Week 33, March 27, 2017

Hey guys! I had a great week this week. We were able to find more people to

add to our teaching pool and our current investigators are still

staying strong.

This week we met a guy from Africa who was taught by the missionaries.

He came here to go to college and that's where we met him actually. We

invited him to church and he was stoked to go. He came, and in gospel

principals we taught about priesthood. He had some questions so we

decided to teach a lesson to answer his questions. He's a real sincere guy

looking for the truth and he thinks he's found it. I'm really excited

to see what's in store for him in the future.

This morning Elder Lutz and I went on a hike and saw the sunrise.

Afterwards we went to a Chinese cafe and I ate a Chinese pancake with

chopsticks!

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 31, March 14, 2017

Hi Everyone

I'm sorry I didn't get to write a letter home to everyone

last week. Last week was super busy and I was running around

everywhere. What I didn't get to tell you guys though, was that

transfers came and I didn't get moved to a new place but I got a new

companion and another ward to cover. Now I'm over two wards. I'm still

over the same ward, Creekside, but the new Ward is the San Gabriel

Valley YSA. It's pretty cool. I went to both sacrament meetings this

Sunday and the energy of the two are complete opposites.

I'm adjusting a lot quicker to the new Ward than I thought

I would.

I've met a lot of people who know my friends back home and I've

actually met people who I know from back home. It's weird to see them

as a missionary.  The last time I saw them I wasn't. I'm excited to

serve with them and to be a missionary in their ward.

This week I got a phone call from some Elders and they were asking me

about Steven Pacheco. They wanted some information on him because he

had walked into their sacrament meeting. Steven Pacheco was baptized

in my first area and I had gotten pretty close to him over the time

that he had been taking the lessons. I got emergency transferred

though, so I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him. Apparently

Steven moved and he went to his new Ward that he moved into. I never

was able to contact him or hear anything about him so I was super

worried that he would stop coming to church and go less active. It was

way cool to get that call from the other Elders telling me that Steven

is still going strong and going to church.

Also I left our window open at night to cool off and I think someone got

sprayed by a skunk or something.  It stunk!

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 29, February 27 2017

Not a lot of progress has been going on this week. We can't find out a

way to progress our current investigators and we can't find any new

investigators that keep appointments or commitments. Just the constant

struggle of a missionary.

This week we did some service for this really cool family that we've

been teaching. We didn't have enough time to teach them because we

were running super late. We had just enough time to help them before 

we had to hit the road. It felt so good to do some

service for these people. We're going over to again this week to do

some service and it's going to be the highlight of my week!

Transfers are next week so I may be moving too.

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 28, February 21, 2017

Heya guys! This week was really fun with all the weather. It's was a
pretty bad storm but I wasn't in the worst part and we had
appointments inside most of the day so we didn't have a lot of walking
around to do to get wet. I also got sick this week. I think it was
food poisoning. The wardwas pretty cool because they really went out of their 
way to help me out when I didn't feel good. One lady told me to drink some
green tea... another lady stopped by and gave me some medicine.
This morning we went to a Buddhist temple. An Elder in our apartment
was called here to speak Chinese but got switched to English this last
transfer. He was feeling a little home sick so he took us to the
Buddhist temple and we found other missionaries there and it was super
cool.

Week 27, February 13 2017

Week 26, February 6, 2017

Hi guys!

 Not a lot has happened this past week with investigators.
Patrick and Chica are doing great as new members of the Creekside
Ward. Patrick blessed the sacrament for the first time which he was
really happy about, and Chica is excited to receive a calling from the
ward. We are getting started with family history and she's excited to go
do baptisms for the dead at the temple for her family.
Yesterday was the super bowl and a family had us over for the pregame
feast. We had ribs and they were so good! Afterwards we left and did
our missionary work. It was super cool because with each new
investigator or less active we stopped at they would tell us about the
game and what had happened in between them and the people we were at
before. Everyone was too excited for the game and they were all busy.

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 25, January 30, 2017

It happened this week! After many obstacles and trials Chica got
baptized. Her baptism was on Saturday. She was confirmed a member this
Sunday.  We've been teaching for a long time now and it's so cool to
see her experience all the way through. She's been wanting to get
baptized for awhile now but because of some family complications she
hasn't been able to. She managed to over come those obstacles in her
life and do what she wanted to do. It was a great experience.

Our investigators are getting there. Slow but steady. Just trying to
find some more people on top of the people we're teaching already.
We're teaching some part member families but they're a struggle. One
family can't seem to make it out to church but the parents talked to the
bishop about getting sealed in the temple. All they have to do is make
it out to church but they just seem to get there. They have a 

ten years old and he wants to be baptized but that requires his
parents to bring him to church. Sooooooo. Idk I don't get them. 
The other family won't let their 15 year old daughter get baptized until
she's 18 and can make the choice on her "own". Actually it's the dad that
won't let her and he's a member. The mom goes to church every
week. The dad stopped going and he moved out too. It's complicated.

It's back to short sleeve weather here. I heard form someone that

Utah is breaking records for the coldest winter in awhile.

Stay warm.

Elder Madsen 🐡