whew, feels nice to have some questions again so i don't have to think so much! :) this has been a super great week and i'm excited to share it with all the people i love back home and wherever! lesss do this! 

WHO IS YOU NEW COMP? 

Elder Kody Shaw. 

WHERE IS HE FROM?

Rigby Idaho

ON A SCALE OF 1-10 (10 being the best) WHERE DOES HE RANK?

okay so just going to be strait forward. he's pretty similar to E. Osborn. but, he's humble and teachable. he's a 7 right now. :) 

WHAT WAS THE BEST THING ABOUT YOUR WEEK?

oh smokes! it was a great week .. so much goodness. i'll write a little more about this later but.. S and M of course. not only that but now that i'm the Sr. companion (not that the title matters...) but now that i have the ability to  plan our days start to finish we've noticed a ton more lessons (with investigators, less actives, and even active family lessons) ! transfers were tuesday and they are always way fun. you get to see all the missionaries that you've served around and what not. i saw my mission dad (trainer) castaneda. it was cool to see him and all of the other guys and gals i've gotten know these couple months out here. there's something different about making friends on the mission.. the relationships are so strong and quick to develop. but i'll save my absolute best thing this week for a little bit later.. :) 

ARE YOU RIDING YOUR BIKE MUCH?

you guys. they took our car!! so there was a trio of missionaries covering the 6th ward and 7th branch, and they got another missionary and split into two companionships, each covering one of the two congregations. they both cover a lot more area than us, so they got our car. we are biking errday! logging between 12-25 miles a day. we have an irrigation ditch running through our area and we have to go 2 miles around it to get into one section of it so we rack up miles pretty fast. usually we are in the mid teens though. and it's been cooler so that's been nice. (like low 90's)

HOW MANY INVESTIGATORS ARE YOU WORKING WITH RIGHT NOW?
a lot! i don't know how it happened but we have a grip now! we have savannah, who is older and she's been investigating the church for 30 years or more. just likes the missionaries. and she lives with her son and we're teaching him too, his name is doug. bout 50. We had a great meeting with Amy last week, she is getting close. :) haven't seen jason for a while, then we have S and M, and we met a woman named Shirley who's husband is an inactive member and she's reading the bom now. she also has a 15 yr old son jake.. not sure about him but we'll find out tomorrow. then we have the palmers.. miya and owen. their mom is an inactive member.. claims to be non denominational christian now. didn't like all the rules. hah but anyway! we don't get to work with all of them very frequently which is why the pool is so big. but how many is that...? 10 i think.

WHAT ONE THING ARE YOU GRATEFUL FOR? WHY?

hmm. I think the plan of Salvation. the knowledge that our Father in Heaven created a plan for us to return and live with him. i'm grateful to know that i was once there, and that i "shouted for joy" at the opportunity to come to earth. that makes trials and hardships seem less important. it's a priveledge to be here, and even more so i'm grateful to be blessed into the family that i have! and i'm so blessed to live in a place where i made such great friends! no wonder i was so stoked to come here, it's cuz of y'all! :) i also would like to add that i know that my Father in Heaven had a very specific reason for sending me to this area of the world to serve him. I've met some people here that are very important to me and I know that i have been brought even to fallon specifically to fulfill my purpose as a missionary and help the people here whom i've been blessed to associate with! I'm so grateful to be here!

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOUR MISSION PRES SAID TO YOU?

hah this isn't much fun but we were talking about getting a water cooler for our apartment. we just have a little jug that holds the 5 gallon water tanks upside down and when it sits in our kitchen all day it's like 80 degrees when we get home. so he asked me if we got the water cooler from alhambra and we didn't so he told me to work with one of our office elders to get it squared away. but that was the last thing! haha 

DID IT COOL DOWN AT ALL? yes quite a bit actually. i mentioned it before but it's been low 90's this week, which biking has been nice. just can't help but think about what it will be like come july/august cruisin around on bikes. we'll see!

