The Fair and Transfers - 9/30/14

So as far as lessons go this week was really bad. But as far as working hard it was pretty good. We had the Sabine Parish Fair and the church has a BBQ stand that they do every year as a fundraiser for the youth. It's pretty awesome. Everyone knows about our stand and people pretty much come to the fair each year to "get dem some of dem Mormon Burgers." And MAN are they good. It's charburgers that are dipped in a homemade BBQ sauce that is soooooo goood. Apparently it was even on the radio that people wanted to come here to get "der Mormon Burgers". So yeah we worked there about all week. 

Transfers!: I’ll talk about it later haha

Miracles: So we used to have a branch in Zwolle which is in our area but the branch fell apart because everyone went less active including the branch presidency. But this last Sunday Bro. Carter who was the branch president there who went inactive came to church with his family! Soo cool. Also while we were at the Fair one of the young men decided to get some of our pamphlets and pass them out to people. Really good. One thing I also really love about Louisiana is that people are not afraid to pray. At baseball games both teams still pray together. At the Fair they started with a prayer. Go Louisiana!..when everywhere else in the US is trying to ban praying in public stuff. 

Investigators: So we couldn't really see any of our investigators this week which was a bummer. Also because we don’t have the miles to do so yeah. We haven't contacted those referrals yet but we do plan to very soon because we will have miles this next week.

Transfers!: So Elder Hacking is being transferred and that is really hard on him right now. He does not wanna leave. And also I am going to be training. Which means I will get to at least "meet" Elder Thayne Allen (the brother of his companion from the Sierra Leone mission) tomorrow! And hopefully train him. That would be soooo awesome if I trained him. So that's the news so far. It's kinda funny everyone in our district is going to be training. 

Well that's all for now. Love you all and I’ll talk to you soon

Love Elder Lehr

P.S. We don't know where Elder Hacking is going till the meeting. And yeah I am definitely enjoying Many. Being in the Countryside really spoils a person with love.

A fun eventful week - 9/22/14

This week we were still pretty much stuck in Many but we had some awesome stuff happen.

Exchange: So we went on exchange with the Elders in Natchitoches and I was with Elder Johnson who is a new missionary. We had a great day. We had 3 lessons in one day and handed out 3 Book of Mormons, got 1 new potential investigator, and got 1 new investigator for them. That was awesome. That area is all biking with lots of hills so I definitely had fun on the bike....a good 100ft behind Elder Johnson. haha I am not used to biking that much.

Dinners: This Saturday we had 3 meal appointments which was awesome but man I was full. Also one of them was a child's birthday so we celebrated that and I will show you an awesome picture of the cake. Then we had one last night and we have another appointment today.

Investigators: So we were able to finally see Martey just a little bit. We got there right when he was about to leave but we invited him to church and we set up another appointment. He is kinda struggling because his mom's altimerz is getting really bad.(sorry I don't know how to spell it.)

Miracles: We went with Bro Vincent who is a previous Bishop here and went to see about 4 less actives and we caught all of them which was a miracle. 2 of them came to church this Sunday :) Also last night we got a referral from someone in Shreveport, LA. It's this woman named Shay's aunt who saw Shay's Facebook about temples and the Book of Mormon and stuff and wants to learn more. So awesome! And also we talked to some members about it and they really want to meet her so that's member presents! Awesome.

Weird fun stuff: 1) We saw a drug bust right in front of our apartment and the lady was resisting arrest a bit. Intense stuff. 2) We had a power outage across the city for a little bit. The street lights and everything was off. 3) We woke up yesterday to find that the road where we live was blocked off because they were filming a movie or a documentary and had tons of Old awesome classy cars. So I kinda wanna find this movie and watch it and be all like "That's my apartment when I was there!" because that would be awesome.

Well that's this week love you all

Love Elder Lehr

P.S. One pic is the cake which had the tumbler and the Bat from Batman. So awesome and the other is a classy old car. 

Another slow but good week in Many - 9/15/14

Elder Lehr celebrating his birthday 7 months late

Elder Lehr with Pres. & Sister Hansen (Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission)

The work here is going slowly but it's going. It is very different from Sierra Leone where my problems are more about food and water and stuff to here where it's more finding people. A difficulty here is finding people. Not only people who are willing to listen but people. haha There are more dogs here than there are people. I'm kinda tempted sometimes to preach the gospel to every creature, literally. Sometimes it's tempting just to teach someone's dog haha. Especially when we have no miles left.  But it all good. I absolutely love the members here. 

Investigators: We still were not able to see Marty but we did see Raymond and he is pretty good. He promised to read on Saturday and we had a really good lesson. And the sisters got a full family as a referral and they came to church and are awesome! So I'm happy for them. 

