If You Could Hie To Kolob

Hello,

Today is going to be a great day because a bunch of us missionaries are going to Kolob! It's a really cool park that is in our area. We are planning on hiking a trail called taylor creek. It should be a good time. It was Elder Toropainen's birthday yesterday so this is going to be his day. It's going to be fun. He turned 23.

This week was just a same old missionary week. Nothing out of the ordinary but that's alright. Our teaching pool is still low and tracting isn't really going anywhere. The houses around here are huge and the community is the type of place where people go to seclude themselves. We haven't been running into the most humble childlike people lately. Stuck in there ways is more the type right now. We are working on ways to get in there doors and that will be through the members. Still a tonne of work to do but we will finally be able to move down to New Harmony tomorrow. The house we got is pretty cool. It's an unfinished log cabin. It's huge! the best part is the full kitchen and jacuzzi tub woot! They have a piano to so i can start practicing again. I'm going to try to pick that up along with spanish. Elder Black gave me some Spanish stuff to help me learn and taught me to pray in Spanish. The mission is short on Spanish missionaries at the moment so if I practice maybe I can make the cut. Praying was hard to do Ii felt like I was in primary or a new investigator learning to pray. It made teaching prayer make more sense and it's easier to relate with people saying a prayer for the first time now.

Elder Toropainen was on exchanges with another Spanish speaking Elder the other night and they found out something cool about his Finish and Spanish. The words are not the same but how the alphabet is pronounced is the same in both languages. During the lessons Elder Johnson would have Elder Toropainen read scriptures for them and it apparently sounded perfect. Whenever I have a question on how to say something in Spanish I can just ask him now. Cool eh? Tthe people they were teaching were pretty blown away that night.

That is about all that happened so far this week.

The Church is True
143 Family
Elder Ian Dyer

Manti, Bednar, and the missed wedding

Hi,

This was a really exciting week let's hope I remember everything that was worth mentioning.

First amazing thing is we have two investigators yay and the crowds go wild!!!! We have a 10 year old girl named Macy her family is less active so we are working on the whole family. The other is Michelle she is in her 40's and loves the church. She is from New Mexico. Both of them have a baptism date set and the wards are super excited. Things are turning around and our area is growing. The area has so much potential.

Still no apartment down there though. We live in the same place as last transfer except with 4 Elders this time. We live in a shoebox a cluttered shoebox. But we get to drive a sweet Dodge Caravan with lots of space so that kind of makes up for it. In the morning we sometimes place soccer and when we do I feel like a soccer mom cause i have to drive everyone.

I missed a wedding for a couple in my last area yesterday. I found out we were going to Manti the same day as the wedding. I was excited for Manti but way disappointed i couldn't be at the wedding. Donnie even asked me to give the opening prayer that made it hurt more. Him and his wife were sad I couldn't be there but i will be there for Shawnies baptism so all is not lost. Shawnie and Donnie are awesome.

It was however still really cool to go to Manti for the Pageant. I didn't know what a pageant was before coming to Utah. Last year lots of people asked me if I was able to make it to the pageant and i was thinking beauty pageant or something and i didn't understand why it was such a big deal. It made a ton more sense after someone told me what it actually was though. this one was called the Mormon Miracle Pageant. It's a play about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith and it's done on the side of the Manti Temple on that big hill. It was pretty neat They re created the battle with Captain Moroni and the part where he writes the Title of Liberty. It was epic. They had lots of lights and fire and sound effects. It was corny but still awesome.

We got there early for a turkey dinner and a fireside beforehand. Guess who was there? Elder Bednar one of the 12 Apostles. He shared a thought and then came to meet all us missionaries. We shook his hand it was neat.

Each Zone in our mission had a night to go to the Pageant and most our our Zone went. The point of us going was to work the crowd and ask for referrals. There was 14000 people in attendance so no shortage of people to talk to. It was a lot of fun. We started at about 6:30 and the pageant started at 9:30. so after 3 hours we got to sit and enjoy the production. It was cool to stay up late and then we were allowed to sleep in the next day. We stayed over at a members house who made all of us breakfast it was a happy day. I love pancakes. We were back in our area about noon on Saturday.

That was pretty much my week. Today for P-Day activities we are going to have a nerf gun fight with the many other missionaries. We all being nerds play it as zombies to. some of us are zombies and some are humans and we battle with nerf guns. It's really fun and then we go out and preach the Gospel at 6. Good day ahead.

143 Family
The Church is True
Elder Ian Dyer 

Tract, Tract, Dog! Tract

Hello,

Someone in a meeting with the ward council said yesterday tracting builds character... With that being said Elder Toropainen and I have built lots of character!!! Holy lots of tracting Batman! The new area has been off to a very very slow start but good things things are on the way. We have yet to find our first official investigator but this week it will happen cause we have FAITH! I think the wards are just a little unfamiliar with having missionaries all to themselves and so with that they are not exactly sure what to do. The are more accustomed to us now and are starting to give us a helping hand. The stake president often calls the valley we are serving in a gold mine. Let's hope and pray that it works out. We were studying Faith in comp study the other day and we were reading a couple of the definitions. The one that stuck out to us was faith is having confidence. We thought we had the faith but its more then that. We need to have confidence in the area itself that there are people being prepared to receive the message we bring. Sheesh now this area has to work. It's on us we have 3 months to make it work. I'll keep you posted.

