The Proselytor

RIVERWOOD WARD

Number 111

SINCE 2004

March 2015

WRITE TO THE MISSIONARIES!

Elder Michael Salisbury
Australia Melbourne
Mission 76 Cathies Lane
Wantirna South,
Victoria 3152 Australia

Elder Timothy Tsai

Canada Montreal Mission
470 Rue Gilford, Suite 300
Montreal, QC H2J 1N3 Canada
timothy.tsai@myldsmail.net

Elder Nathan Francis

Taiwan Taipei Mission
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Chin Hua Street,
Taipei 106, Taiwan

Elder Carsen Robie

6481 Crescent Way,
Apt. #105, Norfolk, VA
23513
Carsen.robie@myldsmail.net

Elder Austin Stutz

MISSION FRANCAISE DE LYON
Lyon Business Center
59 rue de l'Abondance
69003 LYON FRANCE
austin.stutz@myldsmail.net

Elder Hyrum Quinn Grenny

Mexico Hermosillo Mission
Avenida Garcia Conde #301
Col. Pitic
83150 Hermosillo, Sonora
Mexico
Hyrum.grenny@myldsmail.com

Elder Christian C. Mangum

Chile Santiago South Mission
Apartado Postal No. 544
San Bernardo, Chile
christian.mangum@myldsmail.net

Elder Nathan Carter

Washington Kennewick
Mission
8202 West Quinalt Ave
Suite D
Kennewick, Washington
99336-1017

Sister Lauren Faber

Australia Sydney South Mission
(for letters) PO Box 456
(for packages) 2 Breakwell St.
Mortdale, NSW 2223
lauren.faber@myldsmail.net

Elder David Kitchen

Germany Frankfurt Mission
Hagendornstr. 4 Nuremberg
BY90478DEU
Germany
david.kitchen@myldsmail.net

Elder Jacob Emory

Mexico Reynosa Mission
POB 30150
Salt Lake City, Utah 841300150
robert.emory@myldsmail.net

Elder Nathan McQuarrie

Philippines Manila Mission
P.O. Box 1997
Makati City
1200 Metro Manila
Philippines

Elder Samuel Jacob, MAR

30 BALTIC, 2007 N 900 E Unit 72,
Provo, Ut, 84602

Elder Shumway

(Unedited except for standardization of font)

Elder Christian C. Mangum Chile Santiago South
How y'all doing this week! Its hilarious to me that people will come up to us in the street
and tell us news that is happening in the U.S.A. For example, some guy asked us the
other day, "How do you guys feel out the snow blizzard that happening up in New
York?"(in Spanish of course) I truly do love the Chilean people, they are always so worried for us "gringos".
In my life the Lord has always blessed me with great friends. Over time I have formed
friendships with all types of the Lords children. From priesthood leaders to teachers,
missionaries to close family members and many more. The Lord always places the option before us to choose, to choose between good and evil. Our Heavenly Father loves all
of His children the same, and as disciples of His Son we should do the same. We always
should Love One Another. In the Strength for Youth its saysAs you seek to be a friend to others, do not compromise your standards. If your friends
urge you to do things that are wrong, be the one to stand for the right, even if you stand
alone. You may need to find other friends who will support you in keeping the commandments. Seek the guidance of the Holy Ghost as you make these choices
As Thomas S. Monson counseled us we must Dare To Stand Alone. It will be hard, we
may even loose friends. But something we wont lose is the love of our Father in Heaven
and is Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. Those individuals are to priceless to lose

over temporal decisions. We are to continue with the children of God, esteeming the reproach of Christ is greater than any other worldly riches. For only then, will we receive
the promise.
Friends help to determine your future. You will tend to be like them and to be found
where they choose to go. Remember, the path we follow in this life leads to the path we
follow in the next. The friends you choose will either help or hinder your success.
(Thomas S. Monson)
I am forever in debt for the friends my Father in Heaven sent me. I know those same
types friends are out there looking for each and every one of us. Let us be the ones to go
forth and serve, and be that individual to Dare to Stand Alone.

