January 11th, 2016

Dear Family,

We were able to have interviews this week. It was good to get some
direction on what I could do to improve as a missionary.

In Zone Training this week we talked about planning. We did our weekly
planning for the week at the zone conference. We received a bunch of
training about how to reach out to more people and how to be effective
with our time. There were also a lot of basics that I got to relearn
since I got have gotten used to doing things the same way for the past
eight months.

I have been going through the ensigns in gospel library and have
started from the beginning (1971) and reading interesting talks and
articles. The prophets and apostles back then are a lot more bold and
have some really good messages.

Not much to write about his week. It has been kind of slow. Sinclair
is back for the semester today and the University of Dayton gets back
at the end of the week, so things should be picking up. I will send a
bunch more photos because I completely forgot last week.

--
Elder Aaron King
Ohio Columbus Mission

Dear Family,

The weird Asian food of the week is beef Jerky. But it isn't just
normal jerky. It has a hairy texture to it. It looks and feels like
eating tarantula legs.

We went to the Air Force museum again since Elders Taylor and Bunker
have not been there yet. I did family history work most of the time.
As we were going to various parts of the museum, we kept running into
lots of members. There were some groups that came down from Michigan
and a lot of them had BYU hoodies or beanies. I haven't seen that much
BYU apparel in a group of people since being in Utah; usually it is
Ohio State University clothing you see.

This week we had the car, so we went to visit a lot of members. Elder
Taylor was sick from the food we ate the night before, so we had to
turn around a few times so we could make it to a bathroom. He looked
like he was in enough pain that he might pass out. Luckily he started
feeling better so we could go out and do some missionary work. We were
able to visit a less active member that has been returning to the
church over the last few months and wants to prepare for a mission. We
had the opportunity to do some service. We were in our proselytizing
clothes, so they didn't want us to do too much dirty work. We got to
put spackle in the nail holes on their wall. It may not have been a
lot of work, but it was good to serve again. I haven't had much
service to do since Danville.

We had zone training this past Wednesday. The materials they asked us
to study were the exact same as last zone training and the meeting
felt like last zone training. They are really focusing on goals and
accountability. Elder Taylor and I haven't had too many times to teach
together since our entire teaching pool is away for the holiday break.
In the roleplay we taught together, Elder Taylor was having moments
where his mind would just blank. This let me know that we really need
to practice in companion study so this doesn't happen in a real
teaching situation.
I was so tired that night for some reason that I just fell asleep at 7 pm. Oops.

We went to go contact on UD again just to see if anyone had come back
after Christmas. There still was no one on campus. We started walking
toward the bus stop, but we just missed the bus by a minute. We
decided we would just keep walking towards the next stop since we
didn't want to just stand there for thirty minutes. As we walked
another bus passed us, oh well. I guess we will just keep walking. We
weren't paying attention to the time and another bus passed us. By
this point we were close enough to our apartment that we figured there
was no point getting on the bus only to get off two stops later. We
ended up walking all the way from the University of Dayton to our
apartment, which was about five miles. It was a nice stroll through
the neighborhood.

I am glad to hear that you enjoyed New Years with Ron and Janalee. As
a missionary we go to be at 10:30pm, so there wasn't much for us to
celebrate. Some missionaries set an alarm for midnight, celebrate for
a couple minutes, then go back to sleep. Holidays for missionaries
just tend to be normal work days, so I wanted to sleep.

There was a day this week where we had gone through our plans a little
faster than we anticipated. In order to stay productive for the next
thirty minutes before our next appointment, we decided to grab a
couple trash bags and just walk down the road outside our apartment
picking up litter. It was a small act of service for the people living
here, but the joy I feel in serving was so much greater. I think when
serving others we usually get the better end of the deal because of
how it makes us feel.

I found someone in the branch with really similar hobbies as me. He
does the same kind of "hacking" that I did at work at PerfectSearch.
He has a really nice computer that he uses for operating system
virtualization and to help him prepare for different certification
tests. It was nice to connect with someone that speaks my language. It
has been a long time since I have talked that in depth about
computers.

