March 26, 2012 - Ballin Wit da Gangstas

Howdy family!

Sounds like the track meets went well and you are starting to enjoy the warm weather. We've been enjoying the warm weather for a long time! Of course Court did amazing yesterday, she's gonna be a stellar missionary!

Well I don't have too much time to write today so I'll get straight at it.

Friday President and Sister Miller came to our district meeting and did a training and Pres Miller also interviewed us all. In the interview he asked me what the top 3 things I've learned on my mission so far are. It was a really good question and I thought I would share with you my response.

1) The first thing that I have learned is this church is soo true! Sure I knew that before but holy cow it's become real for me! I live it and study it everyday and try my hardest to share it with others, and I know that it's real.

2) I know every missionary says this but it's so true, I am extremely grateful for the way I was raised and brought up. I am so so lucky to have such an amazing family. It kills me to see people who have nothing, I want them to have what I have so bad. I want them to experience the joy that comes from having a family that is brought up unto the Lord.

3) I have learned how to study. Not just study, but Talmage! I never thought I would look forward to study time in the morning like I do.

So those are the 3 things I told president in a nutshell. I also asked President Miller the same question I asked you dad and you responded almost exactly the same. Hey... maybe you'll be a mission president someday... hmmm Thanks for your input though, I love what you said.

Now I will get on and talk about my subject that I have for this email.

Saturday night every single one of our appointments canceled (shocker :) ) So we were kinda frustrated... Well we drove past a park and there were a bunch of guys playing basketball. So what did we do? You guessed it! My basketball was in the car, and we wanted to ball. Church clothes and all! So we waited for the game to get over and when they were shooting for teams I jumped in and shot and got on a team. When the game started I heard a guy from the sideline say "He can't play in church shoes" well you know me, I had to prove him wrong, so I did. First time I touched the ball I made a move and busted a 3, and that just started the night! It was a blast, and everybody started to like us! We were playing with probably all the gang members of Santa Fe. It felt legit though because it was dark and we were playing under lights in a park. Way sweet. When we were done everybody started asking us questions about what we do! Boo ya! They made me teach them some moves I had pulled too and told us to come back. So we are going to! It was pretty rough on my church shoes and Elder Willden's church shoes are destroyed. But anyway, it was awesome.

Last Tuesday the Spanish elders helped us deep clean an apartment for a girl who's boyfriend pretty much tried to kill her and is a big druggy. I mean deep cleaned, it took us 5 hours! There was dog poop all over the floor and dishes and clothes and trash everywhere. We shampooed the carpet and just cleaned. It looks amazing now. She ran away from him and is trying to start fresh. It's a long long story.

Awesome news for the week, we have a baptismal date! We tracted into him a couple of weeks ago and were able to see him and teach him last night. His name is Ken Wilkens and his date is for April 21. It was a way good lesson. He's from Dallas Texas, and he had a friend who was a Mormon who served a mission as well. Please pray for him!

Remember Angela? Well last night she too also contacted us again after dropping off the face of the earth for three weeks! Her son Jay is my age and is going to try and walk on at a JC and play ball this fall, so he wanted to play with me. We are going to go play with him at the community center as soon as we are done emailing. I'm pumped!

Well I wish I could sit down and tell you about every single experience but that would take hours, so those are some highlights of the week. Take care, and I love ya'll!

Elder Turnbow (new Santa Fe gangsta memba who balls fo real)

PS GENERAL CONFERENCE IS THIS WEEK! WOO YEAH!! Challenge for ya... this week think of a question you want answered, and then write it down, pray about it, and look for that answer during conference! It could be any question, simple or deep, anything! You should all do it, and you will have an awesome experience. Then report back to me. Yes that means you too Pickle and Fat.

Picture Update!

March 19, 2012

Hey family!

I'm glad to hear the track meet at Malad went well! Dylan's and Matt's times weren't too shabby for the first meet of the year! They need to be faster though... that's not a bad 40 time for Dyl either! Good work, and keep workin hard.

I can't believe it's Court's farewell on Sunday! She'll do awesome, I'm excited for her. Brittin... in response to your email, that was exactly what I was looking for! Gave me a good chuckle. Oh, I have taken a few pics but hey I don't want to spoil it and send them all home now... haha (That might be because I'm not sure how...) I'll try to figure that out maybe.

Soooo.... This week? Hmmm it had its ups and downs for sure. I came across a scripture in Moses 6:55 that describes it pretty well. Mainly just the last sentence (maybe some of you who are lacking in scripture reading might open them up now). Really though, we were getting dropped left and right and we now have ZERO bap dates. Frustrating. It's ok though, we don't have our heads down. It really wasn't that bad of a week though. We are now cherishing every investigator that we do have. I really want to have a baptism this transfer though with Elder Willden before he goes home.

