Week 59

Friends and family 

Happy Halloween! If anyone knows where the origins of Halloween come from feel free to let me know! Haha this week was awesome and full of miracles!

So we have a new investigator that is on a baptismal date!!!! Malinda is an older lady who was in the women's shelter and the missionaries helped the shelter out with something one day and met her. But they couldn't teach her there. She had a stroke a bit ago and has gone through a lot in her life. She just got moved into a new apartment and the sheltered had called us and asked if we could pick some stuff up and drop it off at an apartment for them. And it was Malinda! This was a couple weeks ago and then this week we had a lesson with her and it went awesome! She loved and believed everything we taught her. She accepted the invitation to be baptized on November 26th! So that's pretty cool! We went back again on Thursday and had a plan of salvation lesson with her and a member from our Ward and it went really good too. She even read some of the Book of Mormon! She's awesome and it's so cool how she was put in our path!

We did a lot of tracting and dock tracting and it was actually really fun! We had some good times and got to talk to a lot of guys at the docks that had been all over their world in their boats. Weirdly enough the guys at the docks are the coolest!

Friday was pretty cool! We were going to teach Liza but we had the feeling to go try some else really quick before to drop something off and then we went to Liza's and it was so cool because we caught her right before she was walking out her back porch to smoke! The lord knows what time we need to be places!! We really wanted to focus on the priesthood and giving her a blessing to overcome her addictions and I got the opportunity to give her a blessing and it went really good! She has stopped drinking alcohol which is a good start! But it was such a cool lesson with her! After we went to our dinner which was with the barco family and they are really less active but love to feed us and sister barco had her friend over who wasn't a member and she was going through a lot and didn't know if she was going to have a miscarriage or not so sister barco asked if we could give a blessing to non members and we said of course we can! So we had a quick little lesson about the priesthood and asked who she would like to give it and she said me! So I got the opportunity to give 2 blessings Friday night! It was so cool! I told elder lee he is taking the next 2 now haha! 

On Saturday we were at the martins house with a lot of the members and we shot arrows at pumpkins! Haha it was super fun with lots of good food! 

Sunday was the primary program at sacrament meeting and it was awesome! I think it was the most people I had ever seen come! We got to meet a lot of new people! Sadly Liza and Malinda didn't come which was a bummer but we will work on getting them to come this next week!

"Opposition permits us to grow toward what our Heavenly Father would have us become."

D&C 122:7

Through all mortal opposition, we have God’s assurance that He will “consecrate [our] afflictions for [our] gain” (2 Nephi 2:2).

I love you all and I'm thankful for everything you do for me!

Love, Elder Fawson

Week 58

Friends and family!

Well this week was great! Haha Elder Lee got here safe and sound but it took forever! We didn't have to good of weather at the beginning of the week and we went to pick him up at 6:45 Tuesday night and the airport was dead.... we walked in to ask what happened and they said the flight was canceled. So we tried calling the APs and nothing and finally president called and said he would would fly in at 10:15 that night. Later we got a call that flight was cancelled... haha so finally president called us and said he would fly in the next morning at 8:30 and he finally got here!!! Haha he was at the airport for 5 hours till they went and picked him up again! Elder bacon got to palmer safe and sound also! 

Anyway we had a good week! We got to have a lesson with Liza Peterson who is one date and came to church yesturday!!! It was awesome and the Ward has assigned her visiting teachers to go over periodically! It's awesome! She is doing good we are just helping her through the word of wisdom challenges.

We met a lady a couple weeks ago while tracting and she told us that she wasn't interested but that we should go back and she would give us cookies!... so we took her up on it! We went back Thursday and she didn't have any cookies so she said come back Friday.... so we went back Friday and she made us super good cookies and had just had a bunch of wood delivered so we asked if we could stack if for her and she said she would love it! So we went back Saturday and she made us lunch too! It was make and build your own pizzas and it was awesome! She taught us to toss the dough also! Haha and we are trying to squeeze the gospel in whenever we can! I strategically "accidentally forgot" my Book of Mormon there so hopefully she finds and reads it! 