Elder Hyrum Grenny Mexico Hermosillo

Yesterday I had a cool experience in church. The other two Elders in our ward were supposed to give the class but they were fighting and all mad at each other so they didn't
even come into the class. So the ward mission leader asked Elder Cabrera to give the
class right there in the moment when the class was going to start. He told him, we sang
the hymn, then he had 45 minutes and had to teach the class. He hadn't even looked at
the manual! Cabrera stood up and opened the manual, never said a word about not being
prepared or making excuses, and started to give the class. He gave an amazing class, using drawings on the board, examples and a lot of questions all on the spot. I LOVED the
class. I learned so much from him about confidence. He is so talented and has so much
potential, but he has been wasting a lot of it. And I feel bad because I don't think I did a
very good job of helping him realize that this transfer. I think that has been one of the
jobs God has wanted me to do in this mission, he has given me 3 disobedient companions and the ability to gain their confidence. With the first two I really felt like I helped
them change and they are both VERY obedient. One is district leader and the other is
Zone Leader now. But with Cabrera I didn't do so well. I learned a lot about what I need to
do better, and didn't help him as much as I could have. But Im learning :)
Since being on my mission I feel like I have learned how to do a lot of things in life that I
didn't know before and I feel more confident. I have grown an unreal amount in the gospel. Before the mission I really don't know if I had a real testimony. I think you could see
that, not much interest in church and all that, but now I love it! I love this gospel so dang
much it's unreal, and I have come to love Jesus Christ and the atonement as well, that
was something I didn't understand before but now I have a deep love for.

Sister Lauren Faber - Australia Sydney

Well everyone. It's great to be a missionary! Even on weeks like the one we just had....
pretty much everything fell through. It was a pretty disappointing week, but heaps of
good things still happened! Let me name a few:
We had exchanges with the sister training leaders! IT was wonderful! I loved it so much!
We felt on a HIGH to go and do the work.
I SAW AN APOSTLE OF THE LORD!
Elder Bednar came and spoke to the Sydney North and South missions together. It was

heaps different than what I've been used to. IT was pretty much a question and answer
session! It was amazing though. I truly know that man is an apostle of the Lord. I learned
heaps about how to help people be AGENTS for themselves. How to teach in a way to let
people be an agent, and not an object. Objects are acted upon. Agents are when they do
things of their own free will. We need to teach in such a way that the investigator (or
whoever really) is bearing testimony, SEARCHING the scriptures (not just reading them),
and finding the answers for themselves. We are simply the means the spirit works
through.
Also my big take away was that we don't want to be in control of our lives. Let the Lord
be in control. That will be the happiest you can ever be.
The rest of the week we really tried to focus on finding.... we tried our very best and
sometimes it's really good to have hard weeks. That's how you grow.
I know that the Lord is looking after us and I know that he loves each and every one of
us.
My studies have seemed to really be focused on spiritual self-reliance lately. It's
important!
Well, that's about it for me this week.
Love you all heaps!

Elder Michael Salisbury Australia Melbourne

Talofa Lava,
Well another week has passed by and it has been really interesting. My companion has
been really good he is an honestly and incredibly humble missionary and it has been
great to serve with him so far.
Yesterday we had another lesson with Sala and it has been going great with him. Ever
since he got baptized he has had an amazing spirit about him. A struggle that we have
been having is that we just don't have investigators and our current investigators are just
incredibly strong in their belief. We really hope to build up our investigator pool and start
teaching more people.
A little Miracle that happened yesterday was that we finally were able to meet a new contact that we have been trying to follow up for ages. His name is Moses and he said it was
all right to come back later.
Something I will work on is my faith. It has been growing stronger and stronger and I
have seen it grow and grow. Something that I will be praying for is the opportunity to
take a leap of faith. In the past I have not felt ready to take a leap of faith but now I am
looking forward for it. Being able to serve the Lord has been great and I will see you
again next week
Alofa Atu

Elder Francis Taiwan Taipei

Hey everyone! This week was super good over on the other side of the world. Our investigator Sister Chen got baptized this last Saturday! So that was pretty cool. It all went super smoothly and the spirit was there for sure. Here's a picture:
This week we also got to go up to HuaLien for a special training
on how to use Facebook for missionary purposes. Pretty neat.
And on the train ride up, there was the coolest sunrise! The
clouds were so cool and the reflected perfectly onto on the rice
fields, not a ripple. So cool. And our train even stopped mid trip
for some reason. So we had a few minutes to take pictures.
hah. Here's one of them:
Also, I saw monkeys last p-day! So that was pretty neat. I'll
send more pictures in another email.
Well, I hope you are all doing well and I hope this week is great!
The church is true. Remember to say your prayers! I know God hears them. I'd love to
hear from you all!

