April 22, 2013

Dear Momma,

Well, this week has been fun! The Bass' (The senior couple here in Oxford) are leaving tomorrow! D: But the good thing is that we get a lot of their stuff! We got a bbq, and a new microwave, and tons of food! It's great! But other than that nothing much has happened. We got in a huge (kinda) bible bash with some campus crusaders. I say 'kinda' because Elder Moore and I just kinda sat there. They did ALL the talking. We would say something every 5 or 10 minutes. There was 4 of them, and they just argued with themselves!!! It was hilarious! We did absolutely nothing. But it was still really annoying. It was just a giant waste of our time, and they wouldn't let us out. I tried leaving 4 or 5 times. Eventually I just stood up and walked out... Hopefully they weren't offended! (But a note for up and coming missionaries, don't get in bible bashes, nobody benefits from those, it just drives the spirit away and you just wasted the Lord's time!) So ya, that was everything exciting this last week! 

Love, 

-Elder Lemmon

P.S. Elder Moore is making me wear hair gel :P

The Bass,s before they left with Elder Lemmon and Elder Moore
not sure who the other two elders are.

April 15, 2013

Momma!!!!

I'm doing great! The work is chugging along, and that depends on what you mean by interesting!! Because you can't go one day in Oxford without something kinda strange happening! Dad got a new truck?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? So I leave and all of the sudden Dad goes off the deep end and buys snowmobiles, trucks, almost gets a dog, finishes his own small house, and who knows what else? Is he really saving that much money while I'm out here? Haha, just kidding, I know he just misses me so much that he has to buy stuff to compensate!

So ya, I can't believe Garrett is getting married! And yes I think Karli told me that Todd got married. So ya, I can't think of anything super interesting that has happened over the week.. Frogs are still evil! I love you!

-Elder W.R. Lemmon

April 8, 2013

Momma!

Well, I don't have much to say this week! We had General Conference, Elder Moore and I watched it at the branch building. That was super great, the Bass' watched it with us, that was fun too. We have had a lot of fun this week, Pat hasn't been doing the best. She actually went blind for about 3 days, and she still can't read anything... So we copied off a Book of Mormon onto CD so she can listen to it! Hopefully she has been doing that! Wallie is doing good too. He actually gave us two referrals yesterday! Hopefully we can start teaching them soon. He also wants us to meet with his dad... Which wouldn't be bad, besides the fact that his dad is a Pentecostal preacher!! So we will see how that goes. So ya, thats pretty much the last week! We learned a lot from General Conference! I loved every single talk! And I didn't fall asleep during any of them! (Besides one... But close enough right?) I took a whole bunch of notes, and hopefully I will be able to copy them off and send them next week!

So ya, I love it out here! Today is our first 'non-suit' season day! We aren't wearing suits! Its awesome! I love it! So ya, I love all of you!!!!!!

Operation Sheepish

Elder Lemmon April 8, 2013

• -Elder W.R. Lemmon

April 1, 2013

Momma!

Easter was great! We had a whole bunch of good lessons and a great dinner! The Jones family fed us last night. It was super fun! We used the lesson that you sent us and it went great!! :D I'm definately going to keep it for next year! Moab sounds fun, wish I could be there! And tell Warren that I didn't even get an easter basket! (Not including the package!) 

So our investigators are doing well. We haven't been able to meet with Pat for the last couple days because of spring break. And Wallie is quitting smoking today! We are going to visit him tonight and see how he is doing. Hopefully he has been reading the Book of Mormon too. Well, theres not much else to tell besides the fact that we went to  Jungle Jims last monday. It was AWESOME! I will send pictures today (Not all of them, I took a lot of pictures...). I LOVE ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Remember, the Book of Mormon is the most powerful and correct book in the history of the earth! It contains the fullness of Christ's everlasting Gospel, and 'a man will draw nearer to God by living it's precepts, than by any other book'! It is a beautifully simple, plain book! Never underestimate the power of it!

-Elder W.R. Lemmon

March 25,2013

Momma!!!

