Hey there, all of you hot arizonan fools. Its a beautiful 67 degrees here in the big Kalispell today. We spent the night last night in a 3 million dollar home in Big Fork. Thats my poor life here in Montana. Elder J Burr seems to have it pretty easy in the Paraguay with Frosted Flakes, bummin rides, ...lucky. Thanks for all the letters and stuff. It was all awesome. To answere some of the questions that have been asked: I can listen to reverent music. Katie already sent me the reflections of Christ music. That is all approved. The stuff that isnt approved is the Rowdy "A more Excellent way" type stuff. I will give you a couple other examples: Classical (mozart, bach, etc.) Josh Groban Christmas music, Hymns, MoTab, INside out primary, etc etc etc etc etc. thats the gist. I am not fat yet. But I can lose weight pretty easily. I just am tooo lazy in the mornings. The members feed us so much. We have gone on an 8 day chicken/steak streak. I'm sick of steak. Don't like it. Emails/Letters: You can send as many as you want to from anybody you want to. You should even send these letters to the different myldsmail accounts. I just cant send more than one email out. Thats the bottom line. I actually have quite a lot of time to email but usually go out and do something so rush through things. We are in Kalispell today and are going to glacier again next Wednesday. Early. hint
Couple Things: We had a combined zone conf. in Missoula this last Friday. I met an Elder Cook who went to Mt View and was in our stake for a while. He went to Patterson Elementary and still says he remembers the Lunts from back home. I also met a Sister Olsen who lives in Chandler and went to Hamilton. She said she knows the Neilsons. I dont know her first name. In church this last week I met Aarron Macarthur who lives in Nevada. His family is in my ward. He said he served in the Tempe AZ mission from 98 - 2000. He lived on Lindsay and baseline and worked with Bro Weatherby as a ward mission leader. He said he just saw them a year ago and that they are the most awesome people he met while on his mission. He also mentioned someone named Jeff Skousen in our stake who served in MOntana back in the day? I thought you guys might like to know that. We also had a summer family come up named the brimhalls who are from Paradise Valley.
****: Has set a baptismal date for August 21. He is working on quitting chewing and smoking. It is actually going quite well with him; and his fiancee. They have no money to buy any cigarettes or anything so they havent been able to smoke. They both havent smoked for about a week and a half. His fiancee, was baptized back in '98 in California. She has been less active until she moved up here and our Bishop got hold of her. Thats when we met Dustin and started teaching him. The weird part of all this is that I had no idea Dustin was engaged to Stephanie until they said so. Its awesome to already start seeing some of the blessings they are experiencing that have come from turning their lives around and towards Jesus Christ.
Atchleys: Awesome. I took Elder West over yesterday while on team ups and he thought they were the most awesome people. They are so funny and always talk about going to the temple even though its a year away. Im jealous of Elder Tanner and Lindhardt who will mostlikely get to go with them to the temple. They will both be completed with their missions by that time.
We are meeting with so may awesome people. I hope to be able to start teaching some of the families we have met.
I have seen lots of blessing in my own life as I have taken hold of the reigns in my area. I feel so awesome and good all the time. I hope that I can leave Polson feeling like Ive helped some people along the way.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Parker meets the Amish...
Hey guys. It sounds like everything is going great. All the trips, dogs, people, mission calls, etc. I don’t know where to start for this week. I guess I will start off by replying to all of the questions. My memory card is a memory stick pro duo or something like that. I think Sony is the only one who makes it or uses it. It should be pretty easy to find. Yes I got my Jackson Hole shirt. Thanks for the letters and love you guys send. I haven’t had a lot of time replying back to letters and packages. Especially from Grandparents but I hope no one is offended. I weighed myself the other day with my pros clothes on: white shirt, tie, pants and shoes; I stepped on the scale and couldn’t believe the big red 199 that came up. Good news was I took my shoes off and it came up: 195. Whew, that was close.
