TRANSFERS!!!!!

December 29, 2015

Oh yeah!!! Isn't that exciting?!!? Transfers are TOMORROW!!!! And GUESS WHAT?!?!? I'm staying here!!!! With my trainer Elder Sagmeister!!! Hahaha yep I'm staying here in the Pleasant View South Stake for at least the next 6 weeks. I think that's pretty cool. I didn't want to get transferred really. We are having a lot of success in this area and I feel like we need at least another 6 weeks to be able to get the rest of our investigators in the font.

We had yet another baptism this past week and it was great! I think I've mentioned his family a little bit. His name is Donovan and he is 9 years old. He has a lot of mental issues yet it does not show at all when he's at church. So he is still aware enough to comprehend a lot of key doctrines. His mom was baptized last year yet is a little less
active. The father is not in the situation and the grandmother lives in their trailer. Donovan has a younger brother who is 5 and he is one of the smartest/cutest 5 yr olds ever Hahaha. Anyways Donovan was baptized this last Saturday and on the spot the bishop spoke, the stake president spoke, the high councilor over missionary work spoke, and our mission president (President Allred) surprised us with a visit and he spoke. Elder Sagmeister and I shared the 4 minute restoration message.The baptism was just awesome and we figured out that the grandmother is not a member and she wants to be baptized!! So that will probably happen in the coming months as well!!

This mission is awesome! Yes there is a lot of opposition to the church here. There are people who join for the wrong reasons. But at the same time a lot of people are opening up to the gospel and people are flooding to Utah and they don't know why. I was looking up some history about the Mesa Temple today and I was studying the 4 corners of the temple and what they represented. It is really interesting and it talks about people traveling to Zion to hear the gospel. And I pretty much feel like that is happening in the Utah Logan Mission!

We have a pretty legit dinner set up today. One of the Ward mission leaders served his mission in Germany and he and Elder Sagmeister really get along. Anyways since we all thought Elder Sagmeister was leaving, he is fixing a full on German dinner tonight and German food is sooooo good!!! I told my family about some German food over Skype and they all thought is was gross but they don't know what they are talking about.

Also that was another thing!!! Skyping with the fam was awesome! I also got permission to call my grandma and my cousin so that was really cool!! I was good I kept the call to about 45 minutes which really isn't enough time but it was. It was awesome to see my baby sister Jadyn. My family makes me happy but my sister especially makes
me happy!! I have a strong testimony of eternal families because of what my parents have done over the past couple of years and I'm grateful that I'm able to share that testimony with a lot of people who want an eternal family. That's another thing! On top of baptizing we are also working with families and recent converts who want to be sealed together and that is super exciting!

On Christmas Day we realized that we have just too much candy and treats and just crap. We dumped ALL of our treats in a huge pile (we had about a 3 foot circle) and we divided it into 5 families and we went around about to the trailer park and gave it all away. So to everyone who sent me stuff, thank you all sooo much!! I was so
appreciative and really enjoyed Mary and Leanne's Fudge and Cookies and my Grandmas Peanut Butter Bars. So I definitely had my fair share and our cupboards are still so full!! But I will be honest I did give a lot of it away to families who barely had a Christmas so I'm sure you all can understand. Thanks so much you made our Christmas the best one yet!!

Alright that's enough talking for today I love you all so much!!

Elder Skabelund

That awkward moment when you don't know what to put in the subject line of an email

December 22, 2015

Yes. I honestly have no idea what to put on the subject line this week.

This week has been another awesome week in the Lord's work. There is going to be another baptism on Saturday and I'll be sure to send you some pictures. Baptism day is just awesome! I absolutely love filling
up the font and setting stuff up and organizing it all. It's awesome to know that you made a small difference in someone's life. The spirit does all the work. So we are baptizing a young boy who just turned 9. His mom was converted a year ago and has just been inactive. They are coming back to church and again we are reactivating along with baptizing and it's awesome to bring families back and to the gospel. I'll be sure to email some pictures next week!

On Sunday Elder Sagmeister and I had a special meeting with President Allred(mission president) and President Keller(Stake President). It was an amazing meeting because when two different sets of priesthood keys come together that is when we see miracles happen. It was a great meeting and we shot off some good ideas to try and improve the work in the stake.

