Christmas? Already?

Well folks, it has been another good week here in the good ol Port Washington branch. We had a lot going on that made this week seem like it lasted for no time at all. But at the same time it kinda felt slow by the end of it. It is starting to get dark here at like 4 or 4:30... so that doesn't help the work out too much. But it has still been good! This week we started off with staying in Milwaukee Monday night, and then most of the day Tuesday for an exchange with Elder Ewell, my MTC companion!! It was a super good time in downtown Milwaukee, I don't get to see that place too often, but I got to see a little bit of it this week! We had district council and then Elder Ewell and I went and visited some people with a member of their ward, and we met this really nice recent convert that has been struggling a little bit. We were able to talk with her for quite a while and share a short message at the end, and then she said that she wanted to make her way back to church, and that made me pretty excited! So then on Tuesday night we had a dinner up in Port so we had to fly back up there and had an awesome dinner appointment and then went to the church to help get ready for the parade that will be this Saturday. We taped like 900 candy canes to #LightTheWorld cards and that took way less time than I expected, we had it done in like 30 minutes with the youth! I am super hyped for the parade this next Saturday, but it blows my mind that it will be December already too, so that is crazy.

Then Wednesday we had a pretty good day, it was pretty long though. We had a good walk to the downtown area, and talked to some pretty cool fisherman about the Gospel and then we went to get an oil change.... which really sucks up your time pretty quick. This one was a little longer than normal and Elder Mecham zonked hard in the waiting room... it was pretty funny! Then we had a dinner at a restaurant with a member of the branch and it was some delicious food!

Thursday we had Thanksgiving!! It was a good day. So we woke up and went to the church for the Turkey Bowl that turned out to be us and one other member, lol, but we still had a good time with him throwing the ball around. Then we went home and got dressed and it was time to go to our meal appointment, that was at a nonmembers house! We were there with the family from the branch and this family that they are friends with. So then we had a really good dinner, and stayed around for a few hours and played some pretty fun board games! Honestly some of the best times playing games with them, it was really fun!

Friday was another pretty normal day, we had a lesson with Erv, and that was pretty good! He is doing well, and he wants to keep reading more of the Book of Mormon. So we were reading 3 pages a day, and he said he wanted to do more, so now it is up to 5 pages a day... that puts us into 2 Nephi in less than a week... so it will be fast pace reading with him.

Saturday we helped move a member out of their storage unit. This is a really old couple and they have a lot of stuff.... we moved 2 storage units of stuff into a semi trailer with a few members, and there is another semi trailer at their house... it was a lot of stuff that still needs to be packed, so we will probably end up helping some more with that!

Sunday was a pretty normal Sunday for us here, we actually went out as a branch after church to help this same family pack some stuff up, and we were only there for a short time because a lot of people went. That was just putting it in boxes, not moving things into the trailer yet, so there is a lot still to be done..

Well it blows my mind that it is already that time of year where we get to celebrate Christ's birth again, but I love this time of the year! I hope you all can remember the reason for the season and enjoy the chance to worship Jesus Christ! Remember how much he loves you and wants you to be happy! Love you all!

Elder Reynolds

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey friends and family!

This week here in Wisconsin was pretty good, but also pretty dang cold! The winter is fast approaching and I am not sure if you can ever be ready for it to be this cold. But I have stayed warm, and continue to find happiness in the work! This week we definitely started to see some things pick up, we were able to have a man named Erv come to church, he has been taught a lot by missionaries in the past, but seems to have a strong desire to continue to learn. We also were able to come up with some cool object lessons for members, who have been super awesome to us! I also went on exchanges with Elder Chue, he is a Hmong elder!

So Monday last week was pretty fun, we did the usual zone sports, and then we did this weird thing where I went down to the Hmong area for the night with Elder Berrett and we were able to have a good time doing the work. Then when we got back that night we played a ton of ping pong. These Elders straight up got a free ping pong table and put it in there apartment and we had a good time playing. So that was pretty much the day on Monday, we balled up during the day.

Tuesday was another pretty good day, we had district council in the morning and then we had the exchange with the Hmong Elders. So I brought Elder Chue up to Port Washington and we had a dinner appointment and were able to do quite a bit of tracting. It was actually pretty successful! We were able to talk to a lot more people than the average day, and then we actually got into a few houses as well. We also got bashed by this guy that works for the christian radio station based out of Milwaukee, so that was kinda neat! But in reality it was good times!