I hope I answered all of your questions. I talked to some guy up at Walmart in Kalispell, after we met with President Gardner, and talked to him about where he was from and all that jazz (the normal member missionary conversation) It turned out to be that he and his family were from Cardston and his daughter was married to Robert Bevans. I told him that Todd and Jenny were both in my ward back home and we sat there and talked for about half hour while some of the other missionaries were shopping. He said that he had known the Bevans forever and that they were up in Canada on vacation. I would have loved to see them so bad. Are the olivers still planning to come up here? I thought it was awesome to meet that guy. I cant remember his name though. I think the last name was Alexander, davidson or something like that. It had 3 syllables.
President Gardner is awesome by the way. He and his wife are both barely about 5'5''. He taught seminary for 10 years so he is a good teacher and lived on a ranch his whole life. He is also a photographer. At the end of our "meet the mission president meeting" they showed a slide show that consisted of a lot of his pictures that he had taken of St. George. They were awesome. And.. with Elder Lindhardt and Elder Schudde who are both from St G, it made them a little crazier than usual beside the fact that they are going home in 3 weeks.
The assistants came to Polson last Friday and went on team ups with us. It was really good for the both of us. Since then there has been less animosity and more soberness. We are both doing better with each other now. That kid can be so frustrating sometimes.
So, with things all resolved now, the work is going forth boldy, nobly and independent. It is penetrating every continent, visiting every clime, sweeping every country and sounding in every ear. The purposes of God are being accomplished. Life is great, especially being a missionary.
Some little things/stories that happened this week: A girl in the ward had a lake side baptism. It was cool to see that. I wish I had a camera. Elder Lindhardt, the sisters from Ronan: Sister Hodes and Sister Willhite (from Tucson AZ) and myself went on Sunday to the Amish community in St. Ignatius.
I am getting kicked off again. I will be back...
I believe I was saying that we went with the sister missionaries to St. Ignatius to go sing and eat dinner with the Amish community. It was awesome. Their culture is so crazy. I can’t believe the lifestyle that they have. Other than the lifestyle that they have they are absolutely completely normal people. They have a little bit of an accent because of the traditional Deutsche that is taught to them. All of them are bi-lingual, the Pennsylvanian Deutsche, which is a dialect off of the original Deutsche and English. Also, they can read German. Every other Sunday they sing and have a devotional. For the first half hour they sing from a German hymn book. After that they have someone give a little talk and then sing for another hour out of an English hymn book. It was all absolutely awesome. One of the best experiences that I’ve had out here. The boys sit on one side and the girls sit on the other. Someone will pick a hymn by shouting out the hymn number and then he/she will start off the song for every verse. THAT cycle continues to repeat itself until someone picks a "parting" song. After that song is done, it’s over. After all of the singing we stayed for about an extra half hour and just talked about religion and about what WE do, and what THEY do. They told us all about the DATING process and what they do for fun, etc ,etc it was so interesting. They are so normal and regular. They just wear goofy clothes and cut their hair weird. That’s it. I want to go back and live with them. I can see in the near future, that when one of them joins the church. there are going to flood into it.
I’m getting kicked off again. its busy today.
I hope I answered all of your questions. I talked to some guy up at Walmart in Kalispell, after we met with President Gardner, and talked to him about where he was from and all that jazz (the normal member missionary conversation) It turned out to be that he and his family were from Cardston and his daughter was married to Robert Bevans. I told him that Todd and Jenny were both in my ward back home and we sat there and talked for about half hour while some of the other missionaries were shopping. He said that he had known the Bevans forever and that they were up in Canada on vacation. I would have loved to see them so bad. Are the olivers still planning to come up here? I thought it was awesome to meet that guy. I cant remember his name though. I think the last name was Alexander, davidson or something like that. It had 3 syllables.
President Gardner is awesome by the way. He and his wife are both barely about 5'5''. He taught seminary for 10 years so he is a good teacher and lived on a ranch his whole life. He is also a photographer. At the end of our "meet the mission president meeting" they showed a slide show that consisted of a lot of his pictures that he had taken of St. George. They were awesome. And.. with Elder Lindhardt and Elder Schudde who are both from St G, it made them a little crazier than usual beside the fact that they are going home in 3 weeks.