Christmas is this week and it has come by wicked fast! My mom is obsessed with sending me box after box after box. I think she only hastwo hobbies. Raising foster kids and sending me stuff. Hahaha but it's great! I was so excited when I opened up a thing of deodorant yesterday from her! I was like, "Gee!! Thanks Mom for the deodorant!! That really is what I was looking forward to all day!!" Hahah it's awesome I love opening the stuff I receive and it's a blessing to have a great mom!!

The work is good and there is a lot of potential that we are capitalizing on right now. There should be 4 more baptisms in the coming months and I'm sure with some more finding we'll have even more!!

I love the mission so much but I miss Arizona a lot. Especially the weather. It's snowing like crazy today and it will drop down to like 7 degrees in a couple days. I also am having flying/driving withdrawals. I don't know what it is but there is just something about jumping in a car and going for a drive. It helps me out with my stress. Since I
don't have that luxury anymore I have to punch my companion to get all the stress out of me ;) .

This salon that looks like a home(but is not a home at all) gave me one of the best haircuts ever today! Plus it was free! I had to look good for my skype call on Christmas! I feel like I'm spoiled out here in Utah. But then again we have lots of opposition in Utah that I better not mention because it will probably scare my mom. Hahahaha

Anyways that's all for today!

Ps my mission has a blog now! Go to utahloganmissionallred.blogspot.com I am in the North Ogden Zone

Love Elder Skabelund

Another Week, Another Amazing Baptism!

December 15, 2015

Oh what a week it has been! Yesterday was my laziest day of my mission and it sucked. We had a big zone conference with the whole zone, zone leaders, ap's, and the mission presidency. It went from 8-3 so it took up half a day and that half was awesome! They gave a great training and it was everything that I needed to hear. I won a scripture mastery game along with 3 other missionaries and the mission gave me this really sweet tie pin. The other half of the day, Elder Sagmeister got the stomach flu. So just after zone conference, along with the mission president, President Allred, we gave Elder Sagmeister a blessing. Afterwords we went home, Elder Sagmeister went to bed and I just chilled at the home all day. I felt so useless hahahaha I was just on gospel library watching videos and reading scriptures all day.

We also had a huge snowstorm come in yesterday. We have at least 8 inches of snow. I hate the snow. I had the wonderful opportunity to rock a car out of the snow this morning and the snow just has a way of making your day annoying. When it snows it gets all over your face, you constantly are making sure you don't slip on ice, it's usually windy, and did I mention it's cold? Well at least I didn't have to tract yesterday. Elder Sagmeister is already feeling better so we should have a successful p-day today.

We had a baptism on Saturday!!! Woot woot!! I learned how to make programs and my program I made actually turned out pretty good. President Nielsen of the Mission Presidency came and a lot of the Ward was there to support! It was a really good baptism. The father Bradley, who has been fairly inactive, was able to baptize his daughter Reejelyn and that was really cool to see. Our mission
president has us practice sharing the 5 minute restoration so we shared that at the baptism and it was just an awesome day!

Reejelyn was confirmed the next day! Confirmations are more stressful than baptisms. You are just so stressed about the family and if they are going to come to church the next day for the confirmation. Of course Bradley comes in a minute before church starts and I was able to let out a huge sigh of relief. Reejelyn was confirmed by her grandfather, Mike, and so that was also cool to see.

We should have a couple more baptisms this month which is good! In fact it's great! I remember before I came out on my mission (which feels like a week ago) I always told myself that I would consider myself successful if I had just one baptism. Now I've had two and I
honestly still don't feel quite accomplished and I shouldn't. The Lord does not measure your success based on numbers. Yes, Baptism and Confirmation is CENTRAL to the purpose of a missionary. The Lord measures how successful you are as a missionary based on how well you
attempted to fulfill your purpose. And I know I can do a lot more while I'm out here. There is soooo much work to be done. There are so many people who need Christ in their lives. And I am willing to keep doing the Lord's work for the next 21 months to help those lost sheep come closer to Christ.

My testimony is strengthened. I have changed a lot. Yes I'm still 18 and I still do stupid things. You can't fix stupid and I fit in that category. In fact, Elder Sagmeister has started a list of all the
clumsy and stupid things that I've done so far and it's actually pretty funny/awesome. I think that's one of the wonders of missionary work. The Lord needs YOU and YOUR personality, talents, strengths, needs, weaknesses, everything about you. He doesn't want you to a different Elder. He wants you to be a better Elder. I've seen miracles happen as I've let the Lord help me to be the missionary he wants me to be based on who I already am. I love this work and I love the people. Transfers are the 30th and I don't want to get transferred. I just love the people so much and I want to be around to see my investigators be baptized.

