Ripped Pants!

Hi Everyone, 

Saturday we went to best buy, my companion wanted to buy a mp3 player. Ya it feels weird that another week has already passed. The weeks are hard. We do still go out in the cold, but it really is no fun. We do a little bit of tracting, but not a whole ton. We have a couple of investigators still. We sill have the Pentacostal  family who we went to church with. The reason we did that is so that hopefully it is sort of a trade off. And now they will come to our church.

We still have the  family from Peru. They were actually supposed to be at church on Sunday, but didnt show up. The dad works on Sundays, and the rest of them dont speak great english. We might end up giving them to the spanish elders to take over for us. 

Warren missed his baptismal date again. We havent really been in contact with him too much. He is so hard to catch at his house, and he doesnt answer his phone. We are going to continue to work with him, but at this point it will probably be after i leave that he will be baptized. 

Im glad that chase has the opportunity to be a leader in the quorum. It will be good for him to have to set the example and not just be the crazy one all the time. I loved klondike. Just a good opportunity for him to freeze his butt off!

This weekend has been pretty exciting. We had a mission conference where Elder S. Gifford Neilson of the seventy talk to us. He is one of the people that spoke in conference. That was really fun. When i was the i got to talk to talk to my really good friend, Elder Harper who was the 24 year old who came out with me. We got talking and i figured out that my companion from the mtc, went home. 

Seems like there is a ton of people going home. When i was talking to him he said that he has looked at plane tickets because he is so stressed out. I told him to just hold on. Chances are he will be getting transfered when i do. I hope he stays!!

Crazy to think of all the people coming home on time now. Seems like just yesterday that they left. There are a lot of people out here that i have connections to. There is an elder out here who was in Brandons graduating class, and also a whole bunch from vernal. Weird stuff. 

Havent heard from spencer or tyson recently, i sent them both an email so hopefully i will get something this week. Sounds like a really fun weekend. Have fun. Just do something crazy and different. I figured out that the thing that i miss most from home is my freedom. So i tell people to enjoy it now :)  I guess it will just be that much better when i get home. 

On friday before our lesson, we stopped by roy and brennas house, and roy was over getting the mail. So we walked over there and he was holding a snow skate. So of course i had to try it. So i was doing it a bunch and it was tons of fun. Only crashed a couple of times. So when we were sitting in our lesson i realized that i had ripped my pants from the bottom of my zipper to about halfway up my behind. So that was really embarrassing, and not to mention that we walked all over a store right before our lesson, and i had ripped pants. So thats my excitement for the week!!!  

Love you all, thanks for your support. I will let you know if i get transferred!!!

Love your son,

Elder Laing

Update on Elder Laing!

Update on Elder Laing:

     Blake and I were able to catch each other online this morning and were able to e-mail each other back and forth, which is so much fun, but then i don't get a letter. But I wanted to give you all an update on how he is doing. He is still serving in Ashburn, VA. His Companion is Elder Hinton from Gilbert Arizona. He really likes him and says that they get along great! Elder Hinton has only been out a month longer than Blake. They are still doing a lot of trackting and finding little success. It has been a little discouraging for them, but they are keeping their heads up!
     They have had one baptismal date for   ......, (Blake told me today that they had been asked not to use real names of their investigators in blogs, so per his request I will not). They require  that investigators attend church 3 times before they are baptized. .........has accepted the invitation to be baptized, but has had a hard time coming to Church. Once again he wasn't there on Sunday after he told the Elders that he would be. So his baptismal date will be put off again.
     They are actually teaching a family of six from Peru also.  They taught them the first lesson and will be teaching them the second lesson on Friday. Mom and Dad and four boys.
We keep praying for all of his investigators and for Blake and his companion to find some success in the area they are serving in. I'm sure that he would appreciate your prayers also!
     Blake's companion cut his head and had to get 3 staples put in it, so they are going to have to take it easy this week per Dr.'s orders. Blake is really loving his mission. He said that he takes it one day at a time, and is glad that he is their serving our Father in Heaven. He wouldn't be able to do it without his help.  Blake would love to receive letters from any of you! His e-mail address is
blake.laing@myldsmail.net

P-Day in Washington DC

Elder Laing was able to go to Washington DC for P-Day last Monday. He said that after this picture was taken that his camera batteries died, and he wasn't able to take any more pictures. 

What is wrong with ham:)

Hey guys,

So I don't need to be addressed formaly, though sometimes when I am refered to as blake It takes me a second to remember that that is my first name. So I did receive my package, and was very excited to see it. My roomates also were excited that they got presents too. I did open them all. Some of them I knew that they were warm clothing and I need all of that I can get. I couldn't wait till Christmas I just decided that it was too far into the future. ill have to buy myself some more presents. :)  We had our ward Christmas party last week. Instead of American food they had traditional European food. :/  I was like what the heck am I eating? What is wrong with ham???  But everything else was fun. They put on a Christmas program and we talked with all of the ward members.

We are continuing to work hard, but this week has been difficult. So last Monday my companion injured his foot and went to the doctors and had it x-rayed, there were no broken bones so they think that it is soft tissue damage which could actually take longer to heal. On Tuesday I was sick, felt like I was going to throw up all day so that sucked. Wednesday was another day where we just did missionary work from the apartment. We called all of our investigators and updated the area book so that we wont have so much to do down the road. Thursday we went on exchanges, Elder Alba went with me, we went down to 7-11 and got hot chocolate then road 3 miles to check on some investigators.

Friday we had our mission Christmas party, there was a talent show. Bunch of funny stuff but it was mostly just music. There was one act where there was 2 pianos and they were playing a song that was really good and worked in unison. Sounds kinda strange but it was way cool. Enjoyed some good food! They fed us normal food!!!!  Baked potatoes, ham, rolls, salad, man that was delicious. There is an elder from Samoa names Elder Alofipo, he is in our district and we were eating a ton of ham. He kinda challenged me to a eating contest.

We tried to see warren on Friday night and he said that he could meet with us on Monday night so hopefully that will work out tonight. He also said when we were talking to him hat he can see a significant difference in his life when we are meeting with him on a regular basis, and when we aren't. He said that when we don't meet with him that something feels off. As much as I hate to say it but im glad that he can tell something is wrong :) hopefully that will further his progression.

Saturday we did our planning for the week. We went to a baptism where we were the witnesses. We also helped in the confirmation. So yesterday I woke up with a massive stomach ache, I went into the bathroom and threw up. That really was no fun. So I ended up staying home from church. Which really sucked because there was a baby blessing in our ward and he wanted us to help in that so I missed out. A member of the ward gave us all 20 bucks for Christmas which was really good because I am running out of money.

We are going to try to put Warren back on date to be baptized on the 28th,  I definitely think that it is possible, but with transfers coming up I might not be able to teach him the final commandments but that will come in the future. If I do get transferred I will hopfully get to tell you on Wednesday.

Everything else is business as usual. No update on the Iphones and Ipads yet but they will probably a few months down the road. I hope its not to cold in Roosevelt. Is dad still going to put a fire place in the basement?

 

Love you all!!!!

 

 

Elder Blake Laing

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