Sunday it was our companionship's turn to teach the Sunday School
lesson. Elder Taylor hasn't had his ADD pills for several days because
his prescription ran out, so I offered to teach the lesson by myself.
The lesson was on our Heavenly Father and how we can come to know Him.
This was the fullest I have ever seen the gospel principles class
since coming here, so I wasn't really nervous until I got into the
classroom and was actually about to teach. Overall the lesson went
alright. Brother Dibble, the first counselor in the branch, said that
I set a high bar for others to follow. I tried to keep things as
simple as possible because the last lesson we taught, about the
millennium, we went into too much detail for a class that is really
about gospel basics. The gospel is really simple and sometimes I think
we complicate things for ourselves.

Dear Family,

So as you already know, we had transfers this past week. Usually the
Christmas transfer is small since it is only 5 weeks, but this one was
just as big as all of the other transfers I have attended. Elder
Monsen is now with Elder Stevens who he was in his district while he
was in the MTC. Elder Taylor is my new companion and I am driving
again (although both he and I would prefer if he drives so we might
talk to the assistants about changing that.) Elder Teames, our
district leader, was transferred so now Elder Bunker is the district
leader.

Elder Taylor is an awesome companion. He is from Cache Valley, Utah.
He has been in the field for six months. This is his second area. So
both of us spent six months in our first areas, Elder Taylor is just a
transfer behind me. He is a hard worker and I can tell we are going to
be able to do some good work while we are together.

President and Sister Cross took us to Thai House for dinner after
transfers. When you order your food you choose how spicy to make your
food on a scale from one to five. Sister Cross said she got a three
one time and it was too much to handle. I decided to order a three
anyway since I eat a lot of spicy ramen. I couldn't taste any heat
from the volcano chicken I ordered. I kept adding more of the chili
paste, but it wasn't getting any spicier. I am wondering if I have
built up a tolerance to spicy food. Sister Cross said she would bring
us back so I can try ordering a dish with a spice of five. The same
thing was happening when a Elder Monsen and I were at Linh's Bistro
last week. I tried some of Elder Monsen's chicken that he was having
trouble handling the spice. I couldn't taste any of the spice there
either. I am sure the family is happy I am not cooking at home right
now since I tend to make a lot of spicy dishes.

On Friday, we and the other elders had the chance to do some service
and help out with Toys for Tots. We were in an electrical company's
warehouse full of giant black bags full of wrapped presents. We would
open the bags and look at the tags on the presents and sort them into
different piles in the warehouse. The tags said things like "boy's
clothing - size 4" or "girls toy - age 3". It was kind of disorganized
at first, but we managed to make it work. I enjoyed being able to
serve, that is something I have missed about Danville. This week
should have more service projects because of the holidays and we have
some members that are planning on inviting us to help them with their
volunteer group.

That evening we had a branch Christmas party at Brother Dibble's
house. He is a counselor in the branch presidency. I enjoyed the time
we had to get to know a few more members of the branch. We ended up
getting home a little late because of how far we were from our
apartment and because we needed to drop the other elders off first.


Sunday we got to sing in the Christmas program. We and the other
missionaries agreed to sing a quartet back when Elder Teames and Elder
Monsen were here. We knew there was a possibility that any of us could
leave, but we were committed to it anyway. We asked brother Beckert,
the other branch councilor, to sing with us since Elder Teames was the
only musical talent we had in our group. You would think I have some
musical talent or something for how often I get roped into choir
performances. We sang the primary song "Samuel Tells of Baby Jesus."
Elder Taylor wasn't too happy to sing with us on such short notice. I
had also committed us to teach the gospel principles class. We
definitely didn't give him a break for his first week here as the new
elder.

--
Elder Aaron King
Ohio Columbus Mission

Dear Family,

Street contacting on the campuses have been difficult this week. The University of Dayton was celebrating Christmas on December 8th and so there were no classes. Sinclair College just finished for the semester on the 12th. When UD ends their semester on the 18th we will not have much missionary work we will be able to do. Elder Monsen and I are hoping to help out in some soup kitchens or serve in any other way we can.

