what we had said. It makes me realize that if we don't have a ton of knowledge about the Bible, that doesn't matter that much because that's not what's going to convert the people. The Holy Ghost is.

I love this work so much, and I love having the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

Emma in St. George

My little Emma is officially a college freshman!  I spent this last week in Utah and got to spend a day in sunny St. George.  Emma moved into the brand new dorms at Dixie State University. She is off on a great path!

While I was in St. George I went to the St. George Temple.  It is an amazing building and I was in awe of the architecture and the Spirit I felt inside.

The flowers were beautiful!

The grounds were peaceful.

I also got to spend time with my sweet grandson, Van.

Emma and I and my sister Susan also moved my mother into an assisted living facility called Legacy Village while we were there.  It was an eventful week!

Elder Edholm -- week 61

So sorry I didn't give any information last time about my kid or my trainee, but his name is Elder Powell, he is from Hesperia California, he's a ginger, we get a long really well, and he's here to work! So I can already tell we will have a great two transfers together!

Besides that things are going alright. It's always really disapointing to work with somebody so much, planning lessons for them, bringing members to their house, bearing your testimony and everything, just to see them throw it all away, like they didn't feel the spirit at all, but I know that's exactly how God feels about us a lot of the time, so there's no reason in getting too upset about it. But a cool thing we're trying to do as a companionship is we're trying to purify ourselves.

Basically the way we can be effective missionaries depends on how consegrated or purified we are to the work. So my companion and I are trying to purify ourselves by getting rid of every little thing we are doing that might distract us from the work. I know that this will really help us be more effective missionaries. I like to call it complete submission. If our desires are God's desires, there will be nothing stopping us from using His power 24/7.

Well we are working with a less active family that has started coming back to church. They have two kids that have not been baptized yet. We asked them to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true. The next time we came back the little girl told me that she had received her answer. She told me that she had a dream, and an angel came to her and told her that the church is true. It seemed a little weird to me at first, but then I remembered how Jesus told us that we need to be like little children. I know this little girl was not doubting at all that she would receive an answer from God. It shows me that it's true how we need to become like little children, doubting nothing.

Anyway, besides from that, I'm loving it out here, now that I've got control over the language I really am creating some great friendships and meeting amazing people everyday. I love this work, and I love you guys too!

Elder Edholm -- week 60

Have like five minutes, but I just wanted to say that training is awesome!!! My kid is really cool. It's really funny to see him just in the air, not knowing what's happening because he doesn't know spanish yet, it makes me remember my training.

But the best thing is that I can confidently say that we've been exactly obedient. We just want to be obedient and work hard, it's a great blessing to be able to train and help a missionary develop good habits at the beginning of his mission. The only bad thing is that we don't have a great teaching people so we have mainly been doing a lot of finding lately.

But anyway, sorry for the short email, and sorry again that I couldn't send any pictures, but I love all you guys! Thanks so much for the package!

 

*I got an email from a mom who went with her husband to pick up her son at the end of his mission.  They sent me some pictures they took with Palmer.   Palmer was never companions with their son, but knows him pretty well.*

Palmer and Elder Valenzuela and his parents

Elder Edholm -- week 59

So sorry I'm writing so early today, I'll pobably miss a lot of you today, but Elder Empey and I have to go to the capital soon so we are hurrying and writing right now. But the baptism went very well. In our branch we baptized four people. A lot of people showed up, it was great! The thing was that we asked Sonia if she would be able to share her testimony after the baptism and she got really nervous, to the point of crying, but we tried to help her out, and she finally calmed down and bore an amazing testimony, I loved it. It was a great night, Sonia and Albert looked really happy. But due to my situation right now I am not able to send any pictures, I will try and do that next week.

More good news. Friday morning I got a call from President Knuckols and he informed me that I will be training this next transfer! I was so happy to hear that because I really did want to train. I'm so excited to teach a new missionary to be obedient and work hard, to give him a great start to his mission.

So my whole mission I've felt like I've been missing something. Like I haven't been doing something right or I haven't been enjoying my mission to it's full potential. Then I read this talk called ¨Be the Fourth Missionary¨ and it talks about the four different types of missionaries. The difference between the third and the fourth missionary is that the fourth missionary's desires are to keep the rules of the mission. He doesn't just keep the rules because he has to, he does it because he wants to. I can't just be out here on the mission while my desires are to do something I used to do back home, I'm not going to be changed by the mission like that. As it explains in 1 Corinthians 13 that we can do a lot of great things, but unless we do them with Charity, it doesn't benefit us at all. We can do everything we are commanded to do, but unless we do those things with Charity, we are not benefited from them.

I'm really going to strive to become the fourth missionary, and to help my son become the fourth missionary early on in his mission so that he can enjoy his whole mission to the fulness, and not make my same mistake. 

Well it's kinda hard to see Elder Empey go after being with him for 4 and a half months, but I'm excited to move on!

Love you guys!