email dated May 30, 2022

Hi guys! 

How has everyone been?! This week looking back doesn’t seem very long feeling, but at the same time it does feel like a week. (Don’t know if that makes any sense at all lol). But I am happy to once again be writing another week’s worth of stuff! 

Last Monday,  we were watching the Facebook page so we did some Facebook work. We also had a lesson with one of our friends where we read Moroni 7 and talked about miracles and Charity. It was a good lesson! 

Tuesday was super busy. We had District council in the morning at the Dallas Building, and that went well. Then we ate lunch and then had interviews with President Needs. I don’t think I can say it enough, that is always a fantastic time!!! :)!!! I got a new pillow and it is probably the biggest pillow that I’ve ever seen!! It is so fluffy, and well, I like it a lot! Cool story for after interviews, we met a lady at Publix about 2 or 3 weeks ago and we felt prompted to call her, so we did. It ended up being a super cool phone call because she said she has been doing some research about the church and asked some awesome questions! We pretty much got to teach the whole Restoration and she said that she liked it!

Wednesday, we pretty much had a day full of contacts. We had dinner at the Pearson’s house, and they are such nice people! The Krogh’s, who is Sister Pearson’s daughters fam comes to eat with us as well, so it is always a party!

Thursday, we tried to have Weekly Planning, but it seemed like everything else in the world came up ?. But we got as much as we could done and finished it through Friday and Saturday. 

And that leads to Sunday, where we had really good church :). In sacrament meeting there were three talks. First we learned that standing up for what we believe in helps us shine the light of Jesus Christ. Then we learned how we should love God First and our neighbors and that will bring so many blessings. And then we learned how it’s not going to be easy, but will always be worth it. 

Saturday, we got transfer news! I am going to be staying in Stilesboro and Elder Peterson is going somewhere else ?.

For a spiritual thought today, I feel like I should share a message about Jesus Christ having healing in His wings. In 3 Nephi 25:2, it teaches that Christ will come with Healing in his Wings. I read that this week and it really stood out to me, because how true it is! Jesus Christ truly is the source of all Healing, and through him, we can change and become better people!! I don’t have a ton of time today because it is the Last Pday as this District, so I will write next week :).

Hope y’all have a fantastic week!! -Elder Claussen 

email dated May 23, 2022

Hi guys!

Another week past, another month serving the lord! ? Yesterday (Sunday) was my 6th month mark! That’s so crazy!!! Low key feels like it’s only been like maybe half that? 

But anywho, it has been a good week this week. Lots of contacts and lots of people we’ve been able to meet, so that is super awesome! 

I think that I mentioned it last week but last Monday, we didn’t have a district Pday because we learned we are encouraged to not have them every week. My guess would be so we can actually get all of our Pday stuff that we need to get done lol. I won’t lie, it was nice to be able to actually rest a bit on Pday haha. We cleaned a bit, went shopping, did laundry, all of the fun stuff that we can’t really do throughout the week!

Tuesday, we had District Council, and so that was super good! After District Council, we also started Exchanges. This time, I went to the Hirum area and was with Elder Dodge! It was a good exchange, we got a bunch of in-persons, calls and studies done, so I’d say that it was successful!

Wednesday, we finished exchanges and then we got to go to the Makin’s house for dinner and had scones and Chile to make some Navajo tacos, and that was super tasty!! ? After that, we went to a member’s house in the macland area to help them move a very large filing cabinet down some stairs into the garage. It was cool, because I am pretty sure that the spirit gave us the strength to move it because it was super heavy, but we didn’t drop it or break anything in the process. So that was super good! 

Thursday, we had Weekly planning. That’s always good to figure out what we are going to do for the week. Brother Farrar was out of town because he was at a table tennis tournament (I hope he did well!), so we didn’t get to go to his house. Hopefully this week we can make it, but we have housing inspections right when we usually go, so we shall see what ends up happening! We went to Dinner at the Curby’s house and had a Low Country Boil. I guess it is a southern classic meal where you get newspapers on the table and lay out a bunch of sausages and hot dogs and potatoes and stuff (or just have it in a big pile on a pan) and everyone grabs what they’d like to eat. I thought it was funny we were having the southern classic meal at their house because they are originally from Arizona; but it was still super tasty nonetheless ?. 