WHO SENT YOU SOME LOVE THIS WEEK, VIA MAILBOX? i got mail from Gma Sue and Gpa monte and got a letter from Sadie Stahura. haha she had to have written it like a month or more ago and just hadn't sent it out until last week.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS FINE P-DAY?

welp, our church building is under construction.. well the gym where we play ball at least. so last pday we went and played ball at a local rec center and got worked! some kids were so dang good. we may go back there again. the rest of the district is planning a hike today but nobody had really talked to us about it and out here when they say hike they mean take a hot walk through the rolling hills of desert. not my thing! if i go it will be to take pictures to show you all what fallon looks like. :) other than that we'll do some shopping and things. oh and yes! i'm out of stamps and have been for a while. i always forget to buy some so i'll be getting some today at wal mart.

okay y'all, so this week has been awesome. In a meeting with our mission president last week, he went over the responsibility that training another missionary entails. he informed the trainers that we have been chosen by our father in heaven because of our ability to work, our knowledge of missionary work, and our obedience. he said the most revelatory experiences he's had as a mission president have been in regards to selecting trainers, and more importantly who the trainers will be training. It strengthened my testimony that our Father in Heaven knows us individually. he knows our strengths and weaknesses, and he wants to help us "make weak things become strong." I know that i've been selected to train Elder Shaw and he's a great missionary already. he has a huge desire to be obedient and to learn the ways of a missionary and i'm so grateful that the Lord has put us together. i know that i'll continue to learn and to grown from him and it's my responsibility to help him get to where i am. Responsibility in the mission field changes your perspective a little bit and like i said before i know that this is a great opportunity and i'm grateful for it!

now the best thing of the week. S and M! they are the best ever k. each of them have had difficult addictions to overcome and i'm happy to inform you all that their use of tobacco has ceased! they have come to church for a month strait now and are seeing our heavenly Father's influence in their lives! they still have a bit of a road ahead of them, but we plan on being there for them as long as they see fit. M texted us last night and thanked us for our commitment to help their family, and shortly after that we dropped in at their home to say hello. M thanked us again for all that we've done for their family and she asked when the time comes, if i will baptize her! they don't know when the time will be and she said even if i'm home from my mission by the time they are ready (which, c'mon, it wont take that long) she wants me to come back and baptize her. :) I have learned so much from the influence of the spirit and from working with S and M and their family. I wouldn't trade the last 6 weeks of my life for anything! I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with them and i'm truly honored that she would ask me to be the one to baptize her. I know that God has sent me to fallon for a reason. even if the only good i've done is with S and M, that would be worth the whole two years to me. they are great people and i can't say it enough how grateful i am to work with them!!! it truly has been an incredible week.

now last thing i want to say, is HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!! I've got a list. First of all, my dad! I'm going to publicly thank you for all that you've done for me throughout my life. I'm so so grateful that you are my dad and for the positive influences you've had on me. I'm grateful for your sacrifices in taking great care of me my whole life! I wouldn't trade or change anything that we've been through because it has made me who i am today. I love you dad!!!

now, some other dads that mean a lot to me! 

Big John, Grandpa Sykes, Grandpa Stan, Grandpa Monte, Nate Hawkes, Rob, (all the dads in the "industry.. " mad love for you guys!! ) Rich Warburton, Rich Willes, Zach Willes, Kyle Christensen, Dallas and Brons, anybody else! Yesterday i was reflecting on my life a little bit.. thinking about all of the great examples of fathers that i have and thinking about how blessed i have been in my life. I'm grateful to all of you, and to any father out there whom i may have missed that has been a positive influence to me. one day (in like, 20 years) i'll be a father too and i'm grateful to have so many great examples in my life to help me become the father i want to be one day.

well anyways folks! long and sappy sorry about that! I love you all back home, i'll be writing a bunch of letters today hopefully so if you're waiting on mail from me it will be coming! I hope y'all have an incredible week. thanks as always for the prayers and support. Until next time peeps!

-Elder Sykes 

Still in Fallon!

What's up my friends and fam!? another week in absolute paradise here. :) hah okay so that's not entirely true.. it's been an up and down kind of week. let me tell ya about it!

so first of all.. the heat has been setting records here. it's been 104, 102, etc. the past week or so. and we haven't had AC !!!! the room that we bunk in has 5 windows and 2 sliding glass doors.. two of the windows and 1 sliding door face south and then 2 windows and a sliding door face west.. anyways the sun just roasts our little home! i took a picture of this for you so i'll send it in a second but when we got home thursday-saturday night the temperature INSIDE our house was 96 degrees. that's not a joke... real life! we tin foiled the windows and that lowered the temperature inside by the end of the day to 94 degrees. we have 3 fans.. a ceiling fan, a desk fan/swamp cooler wanna be (that doesn't make the air cool) and then some inactive members gave us an ocsilating fan. with all three going all day and the windows foiled it still got to 94 degrees. so anyways, we got really small AC window unit from some other members and we got that installed last night. i say installed but it was pretty jerry-rigged... it is strung up from a nail in the roof and we have cardboard duct taped around it. after the night, we woke up this morning and it was 76 degrees and we were super stoked about that. so that's just one aspect of this week.. t'was haaawt!