We did lots of tracting down at the docks this week and we found a bunch sea lions! They are sweet! I dared Elder Lee to go poke it! Haha (don't worry mom I wasn't being serious)! Haha but it's fun to talk with all the hard core fisher guys! Weirdly enough they are all super nice!

We have been just trying lots of new ways of finding so hopefully we can find some new people that need the gospel in kodiak! Thank you for everything you all do for me!!

"Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith."

Love, Elder Fawson

Week 57

Friends and family!

Well this week was pretty good! It started out really wet! We got the aftermath of a hurricane 5 times the size of hurricane Mathew from the Bering sea! There was a bunch of flooded roads but that's about it! Nothing too bad! It was cool to see the weather though! The second half of the week was awesome though! It reminded elder bacon and I that there's rainbows after rain!

On Friday we got transfer calls and elder bacon is leaving to palmer and I will be getting elder lee! He is from Washington and is such a cool guy! This will actually be his last transfer so I will be "killing him off!" Hopefully he doesn't get me too trunky!!

We had a really awesome day Wednesday tracting! We went to the backwoods area and tracted and it was actually semi successful! We met a lot of cool people! We taught a couple door step lessons which is always a good thing and they invited us back! We actually ran into this dog that ended up following us for like 5 houses and when we would knock on the door he just sat there and so it threw the people off a little bit and then in the middle of the conversation they'd ask us is that your dog?!! Haha it was so funny to explain the situation! But that night we actually had found out that there was a public service announcement sent out that there was 2 males in he exact same area we were and that they were trying to break into houses! So we aren't sure if they were thinking us or the heck happened but crazy!!

Friday we got to do some service so that was really fun! We went and helped Manuel take out some windows then went and helped put out pumpkins for the fair! It was pretty cool!

Saturday we went to visit a part member family and as soon as we were about to leave they asked if we wanted to carve pumpkins with them and we couldn't pass up the opportunity so we got to carve some pumpkins!

Overall this week was really good! I'm super excited for this next transfer. We didn't get as many lessons as we would have liked to but we got some more tracting practice in!

Thanks for everything you all do for me! Love you all! 

"Some things can only be learned by faith"

2 nephi 2:2

Love, Elder Fawson

Week 56

Friends and family!!

Hey there everyone! Hope everyone had a good week wherever you were. This week was good!

On Monday we went to this place called pasagsak! It was way cool and we went to the beach called fossil beach! I have lots of pictures for y'all.

So with my family moving over the last weekend I thought I had gotten out of moving!... nope I didn't! The lord didn't want that to happen! Haha so on Tuesday we got the opportunity to help the Thompsons move and they are a really awesome family and it was good to get to know them.

Friday we had zone meeting and it was awesome! It was a little different since we had to skype in! Haha but it was really good! We talked a lot about the importance of members. 

Tuesday we got a call from president Robinson asking what the best hotels in kodiak were and if we could get the numbers for him and he told us he hadn't ever been to kodiak before and this is the only weekend they will have time too so they decided to come out! President and sister Robinson flew in Friday afternoon and left Sunday afternoonafter church. It was really cool because we got to go to the nicest restaurant here in kodiak with them! It was good food! Haha so they know the schwantes family here so Saturday they got a tour of the island from them and then they came to our Ward mission leader meeting that night and it was awesome to have them there! Sunday they came to church with us! It was so cool to have them come out Andrew kodiak! They are awesome and it so cool to see how much they care about each missionary personally!

We did lots and lots of tracting this week and it's been interesting to say the least! So we have decided to to tract the kind of Backwoods areas because we figured those don't get tracted too much. We seemed to run into a lot of anti's this week so that was a bit of a shock to us but it was good! I learned a lot about our church from them. They had so many crazy things it was bizarre. It's so weird what some people hear about the church! But it was good because we just testified to them instead of trying to argue with them.