Well, just like you, not much has changed since Wednesday... We are still working, and we are still trying our best! Wait! I though of something interesting that happened on  Saturday! We were weekly planning (because we forgot to do that on Friday....) and someone knocked on our door. When I answered the door, guess who was standing there! One of our former investigators! She was going around knocking on doors and inviting people to come to her church next Sunday! It was really kinda awkward! Mainly for two reasons. First, the church she goes to is really, really, anti-mormon... And when we taught her, she was super anti-mormon too and all she wanted to do was bible bash. (But she is a super cool girl, she invited us to come over for dinner whenever we were hungry!) The people here are so funny! They will tell us that they don't want us to talk about religion or teach them, but we can come over whenever we want to hang out! We have had that like 5 or 6 times already! It's pretty funny! So ya, that was our interesting thing last week. I love you!!!!

-Elder Wesly Lemmon

March 20, 2013

Momma!!!

These last few weeks/days have been crazy!!!!! I haven't had a full P-day in 3 or 4 weeks!!! But I think that the sacrifice has brought lots of blessings!! We have had such a great/fantastic last couple days!! We have gotten a new investigator every day for the past 5 days and we finally got our first progressing investigator on Monday!!!!! Pat is such a sweet lady!! She has definitely strengthened my testimony! She is so ready for the Gospel!!! She already believes in most of what we believe! Hopefully all will go well with her! Oh, and Transfers is tomorrow if you haven't heard yet, so don't send any mail until you know that I'm staying in Oxford! Or send it through the mission office. Both work! Oh!! Elder Clarke (Seth) finally got his visa!! I got a letter from him on Saturday, he should be in Brazil by now! Yay!! And I'm so glad that Elder Allred is finally going to/already in the MTC!! He is going to have such a great time there! I can't wait for him to get out to the mission field, he will be such a good missionary. So ya, these last couple weeks have been pretty crazy, but they have been good!! I love all of you!!!!!

-Elder Lemmon

March 11, 2013

Momma!!!

Ya, I'm pretty sure I sent Dad an e-mail back! Thats super cool that Tyler is going to Paris, and I'm glad nobody got hurt at Ijump!! Grandma e-mailed me about Grandpas surgery and I'm super glad that he is feeling better!

So ya, this last week, and this next week, have and will be super crazy!!! Last week our P-day got moved to thursday. Our Temple day was Thursday also, so we only got 1 official hour of P-day. We had exchanges with the ZLs, and we were both in Hamilton for one and a half days. Today is P-day, but we had a party with all of the Cincinatti zones and the two Dayton zones. We had the party because last year the OCM got 500 baptisms and Pres. promised a party if the mission got 500 baptisms! That was super cool because I got to see some of my MTC district, I've missed them! Also Elder Porter of the Seventy is touring the mission this Thursday and Friday. So on Friday we get to go listen to him. I'm pretty excited about that. Also on Thursday, we are organizing a small Q&A class at the library. Hopefully people will see the flyers and come! Sadly we planned it bad and all of the students are going to be gone for spring break... But hopefully some of the townies will show up!

So ya, that was last week, and most of our plans for this week! It's pretty exciting. Oh! I got to speak at Sacrament meeting on Sunday, that wasn't too bad. Ever since I spoke at Stake Conference, speaking hasn't been too bad! Especially since our Branch has only like... 20-30 people! It was a lot of fun! I spoke on Service. So I kinda half challenged the Branch members to 'serve' their neighbors by helping them receive the Gospel! Hopefully it will make a difference. We have only been getting 1 or 2 member referrals a week, and most of those from only one family... So ya.... We do a lot of knocking on doors. But at least I'm learning how to do it! And I am getting a lot better at it! It's actually not that hard, you just got to know how to do it. So ya, the Temple was super awesome, as always! You should send me some family names so that next time I go, I can do one of our Family names.

