Hey everyone,
This past week was pretty great in Springfield. To start off, Elder Peters got all four of us in the apartment free tickets to go to the zoo for preparation day. That may not sound exciting for some of you, but for missionaries it's like going to Disneyland. :) So we had a member take us and we spent about 3hours walking around and having a good ol' time joking and seeing all the crazy animals in the zoo. We have some pretty funny pictures to go along with our adventure as well.
We also have a few new investigators for both the Springfield 1st family ward and the University single's ward, which Elder Andersne and I are both stoked about. It always feels good to find someone who is interested in learning more about Jesus' gospel. It truly strengthens my testimony that the Lord leads His servants to those that are ready and those that are ready to the servants. I also feel very blessed to serve with a companion who is easy to work with and get along with. I have gotten along with all of my companions, but Elder Andersen and I are ver similar. Its awesome.
This past weekend was great too because of a nice sleepover we had with other missionaries. A missionary that is serving way up north in the polygamist area of the mission had to have his tonsils removed, so we got him down here to have his surgery in Springfield so he can be taken care of properly. So, last night we picked them up from where they were staying and brought them over to our apartment and had a great time talking and playing games.
Its been great being out here and being around missionaries who are so wonderful in their own unique way and then learning from them has been a blast as well.
Soon I'll be home, but I still got some time left. I love all of you so much and I can't wait see ya'll :)
Sincerely,
Elder Brad Fellows
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Away we go! - sent August 15, 2011
Hello hello!
So, a member called me yesterday and told me that I have 24 days left. Thats pretty crazy to think that my mission is coming to a close. The funny thing is, it doesn't really feel like I'm coming home. I feel like I am just going to another area in the mission to keep on serving.
But, as for the work in Springfield, not much has really changed. After being here for 8 months, I am still trying to piece together the purpose of me being here. There have been many miraculous things that have happened here, but i feel like there is something still missing. I hope i find that something missing. :)
Its been an awesome eperience being on a mission, and I know that I will miss it very much. I was giving me departing testimony in zone conference this past week, and it felt surreal to think that that was the last time I will have a zone conference, but then i sat down and i realized how much i will miss it all. As a missionary, I have felt there will always be another conference, or another exchange, or another district meeting, but for me...
Well, I love all of you and I pray the Lord will smile upon all of you in labors to bring about His work. I know the Lord lives and loves each of you and is mindful of what you go through.
Elder Brad Fellows
So, a member called me yesterday and told me that I have 24 days left. Thats pretty crazy to think that my mission is coming to a close. The funny thing is, it doesn't really feel like I'm coming home. I feel like I am just going to another area in the mission to keep on serving.
But, as for the work in Springfield, not much has really changed. After being here for 8 months, I am still trying to piece together the purpose of me being here. There have been many miraculous things that have happened here, but i feel like there is something still missing. I hope i find that something missing. :)
Its been an awesome eperience being on a mission, and I know that I will miss it very much. I was giving me departing testimony in zone conference this past week, and it felt surreal to think that that was the last time I will have a zone conference, but then i sat down and i realized how much i will miss it all. As a missionary, I have felt there will always be another conference, or another exchange, or another district meeting, but for me...
Well, I love all of you and I pray the Lord will smile upon all of you in labors to bring about His work. I know the Lord lives and loves each of you and is mindful of what you go through.
Elder Brad Fellows
Wheels are turning again! - sent August 8, 2011
Hey everyone,
So, this past Monday and Tuesday we went to Tulsa for ZLC and we talked a lot about preparing for Zone Conference and making sure everything was in order for that. We also spoke about special matters relating to conducting baptismal interivews and correcting missionaries when they disobey. It was also the last ZLC for me becuase transfers has been moved up one day to Wed. 7 September, but I will still be coming home on Fri. 9 September. While I am in Tulsa waiting for my flight, we'll be doing service or something like that.
Also, in the family ward and in the single's ward, the ward leadership is really pushing missionary work and retaining members that have been lost. It's really cool to see a huge collection of saints fired up about helping the people in their communtiy having the gospel in their lives more abundantly. I think by the next two months the work for Elder Andersen and his new companion will be great. They will have a lot to do.
