Week 36 - April 17, 2017

Hello again y'all!!
So it is another transfer here in Hammond Louisiana. Elder Israelsen and I are no longer together. He has moved on to Morgan City in the New Orleans Zone. He is now with my CCM comp Elder Porter. As far as I know they are doing well together! My new comp is Elder Barney. So the crazy thing about Elder Barney is that he is a English Elder.... So yeah I am in a salt and pepper companionship now. It has been an interesting week needless to say. Elder Barney is from Utah, go figure, and has been out for about 21 months. He and I get along pretty well together and I think some cool things will happen this transfer.

So this week wasn't too eventful other than getting a new companion. I have been taking him around to the people that we visit and introducing him to them and to the members of the ward. It has been good. 

So I am sorry for the short email y'all.... It has been a crazy week but mostly because of the new comp. Hopefully next week I will have more to report.

Love y'all!

Editors Note: Pictures are from last week. 

Week 35 - April 11, 2017*

Good Mornin y'all. So another transfer has passed for me out here on the mission. They seem to get shorter and shorter every time. Elder Israelsen tells me that it is probably because this transfer was only a five week transfer instead of a six week one but I'm still not convinced that is the reason :)

Still no news as to if Israelsen and I are being transferred, the calls wont come in until about 10 or 11 my time. I am hoping that Israelsen and I stay together one more but we will see what happens.

So this week was a little disappointing. We were supposed to have a baptism on the 15th of this month but on Saturday we were informed that we would have to postpone the baptism because of a few things that have come up. I won't go into detail but please keep the Strausbaugh family in your prayers!! 

The big thing this week was the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival. It is one of the largest festivals here in Louisiana and it is all dedicated to strawberries. Who would have thought strawberries were cool enough to bring hundreds of thousands of people to a small town like Ponchatoula?? Not me that is for sure!! So we got to spend a lot of time at the festival by doing service for the local Kiwanis Club. They were selling non-alcoholic strawberry daiquiri's to earn money for this years projects. It was a lot of fun and when we weren't helping there we got to go around and see some of the booths and talk to people. Not many people there were from our area but we did get to speak some Spanish there so that was really cool!! 

Other than that this week was fairly slow. We got a few new potential investigators this week including a family but we have to follow up with them this week and see if they are interested in continuing meeting with us. I will keep y'all updated on that.

One last thing. If y'all haven't seen the Easter videos that the Church has put out this year, I would strongly encourage y'all to go to Mormon.org and watch all nine videos. They will bring a Spirit of Peace into your homes this Easter season. I have felt and seen in others the Spirit that these videos bring.

Have a great week!! I will keep y'all updated on transfers!!

Week 34 - April 3, 2017

Howdy y'all!! I feel way too Southern now haha!! Anyways I hope y'all have had a great week!!

This week was pretty slow for us as missionaries. I got my head cold again but stronger this week from about Sunday to Wednesday and then Elder Israelsen got it starting on about Wednesday through the weekend. SO this was a fairly hard week for us but we made it through.

This week, even though we were sick, we still ended up finding a lot of service to do for the Kiwanis Club here in Hammond. On Tuesday we went to the local Kiwanis meeting and got introduced to more of the people that are part of the club here. On Wednesday we went and helped with the Happy Packs again which is one of my favorite service that we do. After that we went to the Kiwanis meeting in Ponchatoula, another city that we cover, and met the Kiwanis members there. Then on Thursday we went with the Kiwanis to help get new supplies for the Happy Packs. It was a good week for service.

On Friday we had our Zone Training Meeting (ZTM). It was really good. The instructions were about learning to love our companion by compromise and service. It was a really good instruction and much needed for this Zone. We also had an instruction on how to make finding new people more fun. The last thing that we did in ZTM was discuss the Easter video and pass along cards. I am really excited for them because so many people down here have faith in Christ and I feel like this will open so many more doors to us. I can't wait to get out and start using them out tracting.

We also had interviews with President Hansen Friday after ZTM. Elder Israelsen and I have come to the realization that for some reason that we don't know, President loves us. Our past few interviews have been super short and all he really tells us is how great we are doing and how happy his is to have wonderful missionaries like us. It is kind of strange but as long as I am on his good side I am happy. I got to talk to Sister Hansen as well which is always really nice. She is probably my favorite person on the Earth. She is so nice and understanding to all the missionaries and she gets to know all of us by name. She is just an all around great lady.

So other than that this weekend was AWESOME! I love Conference out here on the mission. Everything seems to be related in some way to what I am doing out here on the mission and how I can become a better missionary. I love that we have the opportunity twice a year to hear from the Prophet, the Apostles, and other inspired Church Leaders. It is always such a strength and there is always some thing to learn.

Well I hope y'all are having a great Monday and that this week will be great for y'all!! Hasta Luego!!

 

 

Editors Note: I'll caption these pictures, "Missionaries love new cars"