June 25, 2009

Dear Family,
The past couple weeks have been fantastic. Heavenly Father has been stretching me in so many different ways and at times I have really been feeling it.  Rising Sun is such a great branch. There is a great combination of members and investigators and I have really fallen in love with all of them. The momentum is building we can really feel the spirit guiding everything we are doing. I love it!

Elder Willes got moved and is now a service elder. That means he is based out of Broomall but gets to see the entire mission. He helps move the missionaries and set up the zone conferences. If someone needs a car they take it to them. It’s kinda a break from proselyting for a little while but they stay really busy taking care of everything else that needs to get done to help a mission function. He will probably be there for the next 2-3 transfers.

In his place I received TWO wonderful missionaries. Elder Gillman from Lindon, Utah and Elder Chan from Pocatello, Idaho. We have been having a great time being companions, I love it. We make a pretty fun team. President Murray said that we would be together until I went home and then they would take over the area and be here for a total of probably six months a piece. Our area is a big change for Elder Chan who has been out for 7 months serving in areas like South Philadelphia and in the city of Reading, but Elder Gillman is used to the countryside. He is just coming out of Cambridge,MD where he has been for six months and on his mission for a total of nine months. This is also Elder Gillman’s third trio / threesome / tri-panionship so he has lots of experience as to how we are going to need to function. I was pretty shaky myself as to what I was going to do with three missionaries when I had a hard time keeping two of us busy! But I KNOW that
Heavenly Father has placed us all together for a reason.

I have had a couple really cool testimony building experiences the past few weeks and I have been feeling the spirit stronger now than I have probably my entire mission. We have been put in a couple situations where prayer and fasting was absolutely neccesary. They were big time make it or break it moments. The cool thing was after the test and seeing the positive outcome I was given what seemed like kind of a sneak-peek by God. I was shown that if I wasn’t humble enough to do all that I could do and also go to God and seek extra help that the outcome would have been different. I believe myself to be a pretty good, pretty fluent missionary BUT I see that every once in awhile Heavenly Father will put tests in our path to see if we will trust in our own abilities and rely only on ourselves  OR go to Him and trust in Him! That has been one of the greatest lessons of my mission.

You asked about the members of the branch. They are so sweet and I really love them. Each unit that I have served in I have been able to connect with the membership and that has been a great success of my mission. Each ward or branch has each had its own qualities that make me enjoy it, and Rising Sun is just the same.  The members love having us over and many of them are striving to help the missionary work move along. The past week or so we have been in the homes of the Wheeler’s, Kubesh’s, Jackson’s, Cain’s, Ellsworth’s, Simmons, Nair’s, Strange’s and more. They really take care of us and are always asking us how they can help us out. There are a few really incredible families in the branch too. I look at them and I see so many qualities that I want my family to have.

Our apartment is really nice too. As you saw in the picture we live right above a hair salon. The apartment is really nice and was furnished by the members. Brother Kubesh especially loves it, because he is the one that found it nine months ago so they could put missionaries in the branch.

That’s all I have time for today. I’m loving it and working harder and more efficiently than ever before, and thankfully I have great companions who are willing to do the same.

I love you. Have a great week!

-Elder Michael Oakford

June 18, 2009

I guess you all get pictures instead of a letter this week. It took awhile to download them all.
Hope you enjoy.

Mike

Mike's District

Rolling Hills near Rising Sun, MD

Cheaspeake Bay

Elders Peck and Oakford

Rising Sun Apartment and Car

Oakford Avenue in Oakford, PA

June 10, 2009

Dear Familia,

Everything here in Rising Sun is rockin’! We are building momentum and seeing lots of progress in the area.  We have a handful of less actives who hadn’t been to church in a long while who we have been teaching and they all showed up to church on Sunday! What a blessing. We are really working on finding more people to give baptismal dates too. They are here, we are just trying to find them.

The weather has been pretty good except for one day that we got dumped on by a passing storm. Yesterday, Mother Nature put on a beautiful lightning and thunder show. There was constant thunder for almost 2 hours! The lightning lasted from about 3pm to 7pm. I was waiting for it to get dark before I took some pictures but by the time it gets dark now, we are home and the lightning had stopped anyway.

We had our Zone Training Meeting in Dover, DE on Monday this week and then we have interviews with President Murray tomorrow morning in Wilmington, DE.  It’s already putting a crunch on our miles–we get 1350 per month.  President Murray came to our district meeting a couple weeks ago and taught us about the skills of communication. Lots of missionaries before coming out on their missions have limited contact with other people that they are trying to communicate with. The youth get so distracted by media and electronics that they would rather sit at home and play video games than go outside and interact with their friends. I think this leads to a HUGE shock once these people are sent out into the world to TALK TO and MAKE FRIENDS WITH everyone that they see. In his most recent Sickle Thruster, he wrote about how missionaries can learn to communicate with everyone especially their companions a lot better. I loved having him there. It’s always a treat to be with and hear and learn from President and Sister Murray. I’m really looking forward to my interview tomorrow.

Transfers are coming up quick! Only about one more week until my last transfer here in the mission field! Elder Willes has been here for a couple transfers now so he might get transferred,  but you never know. If he does, I hope they take Elder Moorhead out of Service and send him down here to Rising Sun to be my last companion!! Very unlikely, but I’ll pray for it!!

I got everyone’s letters on the same day this week. Yes, it is very OK to send things to my apartment. I live in the second story of a big house that has been converted into a hair salon on the bottom level and two apartments up stairs. The only thing that I would worry about is having the squirrels or deer run away with whatever you send.

Alright that’s all for now.  My time is up.  I love you.

-Mike

June 4, 2009

Dear Mom and Dad,

Everything is going great here in Maryland. We have some great people that we are working with and they are all progressing really quickly. The weather has been all over the place. We have had some really beautiful days and then some days like today that are overcast and rainy.

My talk in sacrament meeting went great. There wasn’t much time so I had only about 15 minutes to fill. Brother Kubesh and I were the only speakers but they released the Relief Society President and so she and the new one both gave there testimonies.  It was a nice meeting. Tonja, our investigator that has a date for June 28, was there with her two kids and she really enjoyed church as well which was great! Her kids on the other hand are not used to it yet and had a hard time in their classes. She is doing really well and we are all really excited to Rising Sun’s first baptism in a couple years.

Last week I was on exchanges with Elder Clark in Smyrna, Delaware. We had a really good time. I have served around Elder Clark for the past couple months when I was in Morrisville. We had a great two days of work. On Friday I think we taught more lessons than we had people tell us No!! That was incredible. The people in Delaware and Maryland are a lot different from those in the city. Elder Clark goes home at the end of this transfer and then will be at BYU next semester. He is a great friend but it going to be nice to still see a lot of these missionaries after my mission.

So the word on the street is that as of July 1st our mission will be taking over the Scranton, PA stake.  It is the stake that is just North of the Reading Stake. That will give us 8 more units and a lot more Spanish speaking missionaries. I think that that stake was part of Austen’s mission.

Nothing else is really happening at this time.  We have Zone training meeting on Monday down in Dover and then interviews with President Murray on Thursday, so P-Day will be on Wednesday again.

Alright, that’s all for now.

Love you,

Elder Michael Oakford