The assistants came to Polson last Friday and went on team ups with us. It was really good for the both of us. Since then there has been less animosity and more soberness. We are both doing better with each other now. That kid can be so frustrating sometimes.
So, with things all resolved now, the work is going forth boldy, nobly and independent. It is penetrating every continent, visiting every clime, sweeping every country and sounding in every ear. The purposes of God are being accomplished. Life is great, especially being a missionary.
Some little things/stories that happened this week: A girl in the ward had a lake side baptism. It was cool to see that. I wish I had a camera. Elder Lindhardt, the sisters from Ronan: Sister Hodes and Sister Willhite (from Tucson AZ) and myself went on Sunday to the Amish community in St. Ignatius.
I am getting kicked off again. I will be back...
I believe I was saying that we went with the sister missionaries to St. Ignatius to go sing and eat dinner with the Amish community. It was awesome. Their culture is so crazy. I can’t believe the lifestyle that they have. Other than the lifestyle that they have they are absolutely completely normal people. They have a little bit of an accent because of the traditional Deutsche that is taught to them. All of them are bi-lingual, the Pennsylvanian Deutsche, which is a dialect off of the original Deutsche and English. Also, they can read German. Every other Sunday they sing and have a devotional. For the first half hour they sing from a German hymn book. After that they have someone give a little talk and then sing for another hour out of an English hymn book. It was all absolutely awesome. One of the best experiences that I’ve had out here. The boys sit on one side and the girls sit on the other. Someone will pick a hymn by shouting out the hymn number and then he/she will start off the song for every verse. THAT cycle continues to repeat itself until someone picks a "parting" song. After that song is done, it’s over. After all of the singing we stayed for about an extra half hour and just talked about religion and about what WE do, and what THEY do. They told us all about the DATING process and what they do for fun, etc ,etc it was so interesting. They are so normal and regular. They just wear goofy clothes and cut their hair weird. That’s it. I want to go back and live with them. I can see in the near future, that when one of them joins the church. there are going to flood into it.
I’m getting kicked off again. its busy today.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
What? Seriously this is it for the week? I keep waiting for the just kidding...
Hey there guys. Its good to hear from all of you fools of a tooks. The summer has sounded like the usual Heywood summer. Jackson, Lake Powell, working for dad, mission calls from everyone, Katie GETTING MARRIED AND HAVING A BABY BY THE TIME IM HOME. hahahahahh I can’t wait for her to get pregnant. Arizona sounds crazy. Its nice to get letters from 2 of you. Maybe by the end of my mission I will be getting letters from all of you. Dang.
Hold on I’m getting kicked off the computer...
Hold on I’m getting kicked off the computer...
Monday, July 6, 2009
4th of July in Polsen
Hey................. all is well here in the good ole town of Polson. 4th of July is this Saturday. We got invited out to the Tanners Mansion on Finley Point. From what we've heard; they blow about 2 grand on fireworks and have quite the show. Everyone can see them from across the town. We don't know what we are going to do but it is so tempting to see all the firework stands and shops around. Also, with it being the 4th of July, there are so many boats and jet skis and everything else around that I like and would want to do. The big turquoise lake is so tempting to just jump into. Especially when driving by it in the mornings or evenings and seeing a perfectly flat piece of heaven. People stay out water skiing until about 10 at night because it is still light out.
Everything is going great here (even though Elder Lindhardt is trunkiest trunkster that I've ever seen). He has a toy model Delta Jet Plane that he flies around and puts his own sound effects to as if he is flying inside it heading home. He flies it around the house, then holds it out of the car window as we drive, then acts like he is the pilot making announcements on the plane, then flies it around and makes it land in his home town... the list goes on and on.
We have been teaching awesome people. We have another couple (Roger and Marilyn Van Eram) that is seriously investigating and could probably be baptized in the next month or so. We will see. Another local sasquatch, Shaun Robbins, is a single guy investigating the church. He has a sweet pony tail and is the most awesome guy. He was telling us about these stories. They were good. I laughed. Hard. Great time. Awesome guy.