So ya, I love all of you!!!! I love the letters I am getting! They always make my day! Oh! Can you tell the Calvin's that I love their letters and will try and send a letter to them as soon as I can? I have so many letters to write to people it's CRAZY! So ya, since this is going on a blog or something like that, Everybody who has sent me a letter and hasn't received one back yet, don't feel bad! It's not because I don't want to write you back, but I only get a couple hours on P-day to take care of stuff like that! And those of you who haven't sent me a letter yet, shame on you!! Just kidding, but I would appreciate more because I love getting letters!

With Love,

-Elder Wesly Lemmon

March 7, 2013

Dear Mother,

So first of all, I just want you to know that our P-Day was today, not monday this week. I don't know if you know that or not. The reason being is because we had our Temple day today. That was super awesome, the Columbus Temple is absolutely beautiful, if not a little on the small side. I was able to do a session for some Sister's family, that was pretty cool!

So this last week and a half, I have done a lot of stuff! But most of it was tracting and contacting, and that just doesn't work well at all here. But we did start talking to a Less Active family, and hopefully we will have them reactivated in just a little while. The main reason they are less active is because the wife has some type of stomoch/esophagus disease that has prevented them from coming. But we are also working with this families granddaughter. She is 9 and wants to get baptized. But her parents got offended a while ago and now they won't let her be baptized. We haven't even been able to talk to them yet, so hopefully sometime within the next week or so we will get in and be able to talk to them.

So ya, thats the most exciting thing that has happened this week besides the Temple! Well, I guess if you include 'Green Beer Day' then thats been pretty exciting..... That is actually today.. It's been really.... fun...... ya...... We aren't getting much finding done tonight I'm assuming.... So ya, thats Oxford, OH for you. It's super cool!

 

-Elder Lemmon

February 25, 2013

Dear Momma,

So I am going to write my letter first, and then I will ask my questions!

Well this week was interesting! We didn't have the best numbers, but we did get a lot done! It's finally warming up here, but the problem with it warming up here is that the girls on campus seem to think that, as the temperature goes up, the amount of clothes they have to wear goes down.... It's really annoying!!!! Also, people seem to think that they need to drink more too... Saturday night was an interesting night for street contacting.... But Elder Moore says you kinda get used to it! But it's fun being in a different.... culture? Haha ya.... So I've learned a couple different things about the people here; First, most of them believe that they are saved as long as they say they are Christian. Which at first wasn't a problem, until we met a couple people who congratulated us for going on a "mission trip" and for "hitting the pavement" and that we should go find the people who aren't saved and preach the Gospel to them.... Little to they realize that we are trying to help them too, not just the "non-believers"... Haha ya... It's really interesting! I definately didn't think that people would be saying things like that to us! I assumed that they would say "sorry, not interested". Or things like that! But no! They shake our hands, thank us for going on missions, and then say "Go talk to the guy next door!" It's really funny! We are still trying to figure out what to say to that! We will figure out eventually! Another thing I have learned is that the females who go to college at Miami University all have the same clothes for winter: Black tights, Brown knee high boots, and a north face jacket that comes down to their knees! It's really funny because all the girls here have the same style, but all of them are slightly different! I think on a good day we see 10 pairs of jeans out of 2000 pairs of black tights! It's pretty crazy! The people who are making black tights must be making bank! So ya, those are the funny things I noticed this week!

Love, Elder Lemmon

Now, how did Zane's surgery go? And yes Cincinnati will be REcreated in July! and I didn't get Eric's e-mail, And Elder Moore says you should find his mom on the Facebook page!

-Elder Lemmon

February 18, 2013

Dear Family,

Well, I guess you want to know where I am, who my companion is, what he is like, and how well we are doing! First of all, I am serving in the Oxford, OH area. It covers Oxford, Somersville, and College Corner. The area is mostly in Ohio, but we do go a little bit into Indiana. Oxford, OH is the home of Miami University so most of our time is spent on campus. My companion is Elder Moore, he is from Pason, Utah. He has been here for 4 and a half months. He just barely got done being trained himself! Scary thought huh? So ya, he is really good, He has taught me a lot so far. Neither of us are very good at street contacting, but we have gotten four new investigators through tracting in apartment complexes.