The day when everybody was dropping us we decided to walk out our frustrations. So we went on an 8 mile walk. It was great, and we talked to a ton of people! Got a little sunburned too, felt good. I've realized that I can relate to about every single person we talk too, I love it!

Have I talked about bill? Well he's what we call an eternal investigator. It was an interesting week for him... His girlfriend tried to kill her two boys. Crazy right? It's been all over the news here I guess. Well she's now in jail obviously and both the kids lived they just have a ton of stitches in their necks. This may sound weird but now bill has a broken heart, and it's easier to talk to him when he's all emotional. We were helping him move a bunch of his girlfriend's things into his house and I was carrying in a car seat when Bill said, "gee I hope that's not the one the boy was sitting in when she tried to slit his throat." I looked, there was blood, good thing I'm not scared of blood!

Our investigator that is progressing the most right now is Claudia. She is a Buddhist. Way way fun to teach her, she has so many awesome questions! For instance we were talking about baptism and she said... why water? She asks questions that really make you think and I love to teach her.

Welp it's about time to go shoot some hoops. Thank you for all the love and support from home. I can feel your prayers every day! My testimony and love for our Savior grows daily. I love you all, and hope you have an amazing week! Til next time.

Elder Turnbow

March 12, 2012

So how many missionaries can say that they got to teach with their Grandpa on their mission? Well I can! Like you already know, we called President Miller and got his permission to take Grandpa with us to see a LA lady. It was awesome! His fireside last night was way good too. It might as well have been a general conference talk. It was good.

Sounds like things are still swell at home. Dad I'm impressed that you took my bike for a spin. I bet it made you feel 20 again ya?? haha That's cool the boys have a track meet this week. Track was a blast! Even though it was super hard it sure does make you a better football and basketball player. So tell Dylan and Matt that.

This last week was a pretty good one! We taught an amazing lesson to James and Yvette. Yvette is a member but James is not. They are not married, have been living together for 12 years, and have a kid about Benson's age. We were in the neighborhood and we both felt prompted to see them. We had taught them once and it didn't really go that well so I guess you could say I had my doubts about seeing them again. But there was a different spirit form the very beginning. We both felt prompted to teach the plan of salvation, and it was awesome, words and scriptures were just coming to us and they were involved, the spirit was amazing. When we started talking about the degrees of glory they stopped us and said that they had just been talking about this not an hour ago! It was awesome! Well we started talking about temples and getting married and then we invited James to be baptized and marry Yvette and then get married in the temple. There was a long pause and you could tell the spirit was working on him... another long pause.... and Yvette pretty much bore her testimony to him and pleaded him to marry her, it was amazing. it didn't turn for the best though... He flat out told us he has a problem with commitment (OBVIOUSLY) So then we were pretty blunt with him. I told him he needs more courage. Same story though. It was an amazing lesson though, and I know he felt it, he can't deny that. We'll see what happens.

Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Steffensen up north to Las Vegas. It's awesome up there! While we were there we were hit with a big snow storm. I loved it! Dylan, Brady, Cliff, there is some way way sweet hunting territory up there. We talked to quite a few hunters. It's a sweet place. It's pretty high up in the mountains and it has a really old western feel to it. Plus the Elders there get a truck so I got to ride around in a truck! Oh, I also saw a bunch of geese there and I may or may not have made Elder Steffensen stop the truck so I could take a picture of them and use my special mouth call and honk at them...

Weird story for the week. In Las Vegas we were walking down the street in the middle of the snow storm and we had some guy stop us on the street and start talking to us. He went on to tell us about how he had been in the war and trained to kill and all that jazz. He then proceeded to tell us this "Two girls done did me wrong, so I'm now gonna go git my rifle, shoot em, and get the heck outa dodge! They trained me ta kill in the war, so Imma do it again!" he was nuts! I wasn't sure if I should laugh or take him seriously. Then he told us his plan for it all... so maybe he was serious, but i doubt it. It was interesting though.

So to start Elder Willden's and Elder Seary's last transfer off with a bang, this morning after laundry we went to their apartment to cook a mean breakfast. I made bacon, Elder Willden made waffles, and Elder Seary and Elder Hunter made eggs and potatoes. It was beastly! Way good.

Well there is much more I could tell you I'm sure but I don't want to make this too long. So take care everybody! I have the best family in the world! Love ya'll!


Elder Turnbow

P.S. OH YA! we went into this old guy's house and the first thing that caught my eye was he had a HUGE muley on the wall. Wow it was huge. His base was so heavy I couldn't put my hand around it. He was a typical 4 with deep front and back forks. about 33 wide, with long trash coming off his left side. There, I thought Dylan, Matt, Brady, Cliff, TJ, Tanner, Mitch, and everybody else might like that. Especially Brittin. He said he shot him on his farm in Colorado when he was a kid. I'll try to take a picture next time we go see them. Welp, see ya!

