Elliot's March 5 email and pictures

Here's the latest email from Elliot. And there's five new pictures after the jump.

Hola!

Elder Matthew Karl is from Alberta, Canada. My new companion is Elder Brett Grover from Spanish Fork, Utah. He's so cool. I think this is going to be a sweet transfer. He's Spanish speaking as well and has been out one transfer longer than me. We've definitely clicked so far and I think we'll have a lot of fun and success.

I actually am not sure what the address of my apartment is, but its at 53rd and Gore in Moore [must have meant Lawton] and its called the Invitationals. This is my second apartment in a row that sits on a golf course. [The Lawton Country Club and Golf Course.] Its super nice. We have a back balcony that sits right on the course. It has two bedrooms and two baths as well as a good sized living room and kitchen. I might be a bit spoiled.

This has been a pretty awesome 5 days in Lawton. Karma was baptized here on Thursday and Helen on Saturday. Karma has 2 sons that joined the church a few years ago and she's awesome. Helen's Grandma is a member and she's been coming to church for the last little while as well. It was cool to walk in and enjoy seeing them get baptized. I had the opportunity to confirm Helen a member of the church on Sunday which is the first time I've done that. It was a bit stressful organizing the baptisms and dealing with transfers and everything that comes along with it in one week but it was great. I think I'm going to love it out here.

We had a really cool finding miracle this week. We drove past a street and Elder Grover remembered that someone they had been teaching lived on it. So we flipped around and tried them. They had 3 cars outside and were definitely home, but there was no answer.  So we looked around and saw that across the street there was a home with a garage open so we knocked on the door. Theresa came to it and before we even said anything she told us to come in. She said she had always seen missionaries on the street and had always wanted us to come by the house but missionaries never had for whatever reason. We taught her all about The Restoration [great video link], God's love for us and about the Book of Mormon. We committed her to baptism on the 31st of March. She then told us that earlier in the day she watched a show on the History Channel about the apocalypse and was praying to make sure she was on the right path. That's usually when we show up. It was a super cool experience.

So Lawton's cool! Its interesting being far away from other missionaries now besides the Sisters in Lawton 1st Ward, but we don't see them too often. That's a good thing though I think. Being a little more isolated with a much smaller zone means that we don't have as much to worry about, we just get to focus on the work more fully. This area is all military. It seems there are more people who work out of Ft. Sill than anything else, and a lot of people are living here from out of state. The area and ward have a lot more young families than anywhere else I've served I think. I'd been to Ft. Sill to teach soldiers before and when other missionaries (the AP's and two others) come down they stay Saturday night with us, which is exactly why we got a nice apartment.

I hope everything's going well for y'all! I'm still waiting on Elder Phillips to find out if he's going to the U of U or UVU to see if we can get an apartment together or something. I'll let you know when I find out. Do you know if Aaron is still going to transfer to BYU?

Love ya!

Elder Elliot

A new picture and video of Elliot!

Elliot and Elder Karl paid another visit to the Randy Lusk family in Moore. Brother Lusk previously sent us a couple of videos of Elliot and Elder Soto at Thanksgiving. He wrote to us again today and sent a picture of Elliot and Elder Karl celebrating their birthdays, as well as a short video of Elliot showing off his musical talents! Enjoy.

Elliot goes mountain biking!

In today's email, Elliot described his mountain biking trip to Lake Stanley Draper. Knowing how much he loves biking, he must have really enjoyed that little adventure. Here's a couple of pictures of Elliot and Elder Karl and their bikes, followed by some information about where I believe they rode. Finally I found several videos on YouTube (courtesy of maxboost83) of the trails where they rode.

Here's a link to the Lake Stanley Draper, which is located on the southeast side of Oklahoma City. This map shows the various trails at the Lake Stanley Draper Mountain Bike Park, which is maintained by the Oklahoma Earthbike Foundation. Oklahoma City's website has additional information about the trails.

Here are the videos.

Red Trail



Orange Trail




Yellow Trail (Part 1)




Yellow Trail (Part 2)




Log Bridge

Elliot's January 3 email

Here's the latest email from Elliot.

Hola!

Happy New Year! For New Year's Eve I went to bed at like 9:45. We had a normal proselyting day until 5 when we were told to be back at our apartments. So played some games in our apartment until we decided to go to bed early (its not too often you get to do that on the mission). We meant to get up at 11:58 to celebrate the new year for a few minutes but I think we all slept through the alarm. Oh well. And then we had church for 6 hours on New Year's Day after which we had dinner with the Lusks which was fun. We were told not to go door-to-door or just drop in on people that day but we had some appointments set up that went well.

The work is going well here. We have quite a bit of new investigators that we're working with, a few of whom came to church this past week. It'll be nice to have a full week to be working again for sure. So often I'm out of my own area working with other missionaries in their area. But that comes with the zone leader assignment and I'm okay with that. This past week I was able to go to my greenie area and meet up with one of the families that I had been teaching while I was there. The missionaries are gonna start working with them again.

I have a ton of pictures that I'm sending with this email. [We only got one!] Included are playing Santa's helpers to all of the missionaries in our zone, going to the temple with the Komers, making Christmas breakfast with Elder Karl, driving around with the Woods looking at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve and Jan's Baptism. Hope you enjoy them!

The Church is true!

Love ya,

Elder Elliot

Merry Christmas from Elliot, Elder Soto, and Elder Karl!

What a great Christmas card from Elliot, Elder Soto, and Elder Karl! Matching pajamas?!

Elliot's December 5 email and picture

Hi!

Things are going really well here in Moore! Shaun [pictured below] was baptized yesterday. It was a really cool service. Everyone in our Singles Branch stayed. The entire Relief Society room was full and people were standing in the back to be there. His friend who referred him to the church was the one who baptized and confirmed him and it went well. Elders Soto, Clements and I taught the Doctrine of Christ while they were changing and that was really cool too. All of the Book of Mormons we had to give to the members there to give to their friends were given away. This is good because when Elder [L. Tom] Perry came a month ago he challenged our branch to grow to 100 members, and I believe it can happen.

The Bedlam Rivalry Game (OU vs. OSU) was the most important thing to Oklahomans this past week. Saturday was kind of rough for missionary work because of it. Either no one was home or no one was answering the door. There's a field behind the church in a neighborhood that has two flagpoles, one with an OU flag and the other OSU, and on Sunday morning the OU flag was half-mast. People mentioned it during testimony meeting. Half of the people at our Ward Christmas Party took off 15 before 7 to watch it. As you drove down any street you could see in most windows the game on TVs. On Sunday it seemed like most people were deflated by OU's big loss. Football is a big part of life out here.

[Redacted stuff.]

Transfers are this week!  Elder Soto and I are gonna get Elder Karl as our next companion. We'll be 3 together until Elder Soto goes home on the 20th. I'm excited. Elder Karl was in my district when I was in Noble and he's way awesome. It should be a lot of fun.

Well I gotta run. Love ya!

Elder Elliot