Wednesday we did some more finding in the early hours of the day and then drove down to Milwaukee to meet up with our companions, and then Elder Mecham and I came back up to Port. We had a lesson with this man named Jordan. He is handicap, and can't walk. But he is friends with some members and that is how missionaries first met him. So he is studying to be a pastor somewhere, and he doesn't want to change what he believes... but we were able to have a good discussion with him, and he is really nice about the way he does things! Didn't want to bash us at all, just a genuine guy! Then we went home and had dinner and it was good!

Thursday we did a lot of walking and it wasn't super warm, but it was alright. So we drove to downtown and did a little bit of talking to the fisherman there, and then we walked to a couple potentials that we didn't think were too far, but we took a road that made you loop all the way around to get across a bridge so it ended up being a lot longer than expected.... but it was good! Then we had our weekly planning and did some work out in the boonie towns of our area and had an awesome dinner with a family that lives out there a little ways! We then came back to the church and we did some work on the float that will be in the Christmas parade on Dec 1st! I am super excited for that to happen! The branch will all be on the float and hand out Light the World cards with some candy canes, it is sweet!!

Friday was a good day! We were hoping that we could meet with one of the families in the branch and one of their friends wanted to ask us questions. But she ended up having to babysit so the members still fed us! She made homemade pizza and it was super super good!! Oh we also taught our main man Erv on Friday. He has a solid testimony of the Book of Mormon.... but he has to wait until 2020 to get baptized because he is on probation, so that is kinda sad! But honestly it was a super good discussion with him!

Then Saturday and Sunday were the classic weekend here in Port! Saturday we had our correlation meeting with the branch mission leader and then did some more knocking doors and then had dinner with the same family that we had it with on Thursday! They asked me what my fav food was on Thursday and I said tacos, so they were like "we are having those on Saturday you should come" Wasn't gonna turn down free food, so we were able to go over there again and it was awesome! Sunday was a good day at church! Erv came, and that was awesome! Then we had dinner with the same people as Friday... man these two families sacrifice a lot for us and I appreciate it so much! So it was a good week!

Here is a thought from church this last week!
One of the speakers talked about a talk that Elder Rasband gave as his first General Conference address. It was in October 2015 and it is a super good talk! But the jist of it is that we must learn to see people through God's eyes.  I love that as a missionary I have had to learn that principle. It doesn't matter what people look like, how bad they might seem, how sketchy they might be, etc. It matters that they are a child of God and they have the potential to do even better than we are doing right now! Never forget that you are a child of God!
Hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Reynolds

Snow has come......

Hello all!

This week here in Port Washington was a pretty normal one! But we also had some pretty cool things go down! So first of all we can talk about the weather, it got cold real quick this week.... it was kinda sad. It was fine until Friday morning when we woke up to a couple inches of snow... that made life pretty rough. But it was good for us to get out and work even with the crappy weather! We saw some good stuff from it too!

So last Monday we did a weird exchange with the Hmong elders where I was with Elder Carlson in our area from Monday night to Wednesday morning. So it was longer than normal but it turned out to be really good for us! Elder Carlson is a hmong elder, and so that's always crazy. But he is a super cool kid, and I enjoy working with him. So Tuesday we were able to make some time and go knock doors and it turned out to be successful! We met a kid named Eric who we will probably end up referring down to the YSA ward in Milwaukee, but he seemed super cool and we are working on getting an appointment with him!

Then on Wednesday we had district council and then Elder Mecham came back up to Port with me. It was a pretty slow day, and then we ended up doing some knocking and stopping by some older potentials, but it was dark and nobody likes you at the door step so it was rough. But we ended up meeting a family and getting there phone number so we are pretty excited for them!

Then Thursday we had another good day! We did some rake contacting and the good ol weekly planning! We then heard from the members that own the rakes we have been using and they said they would like them back so they could get rid of the leaves before the snow came..... I was so mad that the snow was going to come, but we were able to go and help them clean up their yard, and meet one of their nonmember friends! So we are pretty excited for that situation, we are able to do a lot of work with them and it is the bomb! So we finished that, and then we had dinner and that was pretty much the rest of the night, days seem to go by super fast here so that is good!

Friday we had calls, we played some bowling with the people at the senior center and had a good time there. They have a ramp that they push it down, but then we had to give the ball back and set up the pins, and wow that wasn't super hard, buy my back was hurtin the rest of the day from bending down so much haha! It was really good though, we love to go and serve them, they keep it pretty entertaining too! The member who had signed up to feed us had some other stuff going on and so they quickly brought us Noodles and Co, and that was a good dinner. So it was sad because we didn't get to sit down with them, but good food!! Then we also got in with a guy named Erv, he has been trying to get baptized for the last couple of years, but he can't because he is on probation. So missionaries have been meeting with him for a long time with very little success, but he knows it is all true he said, so that is good! We are hoping to start meeting with him at least every other week!