As for my surgery, I am healing fast. The doctor said i will not have any weight restrictions by next week, and he also said that I can go swimming in two weeks. FYI the doctor who operated on me is a less-acitve member and knows the missionary rules :)
Anyway, I love all of you and you are still in my prayers because that's the missionary thing to say in emails home HAHA. I'm just kidding you really are in my prayers and I do know the Lord has blessed and will continue to bless you day by day.
Elder Brad Fellows
So, this past Monday and Tuesday we went to Tulsa for ZLC and we talked a lot about preparing for Zone Conference and making sure everything was in order for that. We also spoke about special matters relating to conducting baptismal interivews and correcting missionaries when they disobey. It was also the last ZLC for me becuase transfers has been moved up one day to Wed. 7 September, but I will still be coming home on Fri. 9 September. While I am in Tulsa waiting for my flight, we'll be doing service or something like that.
Also, in the family ward and in the single's ward, the ward leadership is really pushing missionary work and retaining members that have been lost. It's really cool to see a huge collection of saints fired up about helping the people in their communtiy having the gospel in their lives more abundantly. I think by the next two months the work for Elder Andersen and his new companion will be great. They will have a lot to do.
As for my surgery, I am healing fast. The doctor said i will not have any weight restrictions by next week, and he also said that I can go swimming in two weeks. FYI the doctor who operated on me is a less-acitve member and knows the missionary rules :)
Anyway, I love all of you and you are still in my prayers because that's the missionary thing to say in emails home HAHA. I'm just kidding you really are in my prayers and I do know the Lord has blessed and will continue to bless you day by day.
Elder Brad Fellows
Oops for me!! - sent August 1, 2011
Hey everyone!
So this past week has been pretty great. We were able to pick up a couple of new investigators despite how i have been feeling physically, and we were able to continue helping those recent converts in our ward make it to the temple Aug. 20.
We are still teaching the man who is Jewish. His name is Itai and he is a really great guy who has been letting all we have shared soak in. For most of the lessons in the past, he has been very quiet and listening intently to what we say, but last week he came out and told us what was on his mind. He said to us he has felt the truth of what we have been teaching, and the good spirit that he says we ahve brought into his home, and he has found no fault with the Book of Mormon. He is also wanting to feed us and another famiyl from the ward who have been helping us with the teaching process.
The new people we found last week are really open to hearing the restored gospel and they have already been reading the Book of Mormon. Same old same old...but they are awesome.
So...I kinda over-exerted myself and the hernia came back. Its a little bigger and a little more painful, but i'm dealing with it as best as i can. I didn't understand how irritating a hernia could be. There were a few factors for why it came back, but the main one was this one time i vomitted pretty violently and i felt through my skin trying to get out. Suffice it to say that did not feel good at all.
Elder Andersen and the other elders in the apartment have been really good about keeping me cheerful.
There have been some other crazy stuff that has happened. So, Saturday night Elder Andersen called a recent convert family that he ahd previously taught in an area here in Springfield at the beginning of his mission and they took us out to dinner to Golden Corral. It was such a blast with tons of laughs and their 6 kids had busting a gut all throughout dinner. Then, as we were walking out we somehow got onto the conversation that we drive a minivan and how cool we were to have it :) Then the mom, Sis. Howald, was like, "I love stow-n-go seating" and Elder Andersen thought he would be a cool guy started modeling the minivan and the stow-n-go seating even though he didn't know how to work it well. So he's fiddling around with it and gets his finger stuck in a metal crevace of the seat somehow and gets a little freaked. He thought for a second he would have be like the guy who got his arm stuck beneath a boulder and had to saw it off with a swiss army knife and take his finger off, but gladly that was not the case. We were finally able to get his finger out and his finger was sliced pretty deep on both sides to the point where you can see a lot of fatty tissue. I don't know why it was funny, but how it looked just had all of us laughing, even Elder Andersen. After that, we went to the emergency and they super glued his finger back together and know he's doing great.
Well, thats all for now. I love all of you and pray for each of you.
Elder Brad Fellows
So this past week has been pretty great. We were able to pick up a couple of new investigators despite how i have been feeling physically, and we were able to continue helping those recent converts in our ward make it to the temple Aug. 20.
