Email #94 - Leaders in the Church

June 25, 2018

Attalla, Alabama

Hello Family! How are y'all doing? This has been quite the week. We've enjoyed it for sure.  It's been a lot of knocking doors and finding people to teach but we've definitely seen the Lord's hand in our lives. A cool but funny experience that we had was in the middle of the storm this week. It was about 3 pm on Saturday and Elder Vanderhoff and I were biking to an appointment with an investigator and we got there and they let us in. The moment we closed the door behind us it started POURING! Elder Vanderhoff and I look at each other like "Well that was close..." So we taught this investigator the Restoration very simply and she struggled understanding it so we got some paper and mapped it out with her on the table. It was super cool! I've never mapped it out before but it helped her understand a lot so I guess that was a little something the Spirit threw at us. The moment we finished up and said a prayer, we started walking out the door and it just stopped raining! That was definitely an answer to prayer. Alabama is the only place that I've ever been that you can actually run away from the rainstorms. It's so interesting.  If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it'll change. Alabama weather is the craziest.

This week we had interviews with President Sainsbury and I had a few questions that I had been praying about. There were a few of them that I talked to President Sainsbury about and he was able to help me a lot. As I was going over what we had talked about, I thought about the blessing that it is to have leaders in the church that are called of God. I know that he is guided by the Lord and is able to help the missionaries here. I know that each of our leaders in the church are called of God to know how they can best help us come closer to Christ. So my invitation for each of you is to listen closely to your leaders as they are here and called to help us. They pray for you and think about you and your eternal salvation. They are guided by the Spirit as they help each of us.

Well thank you so much for all your love and support! You are all in my prayers! Love you!​

Email #93 - The Lord Is On Our Side

June 18, 2018

Attalla, Alabama

Family! What an amazing week it has been here in Alabama, and as well with each of you. There are a few things that I want to say during this email so I hope I can get them all across fine. I guess first off I want to say Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's in our family. I am especially grateful for Dad and the amazing example he is to each of us. I wanted to share with each of you a few things that I am grateful for about Dad.

1) I remember being at Lake Powell and we were across the bay from Dad and Mom at about 10pm. All of the sudden we see the cliff walls light up. We look over and see Dad running away from the fire that he put gas on screaming, "AHHHHH!!!" He is always having fun and that is one thing I have learned from him. That there is always good in every situation. He is the creative KING and full of ideas to have a great time!

2) Growing up I always hated "Saturday Work Projects." But now looking back I am thankful that he taught me how to work and how to do a "5 Dollar Job." It will forever bless me knowing how to work hard and give it my all.

3) Being in-tune with the Spirit. Dad has always lived his life in a way that he would be worthy to use the priesthood if needed. He is an incredible example to me of following the Savior. He always showed us and didn't just tell us. He would talk to us about the importance of Daily Scripture Study and then you would walk in to his bedroom at night and he is there studying his scriptures. He has always relied on the Savior to know how to help each of us.

4) I could go on all day about how great Dad is but lastly I want to talk about his love for the Savior. Dad has always and continues to be a perfect example to me about how to love the Savior. He serves and he puts others before himself because he loves the Savior. He loves Jesus Christ. He is an example to me of being a disciple or a true believer. He is a "doer" of the word. I remember while I was home for a few weeks for surgery, Dad took me up to the camps with him and just showed me a good time and ministered unto me as the Savior would. I will forever be grateful for a diligent, steadfast, hard working, charitable, humble, prayerful, worthy, and Christlike Father. Thank you Dad. You're my hero.

Secondly, I want to say thank you to my Heavenly Father for preserving the life of Scotti Rae. I don't know all the details but I do know that God is watching over each of us. I believe that these feelings of gratitude that we have for Heavenly Father right now are very similar to how we will feel after we get to Him and realize the many times he has truly been walking by our side. He is with us and he is blessing us more than we know. I know that Scotti is evidence of a loving Father in Heaven. I don't know who Scotti talked to on the other side but I do know that she is here for a reason. I am truly grateful for the Lord's hand in our lives. I can't help but think that the people that were there to find her were sent to that specific spot for a specific reason and that it was to bring back Scotti. Please let Scotti know of my love for her.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about a miracle we saw this week in the work. Elder Vanderhoff and I taught someone this week named Dillon. We met him at his brother's house but he was super interested so we got his address and number and went by a different day. We stopped by on Friday and taught him bits and pieces of the Plan of Salvation. He had a lot of questions and brought up a lot of different scriptures in the bible about God's Plan of Us. He talked about Mansions, and 1000 years, etc. So as we went back on Sunday to teach him, we brought Brother Rebarchik with us. He is a member here in the Attalla Branch. We shared with him Genesis 49 that is basically Jacob's last blessing that he leaves with his sons. He gives Judah, and Joseph an especially large blessing compared to the rest. We as well shared with him Ezekiel 37 showing that Judah and Joseph's sticks will be one. Dillon talked about how the Bible is the stick of Judah but what is the stick of Joseph? Oh man... It was so pretty. Y'all should have seen his face when we introduced the Book of Mormon. We said, "Dillon, will you start today in the Book of Mormon?" He said, "Yeah I will! I'll pray about it as well like you said. I'll probably be through it by the time y'all come back on Tuesday." We will see how it goes tomorrow but that was for sure a miracle. He said, "Yeah I'm just super intrigued and I want to learn more about all of this." He is a great guy and he even pointed out that he was feeling the spirit as we were there. The Spirit was definitely testifying to him as we were with him.