On Tuesday, we were leaving Sinclair and were starting to walk to our bus stop when a red car bolted down the road about 100 feet in front of us. They were going the wrong way down a one way road and we heard their brakes/tires screech right before they slammed into the curb and stopped. A man jumped out of the car and started running the other direction. Within a couple seconds about fifteen police cars swarmed the area and took off on foot after him. One officer pulled a woman out of the car at gunpoint and arrested her. This was all like a live version of the show Cops. The place we were at was in downtown Dayton, so imagine what SLC looks like near all the skyscrapers. There were a few people nearby that were freaking out about the whole thing and one lady was video blogging so she could post what happened to Facebook. If mom is hyperventilating right now because she is worried about her son being in a dangerous neighborhood, try to help calm her down :) 

We had a zone conference this week. It was nice having a fifteen minute drive to a zone meeting instead of the usual hour and a half drive from Danville. This meeting was a really good uplift that helped me see more fully what the sacrament means. The prophets have been making a big emphasis on church attendance. They know that church attendance will lead to feeling the spirit more and strengthening our testimonies. I was really interested in all that we learned about the sacrament prayer. There are three parts to the prayer:

We partake of the sacrament in remembrance

We witness unto the Father that we will keep the commandments

We are promised the Holy Ghost if we keep this covenant and will be inspired through the week.

On Friday, Elder Monsen and I had a lesson with a less active member that we were waiting for outside at UD. After a few minutes someone comes up to us and introduces themselves as a member and we had a good conversation about finding more LDS students that are on campus. After he left and a few more minutes pass another person comes up and introduces himself as Brother Andes. I was shocked. I told him how surprised I was to run into two faculty that were members randomly on campus. He said he just doesn't stand out today because he wasn't dressed in his usual "Mormon clothes" today because he was doing some cleaning. After he left, Elder Monsen was holding back laughter. He turns to me and says, "I don't know how to tell you this Elder King, but Brother Andes isn't a member, he's Catholic." I don't know why he was playing along with what I said, but he was very nice and I guess he just likes talking to the missionaries on campus.

This week Elder Monsen and I have been applying what we have learned from Elder Cardon and zone conference by being more bold with members and investigators. We start sending messages or calling people with the expectation that they will do something instead of just hoping they might do something. We don't force them, we still leave room for them to exercise their agency, but they can see that we intend for them to act. From our experience this week, people have been more willing to make commitments and follow through on them.

In elder's quorum, President Larsen (the elder's quorum president) gave a great lesson about stakes in Zion. I really liked the perspective this lesson gave in knowing my own role in a stake. I invite everyone in the family to look at ways each of you can help strengthen the Lehi South Stake. To sum the points of the lesson, there were four main purposes for a stake:

1. The purpose is to unify and perfect the members who live in those boundaries by extending to them the Church programs, ordinances, and gospel instruction.

2. Members of stakes are to be models or standards of righteousness.

3. Stakes are to be a defense.

4. Stakes are a refuge from the storm to be poured out over the earth.

Monday and Tuesday we did a lot of driving to members. We are trying to reach out to more of the active and less active members that need help in building their testimonies. Most people were out at work or school, but we got an opportunity to talk to a few parents a get a better perspective of where these members are at. Everyone is really spread out so we did a lot of driving. It is a good thing that we are incredibly under miles for this month.

On Monday we went to FHE and had a white elephant gift exchange. The other Dayton elders and us just brought some silly toys from Meijer (like a Walmart), but we didn't have any way to wrap them. So we got some pitchers from the church kitchen, and used napkins as tissue paper. Then we topped them with bows made out of napkins and tape. In the end I got two half pound Reese's cups, Elder Monsen got a Star Wars figurine and dog tag, Elder Teames got some knee high Wonder Woman socks (with capes on the socks), And Elder Woodworth got a gooey zombie slingshot as well as a Super Mario watch and Beatles playing cards.

