That Basketball Season Feeling! December 17, 2013

Hey Family!

         

       Christmas greetings from El Paso!

 

 

This week was a spiritual feast doing zone conference with Elder and Sister Foster. It was pretty stressful too, but it was awesome. They talked and trained us on lots of different things, so it would be really hard to explain it all via email. I will have to let you read my thoughts and impressions on zone conference some day. It was really good.

Tonight we are doing a training for the Mount Franklin stake priesthood leadership on missionary work. We've put quite a bit of time into planning this with President Miller and the zone leaders, I'm really excited! The Mount Franklin stake is doing great. 

Monica! Monica is starting to receive/recognize answers to her prayers. Seeing people you teach start to have spiritual experiences on their own is honestly the most amazing thing ever. She has been struggling with finding strength to live the word of wisdom, but slowly she is starting to gain motivation. At dinner Wednesday night with the branch she leaned over to me and said "do you think I need to be doing all of the things that you guys have taught me to receive more answers?" I love how the spirit works on people to help them learn. 

So finals ended this week, and campus has all but become a ghost town! It's pretty crazy. We were pretty scared because we thought our work would slow down a lot, but we found a new investigator this week who lives in ABQ and we got two referrals who live with their member grandma in the valley. We are pumped!

 

I've never really noticed it growing up, but there really is a special spirit this time of year. Back home I probably just credited that to basketball season... But it all makes sense now. I love it. 

Well we're off to enjoy the El Paso sunshine! It was almost 70 degrees yesterday and super nice. Hope you are all staying warm!

Love you!

El Elder Turnbow

White Chile! December 10, 2013

Q:What do you call snow in New Mexico?

A: White Chili! 

We went from t-shirt weather one day, to a bunch of snow the next! It was pretty crazy. I really enjoyed it though. It does make contacting a little harder because all of the students are tying to get from building to building as fast as they can! 

This week we had our mission leadership council, and it was one of the best ones that I have been apart of. Elder Vial and I trained on the spirit of a progressing investigator, and we enjoyed every second of it. We did a step training activity, and related the story of King Lamoni's father from the Book of Mormon. Probably for the first time in NMAM history our MLC picture in the backyard of the mission home was taken in snow! President threw the first snow ball, and it was on after that! It was pretty fun. I will see if I can get Sister Miller to email me a copy and I will send it to you. Our mission had 67 baptisms in November, we were super stoked. The hastening is real, our mission is seeing so many miracles! I wish I could be here for all of 2014 to see the incredible things that will continue to happen. 

Saturday Elder Foster of the 70 is coming to tour our mission, and we are doing zone conferences with him. We have done a lot of planning for that this week and it should be pretty good! We are really excited for him to visit. He's a farmer from Idaho!

Sunday was a really great day. Randy spoke in Sacrament meeting! He talked about how his relationship with Heavenly Father has changed, and he did an excellent job. President Miller was also at our sacrament and spoke as well. His topic was the Book of Mormon and it was powerful. Only sad thing... None of our investigators came to church... Pretty sure the snow and cold scared them off. Next week! One of the girls on the soccer team brought her boyfriend though, and he really enjoyed it. He's a super cool kid and we hope to start teaching him this week. Speaking of soccer the UNM men's team plays Notre Dame in the final four this week! If you watch it cheer for Mattie!! Pretty sure he's number 4. We need them to hurry up and win it all so we can keep teaching him. Haha 

Well things here are great! We are super busy and it doesn't look like it will slow down any time soon, and that's just the way I like it. Tough luck on the two losses in bball this week, those are the only losses I want to hear about the rest of the season! Keep Shootin!

Love you all, thanks for the many emails and letters! 

Elder Turnbow 

PS. Elder Eaton (Jackson) emailed me and was glad he got to meet you! Thanks for going to his talk mom and dad! 

What a hero!

Hey all!

Wow, what a week full of amazing things!!

 

First, Randy- his baptism was great! There was a powerful spirit there, and I could tell how prepared he was a because of his nerves. It's a neat thing to see. He bore his testimony after his baptism and it was one to remember. His confirmation on Sunday was also a miracle. They played Boise state for their final game of the season, and it was a late night game. They got back to ABQ Sunday morning at 5! Church was at ten.... And he still came! What a hero. Not only did he come and get confirmed, but he bore his testimony in sacrament meeting as well! One line from his testimony that I wrote down. "I know this church is true because it has changed me. It couldn't do that and not be true." I'll be sure and send some pictures.

 

Thanksgiving! One thing about being in a YSA on campus... everybody leaves for the holidays. Haha luckily we were saved by a member of the branch presidency and we had a feast. I'm glad you all had a great day back home, it's a great time of year! 