I have to tell you a story that Ii didn't have time to write about last week. I was on splits with one of our ward mission leaders Brother Wise. He was driving me out to New Harmony to teach a lesson to a man named Kevin. He is 58 and got baptized last week. It was awesome cause he called and told us we wanted to be baptized on the 4th but we hadn't taught him past Joseph Smith. After a few 2 hour lessons however he was good to go. He married a lady who is a temple worker so he was bound to join eventually. This was his 3rd baptism into a church. 3rd times the charm right. He has been going to church for the past year and is now finally a member and will get the Priesthood next week Exciting! Anyways while on the way to his lesson with Brother Wise we spotted a Rattle Snake on the dirt road we were driving. Don't worry Grandma Dyer it gets so much better(my Grandma is afraid of snakes). Instead of just driving by Wise stops I was thinking just to take a look which was fine I trusted him. He probably has seen crocodile hunter enough times to know what he was doing. He has a huge handlebar mustache after all. If TV and being around many Rednecks has taught me anything it's that if you have a sweet handlebar mustache you can do anything. He stares down the snake and goes to the back of his truck where he grabs a hammer and a lead pipe... Who even carries a lead pipe in there truck!? He proceeds to have a 20 minute battle with this rattle snake and I'm sure would be a valuable asset if there were ever snakes on a plane... He would have made Samuel L. Jackson proud. If that doesn't make sense to you can ask My big brother Clarke to explain. So after a long fight with this thing hissing and striking at Wise he finds a big stick and traps the snake with it. After the snake's head was securely stuck by a stick I was holding Wise grabbed the pipe and hit it in the head... about 20 times just to make sure. You may ask what the point was of Brother Wise killing this snake and to that he would answer "Cause snake tastes good!" He took it home and ate it!

Also my new Comp Elder Toropainen is pretty awesome and we are having fun figuring this area out together. He is way better at my uke then me to so I have been humbled. He is from the capital of Finland right by the Temple.

That's all i have for this week hope you enjoyed.

The Church is True
143 Family
Elder Ian Dyer

Ps Dutch oven is a big deal here. My tummy is happy

Lucky Number 7

Hello and welcome to my 7th transfer,

Alright so President called me last night to give me my transfer call. I'm leaving Cedar and staying at the same time. I', going to be covering only 3 wards in the south valley. I cover a place called Kannarville, Kolob canyon, and New Harmony. Elder Prusse and me already covered the area this last transfer but know I'm going to just be covering those 3 wards with a new Companion whose name I can't pronounce. He is from Finland and has been out only one transfer. He served 2 years in the Finland army and I'm told looks pretty stiff. I imagine he is like Clarke's Mongolian Companion. We will get along I'm sure  Out of all my transfers this one intimidates me the most. I'm pretty worried but I know it will be fine.

I got distracted with other emails but I just want to say happy birthday Alison and happy anniversary Clarke and Cecilia.

The Church is True
143 Family
Elder Ian Dyer

sorry it was short

Cedar's Got Talent

Hi,

First off if your not American you might be wondering why this email is coming in on tuesday. It was memorial day yesterday and so all the libraries were closed yesterday. President told us we could email today instead. That meant we had an extra hour of P-Day. What did we do with that time you might ask ?... Our District decided to get together and have a talent show. We had pizza provided by our favorite papa murphy's and a plethora of District Missionary Talent. Lets see Elders Cram, Clark, and Me played songs on our Ukuleles. We played a couple songs out of the childrens songbook and some other songs we could remember before we were missionaries and some we learned out here. Sister Box played guitar and we all sang along to tears in heaven, stairway to heaven (we played together on that one), and Freebird. Elder Prusse and Elder Hayden did a puppet show of Charlie the Unicorn. Elder Wood sang. Elder Ware did cowboy roping he attacked Wood and Me with his lasso and was better at it then we thought and successfully got me and pulled me around the gym. Elder Ware also did some pretty sweet magic tricks. Elder Padrones slaped some sweet base and was the MC for the showing of talent. The last act was a song played by Elder Hayden, Padrones, and Me. We played a song called "Dame El Poder." That translates to "Give me the power" in Spanish. To say the least it was an Epic Spanish Rap. Yesterday was a super fun P-Day and our district is so awesome and talented. The outfits everyone wore were pretty funny to. It was a good day.