Yesterday was full of sugar. I ate one of the Reese's cups, which was a bad idea. We were in Fairborn for an oil change so we stopped at one of the Asian markets while we waited. Elder Monsen bought a lot of Japanese candy, about $25 worth. When we were driving down to Centerville we stopped at Bill's Donuts, which was recommended by an investigator and a member, so we got quite a few really good, cheap donuts.

Last night, we had a dinner with some members at Linh's Bistro, a Vietnamese and Chinese restaurant. For some reason, the restaurant was only accepting cash that night and the members that were feeding us didn't have any cash on them. They were able to withdraw some cash out, but they realized they didn't have enough and had to go back to the ATM. Their card was flagged for suspicious activity since they rarely used that card so they couldn't withdraw anymore. The other member tried withdrawing money, but that card didn't work either. So Elder Monsen and I went out to the ATM and Elder Monsen tried to make a withdrawal, but he found out he only had $9 left on his card because he bought too much Asian candy earlier that day. Finally I just decided to withdraw the money (thanks Mom for leaving money in my account). I didn't realize a restaurant not accepting cards would cause such a hassle.

I hope you all have a great week and enjoy Christmas. Please be sure to take lots of fun photos! I want to see the happy smiles on all your faces as you are opening your presents. It is supposed to be 58 degrees on Christmas here...this is weird.

--

Elder Aaron King

Ohio Columbus Mission

Dear family,

Last Monday we went to a lot of different Asian food markets with the
other YSA elders. We went to 2 Korean stores, a Mediterranean, and a
Japanese store. The roasted squid jerky and octopus chips were my
favorite. I have learned that American ramen is not as good as foreign
ramen. The Japanese and Indonesian ramen have been my favorite so far.
I also found some Philippine ramen, but I haven't tried it yet. The
weirdest thing I got was a red bean jelly bar. It is basically just
red beans crushed so fine it turns into jelly.

For dinner we went to Skyline Chili. It was interesting. I have never
had chili on top of spaghetti, but I guess that is what skyline is
famous for.

I feel like I am eating out way more than I should be. With always
being on the move and not having the car, it is usually more efficient
for us to eat out. I don't like how greasy the food is though, and I
would prefer not to be spending this much money. With the holidays
being near, I also feel like there is going to be a lot more to eat
because members will be feeding us. I am hoping not to put on any
weight as a result. I guess I will just need to keep exercising.

Last night we had the opportunity to help the Cross' set up the
ornaments on their Christmas tree. We also got to watch the Christmas
devotional. It was at 8pm since we are two hours off from Utah.

--
Elder Aaron King
Ohio Columbus Mission

Dear Family,

There was a day this week that it was raining really hard. We were on
the University of Dayton campus contacting in the rain. Luckily we
brought our umbrellas, but we were still really soaked. We were
handing out pass along cards and they kept getting soggy. Elder Monsen
had a goal to hand ten of them out, and we only had a limited number
of them with us so we kept giving them to students even if they were
completely soaked through. We saw a squirrel out in the rain and I
said, "this squirrel isn't letting the rain stop him from contacting
all the nuts, so why should it stop us?" We ended up giving out nine
cards each; it has been our most successful contacting day so far.

We had Elder Cardon from the seventy and his wife come visit us for a
mission tour. What I learned from Elder Cardon is that I need to be
more bold with those I teach. Elder Cardon has a way of being firm,
but loving. I can see how applying these principles can help others to
accept the gospel in more abundance. A talk was mentioned from the
April 2001 general conference. Boyd K. Packer gave a talk entitled
"The Touch of the Master's Hand". There is a poem in it that I would
recommend reading. The violin in the poem can be likened to our lives.
We may feel worthless at times, but through the loving touch of the
Savior's atonement our worth is made great.