Elder McQuarrie Philippines Manila

Sorry, I haven't been able to e-mail in a little while because I've been pretty busy. I got
called by President Ostler to be an office elder, so everything has been pretty hectic with
the change, as we've had to move apartments, and I've received a new companion.
To be honest, at first I was pretty bummed about the calling. As an office elder, I spend
my time from 8:30 to 4:30 each day in the office doing paperwork and organizing supplies and whatnot. So, by the time we get out of the office each day, we usually only have
from 59 or 69 to proselyte and teach, instead of proselyting from 129. And, our studies are shortened too, so we only have a half-hour of language study each day, so my Tagalog learning will probably slow down. But I'm realizing that self-pity and a bad attitude
doesn't help anything, but actually makes it worse, so I've been trying to have a more
positive attitude.
Being in the office has helped me realize how much work has to happen in order for missions to function. Having 250 people live in a country for eighteen months to two years,
with half of them from different countries, involves quite a lot of work, including taking
care of housing organization/costs and passports and visas, paying for cell phone
minutes, arranging transportation, taking care of sick missionaries, organizing transfers,
and everything else. It helps me appreciate how much the Church does in order to help
people get out on missions. With all the sacrifices being made by the Church, its leaders,
and family members, it is no wonder that the Lord expects quite a lot from His missionaries.
This week I finished the Book of Mormon and started it over again. This time I'm going
through and only marking verses to do with faith. One thing that stood out to me in 1
Nephi this time is how amazingly obedient and faithful Nephi is. Within about a single

chapter, Nephi says "let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord" three
times. Despite Laman and Lemuel's bad examples and murmuring, Nephi never stopped
looking to the Lord.
Sometimes, when we exercise faith by following the commandments or by following the
guidance of the Holy Ghost, we won't receive a witness until a long time afterward, but in
those cases our faith can become much stronger, as we have to exercise it more intensely. And I have faith that I will learn things on my mission, and here in the office, that
will help me for years, decades, and even eternities to come.
Elder David Kitchen Germany Frankfurt
This week I really wanted to start off by saying how much I love you all so much, I've just
seriously felt the love from all of you over the past couple weeks and I love you all so
much.
This week I want to share something that really stuck out to me, and its the love of
god. In my Book of Mormon study I was reading in Helaman 11 and this is a weird part of
The Book of Mormon because the people are so bi-polar or something. The lord blesses
them then they turn wicked. They repent and the Lord blesses them, but then they turn
wicked again. In Helamen I think this process happens like 6 or 7 times. But what really
dug deep into my heart was the fact that God always forgave his children. I love this example when you read Hel 11:9-17.
Im so grateful for our Heavenly Father, as a kid I thought he was a mean angry old man
who punished us and gave us time outs or something, but as I've been on my mission
my view on god has changed a lot. This simple section of scriptures shows me the love
and compassion he has for us, the patience and long suffering, the forgiveness and
love. We see so often in the church or in the world that if you do something wrong or
you made a mistake, we feel unworthy to involve ourselves in church activities, sacrament meeting, even down to prayer and scripture study. We all think that we have to
make it right before we can start again. If there is anything farther away from the truth it
is that. Unfortunately the devil makes us think otherwise. So many times in D&C and in
The Book of Mormon the Lord says and your sins are forgiven thee. No matter how
wicked the people where or how lost they seemed, the Lord always forgave. I think that is
just amazing to know.
I love the thought that Brad Wilcox tells us in one of his talks. As a young man he always
looked at the judgment as this. We will go there and Jesus will call us up and grade our
work, he will look at us and shrug. He will say "sorry you were 2 points short" and we
would look at him and beg him for some extra credit or something so we can be with
him. Later in his life he realized that he was wrong, he puts it like this. We will go to the
judgment bar so scared out of our mind, feeling so unworthy to be there because God
and Jesus are perfect. Jesus will grade us and tell us that we were a little short, when we
hear that we will want to flee his presence and find peace but we wont find it. but Jesus
will call us back and say please don't go, come here I will give you this extra credit so
you can be with me, I love you, I don't want you to go. Now these are two completely
different situations but I have a testimony of the second one. Ive felt that love in my life
and I know it to be true, there is never a sweeter moment than asking for forgiveness and
receiving it. Some of the most heart touching experiences has been on my knees and
asking the Lord to help me be better and to forgive me for what I've done. What was so
great about these experiences is that every time I received forgiveness and peace of

