August 5, 2015

Dear Mom and Dad,

So this has been a stressful week. Let me tell you what happened.  So we cleaned up our apartment from top to bottom and stayed up late and got up early to gather records and update our area book, and we cleaned our apartment really well because no Elders would be returning there. We went to our transfer meeting and then two Elders came up to us at the end and slapped a wad of keys in our hands gave us an old crappy phone, told us we had two lesson that night and walked away. So we spent some time waiting in the mission offices so we can find out what to do with our keys and phone, and we still had no idea where we were going. So we found out that we had to personally give our phone and keys to the sisters who had already left the building so we made a trip back home and then packed our stuff into Brother Bakers' truck. We then headed over to Taylorsville UT. We found our place and opened the door to the most disgusting apartment I have seen so far on my mission. I should've taken pictures but I was so mad at the Elders who left it this way. They left so much of their crap everywhere, the place looked like it hadn't been cleaned ever, there was a thick layer of dust and nasties all over the floors and the carpet, our coffee table was broken, there was a disassembled bike in our front room that had left tons of grease stains on the carpet, I cannot even continue describing it. We had to clean for 5 hours that Tuesday and we took out 6 full garbage bags of their crap that we had to just throw away. All the white boards they had here they wrote on with permanent marker so we had to throw those things away too. Oh boy and our area book had nothing in it. we logged into our area and it was completely blank. Many of our recent converts and investigators are children, many of which did not have an address or phone number to find them. We had two people with a baptism date and we had wrong addresses for them and spent all day everyday riding our bike around and finding all these people, to which we had absolutely no success. We had nothing to go off of. I was so frustrated and still am. Our area is pretty cool, but way different than our last area. There is a major highway that runs through our area and there is a Walmart and many other stores and food places. We have a cool little river that also runs through some of our neighborhoods with cool trails and awesome scenery. There are a lot of older people here in this stake. We are managing well though and have biked so much that we know the area quite well now. We cover 6 wards and a care center branch. It is hard to keep track of all these people though. I am so glad that I got to spend my time in the 5th ward for the time when we were so concentrated in our work with only a couple wards. They are all so close to me now and I have really good relationships with them! 

So today we went to a couple of stores, I got really into apple sauce lately which is kind of funny and weird. I bought a lot of those little GoGo resealable applesauces that you see babies munching on. But I am a man and still enjoy them! Anyways, moving on. I finally went to Taylors Bike Shop where I bought my bike and bought a bike pump, a new light and two thorn-proof inner tubes. I made myself a Casadilla for lunch and we are just going to chill around our apartment this Pday because we have no where to go and its raining. 

It is so easy to see why Elder Dawson and I were moved here together, because this place was a mess and needs to have a fresh start. The Elders here baptized way to many kids that will never come to church, they often call them "kiddy dunks" and they make me so frustrated. way to many of the recent converts that we contacted this week told us they didn't even know why they were baptized, and didn't remember a single thing about the church, and their family is all inactive and not supporting these kids coming to church. They just have been making a lot of less actives. We have put to an end a lot of wasted time and things they used to do here. They were not very obedient and still are not. There is no accountability that comes from the missionaries of the other mission and it drives me crazy. I am so glad I was with President Swain in the West mission, its a night and day difference between the two groups of missionaries, and that is why a lot of us "West missionaries" are in the other areas now. We biked 126 km's this week. It is so much easier here though because there are not as many hills here. 

This last week was hard though because of all this new stuff and people and all the responsibility we've been given, but it was a hard week because I found myself thinking of home and school and the future a lot. It seems that time slows down and things get harder the more I think on those things. While I have been here I have been guided to people and places that are formulating my future, many of which things I had not wanted before in my life which leads me to believe I could be guidance from the Holy Ghost. All these things about my future are righteous desires but are I am being pulled and guided contrary to my normal plans of action. I hope you can understand my thought process about these things, especially when I do come home because these plans may seem new to you but I have been thinking and pondering them for quite some time and asking God if they are right. 

I love you all! Here are some pictures! 

Love Elder Patterson 

Us and Brother Baker

Brother Baker made us a Strawberry Pie! So Good!

I am stuck in a desert for two years!! And I'm loving it!