We are still teaching the man who is Jewish. His name is Itai and he is a really great guy who has been letting all we have shared soak in. For most of the lessons in the past, he has been very quiet and listening intently to what we say, but last week he came out and told us what was on his mind. He said to us he has felt the truth of what we have been teaching, and the good spirit that he says we ahve brought into his home, and he has found no fault with the Book of Mormon. He is also wanting to feed us and another famiyl from the ward who have been helping us with the teaching process.
The new people we found last week are really open to hearing the restored gospel and they have already been reading the Book of Mormon. Same old same old...but they are awesome.
So...I kinda over-exerted myself and the hernia came back. Its a little bigger and a little more painful, but i'm dealing with it as best as i can. I didn't understand how irritating a hernia could be. There were a few factors for why it came back, but the main one was this one time i vomitted pretty violently and i felt through my skin trying to get out. Suffice it to say that did not feel good at all.
Elder Andersen and the other elders in the apartment have been really good about keeping me cheerful.
There have been some other crazy stuff that has happened. So, Saturday night Elder Andersen called a recent convert family that he ahd previously taught in an area here in Springfield at the beginning of his mission and they took us out to dinner to Golden Corral. It was such a blast with tons of laughs and their 6 kids had busting a gut all throughout dinner. Then, as we were walking out we somehow got onto the conversation that we drive a minivan and how cool we were to have it :) Then the mom, Sis. Howald, was like, "I love stow-n-go seating" and Elder Andersen thought he would be a cool guy started modeling the minivan and the stow-n-go seating even though he didn't know how to work it well. So he's fiddling around with it and gets his finger stuck in a metal crevace of the seat somehow and gets a little freaked. He thought for a second he would have be like the guy who got his arm stuck beneath a boulder and had to saw it off with a swiss army knife and take his finger off, but gladly that was not the case. We were finally able to get his finger out and his finger was sliced pretty deep on both sides to the point where you can see a lot of fatty tissue. I don't know why it was funny, but how it looked just had all of us laughing, even Elder Andersen. After that, we went to the emergency and they super glued his finger back together and know he's doing great.
Well, thats all for now. I love all of you and pray for each of you.
Elder Brad Fellows
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Crazy Last Two Weeks - sent July 25, 2011
Hey everyone,
Sorry I haven't written nearly as much as I should have this past while, some things have been going on that have been consuming my thoughts and energy.
About 10 days ago, I had surgery on a hernia, which was not a whole lot of fun to go through. If you are a thrill-seeker, I encourage you to not attempt to acquire a hernia and have it operated on. The operation has been pretty draining and when I feel pain its not the fun kind of adrenaline that courses through my body. I was down for about four days, and then I have been prescribed one week of light duty. So, its not as bad as they thought or thought would be after the surgery, but lately i have been feeling pretty nauseous from the pain medicine.
The work has been going well though. We just found out last Saturday that Elder Andersen and I are going to be in Springfield, Missouri together for one more transfer period(6 weeks), and so he'll be the one that "kills me off" or sends me home. I will have spent 9 months in this area! We were also told that we will be covering the Single's Ward for another 6 weeks, which is awesome! It's so great to be able to work with people your age at missionary work. They have that same fire that you have, and most of them understand missionary life because many of them have been not far away from their own full-time missions. In the family ward, we are still working very hard to get all of the recent coneverts and those less-active families to the temple on August 20. We are excited to be apart of their first temple experience, and i know the Lord will pour out His Spirit upon them to bring more joy and peace and direction in their lives than before. There is one person who were teaching who has been very unique to interact with. He is a Jewish man in his 30s and he came in contact with the church through a friend telling him to get in contact with full-time missionaries. Once we started teaching what the doctrine is of the church, he began to scratch his head because it was very new to him. Unlike most people here in Missouri, he has not had any negative publicity thrown at him abuot our faith, and because he is a Jew, he takes what critics say about other faiths with a huge grain of salt. But teaching him has been interesting, but also slow because we are first working on him building faith. He is a great guy with a good heart and he really enjoys us coming over and visiting with him. Please continue to pray for the people we are working with.
Its been great serving with Elder Andersen. Him and I are very much alike, and we have been getting some work done and having a blast along the way. We joke around a lot of the time, but we get serious when we are teaching. Both of us have similar interests, and so it never is dull with our conversation. I think he is so hilarious too. He always has me laughing with his crazy comments, but right now with my operation it really hurts to laugh :)
Well, thats all for now. This Elder Fellows signing off!!!
