I am going to be a Father!

Don't let the subject line freak you out! In the mission, we refer to our trainer as dad and his trainer grandpa. I am the second son for Elder Ihler and my grandpa just went home. During our trainer-trainee meeting this week, President Stone got up right before we were closing the meeting and said, "I have got this impression about two times during the course of this meeting. All you 21 trainees will be trainers in your mission. Some of you will even train right out of your training." CRAZY! I was so shocked!! Training is only for 2 transfers (12 weeks). I could be a dad next transfer!!!!

I wanted to thank everyone for the birthday wishes! I will email or mail you each separately, so be watching for a note! I had a great birthday out in the mission field and met one of the coolest RCLA's yet! I will tell you about him later but again I love y'all and thank you so much for making my birthday special!

Transfer calls came in this week and it looks like I will be staying with Elder Ihler in Paducah!!   That was pretty cool! Our district is getting three Elders and one sister. The zone leaders are going to trio train. I hope they get Elder White so I can go on an Exchange with him. He will be here today! I am so stoked for him! He will love the people out here in Kentucky or Tennessee, that is cool too.

We did a lot of service hours this week.  I must say, I love it! Proselytizing is great work and all, but service takes me away from the grind and refreshes me. We built a deck for Sister Coakly's mom while it was super humid. I loved every minute of it!  I am kind of liking the humid heat better than the dry heat. I haven't really built something like a deck before so it was fun to learn how to do it all. We also helped the Fredricks lay some mulch and clean out their garage. Sister Fredrick and I had a great talk. It was so great to hear her story. I just love hearing people's stories and how they came to the church. I am so glad I choose to serve a mission so I can learn all of these life long skills! Not only that but it is a marvelous testimony builder.

So that RCLA, Tony, we learned a lot yesterday about him. He is in the hospital for some heart issues and we visited for almost 2 hours. He has had pretty high up callings in the church and loves temples. He and his family started to not attend church which led to his family dissolving. He told us this, " Once you know the truth, you will never find happiness outside the gospel." He said that with so much power and the spirit hit me like, whoa! He told us to always stay in church and do your everyday homework assignments like read the scriptures, pray, and go to church. He said if you do that then you will live with your family for eternity in happiness. I can testify that what he said is true. I have seen families dissolve and suffer from not following the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have not only seen it in Kentucky but in Montana and Utah. Satan is targeting families even stronger because he knows that's how he can make people miserable. Don't let him win. We must obey what the prophets say so we can make it to eternal bliss.

Oh, also yesterday was Bailey Ball's baptism! She is 8 years old and lives in a part member household. We hope the rest of her family to be baptized! We meet with them tonight for dinner so wish us luck! :)

That is it for this week folks, see ya next Pday!

Elder Quiring

P.S. To all my friends going off to college this week .... send me your new college addresses so I can send a letter! Good luck!!

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From Elder Ihler

Hey everyone! So it is crazy to think that I have been out 13 months today! I keep thinking 11 months is a long ways away, but then I think about how I felt at 11 months and how fast that went by! Where does the time go!?! Haha Sorry again for the email last week being very short. This past week flew by! So Ashley Ball unfortunately fell back into some old habits and could not be baptized this past Saturday. We are continuing to work with her and her husband is being a great example to her. He gave an awesome talk on Sunday in sacrament about personal worthiness. I know that the atonement is real and no matter how many times we fall back into bad habits, Christ is still there ready to help us. That is why his sacrifice is called an "Eternal Sacrifice" Alma 34:10. No beginning and no end, his atonement in that period of time that he went through reaches out to everyone who ever has or ever will live. I love my Savior Jesus Christ and know that he cares about each and every one of us. I will now go ahead and let y'all know what this past week was like.

Monday
The Zone Leaders, Elder HInds and Elder Judd came down. Elder Hinds and I were MTC Companions. We went to an outdoors store and met a few ladies there that were pretty interested. One lady named Lesley especially loved talking to us and she had so many questions which was awesome! At the end of our P-day we got a ride down to Mayfield, Kentucky to have a sleep over with the Mayfield Elders. President approved us to stay the night there because we were going to have an early morning. We got to their apartment and they were still about a half hour away and their door was locked, but their window was unlocked so we crawled through that. Then we sat there in the dark and waited to scare them when they got back. It was pretty funny when they came in and realized something was up because they saw Elder Quiring's bag on the couch. We did nightly planning and then Elder Wadsworth and I talked for a little while before we had to go to bed at 10:30. He came out with me and he is from Idaho too.