next item of biz... :( we found out that Amy got a pretty scary health diagnosis. she is 40 and .. wait here's some background. her father passed away last year from a brain tumor. he got diagnosed in december and was on the other side by march i believe she said. she has the very same symptoms he had the year prior and his another appointment this week i guess to really figure out what's going on. we're praying hard for her but she's so scared! and she hasn't wanted to sit down with us in a while. we're hoping we can still teach her.. but more importantly we're hoping she gets good news this week. oh man. pray for her!

okay so the next item of business.. on a more positive note.. S and M are moving right along! hey they aren't perfect.. and we've worked with them pretty closely.. but they are making progress! we had a sentimental moment after a lesson with them on thursday i think it was. they had been working with missionaries in the last area that they were in and weren't making any progress at all.. and they told us they truly think the Lord influenced their move to Fallon so that we could help them get back on track. i Loved it! just smiled.. this is the Lords work and i've said it before but i feel like all i've got to do is show up! :) i'm so grateful to be working with them. they are awesome and makin progress.

we have found a few more investigators this week as well. one of which is "golden" as they say. she already had a friend in our ward give her a book of mormon/d&c/pearl of great price and a conference ensign just a week or so ago and she read the ensign already, and is in yellowstone on a vacation now intending to read the whole triple combo in a week. she's a history buff and a kindergarten teacher and already enjoys the way the book of mormon is written. she will be back from vacay next week and we'll be teaching her for sure. we instructed her on how to pray this week and helped her to understand (a little) of how to recognize the spirit. we have high hopes for her!

other investigators are still progressing, nobody has a baptismal date yet but we'll keep you posted on that.

okay, so here's some news for everybody!

Elder Osborn is headed to spring creek! he's transferring out of this area. Though you all know it was a tough transfer between us, i'm glad i had the time to spend with him. I learned a lot in the scriptures and he learned a lot about loving people. I don't want to be publicly negative but haha just so everyone understands what this transfer was like. I tried pretty hard to keep the peace between us but it didn't matter. he told people he didn't like me because i didn't give him a reason to like me. i couldn't believe it! he was talking poorly about me while i was playing basketball to a bunch of the missionaries that weren't playing and they all stuck up for me and kinda put him in his place that it wasn't cool to talk bad about people. since that time we haven't really talked that much. anyway! hope nobody get's upset that im tellin you all this. i learned a lot from him and he claims to have learned a lot from me, but we are both looking forward to the next chapter in our missionary service...

for me, I've been assigned to train a new missionary! at first i felt a little bit overwhelmed having just finished my training but i understand that this was an inspired decision. If the Lord trusts me with a new missionary, I will put my trust in him to guide me as a trainer. :) i'll find out tomorrow who i'm training and all that good stuff. i'm excited and i hope that i'm ready for the task ahead.!

okay so i think that's all for this week. here's something ya'll might like. my companion just told every missionary in our district that i have a bad sense of humor. we all email on laptops at the library at the same table and hah i don't even know how it came up but he was like.. "elder sykes isn't mean.. he just has a bad sense of humor..." for his sake i'm glad he is being transferred so that he can find a companion with a good sense of humor.

okay so i'll just tell y'all, i've never been happier in my life! even though this transfer was kind of brutal, it was a learning experience for the road ahead. the church is true and this is the Lord's work! i'm so grateful to be a part of it. :) thanks for the love this week family! got the care package, letters from don and steph and nick and grandma and grandpa. love you all and i think about you often! i've been out of stamps so i'm going to get some more today so i can write you all back. i hope you all have a fantastic week. love and miss,

-Elder Sykes

oh my! another p day friends. this has been a great week and i'm excited to share with y'all! hope everyone is doing super super swell.

 

WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS FINE P-DAY? well.. we had big plans to go mountain biking. i purchased a bike when we went to reno last wednesday.. i'll attach pics in a bit. it's pretty rad. our zone leaders shut us down on the mountain biking idea. it's a super tame hill and we would have been going with one of the guys in Fallon that developed the trails. they figured it is too risky so we'll probably play some more bball!

WHAT DID YOU DO AT CHURCH YESTERDAY?
Worshipped! :) it was a great sunday/fast and testimony meeting. for the first time, we had S and M attend sacrament. we introduced them to some of the ward family and the bishop, and without us even saying anything .. S organized a meeting with the bishop to get things going with his re-joining the church. two weeks ago he wouldn't have said a word to the bishop! so awesome. my comp and I were fasting for that family and this is what happened. :)

HOW IS THE WEATHER IN FALLON?
purty dandy. it's really not that hot, we just don't have AC in our house so if it gets into the 90's our bunk room has 2 sliding glass doors in it and it just cooks. the hottest it's been was like 94 and i think that was yesterday. from the sound of it, 90's is all summer, sometimes we'll get into the low 100's but it's super dry so as soon as night falls it cools off. no AC stinks though.. last night it had to be 80 degrees trying to sleep.

