Year Mark/Mission Tour

Dear Family,

Good ole' winter has finally decided to hit us and it's not being very nice to us. Right now it's 11 degrees with a high of 17 and a low of 4, but you have to add the humidity and wind chill and it's pushing 0 right now. We are staying warm, right now we're emailing at the computers at our apartment complex and I'm wearing shorts and Elder Jacobson is wearing shorts and flip-flops. The office lady made fun of us, she said "where are your coats! It's freezing outside!" Our apartment and the office are pretty close so we were only outside a minute.

Monday our P-day we went shopping and found some killer deals. I got a new tie at JC Penny's for $4, I couldn't pass that up! Then we went to Goodwill and I found a pair of shoes that fit me and they are BROWN!! I've been looking for a pair of brown shoes and finally found some and they aren't bad. Then my Mr Mac stuff showed up and it was like Christmas in November!!! To top the day off, we ate at a families home and they made Cafe Rio Salad and it was sooooooo good!!!

On Thursday...my year mark!! I spent the whole day in Lincoln with Elder Brent H. Nielson of the 70. It went really well and I learned a lot! He had us print off 3 talks to prepare us for it. 2 of the talks were by Elder Bednar and the other talk was by this Elder....I didn't even realize it was his talk until he said "ok, now if you'll pull out my talk we will talk about it" and I was like..."OH, now it all makes sense." lol

He talked mostly about the Atonement and how it's not just for the bad to become good but for the good  to become better. He said most of us don't realize that the Atonement is for all of us, not just for those that do those "common sins" like smoking, drinking etc. but for everyone. Everyone can become better and improve.

Afterwards, we drove all the way back and had dinner with the Bishop's family who are awesome!!

On Friday, we had a pretty cool experience, we were walking in the snow down a busy road and we had been walking for a while so we had snow building up on our shoulders and backpacks. This random dude pulled up and asked if we wanted a ride, so we jumped in and found out he isn't a member. He is Lutheran and had 2 exchange students with him. He asked us we wanted to go get some coffee or hot chocolate before he dropped us off. We both thought...YES!! Teach this man about the Word of Wisdom!  So we were like, "we don't drink coffee but we would have some hot chocolate". He said "oh dangit!! I messed that one up and forgot you Mormons don't drink the good stuff!" We laughed and he bought us some hot chocolate. He then asked if we had a place to go for Thanksgiving and he invited to come eat with him that day. How crazy is that?! Some random dude that we don't know inviting us. He lives in base housing in our area and so we totally can. Super Cool Day!!

Saturday and Sunday we had Stake Conference. Somewhere in the week, we texted a less active and asked if we could come over, he said we could and they had a little band. They had a singer, 2 people on guitar a bass player and a crappy drummer.

I hope I talked about everything I wanted too, took me like the whole hour to write this email, either I'm slow at typing or I actually wrote a good email for once!

Have a good week everyone!! Love y'all!!

Elder Searle

 new shoes!! These are the same shoes, just one pair a little more worn

 on my wall at the apartment

 My companion, Elder Jacobson

All the ties I've accumulated!

Almost a year!!

Dear Family,

This week has been pretty good, going to try to make this quick because I got a ton of emails this week. So some sweet things happened this week, we found a new investigator and he is 18. He's a really cool kid and we found him skateboarding outside of our place. We taught him twice, set him for baptism and then had to turn him over to the Cottonwood Elders because he doesn't live in our area. It kinda sucks but hey...we're all on the same team!

We also got a referral from church HQ about a part member family that lives in base housing and they are super golden! They are both linguist, he speaks Russian and she reads Chinese. They both came to church, which was awesome! Remember there hasn't been an investigator for like 4-5 months now, so not only was it good for us, but also good to show the ward we are trying.

We had a crazy conversation with a guy, he knew stuff about Joseph Smith and Moroni and then went on about how they saw the blue light and that he talks to aliens and how 3 of them came down and talked to him. We had a good laugh!

Guess who's in the ward choir again!! Yep! ME!!!  Why do I have to get companions that sing really well!! LOL I kid, it was pretty fun and we got some treats after for practicing, so that's good.

It is starting to get cold here!!

Thanks to everyone that emailed me this week....I think it's the most emails I've received since being out, so thank you!! Have a good week everyone! Love ya!!

Love, Elder Searle

Halloween/Transfer Week

Dear Family,

Transfers were last week and I'm still here in Bellevue 2nd, but I got a new companion, Elder Jacobson. He's from Springfield Utah and is pretty chill and funny, we get a long well. He was a zone leader up in North Platte and he came down here and is the district leader. He came out with Elder Quayle so they will both go home in January. We didn't get a whole lot done with Elder Quayle saying his good-byes and me getting my new companion.

We had dinner with a family and we taught them, they are a fun, crazy family with 5 little kids. It was fun. After we went to the departing testimony meeting for the missionaries who were leaving and it was pretty cool. There were a ton of people there!!

Wednesday and Thursday were just us going around and saying goodbye to people, Elder Quayle started packing and everything. Our zone leader, Elder Sadler stayed with us for 2 nights and we had a blast with him. I went with the Papillion Elders since my companion wouldn't be coming until 5pm that night. We got home at 6:30pm and since it was Halloween, we weren't suppose to be on the streets past 6pm, so we had pizza with the Papillion Elders, not the most fun Halloween, but it will do. :)

That is pretty much my week, nothing too exciting or anything. One thing we did find out...we have to wear our suits all the time now, not sure how we feel about that.

Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!!

Love, Elder Searle

Transfer Week

Dear Family,

This week was pretty dang fun. For P-day we had another zone activity and we went to the mission office and we played dodge ball and played chubby bunny which was super funny! We did a few rounds of it and it was funny, I wish I had my camera with me, but I didn't. We just kept going around and having everyone put a marshmallow in their mouth, it's pretty funny when you get like 6 marshmallows in there, you can't chew or anything, just smash them in your mouth! :)

We had our appointment with the Pastor and it went really well. We ended up teaching him the whole Plan of Salvation, he didn't believe in it, but we taught it. We drew pictures to go along with it. :)

Wednesday we did service for a family and then helped them with the trim around their 3 kids closets, it was pretty fun and took most of the day.

Thursday we had a district meeting, then I went to Cottonwood on exchanges and we were in South Omaha in the hood and some kids were playing basketball and talking smack to us saying that us white men can't shoot, so we played basketball with them for a bit and it was pretty fun! The oldest was 15 and the youngest was 12 and they all thought they were little Lebron's or something.

Friday we did some service and then had our ward Halloween Party, we went for a ride in a pretty legit teal Jeep. It was fun!!

Saturday was our normal service at a family's home. We helped them lay brick again and almost got it done. We went at 9am and had waffles and then we had dinner, we were there that long. One more Saturday and I think we'll have it done.The little kids they have are awesome, they love to shake our hands and they have this sweet looking Trike that we got to ride around.

After our visit with the Pastor on Tuesday, he invited us to his church on Sunday...so we went. It was Reformation Sunday so there was a guy dressed as Martin Luther and his wife. The Pastor must have told them we were coming because they were right on us when we walked in. I now know how people feel when they come to our church for the first time. The Pastor came out and hugged us and talked a bit to us, we're either really good friends now or he thinks he converted us. :)  It was neat to see how they do things though.

Transfers are on Halloween so we'll see if anything changes with me,

Love you guys!!

Love Elder Searle