Tuesday
We woke up bright and early. I had to sleep on the floor and luckily Elder Wadsworth had a blanket that he let me use to keep the spiders off of me. I used my church shoes for a pillow. haha come to find out, Elder Quiring had an extra pillow on the couch with him. Lol I made a pretty sick breakfast. They let me have free reign in the kitchen and so we had eggs, pancakes, sausage, and oranges. We loaded up in their Branch President's wife's truck and headed to Nashville, Tennessee for Trainer/Trainee meeting. Elder Wadsworth's companion also came out with Elder Quiring. We had a training by President Stone and had a fun meeting. Thank goodness they shortened it. When I went to it for myself and when I trained Elder Story we had to go there from 8:00 - 4:00. A few days before the meeting they emailed us and let us know it would only be from 9:00 - 1:00. Sitting that long in a suit with the humidity isn't all that fun. After we got back to Mayfield, Jacob Frederich picked us up and we went to his house to eat and then we went and taught a few lessons with him. One I would like to share is a recent convert named Humberto Hernandez. Jacob actually had the opportunity to baptize him right before his mission. Humberto is from Guatemala and he walked all the way from there to Paducah, Kentucky! It made me think of the pioneers and I am so grateful for what they did in the early days of the church. It was amazing to find out that Humberto did that to have a better life and to help his family out. It is crazy.

Wednesday
District Meeting went great and we had fun taking District Photos afterwards. Jacob Frederich came out with us again and we got free snow cones from a guy who owns the snow shack here in Paducah. He was excommunicated at 26 after marriage in the temple and everything. It was sad to hear how somebody could have such a testimony and then lose it because of worldly desires and passions. He said that he has thought about coming back but that it would be too big of a lifestyle change that he isn't willing to make. We taught a lady named Laura and when I testified about how I found out for myself that the Book of Mormon was true before my mission, the spirit was so strong for me personally. I hope she felt it too, but if anything it was awesome to have the Holy Ghost speak to me and let me know that what I was saying was true. We had an investigator show up at the church Wednesday night before Book of Mormon study to do family history! He and his cousin came and they enjoyed and appreciated the help they received.

Thursday
We did service at Sister Schneider's. Her husband and her son have medical issues and the farm over the past 12 years has really overgrown. Being down here in the humidity stuff overgrows real quick. We worked on the deck and got it almost finished. I am grateful that my dad taught me how to work and future things out. Because Brother Schneider came out and was being very particular on how the deck was built and I totally understood him and was able to make it no problem. It was a lot of fun. I can't wait to finish it. Their son has been in a wheelchair thing for about 12 years and isn't able to talk or communicate really at all. He has mainly been stuck in the house. When the deck is done they will be able to take him out there so that he can enjoy the fresh air, sunlight, and beauty :) Service makes me feel so good :) If you ever want a pick me up, go serve someone!!!

Friday
It was Elder Quring's birthday, so I made him breakfast and gave it too him to eat in his bed :) That was always a tradition in my family so I wanted to do that. It turns out it was a tradition in his family
too so it worked out great! Haha We did a lot of weekly planning which is never the funnest thing in the world but it is important to make sure where you are going for the next week. Ryan Rice took us out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant and they cooked all the food in front of us. It was sweet! We were told by the Stake Presidency that somebody in the stake was at the baptist hospital and they asked if we could go visit him. His name was Tony Jones and he really appreciated our visit. He is only 53 and has congestive heart failure or whatever you call it. He wasn't ready for this, I can tell that he is scared, but he want to change his life and become more active in church whether he gets better or not. He has a  very strong spirit and testimony.

Saturday
We helped the Frederich's out for a little while. We laid week fabric down and spread mulch and it was a ton of fun because I did that a lot back home with my dad! There were a lot of things this week that made me think of my family and how much I love them. A Recent convert in the ward has missed church the last couple weeks so we went by to see how she was doing. She said that she has been sick, she loved our visit though and said that he invited a friend to church! Member missionary work is the best.

Sunday
We went with Brother Steffen to the nursing home to pick up Danny Stark for church. Again, it is such a miracle that we found him. The ward lost track of him and because we were helping out with BINGO and introduced ourselves as the missionaries, he was found and now wants to come to church every week! Also at church the less active that missed the last couple weeks was there to teach Gospel Principles. After church we prepared for Bailey Ball's baptism. Ashley was going to get baptized on the same day but ended up not being able to like I said in the beginning. Watching her 8 year old daughter get baptized I think meant a lot to her though and will hopefully give her a boost to work towards baptism even harder and to try again. Us missionaries were asked to do the confirmation. Elder Judd performed it and Elder HInds, Elder Quiring, and I stood in. It was very powerful. During the blessing Bailey's 9 year old sister Cami was crying :) I can't wait for Ashley, the mom, to be baptized. We had dinner with the Bishop's family and then went to the hospital again to visit Tony Jones. We read a scripture with him and it meant a lot to him. 1 Nephi 22:31

We are going fishing today and hopefully we catch something!!! I love
y'all and hope all is well.

Love,

Elder Ihler