Lastly, we are teaching this 14 year old kid who has LDS convert grandparents who live in Texas. I guess he visited them a while ago and he seems pretty interested in it. He is small, very smart, has red hair with dark skin, skates, and likes computer games. He is awesome. I hope we can keep on teaching him. He is not home alot and his dad is a bum.
Lastly but not least, (even though I already said "lastly") We have been going by/teaching/visiting an old lady named Inness Brown. Carl and Kathy Moss (who are ranchers and members and the most awesome people on the earth) ran into and ended up helping out her daughter and son in law. This was about four years ago. Brother Moss' truck broke down by some Uhaul place and Dick and Melodee Scott (the daughter and son in law of Inness) had just moved from Great Falls and were unloading all of their junk. Long story short: what ended up happening was Bro Moss called his wife from the Scotts phone to come pick him up. Melodee ended up getting heat stroke (or something like that). Bro and Sister Moss ended up helping them unpack/finish moving for the rest of the day. They ended up becoming great friends have made out to be good friends, along with the mother Inness, slowly incorporating the Gospel into their lives. About 2 hours ago we vistied Inness in the hospital and got to have a good sit down with Inness and Melodee. That was really exciting.
So hopefully we will have some potential investigators on our hands. Polson is awesome. Love it. Keep reading your scriptures, especially you Jared.
Everything is going great here (even though Elder Lindhardt is trunkiest trunkster that I've ever seen). He has a toy model Delta Jet Plane that he flies around and puts his own sound effects to as if he is flying inside it heading home. He flies it around the house, then holds it out of the car window as we drive, then acts like he is the pilot making announcements on the plane, then flies it around and makes it land in his home town... the list goes on and on.
We have been teaching awesome people. We have another couple (Roger and Marilyn Van Eram) that is seriously investigating and could probably be baptized in the next month or so. We will see. Another local sasquatch, Shaun Robbins, is a single guy investigating the church. He has a sweet pony tail and is the most awesome guy. He was telling us about these stories. They were good. I laughed. Hard. Great time. Awesome guy.
Lastly, we are teaching this 14 year old kid who has LDS convert grandparents who live in Texas. I guess he visited them a while ago and he seems pretty interested in it. He is small, very smart, has red hair with dark skin, skates, and likes computer games. He is awesome. I hope we can keep on teaching him. He is not home alot and his dad is a bum.
Lastly but not least, (even though I already said "lastly") We have been going by/teaching/visiting an old lady named Inness Brown. Carl and Kathy Moss (who are ranchers and members and the most awesome people on the earth) ran into and ended up helping out her daughter and son in law. This was about four years ago. Brother Moss' truck broke down by some Uhaul place and Dick and Melodee Scott (the daughter and son in law of Inness) had just moved from Great Falls and were unloading all of their junk. Long story short: what ended up happening was Bro Moss called his wife from the Scotts phone to come pick him up. Melodee ended up getting heat stroke (or something like that). Bro and Sister Moss ended up helping them unpack/finish moving for the rest of the day. They ended up becoming great friends have made out to be good friends, along with the mother Inness, slowly incorporating the Gospel into their lives. About 2 hours ago we vistied Inness in the hospital and got to have a good sit down with Inness and Melodee. That was really exciting.
So hopefully we will have some potential investigators on our hands. Polson is awesome. Love it. Keep reading your scriptures, especially you Jared.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Katie writes Parker about her engagement to Aaron
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Oh my gosh. That is absolutely crazy. Aaron told me in that last letter that he sent me that he was going to marry you and also said that it would be soon. I can’t believe I am getting this letter. My mind hasn’t even been thinking about what he said. I completely forgot that he was going to ask you. Way to go! I wish I could write more about all the wedding and everything but we are leaving here in a bit to go scout for some black bears. You realize you have a one-way ticket to the Celestial Kingdom right? As long as you keep all of your covenants. Wow. You will love the temple!
