The End of Elder Searle

Dear Family,

Well, it's almost here, 2 years in the flat lands of Nebraska are almost over...I have sure grown a TON from this adventure. I am for sure not the same person that I was when I first came out. One thing that I have learned/really came to understand is that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is really for anyone and everything. I think we can all understand that yes, He died for ME, He knows what I'm going through but being able to tell these people I met, to the toothless people in Council Bluffs to the Air Force people in Bellevue to the Children of the Corn in Seward, that Christ's arm is ALWAYS stretched out towards us and that He knows what we are going through and how we feel and that He is there for us. My favorite scripture kind of has to do with this.

3 Nephi 10

4-O ye people of these great cities which have fallen, who are descendants of Jacob, yea, who are of the house of Israel, how oft have I gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and have nourished you.

5-And again, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, yea O ye people of the house of Israel, who have fallen, yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, ye that dwell in Jerusalem, as ye have fallen, yea how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not.

6-O ye house of Israel whom I have spared, how oft will I gather you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if ye will repent and return unto me with full purpose of heart.

Christ is the Hen, He wants to protect and help each and every one of us. He wants us under His wing, under His gospel and he is always there for us. Past, Present and Future.

Another favorite scripture is Alma 38:5 and what I like about this one is that you can switch out Shiblon and put your name in it!

5-And now my son, Shiblon (Brendan) I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials and your troubles and your afflictions and ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

It has been a very emotional past couple three days  (yes, couple three will now forever be in my vocab) I did a pretty good job bottling it all in but saying goodbye to the Dolezal's sure made the bottle explode. I lost it....not as bad as saying goodbye to Little Monkey, but it was sure close. Then to top it off, I had to say bye to Brandy after that. I didn't cry, men don't cry but I sure had something in my eye the whole time. ;) We were able to have one last party with Brandy and her family and we also burned a get up of mine. So, I'm not sure how long Elders have been doing this, or if' their still doing it but we burned a tie representing 6 months out, a white shirt for being a year out, suit pants for 18 months and a suit for 2 years!

So I guess to sum it up, I will surely miss the mission and the people that I have met, good thing we have Facebook and Skype! The mission has sure been a roller coaster but it has been fun and I have grown a lot. I guess I can sum it up with a scripture.

2 Timothy 4

6-For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand.

7-I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.

17-Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known.

I love the people here in Nebraska and I'm happy for the chance I have had to be here and I can't wait to return home in 2 days!!  I love you all and I will sure miss the people in Nebraska!!!

Love you all!!
Elder Searle

 The Dolezal's

 Elder Searle and Brandy

 Elder Searle and Mark

 Elder Searle and Little James

 Anna and Elder Pacheco

 The Vavras

Final Zone lunch at Cici's

 

 The Johnson's

 Elder Pacheco

Final Week

Dear Family,

Holy Cow....I can't believe that I have one full week left of my mission. Time has gone by sooo fast! I swear just yesterday I was home causing trouble, teasing Nana Bear, 4-wheeling, getting yelled at for bringing mud in the house etc. The mission has been great and it will be sad that it's over. 

We had an AWESOME week!! Alisha's baptism went well and it was super spiritual! Her grandpa was the one that baptized her and he had a very hard time getting the words out because of how emotional he was. There were so many people there! The youth had a hayride/tin foil dinner activity and they invited some of the ward/branches around us and a lot of them stuck around for the baptism so there were a lot of youth there to support Alisha. Even the branch president said this was the most people he has seen at a baptism here in Seward for the 9 years he has been branch president. Alisha sure deserved it, having to wait 4 years and still faithfully doing everything and just having the patience. It was also great to have one last baptism before I go home so can't complain at all.

We did a lot of driving this week, we still have our normal miles, 1100, but since I will be gone next week and Elder Pacheco will just be with the zone leader we won't be needing our miles at all for that last week so that means...we can use them all in this 2 week period. So we have been hitting a different town almost every day and we have been having fun on dirt roads and getting Ashley (our car, we named her Ashley) a little dirty. We drove all the way up to Gresham and there was nothing there, but we found a telephone outside so Elder Pacheco was going to prank call another elder but it was $2 to call! They also had some old gas pumps so I acted like I was filling up so that explains those 2 pictures. The other picture of Elder Pacheco looking cold was pretty funny, we were at the church for district meeting and it was so cold in there! Then poor Elder Pacheco was just so cold that he walked around the church and found a Scooby-Doo towel and used it as a blanket, he also went and grabbed some wool socks from the back of our car and used them as mittens, it was pretty funny. 