Less active: We saw a few less actives and we had one more come to church which was really cool to see. His name is Jeff. Also we saw a man named Sean and he really wants to come back to church and has promised us he would. He smokes but still he is awesome. We are just trying to help him understand that even if he smokes he can still come to church. 

We had a Zone Conference and I finally got a picture with the mission president, Mom :) It was good. We focused quite a bit on goals and obedience. Haha We also went to Hobby Lobby there and the elders in our district got some small souvenirs. I got a metal plaque that says "A mans gotta do what a mans gotta do" and then I got a Confederate flag bandana. So awesome haha. Elder Hacking and I are getting along better. 

Love You all

Elder Christian Lehr

p.s. The pictures are me and the district celebrating my 19 birthday 7 months late. The picture with President and Sister Hansen. And an awesome car wash in our area that says "Holy Water Car Wash. We will wash the Hell out of your car." haha It's so awesome.

(Note: Elder Lehr never received the packages that we sent to him for his birthday at the beginning of the year in Sierra Leone. I still don't think they ever left the U.S. So we made up for it and sent him another package now that he's in Louisiana. Also, things were kind of crazy when his MTC group arrived in Sierra Leone. He had to leave at 4 am the next morning for Bo so he was never able to get a picture with just him and Pres. & Sister Ostler upon his arrival.  And the evacuation kind of messed things up for a picture with them before he left. I guess he'll have to get that picture at his mission reunion.)

Out in the Boonies - 9/8/14

I have to say it has been nice to be able to drive again. This week was pretty good. We actually were able to get 9 lessons which is good for our area. So I'll start with the investigators.

Investigators: Well we went out to Zwolle and saw a potential investigator named Ramond who is this large awesome black man who is missing almost all of his teeth and is just as hard to understand as Ross from work haha. It's kinda funny. We saw him in a wheelchair and wondered what was wrong and he was like "Oh I can walk. I just like being in a wheelchair. It's easier." haha He is funny. Anyway we taught him lesson 1 and that went really well. He promised to read the Book of Mormon and asked us to come again this upcoming Wednesday. So yay for new investigator! We were not able to see Marty this week but we will keep trying.

Less active: We saw quite a few less actives and sadly none of the ones we taught came to church. But it was awesome to see another less active family come to church even though we didn't see them. And it was the whole family! And the less active father bore his testimony. It was cool.

Companion: Elder Hacking and I are getting along ok. He is probably the hardest companion I have had so far on mission but I mean I have had some awesome companions. Elder Hacking is a good guy though.

Storm: We had a pretty nice thunderstorm here the other day. It was kinda scary. Apparently there was a tornado that hit ground in our area just about 18 miles away from us.

Food: We got fed quite a bit this week which was wonderful. We were invited to a fish fry which was awesome. We had fried catfish which is really good. Also the biscuits here are soooo good. Yeah it's gonna be hard to get my beach body back again haha.

Well I love you all

Love Elder Lehr

ps: I found out that my whole area was pretty much outlaw land. And there is a city in our area called Robeline which is short for RobberLine. pretty cool huh? I'm in outlaw land! And the pictures are me on a tractor, an epic sword and hand ax, and a snack that our ward mission leader killed with a gun right before dinner. Thought you would like that mom :) (yeah right!)

"Snack" shot before dinner by the ward mission leader. Hmmmm

 

Long week in Many - 9/2/14

So since we had no miles we were stuck in Many all week. So it was really really hard to find stuff to do in this tiny city. It's a pretty nice city but still really small. I don't think this email will be too long since we really just didn't have much. It was really hard because all of our investigators here can only see us in the evening (if they can see us) and we already visited all the less actives we could. We checked the former investigator list and everything and there was just no work. But I'm glad that's over with. Now we have miles and I'm happy :) I love our truck. Oh and those packages made my day. That was awesome. Pokémon wrapping and everything.

Investigator: So Marty is probably our best investigator. He was in prison for like 10 years but has completely changed his life around. He currently works doing A/C and he is taking care of his mother. So we finally got a chance to see him and he told us that we always seem to come right when he needs company. Because he really doesn't get out much anymore since it's just him and his mom. And he is just such a blessing and a tender mercy to me.

Service: Yesterday we went to a recently activated family's house and helped them clean their yard and back porch and man I love that family. But that house is pretty bad. It is soo cockroach infested and I HATE those little demons of evil so much. The house is probably a little worse than the "Kissy dungeon" too. ugh (shivers) anyway I felt really good after doing the service because they needed it. (Apparently living with all those cockroaches in the "Kissy Dungeon or apartment" have cursed Elder Lehr for life!)

Oh last miracle is we had one less active brother come to church! so cool.

anyway sorry this is short but I don't have much time.

Love you all

Elder Lehr