I got a new companion here in Polson and Elder Kesler Tanner left to Billings to become dual Zone leaders with Elder Ty Ashton, who was the missionary who trained Elder Tanner. That has rarely ever happened. What a lucky dog. So.... I am here in Polson with Elder Lindhardt from St. George, Utah. He leaves for home in 6 weeks after this transfer. All of this means that I will stay for another transfer after he leaves. All of THIS means: that I will be here for another 3 months. All of THIS adds up to: I will have served here in Polson for 6 MONTHS!! Wow. Anyway, about my companion: he is small and blonde and is trunky. He talks about going home all the time. He is about 145 lbs and reminds me of a mini Ben Hulse. He quotes movies all the time and does a good impression of Sid the sloth and all the greatest of SNL. He also likes lifting weights, working out all the time, kissing girls (at home), he has a girlfriend who hasn’t been loyal but is still waiting for him, kissing girls, kissing girls while driving his motorcycle going 60 mph, quoting movies, kissing girls, and working out. He is actually really cool and I like him its just that he talks about going home all the time.
I realized that I didn’t write much about the Baptism. It was awesome. We got soo much ward support and everything went smoothly. Both Elder Tanner and I were in the water. Kesler baptized Earl and I baptized Emy. When Emy came up out of the water she was just crying her eyes out. It was very special. They were both glowing. The next day they were confirmed by Patriarch Jensen. He pretty much gave them a patriarchal blessing. it was awesome. They both kept asking (afterwards) if this is what it feels like having the spirit. It was just all around awesome. They are very eager to learn and get to the Temple in a year. They keep calling us waiting to receive, and wondering when, they will get ward callings and when they will have their home teachers come over; etc., etc., etc. They have already started doing Genealogy and are doing Missionary work. Anyway Earl and Emy are doing great and we hope to have a couple of people in the baptismal waters during July. All the details later but one mans’ name is Shaun Robbins. He is the bomb. He is a native and is Wizard master, Nintendo, star wars, Mel brooks, self-role playing, xboxing, almighty, ponytailed, history, GURU. He is the man. He is similar to all history type guys. They all speak in the Monty Python type accent and self role play to themselves. He is awesome and I hope he gets baptized. It would be so awesome. We have taught him restoration and plan of salvation. He will be taught Lesson 3 on Friday. He is sic.
We went out to the Tanners (from mesa az) house on Sunday (Elder Tanners last day) and had dinner. They have the most awesome house with a massive entry gate that says, "Tanner's Treasure." Its insane. They have a brand new 24 ft. Malibu and 3 jet skis. I can’t even explain what their property is like. After we had talked a little about different things a boat drives by and they say, "is that Howie?" and I ask them who Howie is and they say, "its Howie Long. He is one of our good friends up here. We didn’t know he was up for the summer yet." I got to see and hopefully meet in the future: HOWIE FREAKIN LONG. The guys who was an all-star player for the raiders and did all the radio shack commercials and now does all the GM commercials.
That’s about it for now. Gotta go. Polson is awesome. Doing well.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Hey fam.,
We are all in Kalispell. I don’t have much time to write because we are leaving for Glacier Park anytime now. It’s the last Pday of the transfer so I guess we always do something fun the last Pday together. Lots to talk about.We definitely think that one of us will be transferred this Saturday so we will see. I got to meet the whole Tanner family Sunday. Will probably have dinner out at their house sometime this weekend before one of us goes. I guess Chelsea Forans little sister from Gilbert is with them. She said she knew Jared. Sister Tanner looks like she could fit right in on your tennis team with Karen and Kris and all those Mountain View hill billies. By the way we drove by this 63,000 sq ft. house today. It was cool.
I got a letter from Matt Mcdowell the other day. I will send it to you guys but he baptized a lady in a stretcher and he said he hasn’t had a solid stool in about 8 weeks.
Crazy story that I never told you about: there was a crazy guy that we met and he and his wife had us over for dinner. Lots of details that you will one day hear. He called us Sunday and said that things were going real bad and asked us if we were up for an exorcism. and..... last night we drove by where he lives and there were 2 ambulances there and a police car. Crazy. Satan killed both him and his wife.
We are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of President Gardner.