A big overpass that cuts our area in half

The Slack Family

Our new apartment after we cleaned it

July 28, 2015, Transfers

Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry, but this week will be a short email. I am sorry for being so late. It has been a ridiculously busy. Here is the news, so Elder Dawson and I are staying together but we are both leaving the stake and will be serving in the Bennion East Stake in Taylorsville. The sister missionaries will now cover our wards we are now covering. The place we are living in will not house missionaries anymore so we have been super busy today packing and getting things ready. We have been saying a lot of goodbyes as well. I cried a lot today to say the least. I have spent 6 months in the 5th ward and have come to love them so much! We had a scripture study class going strong with less actives going frequently, we had mini missions with the priests and soon leaving elders, and we had many people we were teaching. Many of these members have made their way deep into my heart, especially the Locke family of which I talk so much about. I have been blessed to have stayed in the 5th ward for so long and I know the Locke family had a great deal to do with it. I even wrote them a song about how they and their home are like a home away from home for me because I can feel the Spirit so strongly there with them and they treat me so good and take care of me. I have loved every second getting to know them and serving them. I even pruned their tree in their yard! Haha I can't wait to come back and visit them, along with many others. I also gain a deeper love of this place each day and my hopes to come to school here are increasing. I know there is a lot for me that this place can offer! And it would be so neat to be this close to people I have worked with on my mission. Well we are moving in the morning and I have no idea where we are going and where we will be staying and we know absolutely nothing about our new area. It will be super fun! :) thank you for your emails today. Today was good though. I made a lot of really good memories today and took some pictures this weekend with people here. I love you all so much! 

Love Elder Patterson 

The Locke family on Last Pday (left to right: Sister Pam Locke, Hannah, Lisa, me, Brother James Locke)

 The Gubler family, these are their girls we love to spend time with when we have dinner

 Sean Campbell, I've been with him from the first lesson and to now where he is reactivated into the church, what a blessing it is to see such a change of heart

We played Volleyball and had a water fight today with our 9th Ward mission leader and their neighbors who are all from inactive families, this is some of the Daley family. It is so hard to see such valiant young men and young women who have to go to church by themselves without the support of their parents. We have been teaching a lot of people like that in our area. Those numbers don't count but I know and can feel they make a difference so I will continue to look for those opportunities to inspire and bless the lives of these people as long as I am here. I will miss this stake so much. 

July 20, 2015, 24 hours in a Day!

Dear Family and Friends,

I feel like I am at the point in my mission already where it is more scary and weird to think about coming home than anything else. I often find myself saying "when I get home..." but I can only say that now because I am still far enough away from home that it doesn't bother me. This Stake that I am in feels more like home now. I am closer to these people in this Stake than I have been to the people in my Stake back home because I am serving them and the Spirit can seal friendships faster and stronger than anything else. I am very anxious for transfers next week because I have come to love these people with all my heart and there are so many new opportunities each day to serve and get to know new people who so easily make their way into my heart. I know I have been blessed with a capacity to love others in quiet, unnoticeable  ways and I have sought out those opportunities while I am here, and my charity grows each day by doing these small simple things. I have written a few anonymous letters to some of the people we're working with or members who have just been on my mind lately and who need encouragement.  In them I share a few scriptures, along with my honest insight into their lives and examples that they are to me, then I sign the letter "Sincerely, your friend." We sat with these two sisters on Sunday in the 9th Ward to whom I had given the night before one of those letters. They are such dedicated and strong spirits, for they are the only two in their family who go to church, their parents are in-active and want nothing to do with the church. It breaks my heart to see so many wonderful saints struggling here, stuck in their circumstances, and in my capacity as a missionary I can't help them, so as a quiet and anonymous friend I try to uplift, encourage, inspire and bless their lives. While we sat in church I noticed these two sisters pull my note out during the meeting and read it. It brought tears to their eyes and they quietly were trying to find out who it was, they went around asking people but they couldn't find out who, as I just sat there quietly beside them. The more I serve without recognition, the more I love these people and don't want to leave. Our numbers have dropped a lot and these people in this stake are struggling a lot, and my heart aches for them, I want to serve here forever. That is some of my greatest reason for returning here very soon after my mission. There is a great work happening here, but my ways are not the Lord's and His will for this area and this people are better than mine. I have grown so much in these last few months. I am very excited and enthusiastic about the work and I absolutely love teaching now! I've seen much of my Patriarchal Blessing come to pass here in this area. I have been so blessed to have been here this long and to gain such relationships as I have. I have really come to love these people and I can't describe it or stop talking about it! It will be a very sad day when I have to leave though, because eventually I will have to. My talking and social skills have grown a lot as well, and I just seem to have an instant love for people as I meet them. 