Saturday and Sunday we had stake conference for the Dayton East
Stake. It was very different than any stake conference I have been to
before. Each talk was around five minutes long then the time was
opened up for people in the congregation to comment on impressions
they have received and also to ask questions. For this stake
conference and also the last stake conference in the Columbus Ohio
East Stake there was a lot of talk about ward councils and member
involvement in missionary work. I would strongly suggest everyone in
the family prayerfully consider who they know that would benefit from
hearing your testimony and being personally invited to attend church.
I have learned in my mission that members make a big difference in the
conversion and retention of new members. Though it may be scary,
please try to reach out to even one individual this week (and every
week!). Remember, that we succeed when we invite, not when they say
"yes". People have their agency and there will be those that turn us
down, but someone definitely isn't going to accept the invitation if
one is never extended to them.

There were also a couple of other main points I got out of stake conference.
1. When we take the wrong path based on following a prompting, we are
promised that we will be urged and guided back on the right track by
the Holy Ghost. So we should follow promptings immediately.
2. If you are wondering how long you should pray or read from the
scriptures each day: do it until you feel the spirit, then go just a
little bit longer.

We do have a dinner planned on Thanksgiving with some of the YSA
members. I am not sure for Christmas yet because transfers are the
week before Christmas. The branch president offered to let us skype
and come for dinner on Christmas Eve/Day, so if I stay in Dayton that
is where I will be.

--
Elder Aaron King
Ohio Columbus Mission

Dear Family,

This week was transfer week and I am with Elder Monsen. He has been
out nine months and is from Spanish Fork. He is really awesome and I
am excited to work with him. He has a strong desire to be constantly
improving. I feel like he and I are going to get along great.

Most of what I knew of missionary work has changed from what I was
used to in Danville. Since we are in a YSA branch we don't try to
teach families or older people. If we do end up teaching them through
our finding then we have to refer them to the other missionaries
regularly assigned to proselytize in this area. We also don't do
tracting out here since most people would talk to don't fit the YSA
demographic. I was really hoping that once I left Danville I would
move to a larger area with a lot of houses to tract. Well, I got my
wish only I can't tract any of them. Our area has probably 30-40 times
the number of house in my old area. Most of our finding is done
through going out on the campuses around here and trying to talk to
students that are passing by. I am a little nervous since I am not
used to his type of work. Tracting was something that was new to me
when I got to Danville, but I am really used to it and enjoy it now.
Hopefully I can grow to find the same joy in street contacting.

Apparently out here we don't do nearly as much service, but Saturday
we got the opportunity to help a widow clear a lot of overgrown plants
from her property. We found out about this project from a member and
our district decided to help out. All of the other people helping
there besides us were nonmembers. We didn't get to much of a chance to
share the gospel, but they appreciated our help and now have our
number so we could have some future chances.

This area doesn't have a car, we are "designated walkers and bus-ers"
in our area. We end up spending a lot of time traveling from place to
place and sometimes it doesn't feel like we are doing much actual
missionary work. The other elders in our branch, Elder Teames and
Woodworth, share their car with us for about half the week, so we
still can drive in some instances. Our area covers a very large
geographic area because it is a YSA branch and so we really should
have a car here. All of the members here are also really spread out
which makes traveling to any one individual take 30 minutes to an hour
out of our day.

We also do a lot more walking in this area than in Danville. Friday
was my first full day and we walked around 5-7 miles. My feet hurt a
little bit, but not enough that I needed to stop walking. So I kept
going and at the end of the day I had some really big blisters on the
ball of each of my feet.

Saturday night Elder Monsen wanted to stop into the UDF gas station
(United Dairy Farmers) to go to use the restroom. While there he
suggested we try the milkshakes there since they are really good. They
had a sale on their giant size shakes so we got them instead of the
small which was the same price. So now we both had a 32oz. peanut
butter milkshake as we are freezing our butts off in the wind on our
way to the bus station. We both regretted getting the shakes; that was
way too much sugar and it was too cold.

Our branch is also really small. We only had about 25 people show up
to church. Apparently we usually get around 50. Around Christmas and
thanksgiving break we are supposed to really empty because all of the
students go home for the holidays.

--
Elder Aaron King
Ohio Columbus Mission