March pictures

 

 

Birthday Boy! :D

Feb. Zone Conference 2014 Elder Searle and Elder Schofield



Dear Family,

Hard to believe I'm 19 today, it seems so weird to say! I just hope that when I tell people my age, they won't freak out as much anymore. I would tell people that I'm 18 and they would be like "you are still a baby!!!"

On Monday we had a super awesome lesson with Keowa. Super awesome and super cool!! Elder Daines said it's in the top 3 best lessons taught, so that was pretty cool.

Elder Schofield from Kanesville had been having a hard time this week so we went on exchanges with him. Elder Daines went with him for 2 days. He had been having a hard time before and we thought it was his companion, which was part of it, but I guess his dads health hasn't been doing very well and he was worried about him.

Turns out his dad had a stroke while he was flying to Seattle and he was put in the hospital for a few days. He had a 50/50 chance to make it, and he didn't, he passed away on Saturday. Elder Schofield was on the phone with him when he passed away so he has been very down. He is putting on a good face but I can see him emailing his family right now and he is struggling to keep it together.

We stayed overnight with them on Saturday night, we went to the adult general conference with them, then we went and got ice cream and just played some card games until late. They stayed over with us last night, just so we could kind of keep an eye on him and help keep him busy. He is determined to stay out here. Our week mostly revolved around time in Kanesville, spending time with and keeping Elder Schofield busy.

We didn't have too many lessons this week, we taught Keowa three times though, we took him to a YSA baptism which was sweet. We taught him at the Becks because he is friends with their daughter. Keowa and Miranda are actually taking us for the day today and we are doing something with them. They won't tell me a thing and it's driving me nuts! I just know we'll be with them most of the day. I think we're going to the zoo, but I'm not sure...I will have to tell you guys next week what went down. Tomorrow night we are going over to the Bishop's house because they wanted to make me a cake. I'm going to save my party stuff you guys sent me until then, I bet the kids will have a blast with it!!

So that was my week...hopefully this week will go well since I think it's should nice all this week. I do hope so, yesterday was 70 and it was sooo nice!!Driving with the windows down and not freezing is sooo nice!!

Thanks for the birthday box, cd's chocolates and all the party stuff!!!

Love Elder Searle

New Changes

Council Bluffs & Sioux City Zone Conference (February 2014) 


This week has been interesting, a lot of new changes with my new companion Elder Daines. He's from Logan so not too far from Morgan! He came from serving 6 months at the University YSA ward, so he's not used to knocking on doors like we have to do here.

It's been different too because we were both sick. I was sick Tuesday night and all day Wednesday with a terrible cold. My companion was sick Wednesday night and got worse on Friday. On Thursday we had to drive up to Sioux City, which is 2 hours away and we were there all day.

This week, most of the people that we did get to see were less actives that are in the ward. We are trying to help the ward/less actives out a lot more this transfer because the Bishop feels like that would help the ward out. You have to take care of the people that you do have, before you go out and bring new people in. So we have been focusing on that a lot! One of the families we saw used to be in the Council Bluffs ward when my companion was first here, so that is great! Brother Downing said that when it warms up, he is going to make some BBQ wings for us! Hopefully he won't throw in any Ghost Peppers since those are his favorite....he tells us stories about people eating them all the time at the restaurant he works at and it's 10 times worse than that Triple Atomic I had!!

Sunday we went to choir practice again, my companion thinks it would be good for us to work with the ward and gain their trust, which is great, except it sucks when I don't really have a singing voice...but my companion can sing really well!

So really not much went on this week with us both sick, next week should be a lot better!

Oh, the Bishop's family are making me a cake for my birthday! lol They said since it's Captain Crunch's special day, that they will bake me a cake. I'm not sure if I ever told you the nicknames they game me? The mom calls me Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch and Special K. She gave me Special K because I wasn't catching the frisbee very well one time and I was throwing it like crap so she said I'm Special K because I'm a "little" special!! lol

Love, Elder Searle

Transfer #3

So my new companion is Elder Daines, he has been out for 21 months. That means I will be here for at least 1-2 more transfers. My companion was a Zone Leader in Lincoln before he came here to be a District Leader. He started his mission in Council Bluffs so he has an idea what is around here.

So this week I had to wait for a temporary companion, Elder Linn came down from South Dakota and was my companion for a few days. He was really funny. We have this house that is across the street a little bit from us that has broken windows and is just really scary looking. I guess it's been left like that for 2-3 years now. Anyway, Elder Linn really wanted to knock on the door, so we went over at 8:30pm and he knocked on the door, then he just walked right in...there was no way I was going in but then he freaked out and told me to come in, so I did. You could tell animals had been there, the stove had about an inch of dust and crap on it and there were boxes of food that had been eaten by something! There were bullet holes through out the house, so that was pretty sketchy...Late night tracking on a house that has been abandoned, isn't really that great of a thing to be doing, but it was fun!!

I spent pretty much a day and a half at the mission office waiting for companions. I was there all day Friday and half of Monday, so we really didn't get much teaching done this week.

But we were able to teach Keowa twice this week, we also played ping pong with him and Miranda, which was really fun and crazy. They also fed us so we were there for a while. We taught him about the commandments and that went really well. After we went and tried to visit some people across the street, then we headed home. On our way home, Keowa pulled out on the highway too, so we kinda decided to race him, I got an RPM violation from the Tiwi box, lol, but it was worth it!! ( mom sent an email about this to him...boys!)

This is pretty much my week, sitting at the mission office, going into abandoned houses and racing people, it was a good week!!

Love Elder Searle

More Pictures From Council Bluffs, IA

Pictures From Council Bluffs, IA

Good-bye Elder Cortez (2-17-14)

So today, Elder Cortez took off for Brazil, he was so excited to finally go, he has been so nervous these past couple of days. I'm going to miss him.

So this week has been kind of different, just because Elder Cortez knew he was going to be leaving, so we started doing things that he wanted to do. BUT....he made me make all the choices since I will be in charge of this area for a while. I did get a new companion for this week, his name is Elder Linn, he has been out for a few months now. The area he came from was up in South Dakota, so he said it's a lot different here so far.

So we did a lot this week with Keowa, we taught him 3 times this week and one of those times we went to the Trail Center. We also watched the Restoration video with him, which is a whole hour long. They took us downstairs and we watched it on the huge projector so it was like we were in a movie theater, so that was kind of cool. He has told a few people that he really wants to be baptized so we might move his baptism date up, right now it's planned for March 22, but he has been learning so fast and we have been seeing him so much lately, that he is just learning so much.

We also met a new family that moved in a month ago. We had no clue that they were members, we just happened to knock on their door. The father answered, he's a big, buff, scary looking guy with Playboy bunny tattoos on his arm. He is super nice and friendly, they have 2 daughters, one of them has Down Syndrome, she is super funny and friendly. They were baptized 3 years ago, so they are still kinda new.

We knocked on a lot of doors this week, we found about 15 potentials in one apartment complex, that area is just crazy with people!

Other than this, nothing crazy or exciting really happened. Elder Cortez has just been packing and we have been eating at his favorite places before he took off, we have also been going around and saying good-bye to people.

Hopefully this week goes well, it will be soooo different not having Elder Cortez around and now having a new companion, so hopefully it all goes well.

Love, Elder Searle