But on the good side of tracting we found a lot of people who weren't necessarily interested but wanted us to come back and have dinner and stuff with them so we are going to take them up on that! Haha and we got a few opportunities to teach a quick 10 minute lesson of the restoration so that was good!

Love, Elder Fawson

The scripture I have been working on memorizing lately is Moroni 7:48! So if you don't know that one check it out! It's pretty good!

Week 55

Friends and family!!

This week was really awesome! General conference weekends are pretty awesome! It is such a blessing to be able to hear from gods prophet and apostles!

On Monday we went a hike on what's called barometer mountain and it was so crazy! It was a very big mountain but we made it up and the view was amazing! One that that's a little different with being on the island is we Skype into our district and zone meetings so that's a little different! But it's a good time! It's funny because we just mute it and we can really say whatever! Haha 

We are still tracting lots and it is seriously the funniest thing to do! But besides all the laughs and crazy people we meet it's really cool to see the spirit work on people when we meet them till the time we share what the Book of Mormon is! It's actually been somewhat useful for us which is good. 

This week we had a really good lesson with Chris and Emma! (The family we Tracted into) and we talked about the Book of Mormon and it's importance and they loved and accepted it! They really want to start going to a church so hey why not just go to the true one! We had a lesson with Keily family and they are doing good. They just don't really want to change church's because they both grew up in the unification church. And that's all they have really known so we are working on them.

General conference was really good! I guess why wouldn't it be? Haha but I feel like the hit the Book of Mormon, repentance, and sustaining your testimony a lot! One of the most powerful talks to me was president uchtdorfs talk in the priesthood session about alma and amulek. It was awesome! I loved when he talked about everyone needs to find their amulek to be successful and that Everyone needs to hear the words I need you and The lord needs you. And than we need to see with our hearts. And then president Eyring talked about how there is no difference between the oldest apostle and the youngest deacon in gods eyes if you fulfill your priesthood duty. And of course David A Bednars about the difference between believing in God and believing him. It was a good weekend! Another weird fact... I only have 1 more general conference on my mission! Weird! 

Overall this week was really good I feel like we were spiritually nourished! Haha thank you guys and love you all!

Don't let your questions paralyze your faith!

Love, Elder Fawson

Week 54

Friends and family!

Well this week was awesome! We are seeing miracles here in Kodiak!!

Lots of tracting! We are in finding mode right now but this week we had a lot of really good things come from tracting! We have refined our tracting approaches so much and I guess you could say we are pretty good now! Haha our goal is to start teaching right away and to not give them any time to say no and it usually works out really good! We have a couple of new investigators from it that we are really excited for! Earlier in the week we were tracting in some awesome rain and wind so we were soaked! It was fun and we hoped that people would feel bad for us and let us in but that didn't really work out as we thought it would! Haha 

This week we helped Manuel a lot with his Trailer he is trying to move from the trailer park (back story: so there is a place called the Jackson trailer park and it has this really awesome view of the ocean so they are selling the land so they can put estates there so they told everyone hey have to leave so we have been helping people with that). We helped jack up his trailer this week so that was pretty cool! Learned something new! So his trailer is ready to go now! Manuel speaks Spanish and so good thing we have elder bacon! He's not really interested in religion but we are still helping him and asking questions and teaching him when we can!

So a week ago or so we were tracting in a apartment complex and we got in the truck but a really strong impression to just do this group of doors by the truck. We got out and the first door we knocked this lady answered and said you found me! Haha we were like uhhhhh yeaaaa!! She is a really less active member and hasn't been to church in 30 years. She said earlier that day she had seen us driving and waved and we had waved to here and she said she had been thinking about the church all that day. She said it was a sign that maybe heavenly father wants her back at church! So this week we got to go see her with our Ward mission leader (he went to byu in Hawaii) and Shannon is from Hawaii so they hit it off pretty well! The Ward is already assigned people to go over and see her and she is raising her grandson who is now 10 and she said she wants him to learn about the church and be baptized! So we will be soon teaching both of them! Which is awesome!