So, a little bit more about the area and the members within. Our area is the same as the Branch here. There are about 20 or 30ish members here. We have a grand total of 2 students who go to Miami and the rest our families in the area. We are not the only missionaries in the area. Elder and Sister Bass are the senior missionaries here, they are really helpful. So far, I like all the member's that I've met! They are all nice people.

So yesterday, we had dinner with the Proffitts. They are an inactive part-member family. They love the missionaries, but don't want to go to church. We ate really well there! We had a small salad, then we had STEAK and POTATOES!!!! It was probably the best meal I have had since I've left. Zane would really like Brother Proffitt, they would get along very well.

So ya, that was my week! I will be sending my journal entries today!

Love all of you!!!!

-Elder Lemmon

p.s. You can still e-mail me back!

2/6/2013

Dear Family,
Well, I just sent you pictures, so I hope you have fun with those!! This week at the MTC was interesting, I loved it, but I really, really want to be out in the field!!! This place is definately starting to feel like prison!!! I do have a lot of spiritual moments, but when you spend more time in a small classroom with over 10 people then you do in your actual bedroom, you start to feel like a caged animal!!!! AHHH!!!! But thankfully, I only have 6 days here :) But the negative feelings only happen at the end of the day when I'm tired and want to be eating or sleeping (I guess thats just the 'Natural Man' in me speaking!)

So ya, I should be sending Great Grandpaps name back today, I have forgotten about it until now.... But I remembered because it is on my desk, and we went through the Temple again today. It was super good, I needed some time to just sit and not really think about anything for a while. I really want to do baptisms for the dead, but I think we can only do endowment sessions here. Well, it is what it is. I gave a blessing yesterday, it was a really different experience, but it was really good for me and for Sister Drake. Oh! That reminds me, I have a pretty cool story to tell.

 Sister Drake was feeling really sick, and her back hurt even more, and she hadn't been able to go to class for half the day. When she came back to class, she didn't look very good, and wasn't really studying because she hurt. I felt prompted to ask if she needed a blessing (because we have 7 worthy priesthood holders, all of them willing to give a blessing), and at first she didn't want one; so I went and sat back down. I guess she started to feel worse, because then she asked Elder Campbell and I to give her a blessing for the sick. I anointed her (thats the first time I've ever done that!) and Elder Campbell said the blessing while I ( and some other Elders in our District) stood in the circle. After Elder Campbell said amen, she started crying, and we asked her why, and she said that she instantly felt better!! It was amazing! She was completely healed!! So ya, Faith and the Priesthood are amazing things. I

So that's my story for this week, it was pretty amazing! Oh! You should put my e-mail address on facebook so that people will talk to me! And you should tell people to Dear Elder me, because I need some more communication!!!! And you can tell people that they can send me packages too, because I need more food!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
-Elder Wesly Lemmon

1/30/2013 First Email

FAMILY!!!!!!

Well, today is my P-day, and the first time i've been able to use my email! So, the MTC is really cool, but we never have any free time! We get a little less than an hour at night of free time, and most of that is spent getting ready for bed and making sure I'm ready for the next day! And yes, I do like my companion! His name is Elder Strong from Harriman, UT. Elder Strong and I get along pretty well. And the answer to the third question is, probably, I won't be able to tell if I'm learning everything I need until I get out into the field!! But I'm pretty sure that I'm learning everything I need, the teachers here are really good and teach a lot of stuff I wouldn't have even thought of if they hadn't told me.

Oh some extra info, I don't leave for the mission field until February 13th. So it would be really nice if you told Elder Allred (Jake) that I will still be here when he gets here. Some other things, I brought Great-Grandpaps name through the Temple today. It was really cool. The Provo temple is super cool inside, even though it looks funny from the outside. Oh, also you guys should send me the adapt because I am absolutely exhausted every day until about 3 or 4 in the afternoon because we have to be up at 6:30 every day and we have to be in bed by 10:30 everyday, and I have been having trouble sleeping even with the Advil PM. Dad should also send one of his leathermans because I could have used one a couple times already.