Friday, we got to visit some less active houses and invite them to church. We did some service for a member where we picked up all of the pine-cones from her lawn. There were a Lot!! We went to a house that we met a couple of weeks ago and invited someome to the relief society activity that is happening on Thursday. We’re hoping that she is able to make it because then we could hopefully start teaching their family!! To end the day, we had an awesome lesson with one of our friends. He still doesn’t feel comfortable coming to church, so we brought up going to lunch with him and a member, so hopefully that ends up happening and working out. 

Saturday, we hit it hard. We went to a bunch of people’s houses, and gave out a bunch of Book of Mormons! We sent a referral to Chicago of a guy we found in our areabook that moved over there. We can follow the people that we send, and it looks like the Elders over there did get to contact him already! So that was cool to see :). 

Yesterday was normal, but a really good Sunday!! In Sacrament meeting, there were some really good talks about Charity and then second hour a really good lesson about Spiritual Momentum and President Nelson’s talk from general conference. We had reports, which went well! I pretty much just get to sit on the side and listen to all of the amazing things happening in everyone’s areas which is always good! 🙂 

Random fun fact of the week: watermelon in the south just seems to be better. Maybe it’s just watermelon season, but man, they have been really good this week!! ?

And for a spiritual thought today, I am going to talk about Journaling! When you think about it, the first few books in the Book of Mormon is essentially just a family journal. When Mormon was abridging the records, in Words of Mormon, he explains how he kind of just found these records that were called the small plates of Nephi and he put it in his Book. I don’t think he had to abridge them as they were already the spiritual matters in their lives. One of the pieces of advice that Elder Christofferson gave us when he came was to write down all of our spiritual impressions and to journal as much as we could. As we do, it shows the Lord that we are taking what he tells us seriously. That it is important enough to write it down so we can remember the things we’ve learned. It is also proven that as we write things down, we are more likely to retain, and well if we forget, we can always look back and see what we learned. 

My invitation today is to write down your thoughts sometime this week. It doesn’t have to be long; but take the time to write some of the things that you’ve been doing, things you’ve learned, and how you’ve been feeling. Most importantly, write ways that you have seen God’s hand in your life. In a few years, you’ll be able to look back and see how much you’ve changed, how much you’ve stayed the same. I don’t think that Nephi realized that the words that he wrote would be read by millions all around the world. Maybe he did towards the end, but regardless, now we have his writings, and they are awesome! I know you won’t regret it and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

I hope that y’all have a fantastic week!! -Elder Claussen

email dated May 16, 2022

Hey everyone!

I am not going to lie, this week has actually felt super long! I think that it is probably the first week that has actually felt like a whole week. For whatever reason, my allergies have been killer this week! I did get some alergy medicine today, so I hope that this week is better in terms of allergies.

Last monday, we had an awesome lesson with one of our friends again. We are still trying to help him feel welcome to come to church because at this point, we have taught him most of the lessons and he seems to love them; but we think that one, he doesn’t know any members and two, his family goes to a different church and probably doesn’t want to leave them. I do know that he is awesome though, and the spirit guides in our lessons. We usually make a lesson plan and then the spirit kind of takes over and we go off on some tangent that after we are done, Elder Peterson and I are like, well that’s what he needed to hear haha! 

We also got back in contact with another one of our friends who we haven’t heard from in a couple weeks! It was a nice surprise to hear back from them and teach them a lesson. They also seem to be doing pretty good, there is just a lot of opposition in their lives right now, so we are trying to help them the best that we can! 

We got a text randomly this last week from someone who was taught a long time ago, so that was awesome. He texted us and asked us who the Brother of Jared was and why he doesn’t have a name ?. Kind of a silly question, but that means that they have been reading the Book of Mormon!! We went over to his house and we had a cool lesson on his front porch. I think that in-person lessons beat a phone lesson any day! It is one of our goals to try to have more in-person lessons. 

For the rest of the week, we did get a lot of really good contacts in and met even more people!! Funny story of the week is we were at a member dinner and after it was done, we felt like we should go to some of their neighbor’s houses and while we were in the middle of the street, this guy came out and was like, “You guys aren’t aloud to be here. There is no soliciting.” We asked him if he belives in Jesus Christ, and he said yes, but you still have to leave. We appologized and ended up leaving, but sometimes people are just funny. ?