Now let me tell you about last night... It was insanely amazing. We had 60 non members in our institute building. There is an RM in our branch who is taking a world religions class and the teacher was looking for something to do for extra credit being finals week next week. Our member said that he could set up a class that Mormon missionaries teach, and she loved the idea. It was a class of 350, 70 signed up, and 60 showed up. It was so fun! Between us, the Sisters, and our ward mission leader Mike, we taught the 13 articles of faith. The teacher made it clear she didn't want us to proselyte, but after being a missionary for almost 2 years it was fairly simple to find ways to put it in. Haha it went super well, and I loved every second of it. After we had a Q and A and they asked some pretty good questions too. We kept everybody after the class with refreshments, and that's when we really got to do our work. We left with a decent amount of phone numbers and people were interested in meeting with us. It was a good success, and the teacher wants to do it again next semester! 

Well it's about time for us to get running, December is going to be a super busy month for us. We have Elder Foster of the 70 coming to our mission this month for zone conferences, I am really excited for that. 

It's exciting that basketball is in full swing. I smile just thinking about it!

Have a great week everybody, I know we will! Love you!

Elder Turnbow 

Where to Begin? November 26, 2013

Where to begin?

Well this week has been transfer week, so it's about as crazy as it gets!

Yesterday was arrival day, and it is always one of my favorite days of the transfer. All of our Spanish missionaries now come from the Mexico MTC, so we have two different groups fly in. Yesterday got a little crazy though when we found out that the flight coming from Mexico was cancelled, and Salt Lake was working on getting them another flight. We had to make some last minute changes. Haha So we took the English Elders and Sisters to the mission home and left them in the care of some zone leaders, and we went back to the airport to get the Spanish speaking missionaries. When we got there though we found out their flight was delayed another hour! We called the zone leaders with the new missionaries and said.. "We love you. Train them, take care of them, and go contact people with them!" We did the same thing at the airport. I had a neat experience during that hour wait. I sat down next to a Native American lady, and began to talk with her. I found out that she was from the Acoma reservation here in our mission, and she was waiting for her son to fly in to attend a funeral of a close family member. Immediately we started to have a good conversation, and I ended up teaching most of the plan of salvation. I could just tell she was a special lady. We swapped information and she said the Elders out there could come by and teach her more. I live for opportunities that that!  

Oh! Do you remember Dylan Salahein? He called the other night and as soon as we answered he began to read... "Dear Elder Salahein!" Oh man! I was so happy!! He's going to England Birmingham! He was baptized September first of last year. Miracles. I am so happy. 

This morning I listened to two of my past companions give their departing testimonies in the transfer meeting. Elder Eaton and Elder Ballif fly home tomorrow. I love those two very much, they have helped me in so many ways and we will be best friends for life.

Randy is all set for tomorrow! You should have seen him Sunday at stake conference. UNM got beat up real good by Fresno Saturday, so he was pretty beat up Sunday. He told us he was making a takle and his helmet came off, and he got cleated. Sweet cuts all over his face. He just looked at us and said "I still made the takle!" When we were filling out his baptism record with him we told him to sign it and basically said this is saying that you want to get baptized. He went to sign it, paused, looked at us and said "are you sure this isn't some double tithing document!?" He is hilarious. I will send pictures of the baptism. 

Congrats go out to the boys on a stellar season. I know you played your hearts out. You are more than state champs in my eyes any day of the week. 

Well it's about time to go conduct the afternoon session of transfers! Love you all!

THE Elder Turnbow (take that Dylan!) 

Proselyting, Transfers, and Dylan! November 20, 2013

Hey everybody!

This week is super busy with transfer planning and running a proselyting area, so this email will be short and sweet!  

Transfer planning with Elder Vial and President Miller

Things are going great! Transfer planning has grown to become one of my favorite weeks in the transfer. I learn so much about how the spirit works and how it communicates with me personally. That is one thing I hope to keep with me the rest of my life. It's incredible to be with President Miller when you known revelation comes, I wouldn't trade these experiences for anything.

Randy is awesome! Sunday after church we went over the baptism interview questions with him. Listening to him answer the questions and bear testimony was powerful. He's ready, I'm so excited for him! You should see the sweet handshakes that we have with Randy... Him and Elder Vial both play D End so there's is full of d end cool stuff. I played quarterback so we had to get creative, try and picture this. We go into the half bro hug, and then I jump back and pretend to throw a football as he runs at me with his hand in the air, I throw it and duck, and then we jump up into a side body bump! It's super cool. Haha 

Monica is doing great as well, she has a few things holding her back right now, but she is starting to receive answers to prayers!