mind, I know that the Lord loves us and he is waiting for us all to return to him and to use
our agency to do what is right.
So this week was crazy, on Friday I got a special phone call and if you all know what Friday was you would know what I mean. At the end of the transfer we have what we call
danger day, this is where President call us up and calls leaders to the mission. Well, Friday morning at 10:30 the phone rings and guess who. Yes, President Stoddard. I was
sure it was for Elder Murray but he said to me Elder Kitchen, through much prayer and
consideration I want to call you to train. I was all man there trusting me with another
one, man they must be crazy!!! hahah but yeah so I'm training and I will be staying in
Nrmberg for 2 more transfers at least so Im way stoked cause I love Nrnberg more
than you can believe, I could stay here forever. Pray that I will hahaha
Life is good and the mission is great, I love every second of it. I know that the church is
true and that it was restored and that today it is still perfect, it will be perfect until Christ
comes to take over. This is the only place that we as children of God can find what we
call true happiness, if you think you already have it, try out the church and you will be
shocked to see how it changes your life. I love you all so much and miss you all. You
are in my prayers and my thoughts. Keep up the good work and remember the Lord in
everything.

Elder Austin Stutz France Lyon

Hello everyone! How are y'all doing? I'm doing wonderful! So for this week: We've seen
some pretty cool miracles. We ported into this one family of four a few weeks ago, la
famille DeFrancheschi. The wife's name is Durand, and we met her last time. She said
she was interested in learning more and gave us her phone number. We haven't been
able to get in contact with her, until I went on exchange with the other elders in St.
Raphael. While I was with Elder Hansen, Elder Anderson and Elder Burri passed them.
This time, the husband answered the door, said his wife had talked to him about us, and
that they definitely want to know more!! They're a family of four with two little kids about
3 and 6 years old, and we fixed a rendezvous for the Friday after this one! So that's super
awesome to see!!
Also, we found a woman porting the other day, and talked to her about her family. We told
her how she could live with her mother again after this life, and she expressed how she
would want to study with someone like a priest or something to know how he found his
faith. We were then happy to explain that we were missionaries and that we would be
happy to help her find faith! We have a rendezvous with her today!
This week is lined up with some pretty cool rendezvous and we're super pumped to teach
and love the people as much as possible!! Tonight we have a soiree familial with a super
cool family, and we are hoping to work with the husband's less active brother. So that's
going to be great! Also, BIG news: The other equipe here in St. Raphael has an ami with a
baptismal date!!! Her name is Daurette, she loves the members and the feeling she feels
at church, and she's progressing super well. Her date is April 4th! It will be cool for Elder
Hansen's new bleu to have a baptism in his second transfer. We'll see if I'm still around
next transfer to see it! Anyway, have a great week everyone!! Je vous aime!!

Elder Robie - Virginia Chesapeake

Ahoj!! That means hello in Czech. Remember how last week I said I was training
again? Our trainee is a Visa waiter going to the Czech Republic, so we get to learn

Czech with him, it is pretty cool! My area is really big again and covers all of Norfolk and
all of Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach is the most populated city in Virginia, so thats kind
of fun. This last week has been a blur, but we picked up a few new investigators and they
are actually pretty solid! We had a really good week teaching, so that was a nice change.
We walked around a lot of college campuses, which was weird to think Ill be doing that
again before too long. You really meet some pretty good characters there.
I was reading through Jacob 5 this morning and thought it was really interesting. We all
know it tells about the last days and what is going to happen. I think God has a pretty
good sense of humor and He shows it sometimes. But in Jacob 5, He shows how serious
He really is about the last days. The Lord of the vineyard keeps saying "for the last
time. It is clear that our efforts in these last days are important and serious and that
there is a lot of hard work we need to do to "bring forth good fruit". My goal for this week
is it get real serious about what I need to do to improve myself and help others. Love
you and have a great week.