For a spiritual thought today, I wanted to share the impact that having a positive attitude and good outlook on life can have. Someone in Sunday School is like a councelor or something, but they said something that really stuck out to me. Essentially, it boiled down to the fact that words DO in fact have great power! As we look for the good things out of our situation and out of the people that we are around, we will be so much happier in life. All of those things that we might not like as much about where we are or who we are with will seem to lessen as we see how many more good things that Heavenly Father has blessed us with. 

I hope that y’all have had a great week! It has been a good week, but man, I hope that this medicine that I have gotten will help ?! That would be good!! I love to hear from you! Stay awesome! -Elder Claussen

Hi guys!

This week has been super good! So busy, so the time has literally flown by. We got a lot of contacts done and it was a good time.

Monday, we had an awesome lesson with one of our friends and we invited him to church. That is going to be a big step for him because his whole family is of a different faith and he is very close with his family. He said that he would ultimately pray about it and we have another lesson with him tonight, so hopefully that goes as good as our last lesson (because it was great!)..

Tuesday, we had district council and then exchanges. This time I was with Elder Mapp in Stilesboro, which means that I led the area and got to drive again! We were driving down the road and Elder Mapp was like, “We need to go to that house” so we did and someone answered the door and happily accepted a Book of Mormon! That was cool because it was a perfect example of letting the spirit guide the work! We have since texted this person and are still trying to figure out a good time to come back, but it was still really good. 

Wednesday, we finished up exchanges and then had a good lesson with Sister Carillo. I think there is only one more lesson that we have with her before she ‘graduates’ the new member lessons so that is going to be hard to not see her all the time anymore!! She is so nice!! We had dinner at the Hall’s house, and so that was super good too!

Thursday, we had Zone Conference so we got to see all of the missionaries in the Zone and also President and Sister Needs!! It was a super good zone conference, and there were some really good trainings that I learned a lot of things that I’ve been doing, but can do better on. I’m excited to see how that helps us be more efficient to be even better missionaries! Zone Conference pretty much took the whole day, but after it was done, we had some good contacts.

Friday, we had weekly planning. We set some good goals and planned out the week. We also had lunch wtih Brother Farrar and Ralph, and so that was super fun!! I love seeing those two guys because they are so nice! Friday night, we also had another lesson with one of our friends, and it went good. 

We have found that people are home on Saturdays so we did a bunch of in persons and had dinner with Sister Ross. It was a good day and I think that I counted 50+ contacts?! It was crazy busy haha! 

Sunday, we had church and unfortunately none of our friends made it, but it was a really good mothers day! 🙂 I got to call my mom and that was definitely the highlight of the week! 

Instead of a spiritual thought, I wanted to say big thank you to my Mom! She has always been there for me, and I am so grateful for all of the support that she’s given me the 19 years that I’ve been alive! Mothers are essential to the family unit, and the role that they play is crucial for eternal progression. The mom’s of the strippling warriors taught their sons the Gospel and it is credited to their moms for teaching their sons that they could accomplish so many miraculous victories. Love you mom!!

I hope y’all have had a fantastic week!! I will write next week!

-Elder Claussen

Hi everyone!!

Don’t have a lot of time again today, but this week was super good!! We stayed busy every day, and we did a lot of contacts and we did have someone reach out to us who wants to learn about the church!! 

Title is from today where we had pancakes at the church and did cart races lol. Twas legit. 

I’m going to go straight to a spiritual thought, which today is going to be about the importance of Jesus Christ :). Helaman 5:12 teaches “…that it is only upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation…” Christ’s foundation is Sure, unwavering, unchanging. Amidst a changing world, a world of good and evil, it is so important to build that foundation on Jesus Christ because as things change; when you move to different places, meet new people, and don’t know where you’re going, Jesus Christ will always be there for you. He will be firm, and a solid foundation. Plus, as we follow Jesus Christ, he is the way to exaltation :). 

Sorry today isn’t very long email, but I do say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

-Elder Claussen

Hi everyone!! 

Happy Easter!! I hope y’all’s week has been fantastic, and have had a great Easter Season. Easter in the south is the same, but different Lol. When you invite people to church, it feels like everyone has their own church they go to for Easter. Driving through town, there were a bunch of churches that had stages set up outside and huge sound Systems? I’m not quite sure what was going on, but what a crazy place ?. 