Elder Dawson, my companion is from Gilmore, Texas, and has a decent accent. He is a very patient and humble man. He has gone through a lot of trials in his life that would cause me to waver a lot, but he has remained strong in the church and is now serving a mission, which he has been out for almost 6 months on. He makes serving very easy, for he and I are obedient and work hard together. He is amazing at guitar as well! He was home schooled and spent all of his free time playing guitar in his room. He loves Brad Paisley and can play a lot of his stuff. 

Also I bought some stuff to make cookies and I made a couple of plates for some families in our wards. I made a sweet, three tiered box that attaches to my bike. I bought a small carrying thing on the back of my bike which just sit above the back tire. I strapped this box on the bike and we went and delivered these cookies. That was fun! Oh and we got little odometers for our bikes so I know how long I ride for, how far, and how fast! So this week We travelled over 97 Kilometers and my max speed was 47.7 Km/h. Its so awesome! Seriously I think my legs have grown a little, because we've been biking like that for 5 weeks now. 

We all have 24 hours in a day, if you use that time wisely or not doesn't change the hours in a day. We meet many people who say they are too busy, that their schedule is too crazy and that they just don't have the time. What I want to say to that is something Mom would often tell me, and that is just 'Bologna!!!" We all have the same time to serve those around us and to ultimately serve God, so why is it that some have ample time to give of themselves and others don't? It all depends on where their heart is, where their priorities lie, and what sign they wish to show their Heavenly Father. For a long time I was the one who came up with excuses, who "didn't" have time, I was very selfish and wasted a lot of my time on youthful, diminished and selfish goals and pursuits. I could've served more wholly in my callings and served those around me, especially my family. I want you all to know that I am working right now; that I am serving and giving everything I have been given, including my time, talents and other resources, to bless the wonderful sons and daughters of God here in this valley. I am working and becoming more of a man of God, who will sacrifice a lot more for you when I return home because I have come to love you all more since I've been gone. Your voices ring throughout my mind and heart everyday and I am often reminded of your kind and heavenly gestures of love towards me in the past. I love you all so very much and am blessed to have come to your family to be blessed by your friendship and time. I don't know what I would've done without you all. You have shaped me into the man I am today by your examples that I try to emulate. Please don't take for granted the blessing of time your Heavenly Father has given you. Please use every waking and free moment to serve, both in small and large means, for you never know how much of an impact you can have for good in someone else's life, so why take the chance not to be that blessing in someone's life? I promise you that the time you make in your 24 hours to serve others will change your heart, your mind, your will, and your life. Charity is the pure love of Christ, and without it we are nothing, so please learn from my bad example and serve now while it is yet easy, for we can all do more. :) 

Love Elder Patterson 

My three-tiered Cookie transporting box 

 This is Matt Roy who was just baptized before I got here and we are working with him every week, he is awesome! His son photo-bombed the picture.

Arianna and Andy Cook from my first area! Remember the Cooks? 

Pictures

Here are some pictures of Rob throughout the first few months of his mission. He sent some of these photos home and I thought it would be good to share some of them on here. The sure show Rob's fun loving spirit and the hard work that he is doing on his mission. We are grateful for his example of service to the Lord.

 Rob showing off his muscles in his new All Blacks jersey from New Zealand

He was so happy to get snow. His companion thought he was crazy, but Rob was glad to have snow.

 Rob thought it was funny that people had their sprinklers on even though it was raining

That's all for now. I will post more as I get them from Rob.

June 29, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

Well this email will probably be composed very quickly so I apologize in advance for grammatical errors. I will try my best to let you know what is going on here. I often forget that I know what is going on and I seem to assume you do as well based off my limited correspondence we have each week. So Let me first say this, I really love it here, so much in fact I wouldn't mind coming to school here and living here for a bit. There are so many cool things to do here and I know a lot of people now to whom I have grown close to, having been so condensed in our areas these last few months. It will be a sad change to not be able to get to know people as well because we are moving from one set of missionaries covering each ward to one set covering a stake. So we sometimes still go over to sister Bennett’s home to get haircuts or to have lunch with their family. We have been biking all day now. We cannot afford to waste time walking. I am so glad to have Elder Dawson as a companion because physically he is able to keep up and do all this work still. It is a blessing to have bodies that work and function so that we can push God's work forward through our actions as well as our words. So today we actually went golfing in the morning! There is a course right at the top of the hill in our area and Elder Dawson and I, our landlord brother Baker, and the Spanish missionaries went and we had a blast! We did 9 holes and I actually didn't do too bad! I still have it in me Dad! I shot a 43 out of a 36 par course and got the lowest score out of all of us! That was enjoyable. We will have to go back here one day Dad and Greg! Yeah so moral of this first paragraph is that I will be coming back lots to this area! I love it here and the people here have a special place in my heart.