This week was Great. Our two baptism went through and I was able to confirm Elissa's little brother Manuel in sacrament the next day. He is 8 and was baptized the same day as his big sister. Justine's was amazing as well, We brought an Investigator we had picked up this week to. The spirit bore strong witness to him of how awesome and true the baptism was. His name is Keith. His daughter and grand daughter was just baptized a month or ago. He was curious about what missionaries had to say.  We met with him last week and put him on date to be baptized on June 24. Keith accepted the date and was very excited to take the things he learned from us to the Lord. It's neat to see how prepared some people are for the message. As we explained Joseph Smith Keith said "so he was lost kind of like I am." He and so many others are ready for this message of the Restoration of the Gospel. The Church is so True!!!

Well it's about that time I get on my soapbox and start preaching so i better be off.

143 Family
Again the Church is true
Elder Ian Dyer 

Listen Up

Hi,

 Do you ever have those weeks where it wasn't good but it also wasn't bad it was just completely in the middle? Then at the beginning of next week when you write your family home you don't know what to report? Cause i guess that was my week. It wasn't ordinary but it wasn't quite extraordinary. Hmm I guess those weeks happen sometimes but oh well that just means I have to work extra hard this week to tip the scales to make it an extraordinary week. Next week we are planning for 2 baptisms! One if for a girl named Alyssa who wants to be baptized the same day as her little brother Manuel. They are a cool family and really fun to teach and I'm sure the baptism will be awesome to. The other one we have is for Justine she is 18 and just about to graduate high school. Guess what got her interested in the Church? It was a BOY!!! Haha flirt to convert I guess. This guy is planning on going on a mission and i guess him sharing his testimony with her got Justine interested and now she wants to be Baptized. That is the best result possible for someone dating a nonmember. Saturday is going to be a really good day fro Alyssa and Justine.

This week I was able to go on a couple exchanges. The first one was with Elder Hayden he is one of the Zone Leaders so I have met him before at ZLC. We had a really good time despite that all 4 of our appointments canceled. We had some good trackting experiences. Elder Hayden is from Oregon and has been in St George his whole mission. Yikes my heart is still in the North of the mission but is slowly making it's way southward to Cedar. I can't imagine being in St George the whole time. It was a fun exchange though.

After that exchange I got to do another one with Elder Wood!!! I came out of the MTC with him and it was awesome to spend a day with him. We planned a trip to go to Washington and hang out after our missions. It's awesome to serve around him and Elder Ware to see how much we have grown up since The MTC. We get blown away that we are real missionaries now. Not learning in a classroom anymore but that we are in the real world... Well as real as Utah gets anyways cause there are still a lot of Mormons.

I realized something pretty neat this week. I'm just 20 years old but age doesn't seem to matter when your a missionary. I was thinking about this during our weekly meeting with all the ward mission leaders. I'm only 20 but my view counts for something with these men. They are mostly over 50 except a couple but they really care about what the missionaries have to say. It's weird cause they have so much more experience then me but they still want, listen, and respect my outlook as a missionary. They want to know from us how they can be better at their calling. When is a room of older people ever again going to care what I have to say? I guess they realize it's not ourselves we are trying to represent. We are trying to represent Jesus Christ and who wouldn't want to listen to him? This is an amazing calling. It's humbling.

Well that is about all I have to report on this week. I'm working hard and success is starting to come our way and things are finally turning around.

The Church is True
143 Family
Elder Ian Dyer

No Idea

Hey.... How are you,

Alright so i really don't know what to write this week. Everything kind of fell through except for our baptism.

Let's see if I can recall some of the temporal highlights oh the week then I will fill you in on the spiritual highlights.

First i was able to go to Enterprise on exchanges this week. Apparently that is where Elder Jeffery Holland is from. The place was neat. I thought Loa was small but wow Enterprise smaller. It was pretty funny we taught this 20 year old farmer and is girlfriend. The Guy was wearing short shorts that left very little to the imagination. I will spare everyone the details but Elder Clark and Me were doing everything in our power not to bust out laughing. Never had such a difficult time teaching the Restoration with a straight face and yes he did make the shorts himself.

Also I went to IHOP for the second time in my life. Mom and Dad i charged it to the credit card just so you could see what I ordered. It won't happen again but I just wanted to send you something from Utah. IHOP is the greatest place ever. Totally beats Denny's and Smitty's combined. I know your not supposed to open your heart and find Love on your mission but i couldn't help it... I Love IHOP. Sorry my heart will be locked from here on out.

Today for p-day we are going to go hike kannaraville falls and there is wind to so hopefully some kite flying will happen.

best part of the week though was Heber's baptism.  He has had to wait a long time but he was strong throughout and waited no problem. Waiting Made the baptism even more special. Thinking about waiting for baptism I can't help thinking about Cal Clark. He is almost there! baptisms are great and they bring the spirit so strong.

sorry this was a short email but that was pretty much my week. Still trying to really kickstart this area and get it on fire. Cedar is getting there it just needs some more work is all.

143 Family
The Church is True
Elder Ian Dyer

ps did you know who Elder Prusse's companion was in the MTC? It was Elder Ross Cocks what a coincidence!