WHAT ONE SCRIPTURE HAD A GREAT POSITIVE AFFECT ON YOU THIS WEEK? WHY?
DC 88: 63 . also a passage from the teachings of Lorenzo Snow.. i brought it so i could share it. here it is.

"We may think that we cannot live up to the perfect law, that the work of perfecting ourselves is too difficult. This may be true in part, but the fact still remains that it is a command of the Almighty to us and we cannot ignore it. When we experience trying moments, then is the time for us to avail ourselves of that great privilege of calling upon the Lord for strength and understanding, intelligence and grace by which we can overcome the weakness of the flesh against which we have to make a continual warfare. "

WHAT IS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK?

We had quite a few great meetings with S and M this week.. we've been working with them a lot as they are making the proper steps back and we had some very spiritual conversations! it's great to see people make progress in the gospel and to see their whole persona just lighten up! we also made some progress with Amy.. she said herself she knows that when she reads the BOM she will know it's true.. she's just hesitant because she has a bias against the church. we're continuing to work on her and we've got big plans :)

 

also, there was a father/sons campout for our ward friday to saturday and we got invited to eat dinner there as well as breakfast saturday morning. it was like 4 blocks from everybodies house on a farm next to a little pond and it was way fun to see the cameraderie (wow.. sorry.. no clue how to spell that) within the ward between families. the bishop set up a bunch of games for them and it was so fun to watch!

HOW DID YOU SEE THE HAND OF THE LORD IN LIFE THIS WEEK?
well we were fasting for S and M .. that they will progress at the same pace. when S pulled the bishop aside i coulda cried tears of joy! M is the one that has shown the most desire to bring the gospel back into her life. S has been a slower moving process but our work is paying off and i know that our Father in Heaven prepared him for us to meet with him, and gave him the strength to talk to the bishop! that wasn't an easy move and he did it without us even inviting him too. I know the Lord influenced him to do so. :) among other things! it's amazing being a missionary. it truly is the Lord's work and we just put ourselves in the right spot and the right time (by paying attention to the guidance we receive) and we are promised that if we open our mouths the words will come. I'm so grateful to be a missionary! it's scary and requires all of the faith we can muster, but like i said if we put ourselves where we need to be the Lord does all the work!

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU ARE MOST GRATEFUL FOR TODAY?

The Gospel is the easy answer! I'm SO grateful for the tangible joy the gospel brings. anchoring my life to the gospel as a missionary has made me happier than i've ever been. not only in my life, but it makes me even happier to witness other people cling to the gospel and gain that happiness. watching S and M grow and change little things here and there has been my favorite part of being a missionary hands down. they need the gospel in their lives and for me to be the conductor.. i couldn't be more grateful for that opportunity! Not only the gospel though.. I'm so grateful for the people in my life! my wonderful family, my friends, the people of Nevada i've been blessed to meet. Life is just good and I'm so blessed! i have so much to be grateful for. :)

WHAT WAS THE CRAZIEST THING THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK? haha well this is going to go with the jokes question but the elders we live with started a game this week.. bring home the craziest object you find while out proselyting for the day. they have a gnarly desert area so they have more opportunity to find crazy stuff.. but they brought home a skull and a leg from a baby calf. it still had a little fur on it but they buried it in the sand so it looked like it had a full body that was buried. that was pretty crazy! hahah

DO YOU HAVE THE SAME COMP? yeah..... yep.

DO YOU GUYS PLAY JOKES ON EACH OTHER?

nope. my sense of humor is taking a hit because he doesn't understand it! we don't prank each other at all or play jokes. we play chess.. and he beats me.

WHO DID YOU GET MAIL FROM THIS WEEK?
This was a great mail week! i got Haley's grad announcement, mail from Grandma sue and Grandpa monte, Nan, Joe Hatch, and sam Stahura. i got a bunch of pics so my wall of photos is growing and i love it so much! keep em' coming!

 

well errbody! life is so good as a missionary. I want y'all to know that i pray for you often. I hope and pray that things are so good for everybody at home! thank you for the continued support in my efforts as a servant of the Lord. I love to hear from you all so write me and send pics. The church is true! it is the only source of true and lasting happiness. Love you all! talk to you soon. :)

 

Elder Sykes