Saturday we did a service with our Ward and it was to unburry this bunker at the fort Abercrombie here! It was really cool and then after the park took us on a tour of the museum. It is really cool the history from there! So history moment for all you... Alaska actually was really big in world war 2 because if your were to fly from Japan to essentially Washington you would fly over Kodiak/illusion chain/kenai peninsula and so there's lots of watch places here where they basically had forts and would make sure none of Japan or russia was flying over! Pretty cool!

This week was fun, wet, and full of the gospel! I'm thankful for this opportunity to be in Kodiak and I love it! And most of all I love the people! Thanks for  everything you guys do for me! Love you all!

D&C 6:36

Oh and I forgot to mention we had dinner with a Filipino family this week and they gave us balut! Weirdest thing I have ever eaten!! Haha there's a picture of the bird!

Love, Elder Fawson

Week 53

Friends and family!

Well this week was a crazy week! I feel like it was so action packed! I can't believe I've been out longer than a year now! Weird!

On Monday we hiked a hike called termination point! It was super cool and I have tons of pictures to send! 

Tuesday we got to do some service for this family that is investigating the church and their name is young and robin Keily! They are super cool and he is a teacher over at the high school. They are renovating their house and so we went over and helped them paint their kitchen! It was actually really fun! Young (the husband) is huge into basketball and played college basketball so we get along really well and he always gives me exercises I can do to dunk! He can throw down Haha but we got to help them and have dinner with them and share a lesson and it was really good! The wife is really active in her church so we are still just helping them understand the gospel. And funny thing is I think we are going to be doing their baseboard soon! (Thanks dad for all the practice I got to do with you!)

Wednesday we flew to anchorage and had zone conference and it was awesome! We did it with 3 different zones! The soldotna zone and north and south and anchorage zones. We talked about president uchtdorfs talk that he talked about lift where you stand. It was really good! We talked about repentance and how that's what we teach people but we also do it ourselves! We talked about the morning schedule and the importance of loving those we teach and serve! It was really awesome and we learned so much! We stayed with the Spanish elders in anchorage that night then flew home Thursday morning.

Thursday we got to do a couple of hours of service for Manuel our Spanish investigator. It was really good and we got to have dinner and a lesson with him after. We don't think he is too interested but he's doing good!

Friday we did lots and lots of the glorious task of tracting! Haha we Tracted pretty much all day which is something I hadn't done too much in the Samoan Ward! Haha but we found a few people who wanted us to come back! Then we decided to go down to the docks and tract there and it was pretty cool! We didn't have too much success but we got to see some of the huge fishing boats like the ones on deadliest catch! 

Saturday we tried to visit all the less and Inactives in our area and it was good! We got to visit some people and invite them to church! The Keily family invited us to this church activity they were having so we decided to go and it was actually a really cool finding opportunity! We met some people that were baptized in the Lds church but didn't go so we got their info and we are going to go visit them! Lol!

Sunday was well good! Last pday my dad asked if with having a small Ward here do we speak in sacrament a lot and elder bacon has never spoken here in his 5 months here but ironically enough on Tuesday we got asked to give a talk! We spoke on the family which was pretty fun and easy to talk about! I have never felt so involved in church before! Haha we blessed he sacrament then spoke in sacrament then taught in 2nd and 3rd hour! Haha so we had a very busy church! But it was really good! Sunday night we were tracting and walked up to this house and it was kind of in the woods so we were a little nervous but we walked up and a guy and his wife were there and they were a younger couple. We talked to them for a second then asked if we could share a message sometime and they said yea you can right now! So we were like oh okay! This never happens! Haha we didn't say that though! Lol! We talked to them outside and shared the restoration lesson and they took a Book of Mormon and were really interested so we are really excited to see how it goes! But it was such a cool experience!

This week I finished the Book of Mormon for the second time on my mission and I know that book is true and that it is another testament of Jesus Christ! If you haven't read it... You should! It will help you with anything!

Well that was kind of our week in a nutshell!! I hope you all had a great week and I love you all! Thanks for all you do!

Moroni 10:32

Love, Elder Fawson