Fire Chief picture, so we were helping someone move and we found the apron and oven mitt and we were able to take them. I also had some glow glasses that I think you guys sent me?? So I put them all on and also acted like I had some oxygen pumping into my system, so I put them all on while Elder Pacheco was in the bathroom and oh boy was he surprised when he came out. Too bad I didn't have it earlier, could of used it Friday at Foodnet when everyone else came dressed up but I didn't have anything...oh well..

The mission president has really been pushing for us to teach short lessons, 30 min and to keep it simple and to also be able to teach the whole restoration lesson in 8 min. if we teach it on a door step. So I found a scripture in Acts 20:9 that says as Paul was long preaching, the guy fell into a deep slumber in a window loft and fell out falling 3 stories and was taken up dead. (if you read on he really didn't die but just that one verse makes it sound pretty funny). So I texted that scripture to a couple three sets of Elders and they found it pretty funny. :)

This last full week I have is going to be different, like tonight, the Foodnet crew are throwing a potluck/goodbye Searle party so we have that and another 2 little parties coming up. We will still have to work hard so time doesn't just drag on. I don't even know if I'll  remember what real life was like, I will have to have T-Rav show me or something. I am excited and that kid better get out of my room. Also, there is no way I'm sharing a room with Smelly P, he can live outside in a tent or in the barn, hook up a tv out there and a microwave and mini fridge and he will be fine. Just kidding!

I have no clue how next week is going to work, I know I will be picked up sometime Monday so I'm not sure if I will email at the normal time or later in the day, but I'll get on one more last time. I would say you can start your countdown, but I'm pretty sure you guys have been counting down already. I love you guys and can't wait to be home! It's going to be sad leaving the mission and saying goodbye to certain people, but I think it's time. Love you guys!!!

Love, Elder Searle

Alisha's baptism!

Fire Chief

Study desk

Sleepy Searle

#Mormies

Dear Family,

It's getting cold!! Everything is dead and being cut down (corn) and everything is flat again...Speaking of cutting down corn, we went harvesting on Wednesday! Lori Johnson set it up for us to go with her dad while he was harvesting. I forgot to take some pictures because I was having too much fun in the combine, but holy cow those things are pretty fancy! The one that we were in wasn't one of the new ones, not the ones that drive themselves by GPS but it was pretty sweet. He did a couple three rows with us and was showing us everything, so now I can say I harvested some corn while I was here!

Thursday night we had dinner with the Johnson's and they invited Brandy to join and holy cow, it was a roasting fest! The Johnson's daughter and Brandy roasted us, mostly to Elder Pacheco though. 

Saturday was kinda a strange day, I got my super trunks in the mail...that would be my flight plans and everything and it's weird to think it's coming to an end, I know you guys have had them for quite a while but now I have it....IT'S SO WEIRD!! Just knowing that I'm holding my flight plans in my hands and all the questions that President Gardner wants me to answer...it's just crazy. BUT..to make my Saturday better, we carved pumpkins!!! We went over to the Bakers and ate dinner, had Mummy Dogs (pigs in a blanket) and we carved the pumpkins. They also made Puppy Chow and asked if we have ever had it and we said no, then they brought it out and it was Muddy Buddies!! I ate the whole bowl!! I guess it was supposed to be for both Elder Pacheco and I but I didn't know that. 

I guess Elder Pacheco has some skills when it comes to carving pumpkins and that I'm terrible at making cut out block letters. So I carved Book of Mormon into mine and Elder Pacheco did a CTR and #Mormies because that's what the Bakers call us. Then he carved Angel Moroni and he also later carved Jesus into it. So my little Book of Mormon pumpkin looks crappy compared to his. :)

Friday was kind of a sad day, we helped 2 families move. The Bjournbergs moved from Friend to Idaho and then we helped P Hensley's dad move. The Bjournbergs will sure be missed, they were so funny and they are awesome!! Then since we helped move all day we missed the Foodnet, but luckily Brandy got us a box from it. We showed up right when they were done cleaning and everything so we were just chillin outside and Elder Pacheco heard the high school football game that was going on and he wanted to go watch it. So we went and watched the Milford game, they got destroyed and it was their last game, so kind of sad for that but it sure made Elder Pacheco's day. That is where the picture at the game came from, Brandy took it and sent them to us.