Thank you for all you do! I love hearing about memorizing scriptures! They really are great. I've seen it to be such a blessing as we share the gospel with everyone we meet we are able to whip out a quick scripture and share a gospel truth with them.

Please know how grateful I am for each of you and the great examples you are to me. You are all continually in my prayers.

Strength and Honor

"Shall we not go on in so great a cause?"

Elder Noah Featherstone

When they say to smile but you don't want to

Elder Featherstone begat Elder Oldham who begat Elder Langford

Zone Conference with the Mission Brothers

Email #92 - Having a Good ol' Time

June 11, 2018

Attalla, Alabama

Family! How are you all doing? It sounds like it's been another
great week! I've loved hearing about your experiences going to
the temple and fasting. We've had an amazing week! It's been
a good ol' time! Hence the title ;) haha!  We have been super
super busy. This week has been one big miracle. We have been
finding and finding and finding. We ended up finding a lot of
interested people in our message which was great. Real
quick I want to tell you about one of them. His name is Damion.
We met Damion and set up a return appointment and he didn't
show up.  So we tried later and he answered. We talked to him
again and set up a return appointment. That happened 3 times
and we decided we should drop him. So as we were biking past
his house on Friday night he was outside. He started laughing
and said, "Hey guys! Get over here!" He proceeded to apologize
for not being there because stuff was always coming up. So we
sat down then and there and taught him the Restoration and
when we got to the end I said, "So Damion, How does this
message apply to you?" He said, "Well I better know if this is
the true church of Jesus Christ on earth today." Usually it takes
about 3 or 4 times explaining the importance of the Restoration
before they understand it fully, but he just "got it." It was so
darn cool! I was so psyched and just couldn't stop smiling!
It's always amazing to see these people when they understand
the message. That was definitely a miracle that we saw this week.

This week as well we have done a ton of service. There is an
investigator named Patricia that we did some service for and she
is just so sweet! She reminds me a lot of Grandma Mer. She is
not a member but is so caring and compassionate toward
everyone. We pulled some weeds and I swept off her driveway.
There were leaves and stuff everywhere so I got the hose out
and started spraying off the driveway. It was so interesting.
As I was spraying it off, I thought, "I haven't done this in so long..."
It was such a nice experience for some reason to spray off the
driveway like we would do back home... How weird is that?! It
made me super happy! We as well did some painting on her
house for her. I'll send you some pictures of that.

Well thank you so much for all you do! It's been great to hear
from all of you! I hope all is well! You are all in my prayers!
Love y'all!

Strength and Honor

"Shall we not go on in so great a cause?"

Elder Noah Featherstone

The Attalla District

 We borrowed the Gadsden Sisters car to go to a Baptismal
Interview in Anniston and took a pic with their glasses... 

Painting at Patricia's 

 Looking over the lake

Email #91 - He Knows Us

June 4, 2018

Attalla, Alabama

Family!!! How are you all doing? It sounds like this last week has been 
a riot! I love hearing all about it! I can't believe Laurel was baptized! 
That is AMAZING!!! Makes me super super happy! and also hearing 
about the many miracles each of you have seen in your lives this 
week. It's amazing to know that the Lord is with each of us. He knows 
us personally and individually. This week was a testimony builder of 
that. The Lord really knew where I was to be transferred and why it 
was there that I was supposed to go. I'm going to start at the top of 
the week so I can fill you in on everything that happened this last 
week.

So Monday evening we get transfer calls and I find out I'm leaving. 
Tuesday evening we said goodbye to a few investigators and 
members and that was hard... It's amazing to see how you come to 
love these people so much as you serve them. We said goodbye to 
everyone and Wednesday I headed down to transfers and found out 
I was headed to Attalla Alabama! With the one and only Elder 
Vanderhoff from Highland UT. So long story short... I'm in an English 
Branch a little south of Albertville(Where I started my mission) and a 
little west of Gadsden. It's a little town and we are completely on 
bikes! We are going to have thighs of steel by the time we are done. 
It's going to be AWESOME! When we got to Attalla after dealing with 
all of my bike problems in Birmingham we basically got left here! 
haha! The closest elders from us are close to an hour away. So this 
is a completely different situation than I have been in my entire 
mission.  But I love it! We have been biking 20-25 miles everyday 
and just sweating our tails off! We will walk or bike up to people to 
talk to them and they used to just give us a weird look but now they 
are "why is this sweating guy in a white shirt and tie trying to talk
to me?" haha! It's so great! I love it!

We have seen tons and tons of miracles since we've both been here. We
were out biking and we had made a goal to find one new investigator and
we had been rejected all day and it gets to about time to go in for dinner
and we see this lady on her porch. So we yell over to her and started
talking to her and taught her the Restoration and she committed to be
baptized on July 14th.  I hope she continues to progress! It was a super
cool experience though.

Elder Vanderhoff and I have had a good time. There have been a lot of
movie quotes going around. One of the most common is - "We got no
food.... We got no jobs... Our pets HEADS ARE FALLING OFF!!!" Ha!
It's been an adjustment for sure having an English companion. I have
gotten so used to speaking in Spanish that sometimes I'll just say
something and he will be like dude.... SPEAK ENGLISH!!! So now he
just ignores me when I accidently say something in Spanish... Anyways....

If there is one thing I have learned this week, it is that God knows us
individually. He knows how to help us grow and reach our potential.
This area is exactly what I need right now with the companion that I
have. I have learned so much these last few days about myself and
about what I can work on.

I love you all! You're the best and you are constantly in my
prayers! HAVE A RAD WEEK!

Strength and Honor

"Shall we not go on in so great a cause?"             Elder Noah Featherstone