On the other hand though if I do get transferred I would love to go to Logan to meet all my long lost relatives. There are plenty of people even in Ogden who know a Dentist Skabelund or a Doctor Skabelund. Fun fact: my Senior couple played on a baseball team with my Grandpa's cousins. Wayne Skabelund and his son Dee Skabelund. I also got a hold of some Skabelund phone numbers and I'm tempted to prank call them.

Wherever I go it is where the Lord needs me and that's all that matters. The church is true. It is led by prophets. Priesthood power and authority is very real. The Book of Mormon is very true. There are
so many people in the world that try and prove the Book of Mormon to be wrong. My challenge to those is to read the Book of Mormon and pray for themselves. God works in mysterious ways. We don't need to understand everything. We just need to understand that God is our loving Heavenly Father and he wants us to return to him. He has provided a way and we need to accept that way. We all accepted his plan we just need to follow it.

Alright that's enough preaching. I love you all!!!

Elder Skabelund

The Mission Life

December 8, 2015

Yes the mission life. This week I realized that this is the life. Nothing makes me more happy than watching families come closer to Christ! It's been a great week full of lessons and meeting people. Not only me teaching lessons, but also I've learned a couple lessons this week. I've learned of the value and importance that members have to missionary work.

When we first got into this area we went tracting a lot! We found a couple families to teach and we ran into a family who has been taught before. This family is awesome. The father's(Brad) parents (Mike and Peggy) are in the same Ward and the fathers daughter (Reejelyn) is 10 yrs old and is not baptized. Brad's older brother served a mission in the late 90's. Tragically his brother was killed on his mission in a fatal car accident. President Hinckley spoke at his funeral. Anyways this family has gone through a lot and Brad has fallen away from the church and Reejelyn is not baptized. We have worked closely with the family and we have involve the Ward very much. We have worked a lot with the Primary Presidency and other auxiliary leaders. Reejelyn was close to baptism but she still needed to come to church one more time.We have worked a lot these past two weeks to get her to church and by working with the Ward we were able to have Reejelyn come to church! Reejelyn will be baptized this S the 12th. It is awesome to see families come back and come closer to Christ. Miracles are happening in Utah!

I love this work! A lot of people are saying how sorry I am to be away from my family for thanksgiving and Christmas. What a load of crap. I'm not sorry. Granted I miss my family but I'm definitely not sorry for being able to serve the lord on thanksgiving and Christmas. It is an honor.

Sorry if I sound bold but I guess that's what the mission life does to you! Today and yesterday we had the opportunity to work with the seminary students in the area. This seminary building is literally the biggest one in the US. It can fit 4 or 5 normal size seminaries in one! We invited the students to work with us and become missionaries to their friends and family. It was crazy because I was in their shoes 6 months ago yet I feel like I'm such a different person now. The gospel changes your life.

I could go on all day with stories and such! I'm excited to talk to my family on Christmas! I just hope I don't get too distracted from the work! Hahahaha if any of you have any mind-boggling questions you would like to ask me ask me any day! I can read your emails every day so go ahead and shoot them at me!

Love,
Elder Skabelund


My mom sent me that Christmas Tree and the other picture is a picture of my senior couple ELDER BENSON who played for the SKABELUND ROOFING baseball or softball team

Snow, Snow, and more Snow

December 1, 2015

Hello everyone! All is well in the Utah Logan Mission! I only have 4 more weeks of training left! Time flies by so fast here it's not even a joke! I am really adjusting well and I'm excited for what the future has in store while I am a missionary. I love this work so much. Granted there are days that just flat out suck but you get used to it fast. It's all about your attitude and how you look at things. If you have a good attitude during bad situations your mission will be a lot more enjoyable and I've had to learn that.

This last Tuesday we had a baptism and that was really cool. I was freaking out on Sunday because the family was 5 minutes late for Church. But Norah was still able to be confirmed so it worked out. It was very stressful because the stake president was there and I just didn't even want to think about the family not coming to church. But it still worked out!!

On Wednesday I got to go up to Logan for a mission conference and that was fun! A former mission president ( who was the mission president for the San Diego mission during the filming of district 2) spoke to us about staying true to Preach My Gospel and that was really
insightful.