The title of this email comes from a lady who’s house we went to. We knocked and she came and answered the door. As soon as she saw it was us she immediately said, “sorry I have something in the oven, I can’t talk” before we could even say Hi. I tried asking if it was her, and she paused her closing the door and then just slowly closed it after that. What a silly lady! Why she couldn’t just tell us she’s not interested I’m not sure, but it was definitely the first time I’ve heard that you can’t talk if you have something in the oven ?.

I’m going to change up the format of this email by saving all of the calls and in person’s to this short paragraph haha ?. But we did make a lot of calls this week and stayed super busy! 

On Thursday, we had ZLC, and that was a really good meeting where I’d say I learned a lot of new and cool things! It is cool to see how the leadership of the Zone really cool care about all of the people in the mission. It gives me only a small glimpse of the love that Heavenly Father has for each and every one of us. Something cool that I am learning is that Christlike Love (Charity) is a great motivator! As we can do things out of love, it helps to invite the spirit. With the help of the spirit, anything is possible. 

Easter Sunday was super good too! It made me laugh when all of the primary kids went up to the stand for the song because there are so many youth in the ward that the congregation looked half empty!! But they invited the spirit and it was a very good Sacrament meeting and Sunday School!! One of the talks that was given was by Brother Allen, and his topic was about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the impact that it has on all of our lives. For those of you who don’t know Brother Allen, he is good man. The Atonement of Jesus Christ means “Everything” because Jesus Christ loosed the bands of death, paved a way for us to repent and become more like our Heavenly Father. He fulfilled all righteousness and because of that, we all have a chance. 

There is so much peace and hope that can be found from the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for the Easter Season we have been able to have to remember the 2nd greatest event in the history of the world (the first being the Birth of Jesus Christ :)). It is amazing to see all of these people in Georgia whether or not they believe what I do, to unite in celebration for the Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. My invitation this week is to think about what the Savior means to you and pray every single day. I know that taking time to pray will help you see so many blessings in your life. The power of prayer is real. I say this in the namen of Jesus Christ amen. 

Have a great week!

– Elder Claussen

Hello everyone!!

How have y’all been?? This week feels like it just flew by, it’s crazy!! We got a lot done, and met a lot of new people. Title today was a funny quote from someone we talked to this week ?

Monday, we had a district Pday, so that was fun. We pretty much just stayed at the church and played games. It was legit! Monday evening we made a bunch of phone calls to some people in our areabook. 

Tuesday, we had District Council and exchanges again! This time I got to go with Elder Mapp to the Hirum area. It was a super good exchange and we did a couple lessons, a bunch of contacts, and it was great! 

Wednesday, we unexchanged, had a lesson and had dinner with the DeLeon family. We had shepherd’s pie, and let me tell you, it was delicious! ?

Thursday, we had interviews with Presiddent and sister Needs! They are still absolutely fantastic people and I love it when we get to see them!!! For the rest of the day, we weekly planned and then had a lesson!

Friday, we tried to do some public contacting and had some good contacts with some more people!! We had dinner with the Carrell family, invited people to church, and then had a nice lesson with one of our friends!

Saturday, we went to the botanical gardens, and it is such a pretty place! There’s soo much green, and soo many flowers in this time of year. It is super sweet! Which reminds me, Georgia is sooo green!!! Wow!! It pours rain for like 3 days straight; but now, there is so much green and everything is coming alive again!! 

Sunday, we had one of our friends make it to chuch!!! It was so good to see them there!! I hope they felt welcome and they said they are planning on coming next week too, so that is fantastic!!! 

That leads us to today, where we have gone to the store and are now having another District Pday so we are at the church again. 

For a spiritual thought today, I’d like to share something someone said in their talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday. They said that it is a choice to be happy, and explained that in very good detail. I won’t get too deep right now, but essentially, he said that we can either choose to be sad and hate life; or make the choice to love it and cherish the good times as well as the hard times. The hard times are there to help us grow closer to the Lord. Remember to pray always, have faith, hope and charity and miracles Will happen! As one of the points in President Nelson said in General Conference, miracles do happen every single day!!

I love y’all so much, and I do love to hear from you! I don’t know if I’ll have much time today to respond to everyone, but I’ll definitely try to respond to everyone next week. I have definitely been slacking lol. 