Elder Nathan Carter Washington Kennewick

This was clearly the best week of my life. What an opportunity to be a missionary in this
time in this place for this church.
Ok here we go. Jose Lopez - Tuesday night we were super busy like always just trying to
get in with everyone. We had a feeling to go out of our way to try this potential investigator that we had talked to for like 10 seconds the week before. He really didnt seem too
promising when we met him. But clearly we were wrong, so we stop by and he lets us
right in. We started with a prayer and then just started talking and getting to know him.
He just opens up right away and tells us exactly how he is feeling. He told us that all he
wanted to do with his life is come closer to God. He had the most insane golden questions in the world. But then he went on to explain that he just simply didnt trust anyone.
He looked right at us and told us that he didnt want to listen to us because he thinks that
we are fake and he didnt even know why he let us in the door. We immediately starting
talking about the power of prayer and that he could ask God right then if what we are
teaching will help him come closer to God. We talked for a good hour on prayer and how
the answers will come - HOLY GHOST. So we teach him how to pray and we get on our
knees right there and he says the greatest prayer in the world. So sincere and so real! After he ended the prayer we had a solid minute of silence, then he looks up at us and said
" I feel something" he then tried explaining this feeling for the next 10 minutes. It was the
coolest thing ever. He just had the biggest smile on his face and I was about to lose my
mind I was freaking out so much and my companion was just so confused and it was so
awesome So after he feels it we sit down and he tells us how he feels this responsibility
to listen to us and do what we tell him to do. Are you kidding me? Do I even need to say
anything more? Elder Etter and I have been praying so hard to find the elect and it was
clearly answered. We had 3 lessons with him this week and he kept every single one of
our commitments. His gospel knowledge it very low. In fact he can hardly read. He has
only been here in the states for a few years and he has no education. But he is in tune
with the spirit like no one else. He is beyond Golden. He is on date for baptism for February 28th.
We changed Francisco's date to the 21st. We did the same thing with him too!!!! We got
on our knees with this 70 year old Mexican man with cancer who hardly even knows his
own name and he prayed specifically about Joseph Smith and President Monson and he
said he felt good and felt ready for baptism! He couldnt remember Thomas Monsons
name in the prayer so he asked Elder Etter and Etter looked at me like wondering if he

could give him the answer in the middle of the prayer. It was the funniest thing. Its just
the greatest work ever. Its the Lords work.
I seriously love life.
Something that we have been working on as a district is on acting in faith. So this is what
we have been doing. I asked Brother Weaver in the English ward what are some good
ways that we can act in faith. He is so awesome. He just laid it to us. In his mission in
Guatemala they did this same thing as a district. They just decided that they need to act
in faith, trust in the power of the spirit and be bold. So they left district meeting and
walked down the street and into the Catholic Church and stood up front and started
preaching. They baptized 5 people in that congregation. The other day I was on exchanges with elder Fraser. He is also training. Anyways we walked by a catholic church
while they were having their services. We really thought about it and pondered and
prayed. We decided that it was more just our desires to go in than it was the spirit telling
us to go in so we decided not to do it. But hey, maybe one day. I need some ideas to be a
little bit more bold but not ridiculous. The work is amazing. It all comes down to acting in
faith. Im telling you man. Just do it. Just get out there and do it. Act in faith.
Elder Samuel Jacob - Baltics
Week 3 is one for the record books. I'm pretty tired, haha, it's been an insanely busy, tiring, but good week. We've finally gotten into a groove with our schedule, and we're
teaching about 8-9 lessons per week all in Russian!! It's tough, but it's gonna pay off in
the long run. I love being a missionary. I know that probably will get old cause I'm gonna
say it every week, but I really am so humbled every day by the fact that the Lord has
called me to teach his children this amazing gospel. It's so great.
One of my favorite parts of the week is our Sunday temple walk. When we get up into the
grounds, we gather together as a zone and sing hymns in Russian. It's soooo fun!!!!!
Even though I can't quite understand all the words, I can pronounce everything and can
feel the spirit so strongly while we sing. It's amazing.
Russian is so crazy. Haha. Yesterday we went over 4 cases!!!! BTW there are 6.... So we
basically covered more than half of all the structure of the entire language.... AHH!! My
brain was so so fried after. But I'm really pleased with our progress. All of our teachers
have been saying that we are progressing faster than any other district they've taught at
the MTC before, which is pretty encouraging despite the fact that I can tell you all about
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ but have trouble talking about the weather or anything
else really! haha. But it's an amazing language. I'm really excited to keep learning and developing my faith in the Gift of Tongues. It's a real thing!!!
It's amazing how much the Lord blesses us. You can see his blessings and his influence
everywhere you look!! We just need the faith and obedience to do what he asks of us,
and the grace of the Atonement can help us accomplish anything!
Anyways, that's it for me, other than a quick spiritual thought. I was reading in the end of
first Nephi and the beginning of second Nephi and I love how Nephi says that he's only
writing about the plain and precious things and experiences. That's something I love
about this gospel. It is plain, it's simple, but boy is it precious and important. I can't wait
to start sharing it to the people in the Baltics!!
I Love you all!! Thank you for your prayers and for your examples!!