Thursday was thanksgiving and we only had 2 dinner appointments! (Which is a good thing) Our mission president told us to treat thanksgiving like any other day and we did just that! So after 3 or so we went out and worked like normal and had good success with visits and we taught the restoration to a potential investigator. If we would have just wasted our day with members we would not have had thesuccess we did so it was good that we got out and worked. On Friday we had a couple lessons so that was good

Saturday we performed the Living Christmas Card to people. It was very successful we had few people just bawling in tears and it's great to see how Jesus Christ can bless the lives of everyone.

On Sunday I gave a talk about the Plan of Salvation and I focused a lot on Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is central to Gods plan for his children. It went really well!

Yesterday I gave a blessing to Heidi who is going into emergency surgery today. She had me in tears yesterday. You just love people so much and you hate to see them go through tough situations. The blessing went well and I know that she will be ok.

The gospel blesses families in extraordinary ways. The world is getting crazier and crazier every day. The gospel is what keeps us strong. Jesus Christ is there for us whenever we need him. He never leaves. Because of him we all have second chances and clean slates.
There is no such thing as the end Because of Him.

Btw the church released a new video about the birth of Christ. I thought it was kind of lame but I still felt the spirit so it's still a good video. Go watch it.

Ok love you guys
Elder Skabelund

Did Somebody Say Baptism?

November 24, 2015

Today is a glorious day. The gates of Eternal Happiness and Life are opening at approximately 7pm today. This is not the end but only the beginning. Tonight, one of our investigators, Norah, is being baptized. She is a 9 yr old girl and is super ready to be baptized the parents are inactive and are trying to come to church. The dad actually go the OK to baptize Norah and that just makes me sooo happy. The interesting thing about  baptisms are the things you usually don't take into consideration. Those things are on our shoulders. We have the opportunity to fill the fonts, get the suits, make programs, delegate talks and musical selections and set up chairs. It really is kind of awesome. Did you know that a font takes 2 hours to fill? I thought that was crazy hahaha so around 4:30 we have to fill the font. This week is a blur once again. I have been really clumsy this week I should say. I ordered a ukulele but I ordered it to my parents on accident. I felt like an idiot. But we all make mistakes. That's why we need Christ in our lives. We have had a decent amount of lessons and I can see myself improve everyday and I am relying more on the spirit than on memorization. There hasn't been any snow yet. It snows everyday on the mountains but not down here. We should have some snow tomorrow. I am adjusting to the weather. The other day it was about 25 degrees and I stepped on the grass and it was frozen. It leaves a print of your shoe in the grass and it was the strangest thing I've seen here. Today is only 40 degrees so I just wore a short sleeve shirt and my suit jacket. 40 degrees is great weather. Well I don't have too much time. I have to figure out a way to make programs. Oh for thanksgiving someone is taking us out to lunch and we are having dinner with the stake president. Also a side note we are on track to have 3 super solid baptisms next month so that will be great. Love you guys!

Elder Skabelund

Busy, busy

November 17, 2015

Ok so you might think I'm getting transferred but I'm not...hahaha alot of people got moved around but training lasts 2 transfers (12 weeks). Elder Sagmeister got called to be a district leader which is
awesome! Where we live there is only 1 restaurant in our stake and it is this junky Mexican joint called Juan Pablo's. If we wanted to eat out of the stake we had to get permission from our district leader.
But now since Elder Sagmeister is DL we can eat wherever the junk we want to. Hahahaha So how is life in AZ?! I heard the Cardinals beat the Seahawks this week! Woot Woot!!! So I think we're (7-2) and the Seahawks are (4-5).
Now I really shouldn't know this information but when you are learning to talk to random strangers it actually comes in handy. It lets people know that missionaries aren't weird. We are just normal representatives of Jesus Christ!

Thanksgiving is coming up quick! I think at least 10 people have invited us to come over for thanksgiving. Every time someone invites us it just goes in one ear and out the other because I know that we are going to be booked on thanksgiving. Hahaha I just tell them maybe we'll stop by and say hi! I guess it's a good problem to have too many dinner appointments ;)

It's pretty cold in Pleasant View. About 29 degrees. Which sounds freezing but in all honest it's not too bad. The wind is what kills you. Yesterday it was only around 33 but with 60 mile an hour wind gusts it kills you!!! And because I don't have a car or a bike, we walked all day and night in it. My face was numb! Hahahaha

The work is usual. The thing with my area is that it has a lot of potential! We're working with about 25-30 people and we can set up lessons every week but it's hard to have people commit. A lot of our close investigators are around 9 or 10 years old which is awesome! These kids are the future and they need to have a firm foundation of
Christ while they are in their youth. One of the kids is Reejelyn (and yes that is how you spell it) and she is ready to be baptized. She could totally be baptized this Saturday but her family feels like they need time to let everyone know and take time off work which is understandable so the asked if she could be baptized on the 12th of December. Which is a ways a way but it is a pretty solid date. Another investigator is Norah. She is about 9 and she is the smartest girl ever. We ask her questions and she knows everything. She even teaches
us sometimes. Her dad works every Sunday and her mom has no motivation to take 4 little kids to church. She says that she thinks she can't handle the kids at church which I just find total Bologna because coming from a family of 8 children my mom was always able to take us
to church when dad couldn't go.