I was super pumped to read about the win over Firth on Saturday! Go get another one boys! Whoop!

It was really neat to get to talk to Dylan last night, man he has grown up a lot. I could sense his strong spriit and desire. He will be great, no doubt. When we pick up new missionaries on Monday I will think of him getting to Oregon! 

Well you all have a great week doing what you're doing! Cheer loud for me at the dome! Get a pick for me Matt would ya? Love you all!

Elder Dallas Turnbow (I guess I better clarify which Elder Turnbow I am now!) 

Ready for Pickin'! November 12, 2013

Hey!    

Hatch, New Mexico

So I have this habit of starting my emails by telling you something I have been looking at. Well, right now we are in El Paso Texas, and the cotton fields are about ready for pickin! I've never seen anything quite like it before, it's super cool. I'm hoping to see a big machine at work before we leave!

It sounds like Dylan did a stellar job with his talk! I'm super pumped for him to come join the ranks! Good work in football Matt, 2 more!! 

The big news for this week is from now on all of our PDays are on..... Tuesday! We did this because there are many libraries and business closed in Mondays where missionaries email, so they would email on Tuesday and it's just not as effective. Just for a heads up next week we start transfer planning, so I'm not exactly sure when we'll get to emailing. We'll shoot for Tuesday though!

We had a great week for our area, and for the mission! We are seeing so many miracles!

We taught Randy the word of wisdom this week and it went great! Randy is the coolest guy ever. He catches on to things really quickly. I am pumped for him!

Monica is doing great. The sisters in our branch had a baptism Saturday and Monica was able to come. We invited her to picture herself getting baptized during the service and imagine what it would feel like. We promised her that she would feel the spirit that comes with baptism. After when we talked to her about it she said that she could see herself getting baptized! She said "I think I felt the same thing that Lindsey did when she was getting baptized" 

We had our monthly mission leadership council at the mission home with all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders on Thursday. It is my favorite meeting of them all!

Well the El Paso missionaries are getting ready to play some basketball and soccer, so we better go join them! This morning we went to down town El Paso right on the border, and they have a ton of super cool little Mexican stores. It was fun to walk around and look. It's a crazy place. 

Have a good week everybody! 

Love, Elder Turnbow 

It's hard to complain when you have a name tag on your chest!

Hi!

Lots of really good things happened this week! It sounds like a good week in Idaho too. Another W for the football team! That is music to my ears. The pumpkin blow up sounded like fun as well. I told a couple of our members about it and they loved the idea. The next time I talked to them they had youtubed it and were amazed! Now they really do know how redneck we are. Good luck with your talk this Sunday Dylan! You'll have to let me know how it goes. 

Halloween was pretty uneventful for the most part. We got the usual jokes our way and people thought we were regular people dressed up as Mormon missionaries, that is always funny. It was a fun day!

Wednesday was awesome. We spent an hour or so on campus and contacted like crazy! It's such a blast, man I love it! We got quite a few phone numbers and made some good contacts. We have a couple return appointments this week, hopefully good things come from it! 

Randy is still doing great, and preparing for the 27th for baptism! 

We are teaching some other cool people right now that we are hoping to have baptism dates with by the end of this week. Rebecca has a baptism date but is living with her boyfriend, so we are still working with that, but we are very hopeful! 

Yesterday we had a miracle happen at church. We were standing outside greeting everyone as they walked in, when a new kid walked up in a good looking suite and sharp hair cut. He introduced himself as Kevin, and right off the bat we both thought returned missionary who is new to the YSA branch. We got to talking and asking the usual questions, when it became very obvious that he wasn't a member! We got pretty excited. So we talked to him for a bit before, and then sat with him during sacrament. He liked it a lot, and our branch did a good job coming up and introducing themselves. Most of the members thought he was a member! At the end we talked and taught him some more, and he told us he had worked with some Mormons in the past, but just googled us to see where he could go to church, he just happened to come to the right place! The reason why he looked so clean cut is because he is in the Air Force, and the base is really close. We go his information and are going to teach him this week! It was a tender mercy, because of various reasons all of our other investigators weren't able to make it to church. (Randy had film/practice) 

So things are rolling right along here in New Mexico! It's impossible to complain when you have a name tag on your chest, I don't see how you could. We're having the time of our lives out here, even if it is super hard sometimes! But hey, a wise man once said, "if it ain't hard... It prolly ain't worth much!" 

Know that I love you all very much! Thank you for the prayers, and everything you do.

Until next week!

Elder Turnbow