Saturday was pretty rough. Elder Mecham woke up and he wasn't feeling too great, he thinks he ate some bad chicken on Friday. So basically we did the things we had set for, but then Elder Mecham needed to rest, so we kinda just chilled between our appointments. It was hard not to be doing anything.... but he got feeling better by Sunday morning so that was good! So we had a correlation meeting with our Branch mission leader, and a dinner appointment with a family. So before dinner we did a little bit of work, and then afterwards we took it easy.

Then on Sunday we had church, and then we had studies, then I got to call the district to get their numbers. It was pretty good, then we went and followed up with some people and did some knocking before we went over to dinner. We got to our dinner and they were telling us the score of the Packer game... so we realized that we probably shouldn't have been doing too much for the last hour, but luckily we didn't get yelled at!

That was pretty much the week. Here is a short spiritual thought for ya:
Elder Rasband shared in this last conference that God does not want us to just become trained pets that don't chew on His shoes in the Celestial living room, but he wants us to have a desire to choose and do what is right no matter the situation. I know that we can develop that, it won't come quickly or easily, but by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost we have the chance to grow and learn to do what God would have us do each and every day!

Hope you all have a marvelous week!

Elder Reynolds
1580 W Portview Dr. #5
Port Washington, WI 53074

We found the flag thing on a door step haha

Baptism Interviews!!

Hey all,

This week has been super weird! We haven't had nearly as much time as I would want to proselyte because we have meetings and exchanges, and so it has taken up some time that I would rather be teaching or finding. There is a lot of really good things starting to happen, and I am excited to be here in the Port Washington branch! We have some members that are just amazing, and it makes for a good time! We have been able to borrow some rakes from some members and take them door to door and try to find people by serving them! It was awesome to see how much more wiling people were to listen to us when we had rakes instead of just our weird outfits(; But overall it has been a good week, Tuesday was zone conference and we talked about a LOT of stuff! But it was really uplifting and motivating for me! There was a lot of talk about how we can help the mission reach the goal of 200 baptisms this year, so that was good, and we all have the goal to baptize someone by the end of the year! I am excited to try and achieve that!

Then we left and I went with Elder Mckonkie, who is the great grandson of Bruce R. Mckonkie, so that was fun! He is in "the hood" if you will.. The ward is Parkway, and it covers the majority of the sketchy parts of Milwaukee so they see some pretty weird stuff, but luckily we had something to do at night, so it wasn't too bad! We were able to help someone move and then have a dinner appointment with an awesome member! So then the next morning and until about 4, and we had a ton of appointments! So it was the busiest day of my mission for sure, but it was super good. We were able to have a car with us, and that made it a lot easier!

Thursday we had a super cool visit with this guy that lived in the middle of nowhere. So we try to go out with members to visit people 2 times a week, and we usually get one of the two, so this week was Thursday. We meet up with Bro. Earl and we drove for like 30 minutes to get to this house in the middle of the country. But he is this 70 year old Marine vet, and it was super cool to talk to him. We hope to be able to visit him again but we will see what happens. He hasn't been to church in probably like 30 years... but everyone is worth a shot!

Friday, we had calls that take two hours, and then we had the rakes so we went and did a lot of raking for random strangers and that was honestly pretty fun! It is way more effective to the people that are home and need it than trying to tract the entire city.. We really enjoyed that, so we did it for a few hours, and then we had dinner and Elder Mecham made some really bomb wings. It was delicious.

Saturday was another day of raking and then we also had to drive down to Milwaukee so I could do some baptismal interviews and it was awesome! They are some of my favorite things to do as a missionary!! I got to do 3, and they are all some younger kids being taught in our areas. They are part member families, so since they are kids it becomes a little bit weird! But honestly still one of my favorite things to do.

Sunday was super good, we had a regional conference! Elder Holland was presiding and he talked about Missionary work and gathering scattered Israel. So that was pretty much the coolest thing ever. Anytime an apostle encourages someone to do missionary work I get pretty excited! So then we did a lesson with some of my favorite people in the branch and it was awesome!! They have a lot of kids that all want to share the gospel with their friends and we look forward to how they are blessed for their efforts!

Well that is the sum of the week, thank you for all your love and support!

Elder Reynolds