I'm so thankful for parents that taught me how to work with others especially children. It comes in handy with these investigators. A cool story about Norah. Since her parents don't go to church we asked if someone in the Ward could pick her up and they said it was fine. So come Sunday, the Ward mission leader was supposed to pick her up but I saw him come in to church without Norah and he totally dropped the ball. So I went up to him and told him that we need to go pick Norah up so we left and went to her house and when we got there she was just already to go to church and that just made me so happy.

Also, Sunday was another stake conference and we went to a broadcasted one. However, the church came out with a new streaming system and it just flat out sucks. We lost signal for like 45 minutes and then when
it came back on we lost signal every 5 minutes it seemed like. In those 45 minutes of peril and distress someone was smart and decided to go up and play the piano and we sang hymns for about 45 minutes. People were shouting out hymn numbers and I thought to myself that this is probably what all the other Christian churches are like ;)

Yesterday we were setting up lessons in the trailer park and a boy named Johnny (age 9) biked up to us and told us to visit his home. So we actually met Johnny the day before. So on Sunday we were about to leave the trailer park when I got the feeling that we should visit some less actives. We taught a couple less actives and new members and during one of these lessons, Johnny knocked on the door and wanted to play with one of his friends. When the lesson was done we went outside and talked to Johnny and he wanted us to go to his house. We knocked on the door and the mom was on the phone so we told her we'd stop by some other time. So yesterday Johnny came up to us again and we went to his house and set him up for lessons and we have the moms
permission. Crazy how things work out when you are in tune with the spirit.

Anyways I know it's a lot but there is a lot going on. I could keep typing forever but that would probably bore you guys. Anyways love you guys and stay safe!

Elder Skabelund

(Btw if you are getting an email from me for the first time it's
because I finally have my email list)

Tracting, tracting, and more tracting :)

November 10, 2015

Hey guys how is your week going so far? Are you freezing yet? Hahaha cuz it is nothing compared to North Ogden. I would definitely be in shorts and a tshirt back home but instead I'm layered. 

This week we had a decent amount of lessons and we an investigator on date for a baptism on the 28th! Its been pretty awesome. 

On Thursday we had a tripanionship. Kind of. Pretty much there was this guy from the MTC that tagged along with us for the whole day. His job at the MTC is to teach the teachers that teach the missionaries so this guy is pretty high up. He had a car and that made a huge difference. We went tracting and then we taught a lesson later that night. It was probably one of the best lessons we had.

The lesson started out with the family not wanting us to push their son, Breyan, to baptism and Breyan did not want to say the opening prayer. Through the spirit and us missionaries being true instruments we were able to commit Breyan to baptism and he even said the closing prayer. Not only did we increase his faith but the whole families faith as well. As a family they are reading scriptures together every night and they are making progress.

 On Friday we were tracting in the trailer parks again. We saw this guy get dropped off and we started to talk to him. He speaks mostly spanish and he let us into his home. He introduced us to his family and it turns out that his wife and his daughter has been baptized however, he and his other 3 kids are not baptized. We taught a short lesson and the whole family wants to go to church and be baptized so we are going to work with them towards that goal.

On Sunday Elder Sagmeister and I had to present the living christmas card to two wards. Pretty much after sacrament meeting the bishop asked the congregation to stay and then we went up to the pulpit and sang silent night (A Capella) and then we shared the story of the Birth of Christ. It actually went pretty well and it sounded cool because we did two verses in English and then we sang the last verse in German. The idea of this presentation is to encourage members to give us referrals so we can take this living christmas card and present it to those referrals.

This week has been busy and has been tough but it is definitely worth it.Pretty much the rest of the week has been like this and we are just seeing miracle after miracle happen. Their is so much potential in this stake and there is plenty work to be done. There are going to be a boatload of baptisms soon which is awesome! There is just something special seeing people unlocking the gate to eternal life.