Have a great week!

-Elder Claussen

Hi Family and Friends!

How are you guys doing?! It’s definitely been a crazy week, and there is definitely not enough time to tell you all of it because today is going to be a District Pday, but I will do my best!! 🙂 Before I start though, the pollen here in Georgia is INSANE!!! You go outside and instead of dirt devils, it’s pollen!!! And then you go to the car and your silver car is literally yellow! I’ll have to get a picture one of these days lol, because it’s crazy! ??. I hear it will still get worse too! ??

Monday evening, what a day! We met two people as we were shopping, and one of them was from Jamaica! Immediately, my thoughts went to Brother Stephen’s, because I know he went to Jamaica! He actually recognized us as missionaries, and recognized the church’s name from Jamaica, so that was cool! By the end of our conversation, he was talking about Jamaica, and he started having a Jamaican accent, and I was dying, because it was so cool to hear man! ?

Tuesday, we had exchanges where I exchanged with Elder Dodge and Elder Pererson went with Elder Mapp. For the first time (officually) I had to be in charge of the area! We had no miles, so we pretty much stayed at the church making calls and walking to the nearest people to the church. There ended up being a youth event for our ward, and WOW, the Stilesboro Ward has a LOT of youth!! I was surprised!! We got hotdogs and were with them until they went to a soccer game. ⚽️ But I did end up getting to drive home, and I used cruise control for the first time! That was fun ?. In all of the mission cars, there is a little box named TIWI, which yells at you when you’re speeding or being a bad driver. The smart move when traffic isn’t bad is to use cruise control to keep your speed steady so you don’t get a “check your speed”. I am proud, because I don’t think I got any bad driving record things :). I might have driven super slow, but it was all good ?. 

Wednesday, we had exchanges 2.0 for the morning and switched back at lunch time. Overall, I would say it was a super good exchange, and we got a lot of good things done!!! This week, we have another exchange on Tuesday and Wednesday again, so that will be fun! 🙂 This time I’m going to go to Hirum and be with Elder Mapp.

Thursday, we had a really good weekly planning! I think we actually made it through the whole week!! So that was good. It pretty much took the whole day, but we had Lunch with Brother Farrar and Ralph again, so that was super fun! We also had dinner with the Gullinos and they are nice people. 

Friday, was a day of finding!! We did studies in the morning, and then went to a botanical garden after lunch. It was super pretty and we got to talk to some peeps there. It was actually really close to the apartment, so I think we are going to go back!! In the evening, we made some calls to some of our friends, and we ended up having to lessons!! They both went super great, and it was really nice after a whole day of finding :). 

Saturday was General Conference!!!! For the Morning session, we went to Sister Carillo’s house who is a new member in the ward fo set it up for her with a member. We watched it there with her, and it was super good!! It was super cool because there was a LOT of talk about missionaries and missionary work, and I was like, “wait, that’s me?!” It was really cool :). In between the morning and afternoon, we went to another member’s house, the deLeons and helped them move some furniture.  We ended up having to take the feet off the couch and the door off the hinges to get it to fit!! But, it did fit!! We watched Conference with them and it was another Fantastic Session!! Then, we went to another member’s house and did some yardwork for them! Saturday was a great service day!

Sunday, we had more General Conference!! The morning session we watched with the Farrar’s and so that was sweet! Brother Farrar is like a professional table tennis player, and I guess he has a cool practice setup, so I think we’ll get to see that on Thursday, so that will be fun! From there we went back to the apartment, made some calls, and then headed to the Reeve’s house. We had dinner there one week and they are a super nice family. We had dinner afterwards and then went to do reports with the ZLs and STLs.

That brings us to Today! What a great day its going to be!!! 

For a spiritual thought today, I wanted to share some of the themes that I noticed in Conference. First and foremost, be a peacemaker!! Wars, Contentions and fights are not good places to be to feel the spirit. We can use our gift of Agency to do everything that WE can to be an example to the rest of the world. Wow! What a powerful message! I really liked when I don’t remember who, said that Heavenly Father won’t, and Satan Can’t force you to do anything. We have complete power over him we feel and what we do. 

Another theme I noticed was to put off the Natural Man and become a Saint! There were a lot of ways that we can do this, and there were quite a few talks that talked about it of really good ways, my favorite, “being like a child” but not “childish” :). 

