28 June 2006

Bound for Zion

Alex, Julie & Allie prepare to walk to the church for a 4:00 a.m. departure to Martin's Cove. They look pretty good for 3:30 a.m.!

Mark Pics


Letter from Mark 26 June 2006

Dear Family,

It was great to get the tape. It was funny to listen to knowing that you hadn't gotten the package yet. Itsounds like things are going well. the piano songs sounded great I was suprised at how good allison is getting. It sounds like she has been playing a lot longer then she has. It was good to hear that the surgery went well.

This past week we had zone conferance and i found out something i had been thinking for a while. President Hunt confirmed that we will be moving in with members before the end of july. the lease on our appartment is up on july 31, and they do not want to renew for another year. he said that they have the members in mind, but he didn't know who, so sometime in the next few weeks when we find out who we re moving in with and when, i will get you that information, and their address.

Friday Elder Griffiths and I went to the chicago temple. when we got there one of the temple workers said they were short on men in the sealing room. so we went in there and were witnesses for a while, and acted as kids getting seal to parents. it was great.

training is going good. Elder giffiths at tims doesn't want to work, and would rather just sit in the appartment, or doesn't want to follow a rule because he doesn't understand it. so that has been a bit hard.

It was good to hear that bryan got his call.

I was thinking the other day about how much time we have to study the scriptures. we do at least 2 hours a day. 1 hour personal and an hour companionship study. while i have been out i have grown to love study, and even find myself frustrated that i don't have more time to study. when i first came out an hour of personal study seemed too long, now it doesn't seem long enough. I have realy grown to love the scriptures, and it wasn't untill i started training, and see elder griffiths get use to all of the studying that i realised how much i had grown to love it. Last week in church in gospel principals the teacher asked each of us to give a deffinition of faith in our own words, not reading scriptures. I also thought then of how much i love to teach from the scriptures when all that came to my head was scripture after scripture of faith. I had trouble teaching with the scriptures before,but with srudy and practice, i have learned to use the scriptures to give authority to what i say. despite the dificulties i am loving being a missionary.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support, they are much appreciated. I love you all

Elder Lundberg

19 June 2006

Letter from Mark 19 June 2006

Dear Family,

This week has been going good. It has started to get hot, saturday it was in the 90's and around 60% humidity. both my companion and i were sweating a ton. we have started to freeze waterbottles, and cary them around with us, that way we have cold water for a long time.

training is going good, it is frustrating at times, after going on exchanges he picked up that obedience isn't important. the missionary he was with was telling him all the rules that most missionaries don't follow, that made me mad. so some things have been hard to get him to do, or see the importance of, but overall it has been fun and a good expierience. training goes for 2 transfers, the first ends the 29th of this month, then i finish on the 10th of August, when one of us will be transfered, most likely me because i have been here longer.

Elder Hill, my last companion gave me his phone, but it is now starting to die, so i will probably take money out of my home account to buy a new phone sometime soon. I am also planning on sendin a package home today with that camera and some other things in it.

Yesterday i ws thinking how it had been one year since i gave my fairwell talk in church, time sure seems to fly, a couple weeks ago at interviews i was talking to an elder i came out with (elder anderson) and he said, pointing to Elder Griffiths "doesn't it seem like just yesterday se were in his position." It has been wierd being the companion that has been out longer. elder griffiths is only my 2nd companion that wasn't a missionary when "preach my gospel" came out.

I have been having a great time, and i am trying to work hard. thank you for all of your prayers and support, it really helps. I love you all.

Elder Lundberg

14 June 2006

Letter fromMark 12 June 2006

Dear Family,

Things have been going good here. It is really starting to warm up here, we have had a lot hot and humid daysin the fast couple weeks. It has also Rained a ton, It seems like it rains, or is supposed to rain every other day. It makes everything here very green.
We had one of our better investigators Dropp us last week, although we saw it comming. his girlfriend is a member, and they broke up so he no longer wants to take the lessons. a few weeks ago the member said he was acting wierd and didn't think he wanted to talk to us. we met him once after that. they both just graduated and are going to different schools. We did however get a new investigator this week, he is getting married to a less active member in the ward, they; fed us dinner this week and then after we taught them. We are going to start doing that every week. He is a cop and works sundays, but another less active that he works with said that he is due for a promotion that will make it so he doesn't have to work on sundays. hopefully by september he will be able to come to church regularly.

we have started to ride our bikes alot. I put mine together for the first time since i came out a couple weeks ago. we have been riding those alot since it has started to warm up. they dock us miles on the car when it is warmer to make it so we will ride our bikes more. In the winter we will drive to another town, then we drive around town visiting people. now what we have been doing is driving into town and parking, and riding our bikes anywhere we need to go. so far the bike is working very well. I don't know what you worked out with liahona, but the bike i have will easily last the rest of my mission, we don't use them enough here to be too hard on it.
I will probably be sending home a package in the next week or so, with the camera and some other random things that i have but don't need. we talked to the head of the strangite church, and he gave us a book called the book of the law, from what i can tell it is parts of the law of moses that were important, but left out of the bible. james J. Strang translated them from plates given to him by an angel, I think they claim that they were the brass plates that nephi got from laban, because they didn't have the changes our bible today has. it is interesting, I was excited that he gave us them. he said that James J straing also translated other plates that he could get a a book to.
Well I am doing good, and trying to work hard. Thankyou for all of your support and prayers. I love you all.

Elder Lundberg

05 June 2006

Letter from Mark 05 June 2006

Dear Family,

Things have been going well here. training is great, Elder Griffiths got told he had broncidus (I don't know how to spell it) by the mission doctor, he is starting to get his voice back after having had a horse voice for a month. now that he is getting over that, he will be doing more.
We got back from milwaukee earlier today, we played basketball a little and did disk golf, we switch off driving with other elders in our district so we can go on mondays and not use too many miles. It was fun. Elder Griffiths found 2 disks today, he is starting to like it.
we tought 15 times this week to get on the teaching honor roll again, I have been blessed to be able to teach more in this area than in my first couple areas.
We did have a disapointing expirience this past week. a week ago sunday we went to talk to a less-active who was offended on a professional level by one of the members of the ward, to the point that they would not go to church if he was there. the member is less-active, and olny comes occasionally, but they were unwilling to come. we took a member over there and started telling them that their salvation should not suffer because they were offended, and that they should confront the member about their problem, they assured us that he knew, and the member we came with said that he had had nothing but good experiences from the member they were offended by. that caused the less active wife to storm off in anger saying that the member didn't deserve to live, and should burn in hell. we tried to clear things up with the husband, but he completly supports his wife in all her decisions. this week the member we took talked to the member that offended the less actives, and he didn't even know who they were, he had forgotten the whole thing ( so the less actives had been boiling over nothing) we tried to go and appolagize on sunday to the less actives and thay said they didn't want to be members of the church. It was very depressing, he also said some things that told me he never had a testimony of the church to begin with. they mostly joined because they LOVED the missionary that biptized them about 2 years ago. as I have reviewed the conversation I have tried to figure out what went wrong. And i have come up with 2 things. too much on our part, and too little on theirs. we were trying the whole time to commit them to do something, to change, to better themselves in some way, and the whole time they were refusing to change. It was definately a learning expierience. I learded what rejection really is, and that not everyone will accept the gospel. I'm just sad that i Couldn't help them, or missed my opportunity to.
Other than that i have been doing good. I'm Working hard and I Appreciate your support and prayers, it realy helps me. I Love You all.

Elder Lundberg