One family that I really love is the Locke family. Brother and Sister Locke are so cool and I love them so much! They love to do cool things and we are going over there today in a bit to play board games. Sister Locke is from Germany, and her and her mother are the only members in their family. Kind of reminded me of you mom! They are Primary workers and have struggled in the past with coming to church, which at one point they were considered to be less active. But Their middle daughter has such a strong, valiant spirit about her she pushed and pushed her father to be baptized, and so they all took the lessons from the missionaries and Brother Locke got to baptize his wife, and two of his daughters! They are strong in the gospel now but as we know, every family has their trials. We got to know them a little at church but Sister Locke wanted us to come by again because her mother was coming to visit from Germany for a few weeks, and they were stressed and frustrated with their oldest daughter who was getting married, graduating and having a birthday all in one week, which happened to be the same week Sister Locke's mother came to town. So they invited us to escape from their hectic life and feel the Spirit. We also helped their mother because she was struggling back in Germany with living the gospel. So we have gone over there weekly and taught lessons to their oldest daughter and their mother and have struck up a really awesome friendship. I have been given opportunities to play guitar and sing for them some of the gospel songs I wrote on my mission. They really appreciated that because it is a good way to bring the Spirit into the room. I've been learning more hymns now and playing those for some dinner messages and things. The guitar I bought here is really crappy though and sucks to play. I love the Locke family and they have become really good friends since the time I came into this area in February. I hope to stay here a lot longer. This is a really awesome stake and we have a lot of good things going here. We have started last week with our scripture study class about the Book of Mormon. It’s really fun and I hope to be an institute teacher of seminary teacher one day. I have really come to like teaching the gospel and find my joy in that! I have come to love and reverence the scripture and find excitement explaining and teaching others about its wonderful influence and possibility of power in their lives. We also got permission from our Stake President and our bishops to start a Missionary Mentor Program. This is where we have a priest age young man preparing or wavering from a mission to spend the weekend with us. We have Ethan Salazar from the 5th ward come with us this last weekend. We had him from Friday at 6 to Sunday at 4. It was the best thing ever! It is so cool to mentor and prepare these young men who just like me struggled before a mission with a lot of things. We had a lot of fun! He got to experience very many aspects of missionary life. He went to bed at the same time and woke up, studied, and left the apartment and biked all day with us in the hot sun! oh yeah by the way it has been over a 100 degrees here for like two weeks straight and still coming strong! It is so hot and I am so gross all of the time. My shirts and pants are just soaking wet all day and I have to carry a bottle of water everywhere I go. I am kind of getting used to it now though. I will be celebrating Canada Day and Independence Day this week! That will be fun!

Well I hope you have a great week! Talk to you next! 

Love Elder Patterson

Elder McRae (left)  leaving for his new area, and Elder Dawson and I

Franziska Pulga, Sister Locke's mother

The new mission map, (magna and hunter are our area now, and the new boundaries are what it will be later this week) 

June 1, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

 So this last week I have made some purchases and have also received those packages. It was a crazy week and felt like forever since we didn't really get a P-day. But I am very happy today because we are going over to the Turnbulls where the other two sets of missionaries live and we will have a free lunch and water fight because it is 87 degrees today which is about 31 degrees Celsius. It has gotten really hot here and is supposed to get into the 90's soon. Ugh it’s pretty dry and hot. Thank you for all the work you do for me, for your thoughts and prayers. I really need them and have been receiving the strength and help I need every day. There were a couple of very hard days this last week, I am still struggling with sleep and when I am tired, sick, hungry, frustrated, stressed, it makes it so much easier to falter and to give into weaknesses. I am being tested a lot here because I am always hungry, tired, stressed, and so on. haha I take that as a compliment. I am praying and hoping I get to stay here in this area for a long time. We are starting a scripture study class and I based the curriculum on the Book of Mormon stories. Here is the study I came up with: 