Anyways family and friends, stay true to the faith and share that faith to true sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. Visit some less actives and be a member missionary. I know people tell you that all the time but if everyone did their part the church would be even stronger than it already is.

Love you guys,

Elder Skabelund

Halloween missionary style

Novermber 3, 2015

Hey guys it's Elder Skabelund! Not too much going on in North Ogden but we did have 20 lessons this past week so we are staying busy. Elder Sagmeister is awesome and I really love my companion. He is one of the funniest guys I know and he keeps the mission life interesting. Over Halloween we still taught lessons but at 6 we got to play sports with the zone. I suck at the mission sport "speedball" but I got to show off my piano and guitar skills as well so it was a fun night. So many members stopped by and gave us candy. I think I have more candy this Halloween than any other Halloween. And I didn't even go trick or treating, hahahaha

This week we did lots of visits with the Ward mission leader. Especially the high council member over missionary work. All the stakes in our mission have to do a Living Christmas Card this holiday season and pretty much the full time missionaries in each stake have to go to referrals that the stake provides and we have to sing a Christmas song and then we ask if we can share Luke 2:2-20. This thing is pretty sweet but our high council member had us present it to him at his house twice this week and it is soooo weird. Not because we did it but because this guy is just super weird. He acted as if he were a non member the whole time we were there hahaha.  After we presented it to him he showed us his toy train collection. ???? Hahahaha I mean this guy has a full room just full of trains. It's like a shrine, hahaha they are really nice people though. They treat us very well.

Well I don't have too much time today. We are going to Heidi's soon to have a lesson/pizza party.

Anyways love you guys!
Elder Skabelund

Visit to Ogden

October 27, 2015

Hello family and friends! I appreciate the emails you guys have been sending me. They really serve as a tension reliever and I just laugh when I hear that my sister Jadyn has cut her hair for the second
time. What a crazy girl!

This week has been pretty awesome. Like it says in the subject line I had the opportunity to leave my mission boundaries to go to stake conference. Our stake had conference in the Ogden Tabernacle and we got permission to go! The tabernacle borders the newly refurbished Ogden Temple and that temple is HUUUGGGEEE! I have some great pictures I'll send over. The tabernacle was cool because it had a live organ and it was super loud! My kind of music... ;) Conference was great and
pretty crazy! They are making another ward so now I'll be over 11 wards. Woah.

I am adjusting fairly well to the mission life and my area. The ward mission leaders are awesome! Our bikes are still broken so we are walking in a stake about 6 sq miles big. Anyways we were walking in a neighborhood and I smelt hot dogs being cooked at 8pm and I was really
craving some. We went to one of the WMLs and apparently he was grilling burgers and hot dogs and we had an impromptu second dinner that night and I was just soooo happy!

The work is strong and there is so much potential. We have 20 investigators and we have 2 of them on date and they seem pretty solid. The stake is still a bit stubborn with how they want us to work
so all we've done is try and gain their trust and willingly follow with their counsel. It is turning into a problem because for example we taught 3 active families last night when we could have reached out
to some non members. Tonight we have a correlation meeting with the stake and I'm
conducting so maybe we can change some stuff around.

This is definitely the hardest work I have ever done. Even harder than working 12 hour shifts at Jimmy Johns and at golden spoon. Even harder than freaking trek. Nothing could have prepared me for the combined mental physical and spiritual exhaustion.

I learned a great lesson this week though. We visited Heidi again this week and she just loves it when we come over. We didn't teach a lesson because we randomly just stopped by and we didn't have our senior missionaries with us as her fellowship. But anyways she shared a lot about her trials and she has had such a tough life. I explained to her that it is through Christ that he can take away all of our pains afflictions and sins. The spirit was strong and she has a strong testimony. She just doesn't know it yet

Anyways we left that lesson just feeling happy. Pure joy. And all of the tough work throughout the week and all the stuff you go through is worth it. Just that small visit with her just made us so happy
because I can see the fruits of my labors right in front of me. The gospel is already changing her life and knowing that because you were being a true instrument of God, you were able to change someone's life for the better. The gospel is beautifully simple. The gospel is also
beautifully joyful.

Stick to your task til it sticks to you
Beginners are many, Enders are few
Honor power praise and play
Will come at last to those who stay

Stick to your task til it sticks to you
Bend at it sweat at it smile at it too
For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile
Will come life's victories after a while

I can do hard things

Elder Skabelund

Ward Mission Leader

Elder Sagmeister,  Elder Skabelund