Thank you all to everyone that contributed to the package with all that stuff. It was awesome even though Elder Tanner won’t let me listen to the EFY and church mix cds. I should have told you that those were inappropriate. He did let me (last night) stay up later than usual and finish our risk game with Bro Heskiel because one of us was going to be transferred. I won it.
That’s good to hear about all the stories that you guys had in Utah. I feel bad for the Davidsons and hope all is well over there. I’ll send them a note. Did you hear the MTC is quarantined? They can’t shake hands anymore and are not letting anyone go in and out.
Did I ever tell you that President Fisher served on the navajo res? He speaks fluent navajo and I think served his mission there at the same time grandpa Bob was branch prez.
Tell Jared to expect a good bday present.
Anyway. Onto the stuff that’s going on in Polsen. Our baptism on Saturday. I'm baptizing Emy. Tanner is baptizing Earl. Its gonna be great.I love working with all the Blackfoot, Flathead, Salish, Kootenai, and other cross-breeded indjuns. They are fun to work with but I always thinking to myself,"When are these lazy people going to join the church as it says they will before the 2nd coming in DC." Anyway all is going good here. We just want to see what the new transfer brings. Everyone thinks and bugs me saying I will become an office elder working in the office. No one likes that job.
This is for Chris: thanks for the letter bro. I just wanted to say that there is a 5 year old boy in our ward who had all 13 articles of faith memorized before he was 5. and he has D&C section 4 memorized as well.
love you guys. Tell Baja hi for me. Church is true!
We are all in Kalispell. I don’t have much time to write because we are leaving for Glacier Park anytime now. It’s the last Pday of the transfer so I guess we always do something fun the last Pday together. Lots to talk about.We definitely think that one of us will be transferred this Saturday so we will see. I got to meet the whole Tanner family Sunday. Will probably have dinner out at their house sometime this weekend before one of us goes. I guess Chelsea Forans little sister from Gilbert is with them. She said she knew Jared. Sister Tanner looks like she could fit right in on your tennis team with Karen and Kris and all those Mountain View hill billies. By the way we drove by this 63,000 sq ft. house today. It was cool.
I got a letter from Matt Mcdowell the other day. I will send it to you guys but he baptized a lady in a stretcher and he said he hasn’t had a solid stool in about 8 weeks.
Crazy story that I never told you about: there was a crazy guy that we met and he and his wife had us over for dinner. Lots of details that you will one day hear. He called us Sunday and said that things were going real bad and asked us if we were up for an exorcism. and..... last night we drove by where he lives and there were 2 ambulances there and a police car. Crazy. Satan killed both him and his wife.
We are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of President Gardner.
Thank you all to everyone that contributed to the package with all that stuff. It was awesome even though Elder Tanner won’t let me listen to the EFY and church mix cds. I should have told you that those were inappropriate. He did let me (last night) stay up later than usual and finish our risk game with Bro Heskiel because one of us was going to be transferred. I won it.
That’s good to hear about all the stories that you guys had in Utah. I feel bad for the Davidsons and hope all is well over there. I’ll send them a note. Did you hear the MTC is quarantined? They can’t shake hands anymore and are not letting anyone go in and out.
Did I ever tell you that President Fisher served on the navajo res? He speaks fluent navajo and I think served his mission there at the same time grandpa Bob was branch prez.
Tell Jared to expect a good bday present.
Anyway. Onto the stuff that’s going on in Polsen. Our baptism on Saturday. I'm baptizing Emy. Tanner is baptizing Earl. Its gonna be great.I love working with all the Blackfoot, Flathead, Salish, Kootenai, and other cross-breeded indjuns. They are fun to work with but I always thinking to myself,"When are these lazy people going to join the church as it says they will before the 2nd coming in DC." Anyway all is going good here. We just want to see what the new transfer brings. Everyone thinks and bugs me saying I will become an office elder working in the office. No one likes that job.
This is for Chris: thanks for the letter bro. I just wanted to say that there is a 5 year old boy in our ward who had all 13 articles of faith memorized before he was 5. and he has D&C section 4 memorized as well.
love you guys. Tell Baja hi for me. Church is true!
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