Scripture study class: Book of Mormon Stories (45 minutes @ Bennetts)

Lesson 1: introduction to the Book of Mormon (Introduction p, d'uh)

Lesson 2: Nephi obtains the brass plates, bound by brothers and is freed by faith (1 Nephi 3-4; 7:6-21)

Lesson 3: Lehi’s vision of the tree of life, Nephi interprets his father’s dream (1 Nephi 8; 15:21-36)

Lesson 4: the liahona, Nephi’s bow breaks, building the ship and traveling to the promised land (1 Nephi 16:10, 26-29; 16:17-32; 17-18)

Lesson 5: sherem demands a sign, Enos prays for forgiveness (Jacob 7-1-23; Enos 1:1-18)

Lesson 6: sermon of king Benjamin (Mosiah 2-5)

Lesson 7: abinadi preaches to king Noah, alma escapes and teaches in private, Gideon's pursuit and king Noah's death by fire (Mosiah 12-16; 17-18; 19)

Lesson 8: conversion of alma the younger, sons of Mosiah leave for missions (Mosiah 27; 28:1-9)

Lesson 9: Alma and amulek preach in amonihah (Alma 8-14)

Lesson 10: Ammon’s service and conversion of king Lamoni and his father (Alma 17-23)

Lesson 11: anti Nephi Lehi’s bury their weapons of war, Ammon glories in the lord (Alma 24,26)

Lesson 12: captain Moroni overcomes zerehemnah, title of Liberty, two thousand stripling warriors (Alma 44,46,53,56-57)

Lesson 13: Nephi and Lehi are freed from prison by the power of God, Nephi exposes the murder of the chief judge (Helaman 5,8-9)

Lesson 14: Samuel the lamanite, signs of Christ's birth and death, Christ's ministry (Helaman 13-16; 3 Nephi 1:15-21; 3 Nephi 8:5-23; 3 Nephi 11-28)

Lesson 15: jaredites, coriantumer see the destruction of his people (Ether 1-3,6)

Lesson 16: moronis teachings and exhortations, he bids farewell (Moroni 4,5,6,7,10)

So yeah naturally I am excited to start this! We will extend invitations to those not coming to church for various reasons, those preparing for missions, and those we feel could use help understanding the scriptures. We are going to use this as a finding activity where members and those we are working with may invite others to come join, hopefully. haha We have had much success when we started this transfer and now there is only few people left who are really going to hit the goals we set with them. L. Rodriguez has fallen off date because of him kind of dropping off the map. He came to church yesterday with his family and so many people also came! We had gone to go visit people on Saturday and had five lessons that night and all who we invited came to church! We had been having troubles getting people out to church so a while back we set a goal of 7 returning members to church and 5 lessons to less active members and we had 9 come to church and we had 9 lessons! This week was sweet! We just are lacking in our finding, so we are trying to find some people through this class we will be holding at the Bennett’s. So yeah I love the Bennett’s. Their home feels like home, it is so weird and they treat the missionaries like royalty, well sister Bennett does. haha she makes us food and goodies and helps us with all these things we try to do in their ward. She is the Relief Society President and her husband is our Ward Mission Leader. So we spend some time there correlating and stuff. Oh and mom, Swamp Coolers are good in dry climates, and is cheaper but there is a lot of upkeep and maintenance that goes into them. Ummm we have finally been able to help this guy who is living with M. Peterson (one of our investigators) with his back yard and his projects around the home. Before he wouldn't even be in the same room as us. He invited us to a BBQ this last Saturday and he made stuffed burgers! My burger had mac and cheese in it! It was so good! We shared a message and he kind of walked away while we did so, but he is coming slowly. It is a very difficult situation. He is a return missionary and had kind of went south since that happened, but his girlfriend is an investigator we work with every week and she makes great progress and wants to be baptized and married in the temple but she can't progress until they get married. And they won’t because He is not ready to be back in church. It sucks for her but we still won’t give up on them because we love them! One of his daughters taught me how to do a cartwheel. They are all very good at dancing and gymnastics and stuff.  That is all this week! Thank you for all that you do back home for me again. This music is great and I am listening to it right now! I love you all! 

Love Elder Patterson