Sunday we spoke in sacrament meeting, we just had to talk for 5-7 min. about something that stuck out to us during General Conference so I did President Uchtdorfs Saturday morning session. I talked about keeping things simple and Am I Truly Happy. I also printed off Elder Hales talk since that is the one that stuck out the most to me, but that is just because it talked about enduring to the end and things that I can do/work on for when I go home so I will be studying those in a day or two.

The baptism has been moved up to Halloween!! It is going to be sweet!! We taught her everything last night and will be having the baptism interview Wednesday and I'm sure everything will work out! So that will be exciting!!

Hopefully we will have some more awesome experiences and things this week. Hopefully you guys have a good week!

Love, Elder Searle

Milford football game

                               Elder Searle and a bubble

#NewKicks #Lutheran Church #Title of Liberty

Dear Family,

I sent all the Nebraska Football Memorial Stadium pictures last week but that picture of the waterfall if the biggest one that that company has ever done and it sure looked pretty cool. We pretty much saw the whole place, we couldn't go into the locker rooms or the weight room but oh well. They had a sweet three screen video that they showed all the Heisman Trophies that Nebraska has gotten on the highlight films and that was dope! They have a really awesome get up. I'm not sure if everyone was able to see the video of us getting pumped up and running out of the tunnel on to the field but that was a sweet feeling. I'm not even that into football and there were like 4 leaf blowers in the stands but it was super awesome! We met two of their players, Gangwish and some other dude I that I can't remember...if you look at their lineup, the one who's name I can't remember has the BEST mustache picture known to mankind!

We had zone training last week and Elder Pacheco and I were asked to give a 10 min. training on how can we increase our faith to change? We wanted to make this the most spiritual/awesome training we could make up so we were going to do the full Captain Moroni making the Title of Liberty, like wearing armor and ripping a shirt in front of everyone, but we figured we didn't have enough time. We were able to borrow some armor from our neighbor Mark who Larps and makes his own armor and stuff. We made the Title of Liberty and made it look all worn and it looked pretty legit. Then after training, we got some pictures of people wearing the armor. 

Seward has been kind of a slow area lately...we have just been doing a lot of street contacting but really nothing is coming from it and we are getting low on miles, but good thing this Friday we will get new miles. Anyway, we were at the church playing a little bit of basketball to finish off our lunch break when we noticed two dudes were watching us through a window, well they came out and challenged us to a 2v2, there were about 10 of them and they were all seniors skipping class but it was still fun, we lost 12-10. After we played I soooo regretted playing, my throat was just on fire from the cold and also from still being a little sick but it was a fun game and they were pretty funny. At one point in the game one of the seniors was running around with a corn stalk trying to tickle us while we played and tried swatting the ball with it. Too bad we can't have Go-Pro's or something on us at all times recording cause it would have been super funny to watch!

Saturday we went to St. John's Lutheran Church in Seward with Merlin, Merlin is the guy that took us to the zoo a couple three weeks ago. I guess he's done church swaps with missionaries before so one of these weeks he will be coming to our church but it was pretty cool to go. We talked to the pastor for a while and he was pretty chill with us. A lot of standing and sitting made it hard to go to sleep. :P

I also got some new tennis shoes!! The ones I came out with are pretty much destroyed...I was getting made fun of at Foodnet because we park in all these weeds and by the time I walk in Foodnet I have these long strands of grass stuck to my shoes because the bottoms were falling off. But good thing I have a good friend in Seward that takes care of me!! Brandy bought me some SWEET Puma's off Ebay and holy cow are they awesome!! That and they look pretty legit so that made me super happy. Brandy also hooked me up with a "Sick Basket" Friday to help me get better. :) Seward might be a place that is hard to get investigators or people that really want to learn about the gospel, but I sure have made some good, life long friends here and have sure learned/grown a lot from them. We have awesome people like Brandy that first of all keeps us in line and looks after me. The Dolzals who would do anything for us, that and she is pretty much mom to us, does our laundry, gives us meds when sick, gives us TP when we run out. :P and makes sure we aren't freezing to death when it gets cold. We have the Johnson's who's most likely going to take us to Harvest Corn on Wednesday, that will be fun!! We have the Bakers who invited us over to carve pumpkins on Saturday cause I told them I haven't carved any for 2 years and they said I could this Saturday. :)

This week should be pretty legit and full of fun adventure so hopefully next weeks email will be as good and as long as this one!! It has only taken me 23 1/2 months but I'm starting to figure out this weekly email writing. Have a good week everyone!!

Love, Elder Searle

 Branch Mission Leaders

 Elder Pacheco is always cold. :)

Nebraska Memorial Stadium Fieldtrip