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