Two month mark....

November 18, 2013
Dear Family,                             

Thats awesome that everything is still good back home. When you said that brandon had just got done with alma 34 i thought that was a little strange, because today in our companionship study we were in alma 32 where it talks about faith is like a little seed, if you plant it, then it will grow. We have an investigator, Julia, who we taught about a month ago and we gave her a book of mormon, we went back saturday night and talked with her again and we were going to discuss what she read. So nothing spectacular planned for her but we asked her and she told us that she had read the entire book! so we couldnt really discuss it all. She is a budhist so she didnt pray about it but she meditated, which is just a little different and we asked her if she would pray about it. The problem is, is that we dont think she read it like scripture, she read it like a novel. She told us that at times it got a little dry and was hard to get through it. So thats what tipped it off for us. The reason we were studying faith was because we told here to reread that chapter in alma. Anyways nothing really new with anything else. That was our first lesson in 2 weeks, out of the close to 50 we had planned. Our investigator warren has still not been in contact with us, at church we talked to a guy who works there too, and were hoping that he can tell us if something up. Other than that nothing happens thats spectactular just more tracting and finding people to teach. I am excited to talk to you all at christmas, only about 7 weeks left. Today is my two month mark, it feels weird. Has gone by faster than i expected so thats a good thing. I love you all again!!!!!! Hope to hear from you soon!!!

Love Elder Laing

     Blake would love to get some letters! If you would like to send him a Christmas card his address is

Elder Blake Laing

20030 Coltsfoot Terrace #101

Ashburn, VA 20147

If you would like to e-mail him, he would love that too,

blake.laing@myldsmail.net

November 12, 2013

Dear Family,    

Its kind of interesting that there are elders doing just what were doing in Roosevelt as well. i can promise you that missionaries love to do service. it is an awesome thing and gives us a change of pace. I always enjoyed raking the leaves and there are tons here so hopefully we get some service opportunity. Yesterday was veterans day so of course the library was closed so that's why we are emailing today. Some days definitly  are hard and i have the occasional "what am i doing in the middle of Virginia?" but they do pass and are rare occurrences. Its hard, no two ways about it. It is also the greatest life experienced i have had so far. Yesterday for p-day we went ice skating. That was also really fun and a change of pace. The bishop bought us hats from the world series so now i have a hat :)  What did you think of the painting i bought? you never told me. Anyways its been a week since we have met with warren. We haven't been able to get in any sort of contact with him and we are starting to worry so we are hoping that everything is alright. So today we learned that we can now use facebook so in about 2 hours i will set up my new account. so stoked for that. Everything else is the same!!! Hope everything is good at home. Sounds like it from what you send me!!! The Bishop took us to the mall and bought us these hats from the World Series. He is a really cool Bishop. The members are really good to feed us. We are fed every night, and because they treat it like a special occasion, we get fed really good food. Love Elder Laing

Moroni's Promise

Hi guys!!!!

Today is a great day so far. For some reason i just feel great and am excited to be a missionary! So Warren Ledford is the hotel worker we have been talking about. We met with him on friday night. Quick side story. (but still relates) So the other elders in our appartment were going to do a split, which means the district leader goes to the other appartment with a different elder. That ended up not happening instead just a little one so they were all confused. They had a member planning on going with them but they totally forgot. When the member showed up to our appartment we decided to try to contact the other elders to tell them. They didnt answer any of our calls so we ended up waiting 15 minutes then leaving. Once we got to warrens house he had just showed up 5 minutes earlier than us. If we didnt wait and try to contact the other elders we would have missed him and not been able to talk to him. A couple of very small miracles had to go to plan for this all to happen. We showed up and ended up spending 90 minutes at his house to teach him the entire 1st lesson. We had given him a Book Of Mormon and told him to read Moroni 10:3-5 Which is moroni's promise to us. He read and said that he has been really pondering and praying about it while he has been reading. We asked him if he knew that it was true and he told us that he knew it was so far both what he read and that what we have been sharing is. He thought that the book of mormon is a more modern day book which is also a really good thing. We invited him to be baptized and he said.....
YES!!!!!!!!    December 7th is the planned day so now i just have to hope that i dont get transfered.  He also came to church yesturday which was great and he said that he really could feel the spirit. Another small miracle that happened was that we forgot to tell him that it was 3 hours so he left after sacrament meeting. Then during 2nd hour the fire alarm went off so i think it is a good thing that he left. So that ended our church earlier than expected. I dont know why but today is just a great day!!! This week is also going to be a great one i hope. Other than warren we have just had a few lessons here and there, but nothing major. We are hoping for Jason and Holly Thompson to continue to be interested in coming back to church. A reactivation i think would be just as good as a baptism and will ultimatly benefit their family through the coming generations. I talked to an Elder, Elder Gregerson and he said i could have his bike since he is leaving in 10 days. So now i dont have to spend any money!!!! HURRAY  Bought a sweet painting at the catholic thrift shop of the D.C. Temple for only 2 dollars and i was very excited! Ill send a picture of it. I am really itching to go golfing. Thats all i have wanted to do for the past 3 p-days but whatevs. It will happen eventually. It doesnt feel like i have been here very long at all and they say that it continues to speed up. If i feel this great my entire mission that would be great. Going to go play some monopoly today with some of the sister missionaries. Maybe play some basketball but i dont know. I am glad to hear that everyone is doing good. I pray for you all every night. I am so excited for brandon and him making this choice to go on a mission and recieve the priesthood. It will be the greatest thing he will ever do. I am still trying to figure out what i want to do for a career. I still have tons of time to figure that out i think. IPADS SOON!!!! Cant wait for those it will be a very different approach to missionary work but it is awesome. I will write again on friday with all of the regular updates.

FAREWELL FROM ASHBURN,

Love Elder Laing

November 1 letter

Dear Family and Friends, 
 Everything here  is great, We are meeting with our really solid investigator
 tonight and hope for baptism. We ate with an inactive family from Utah that just moved and the reason they fell away from the church was because of "gossip" but they are willing to give it another shot . Did i ever tell you about the coopers?
Coopers just moved from Lehi and we helped them move in, he is in the army and is an awesome guy, young family. loved cabela's while living there he has a lot of hunting stuff. he brought us dinner and showed us his pistol that he carries. handled a gun, don't know if that is mission approved.
 Every Monday we go and meet with the Bishop and eat desert and talk about investigators and so forth. He was kind of pushing the record transfer and asked if a plate of cookies from the members would be good. We told him straight up that if the members come off to strong then they will put their guard up again so we will continue to work at their pace.  so we didn't give any of their information yet, we don't want to blow it. We are giving him a blessing on the 6th because he has a big test for school on the 7th and he said his dad used to do it for him, we are going to find out if brother cooper would come with us since they have so much in common .I can't believe that it is already November.  In two weeks it will already have been 2 months, crazy to think. Other than that nothing really changes all that often. We have transfers coming up so it will be Weird to see what changes. Ok we are leaving now, tell everyone i love them, be on next Friday at about 10:15 got to go bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love your son and friend 
Elder Blake Laing