So I should tell you about my District because everybody is super cool. First of all, there is Elder Bishop and Elder Furniss (JT) (they are our Zone leaders, and have been since Monday) They are the ones that are sharing a 'residency' with Elder Strong and I. We have actually been getting along really well. Elder Bishop reminds me a lot of Taylor Wilson, he really fun to be around. Elder Furniss is actually really fun. I actually regret what I said about him before I left. Since we have been here, I have really come to love him, even though he is different. He brings a lot of comedy to everything he does, its really awesome! Next is Elder Toombs, Elder Campbell, and Elder Hatch. They are a 'tripanionship', or at least until today, today we got a new missionary in our district and apparently he is Elder Toombs companion now. So Elder Toombs is our District Leader, and he is really good at what he does, to be honest, he really reminds me of Buzz Lightyear (without the misconception of being a Space Ranger) Elder Campbell is pretty awesome, he is just really fun to be around. Elder Hatch is a super good drummer, and is a really good singer. Next are the Sisters. All of them are absolutely amazing!!! They have such a good Spirit and are really fun to be around!! Sister McDougall and Sister Allen are really funny, they actually knew each other before they got here and are super good friends. Sister Drake and Sister Rasband are a really good companionship, Sister Drake is really bouncy and loud and loves to talk, Sister Rasband is kinda quiet (not shy) and says the funniest things! She is super sarcastic and I love it! But in all, I have the coolest District and everybody in it is super spiritual and really good people. Oh, and I don't know if I told you in my letter or not, but Elder Strong and I are the Sacrament Coordinator, which means we have no responsiblilities (except on Sunday) and we can claim to be super awesome, I have a lot of fun with it.

So I have a super cool story to tell everybody. At the MTC they have this thing called TRC (I dont know what it stands for) and its when actors (super good ones who are both members and non-members) pretend to be investigators and we teach them. So Elder Strong and I got Daniel Limon (Ya, its really Limon) and we were about to go teach him, and we were told that Sister Drake was going to teach with us because her investigator was sick and couldn't meet with them. So we got to the room we were supposed to meet him at, and he wasn't there! So we sat down, said a prayer, and waited. After we said a prayer, one of the teachers asked us what were doing, so we told him, and he asked if he was the guy in the lobby next to us (BTW we hadn't met him yet, so we did know what he looked like) so we went and talked to the guy, and it was him! So we started talking to him and the first thing he asked us was if this was a joke (which really threw us off!!!! oh, and this was a Member Referral) And we told him that it wasn't a joke and that we really were represenatives of Jesus Christ. And he told us that he was Catholic and didn't want to talk to anyone about Religion, he told us that he respected other religions, but he was happy were he was. Well, eventually we got him to let us into his 'house'  and share a message with him. Well we started talking, and right off the bat, I could tell that he didn't like what we were saying... So by the time Elder Strong and I had finished talking, he actually asked us to leave and not to come back, which really sucked. But Sister Drake (And more importantly, the Spirit) had a different idea! (Sister Drake hadn't really said anything yet) She started talking to him and told him how much she already loved him and how much she loved her family and how sad she felt for him and how his Mother and brother had died, and how she was so happy that she could see them again! After a short silence, Daniel told Sister Drake (and us) that he really didn't want to see his brother again because he beat him and a child, and he used to be terrified of him. Sister Drake then told him that she was the oldest sibling and that sometimes she wasn't the best person to her younger siblings, and how she felt sooo bad about that! And then she promised him that his brother felt horrible and all he wanted to do was say sorry to him. Then Daniel started crying! and said "But it's too late..." And then I finally said something useful "It's not too late, Daniel" And Sister Drake agreed with me. But then Daniel said he really needed to do something, but to come back whenever we could! So moral of this story is, Sister Missionaries are absolutely amazing and I would encourage the girls at home that they should go because there are some people who only connect to the Sisters!

so ya, I LOVE ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elder Lemmon

Wesly Lemmon MTC

Okay here I go!! I thought it might be fun to blog Wesly's mission or at least give it a try.

Wes went into the MTC in Provo on January 23, 2013. He will be there until Febuary 13. I will post some of his letter and pictures.