There was also a good theme about repentence! We all need to repent daily!! There is no other way that we will be able to have the spirit to be with us always, which is so important in today’s world!! The Prophet gave an amazing talk about 5 things we can do to continue our spiritual momentum upward!! When it comes out, study this talk!! It is the words of the living prophet we have on the earth today to lead us and guide us. That’s powerful!!!!!

Finally, I really loved the theme that we are ALL children of Heavenly Father. We are all striving to be converted disciples of Jesus Christ, whether they are in our faith or not. There was an interesting thought that was shared about how we, the people are the Church. Recently Reading in the Book of Alma, that was actually one of the things that I’ve been thinking about, so to hear it in General Conference was ? (mind blowing). As a missionary, we are to teach ALL to Come unto our Savior Jesus Christ. Everything will be made right in the Lord’s timing, and I am so grateful that I have the opportunity here in Georgia to be an instrument in the Lord’s hands to bring his Children back to Him. It is truly humbling, and it is not easy! Sometimes, it feels like I’m going insane! As I have trusted in the Lord, prayed and repented daily, and continued to grow my faith in Jesus Christ, I have Always felt the Happiness and Joy that the gospel brings. There is tangible Joy that comes from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is real. I know that this is the restored church and that President Nelson is called of God to be the prophet. There is a plan for each and every one of us, and as we turn to the Lord, we Will find true joy and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

Hi everyone!

Another week has gone by already, and I don’t even know where to begin lol. It has been a really good week, and I hope that everyone has been doing good too!! This last week, we ended up ‘mile fasting’ because we were running low, and we also wanted to go somewhere special on Saturday, so we saved those miles for that. 

Monday, after 6:00 time made a bunch of phone calls and did some service by helping a family move in their new couch. That was fun because we got to meet two members that we had never met before! 

Tuesday, we made some more calls (that will probably be a common thing haha! I feel like I say that about every day, but we do; so it’s probably worth mentioning!) We had the third post baptism lesson with Sister Carillo, and that went really good! We had Dinner with the Willey family, and it was good!

Wednesday was District Council, so you already know it’s a good day! I do always love being able to see all of the missionaries in the district council and always learn so much from each of them!! After District Council, we had lunch and then a lesson with a gentleman who we got in contact with last week. We ended up reading Ezekiel 36 with him, and I’d say it went well! To save miles, we ended up staying at the church until Dinner, because dinner was on the way home from the church,  so we you guessed it, made some calls and planned a route of people to visit on the way to dinner. We had dinner at the Borcek’s house, and they actually just moved into the ward, so we were surprised to see them signed up! They are a super nice family and I am excited that they can be in the Stilesboro Ward!! If Wednesda wasn’t already good enough, on the way home, we went to a gray dot’s house and when we went to the door, it was open and being completely renovated and no one lived there! We were like, weird, but knew we were there for a reason.  We looked down the road and saw a lady playing fetch with her dog. We decided to go talk to her, and it was such a cool experience! We introduced ourselves, and she told us a little bit about herself, but one thing she said is that whole day, she was thinking a lot about religion and where she’s at, and then now we showed up. Wow! That was cool :). 

Thursday, we had Weekly planning! We went to Brother Ferrar’s House for lunch and service, and we got to talk to Ralph again! Ralph is Brother Ferrar’s brother, and he is awesome! After weekly planning, we called this guy we met two weeks ago and gave a Book of Mormon to, and I think we helped him be excited to read it? (I hope!!) But we taught most of the Restoration and have a lesson with him later today! I am super excited for him! That night we also got a call from the gentleman who we read Ezekiel with, and that was an interesting phone call (to say the least). We had a time to call him on Friday, so we confirmed that, and then it ended up being a really long phone call from like 9:00-10:00pm! ?

Friday, we had Zone Conference, and we barely had enough miles for that ?, but it was super good, and it was a very powerful meeting!! Plus, we got to see all of the senior missionaries, who are all great, and also President and Sister Needs! There was some very tasty food, a very strong spirit, and it was super nice :). We had dinner with the Wright family at this Mexican food place, where I got a mexi-pizza, which was surprisingly tasty! That evening, we had another lesson with that lady we met outside with her dog, and taught the Restoration, and it was super good! 🙂 

That takes us to Saturday, where our mile fast payed off because we got to to to the baptism of someone that Elder Peterson was teaching before he came here to Stilesboro.  That was a super cool experience, because that was the first baptism that I’ve been to since Treska’s!! ?? It was about an hour drive south down through Atlanta, so we did get to see a bunch of the city, which was fun. We are now at 9 miles/day, but I’d say it was completely worth it!! 