March 5, 2012

KYLE! Woo yeah man!!! That's awesome, you are going to tear California up and flip it upside down! Cool little experience. Last Thursday I believe it was I was just sitting there and my mind just randomly thought about Kyle and the question popped into my head, I wonder if he is going to get his call this week. Then I had a cool little experience and I just knew that he was going to get it. It was awesome! Get ready my brother, cause this rocks!

It sounds like things are going well at home! Are you itching to get on the fields yet dad? Thanks for the great advice too in your last email, it will help a ton! Too bad Jack Nygard couldn't hit that last bucket to send it into OT, sounds like a good state tourny though. That's good the boys have got to hit the slopes and Dylan got to take the bike out! My bike I assume? Give er some lovin for me Broha! So... If my memory is correct... and it usually is for this kind of stuff.... the March Madness tournament should be this next week right? The brackets usually get released the first week of March. Even though I'm not there you guys better fill out brackets for FHE and see who wins! My guess is Kentucky or Syracuse. They were dominating when I left anyway. Cool though!

Friday was zone conference in Rio Rancho. I love President Miller, he is such a good man and amazing mission president. His talk was all about Jesus Christ and (whistle) he knows his stuff. It was way good. Sister Miller also spoke and did a very fine job. Besides that we had a few trainings from the assistants and zone leaders, it was fun. We have a pretty legit zone. I did realize though that we have some amazing missionaries in this mission! After Zone conference I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, I was with Elder Sherman and he came into my area. It was pretty awesome because he just sat back and said ok, you are now the senior companion and I'll be your greenie. It was fun! I loved it. I think he was shocked when I mentioned we should skip dinner and just keep working. That's when he did step in and say no I want to eat. Bummer, I wanted to work.

Sunday was stake conference, it too was great. Elder Baxter of the 70 came and wow he is a powerful speaker. his talk was almost like a Bruce R. Mckonkie (Spelling) seven deadly harisees talk! THERE IS NO SALVATION IN FALSE DOCTRINE!! BOOM! haha It was great. For those who think that we do not need The Book of Mormon this is LUDICROUS! needless to say it was a very powerful talk. Almost like Elder Holland too. I loved it! I took some good notes ya'll will have to read in a few years. President and Sister Miller also spoke in stake conference and did a great job. Jenny got to meet Sister and President Miller after the meetings! Before the meetings Sunday morning Elder Baxter lined the missionaries up serving in the stake and gave us all a hug and told each one of us little different things. He's awesome!

Well this last week was a pretty good week! We tracted into a Native American Family with the last name of WARRIOR! Sweet Indian name huh? Well we got to talking on the door step and she was like well we believe that god visited our ancient ancestors but we don't know if we should believe the bible.... It was awesome to explain the Book of Mormom to them! They were excited about it to say the least, and the mom accepted a baptism date! We are teaching a lady by the name of Claudia who used to be a Buddhist, she has a ton of questions! It's fun to teach her. New Mexico is awesome! We're teaching Enrique from Nigeria, Robbi from Napal, Yenka from New Zealand, Native Americans, Catholics, Buddhist's, JW's, pretty much everything you can think of. It's awesome. We currently have 4 baptism dates for March 30 and April 7. We have been finding a ton lately and really focusing on finding people to teach so we have a big teaching pool. Hopefully we can now start meeting consistently with certain people. We've also been working quite a bit with the less actives. There are only about 700 of them... haha

So last night we were teaching two twin sisters by the names of Loureen and Moureen Lomahaptewa. They are Hopi Indian and both have three daughters and are not married. Moureen is just recently baptized in December but Loureen is not a member and was meeting with the missionaries earlier but had decided to take a break. Well we were at Moureen's house last night and Loureen was there too, and we went there with our elders quroum president Brother Namingha, who is also Hopi and actually from the same tribe, so in a way they are related. Anyway, it was a way cool lesson. Moureen had been going through some struggles so we taught about trials and all that good stuff. Way neat. Well at the end Moureen asked for a blessing, and she asked me to give her one, and it was way neat. What happened next though surprised me, because right after that her sister Loureen asked for a blessing as well, and she also asked me to do it. I was scared actually because I didn't want the two blessings to sound the same you know? Even though I knew the first one was really spiritual for me. Well I was kinda scared but right before I started I remembered DC 84:85.. so I said a quick little prayer in my heart and then it just happened. I can't even remember what I said, but it was a way cool experience! It's funny though because Dad talked about that scripture in his email to me that I just read. It's a great one!

This week also though it seemed like we had more doors slammed in our face than usual, and we ran into a bunch of jerks. It was frustrating, and I lost my temper for a split second with one of the jerks... then I felt bad. It was needed though, he pushed me too far! haha But I love it! It's fun to talk to everybody! It's what it's all about! Well take care! Until Next week!

Love, Elder Turnbow (#14)