Sunday was a fast and testimony meeting which I found a little bit different because it is still the end of March, but it is because General Conference is next week!! It was a good Testimony meeting and a good Elders quorum. One of the testimonies made me smile because it was someone who is in Seminary studying the Old Testament. They explained some of the family struggles that they had back then, from literally killing your siblings and also selling them into slavery. He bore testimony that even though his family might drive him crazy sometimes, “he’s got it easy” and that he loves his Family. I’d like to second that testimony and say that I love my family too, and each and every one of you that’s reading this right now :). Families are so important! Even if they do things that drive us insane or really annoy us, it is our families that will always be there for us! 

I think that just about sums up this week! Overall, it has been super crazy busy, but definitely worth every second :). I wanted to give a spiritual thought today in preparation for General Conference. I hear that General Conference “hits different” as a missionary, and with all of the things that are happening right now, I am so excited to be able to hear the words of the Prophet and recieve guidance of how I can do better!! :)) 

This week, one of our big focuses has been about listening to the spirit and acting on the promptings we receive. It was very fitting when in Elders Quorum, we had a discussion on three steps that we can take to recieve answers. First, we must ask in faith. Next, we need to be in a state of mind and place where we can recieve answers. Finally, we should thank Heavenly Father and act upon the answers you’ve recieved! Each one of these things is so important. As you prepare for General Conference this next week, I invite y’all to have questions that you prayerfully ask and be in a position that you can recieve answers to those questions. I know that even if none of the talks specifically talk about your questions, the Holy Ghost will be able to tell you what you need to do regardless! 🙂 

I hope y’all have a fantastic week! Stay awesome, and always remember that God Loves You! 😉

-Elder Claussen

Hi everyone!

Week two in Stilesboro already?! That’s crazy!! This transfer is only 5 weeks long so that those that are going home will have a little bit more time to figure out school as that is starting soon. Then next transfer I think they said is going to be 7 weeks long to balance it out. As I was convinced that I was staying in Americus, and didn’t, I’ve decided that it is probably best to not even guess what’s happening at transfers, and just let it be a surprise ? I’ll make sure to keep y’all updated with whatever happens.

To explain the title of this email, there just seem to be so many people from Utah here! I would dare say that most missionaries that are in this mission are from Utah, and then there were like three families that are in the Stilesboro ward that are from Utah too! It is so funny to me to be able to say that I graduated at Bonneville and also went to Clearfield high school and have people understand what I am saying ??.

Monday, was really low key. We kinda just slept, wrote emails, and hang around the house most of the day. At the end of the day, I think that we probably did phone calls? Overall, it was nice to have a low key day where we could relax a bit to prepare for the week! 

Tuesday, we stayed super busy with a bunch of contacts! We called so many people, and fortunately, a lot of them answered! There are multiple ways that we can find people to call, and I think that we pretty much used every single way on Tuesday! We had some time to prepare for District council, so that was good to be able to get prepared for that.

Wednesday, we had district council! It was really nice to be able to meet the whole district for the first time all together, because personally, I like being able to see other missionaries! Sometimes meetings can be long and boring, but I do always look forward to having district council every week! After district council, we had a dinner with a member and ended up doing a bunch of Facebook work. We did a lot of LCS (Liking, commenting, and sharing), and tried to share into a bunch of groups. The goal with that is to have the comeuntochrist.org link as many spots as possible because that is where most of our refferrals come from. 🙂

Thursday, was weekly planning, where as the name suggests, we plan for the whole week. It is always a good time, it is just very mind consuming and takes a LOT of time!! We had Lunch with Brother Farrar and met one of his brothers, and they are such nice people! He ended up gettting us Crumble Cookies, and they were just delightful!! They really helped out in our weekly planning! We also had a member dinner that night, which was super good! (as always)!

Friday, was another day completely full of contacts! We once again used pretty much all of the contacting ways that we have to call people, and tried to find people that we can set lessons up with. We once again called sooo many people!!!! To switch it up a little bit, we also came up with an idea for a post for the mission facebook page. The way the mission does it, is every week we have to come up with 1 quick post (which is just a picture). Every other week we have to create an original post (a short video). This week was one where we needed both, so Friday, we planned out what we wanted. Spoiler alert, what we planned didn’t end up happening, but our efforts weren’t wasted because the video that we eneded up having in the end was so good! 

By the end of Saturday, we did finish the video for Facebook. Last Saturday, we had a bunch of in persons planned, and they were really successful!! This week, we planned more in persons, but this time, either no-one was home, or they weren’t interested. That was a little bit of a bummer, but it was still fun to go out and see people. In the middle of the day, we also went to a park to try to see if anyone would be out and about, but there were only little kids on the playground and their dad’s watching them from the car. We decided that it would have been creepy to go up to the little kids, and would be weird if we knocked on their car windows; so we didn’t end up talking to anyone at the park!

Sunday was so good! There wasn’t really anything that special about it (other than being able to go to church :)), but I think that it was probably one of my favorite Sunday’s since being out on a mission. The talks in sacrament meeting were really good, we had someone who was baptized a couple weeks before I got here make it to church! They broke both of their ankles, and so they have had to be at home and have church over zoom, but on Saturday, they got their casts off, and was told that they could drive again. Bless her heart, she made it to church, and it was so good to see her!! Cool story, we made a wrong turn to get to the church, but right as we got to the church so did this member (who broker her ankles) at the same time as us. If we didn’t get to the chruch right then, we wouldn’t have been able to see her and help her get in. Heavenly Father was watching because we ended up helping her out, and it was a really good thing!

That leads to today, where I got to call my fam, which is always a treat! 🙂 We ended up getting haircuts, and now we are back at the apartment. We are pretty much completely out of miles today because we only have like 16 miles/day, so that’s always fun. We have been mile fasting a lot this week, so hopefully we can have enough miles to make it to a baptism of someone Elder Peterson taught in his last area! I am pretty sure that will be on Saturday. I am really hoping that we can make it to that, because I haven’t been to a baptism since Treska got baptized!

Overall, this week was actually really good! It might sound like we pretty much just called people because that is kind of what we did. We are trying to find people to teach, and so far there are a couple people who might be interested? Hopefully this week we can find those that are ready to recieve the gospel! It is a little slow in regards to finding, but we won’t stop working hard and trying to do our best!! :)) There were actually a couple phone calls this week where it was really cool because I was the one moving my mouth and having noise come out of my mouth, but it is definitely not what I would have said because the spirit completely took over. I don’t know how to describe it other than that, but it is comforting to know that the Lord is directing his work, and there have been so many miracles and tender mercies that I have been able to see this last week that show that Heavenly Father is aware of everyone’s circumstances.

Spiritual thought today was going to be a continuation from last week about being yourself, but I don’t think that’s what it should be today. Today, I want to talk about #tendermercies. I don’t remember what year it was, but in seminary with Brother Sharp, he shared something that he and his friends did every time they saw the Lord’s hand in their life; they would go like “#tendermercies” and it really helped them to stay uplifted and recognize those little miracles. Ever since then, I have tried to follow suite and every time I see a #tendermercy I say it out loud or write it down. A couple weeks ago, there was a talk that I read that had that phrase “tender mercies,” a lot, and I was like heyyy I already do that! This week I have tried to focus on seeing those little miracles in my life, and it has helped a lot!

I would like to invite everyone reading this to maybe start looking for those small miracles in your life. Last week, I won’t lie, I was pretty overwhelmed with all of the change that was before me. There seemed to be so much to do, and such a different way to do things; but as I focused on the Lord’s hand in my life, it helped to calm my nerves and help remind me that everything is okay. One thing a sister in my district said that I really liked was, “The Lord’s hand is all around us, it is just up to us open our eyes to see them.” (or something like that). It is so true! I can promise that as you look for the Lord’s hand in your life, you will be surprised to see the #tendermercies in your life. 

As always, I love to hear from y’all! You can email me any time of the day (or night) at nathaniel.claussen@missionary.org, and read them as soon as I get them. I will try to respond to them as soon as I can!I hope y’all have had a fantastic week, and I’ll write next week!

-Elder Claussen