Sorry I haven't written nearly as much as I should have this past while, some things have been going on that have been consuming my thoughts and energy.
About 10 days ago, I had surgery on a hernia, which was not a whole lot of fun to go through. If you are a thrill-seeker, I encourage you to not attempt to acquire a hernia and have it operated on. The operation has been pretty draining and when I feel pain its not the fun kind of adrenaline that courses through my body. I was down for about four days, and then I have been prescribed one week of light duty. So, its not as bad as they thought or thought would be after the surgery, but lately i have been feeling pretty nauseous from the pain medicine.
The work has been going well though. We just found out last Saturday that Elder Andersen and I are going to be in Springfield, Missouri together for one more transfer period(6 weeks), and so he'll be the one that "kills me off" or sends me home. I will have spent 9 months in this area! We were also told that we will be covering the Single's Ward for another 6 weeks, which is awesome! It's so great to be able to work with people your age at missionary work. They have that same fire that you have, and most of them understand missionary life because many of them have been not far away from their own full-time missions. In the family ward, we are still working very hard to get all of the recent coneverts and those less-active families to the temple on August 20. We are excited to be apart of their first temple experience, and i know the Lord will pour out His Spirit upon them to bring more joy and peace and direction in their lives than before. There is one person who were teaching who has been very unique to interact with. He is a Jewish man in his 30s and he came in contact with the church through a friend telling him to get in contact with full-time missionaries. Once we started teaching what the doctrine is of the church, he began to scratch his head because it was very new to him. Unlike most people here in Missouri, he has not had any negative publicity thrown at him abuot our faith, and because he is a Jew, he takes what critics say about other faiths with a huge grain of salt. But teaching him has been interesting, but also slow because we are first working on him building faith. He is a great guy with a good heart and he really enjoys us coming over and visiting with him. Please continue to pray for the people we are working with.
Its been great serving with Elder Andersen. Him and I are very much alike, and we have been getting some work done and having a blast along the way. We joke around a lot of the time, but we get serious when we are teaching. Both of us have similar interests, and so it never is dull with our conversation. I think he is so hilarious too. He always has me laughing with his crazy comments, but right now with my operation it really hurts to laugh :)
Well, thats all for now. This Elder Fellows signing off!!!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Happy 4th of July!! -- sent 7/4/11 -- obviously
Hey everyone,
this week has been a typical week in the missionary life. We taught people, some kept their commitments, some didn't. We went finding, and not much luck. A typical week. Bob Brown did get baptized up in Utah this past weekend, and he will be confirmed in Springfield this coming week. Other than that, not much has been happening. I'm doing pretty well. The members are feeding us. They are helping with the work. Elder Andersen is probably one of my favorite companions and so we get along really well, and that makes the work more enjoyable.
i really do wish i had more to write, but thats all for now.
Elder Fellows
this week has been a typical week in the missionary life. We taught people, some kept their commitments, some didn't. We went finding, and not much luck. A typical week. Bob Brown did get baptized up in Utah this past weekend, and he will be confirmed in Springfield this coming week. Other than that, not much has been happening. I'm doing pretty well. The members are feeding us. They are helping with the work. Elder Andersen is probably one of my favorite companions and so we get along really well, and that makes the work more enjoyable.
i really do wish i had more to write, but thats all for now.
Elder Fellows
Change is Constant - 6/27/11
Hello everyone,
So, last week was transfers and Elder Argyle went home. He is the 4th missionary I have seen go home in our apartment. That made me feel really old mission-wise. The apartment now has two new additons. Elder Peters and Elder Andersen(my companion). He's been out for about 17 months and he is awesome. He is from Modesto, Califonia. That is just south of Sacramento in the central valley, just east of the bay area. He and Elder Peters actually both served in Mingo Valley after I was there and so we have a lot of cool conversations about the people we would visit and the members that lived there. Elder Peters is from Orem, Utah and he's a stud too. He and Elder Bell are tearing it up in there area right now and our entire zone is doing really great. I am so excited for the effort that is being put out by the missionaries in and around the Springfield area.
Right now, Elder Andersen and I are covering both the Springfield 1st Ward and the University Ward. They pulled the Sister Missionaries out for a transfer(6 weeks). That was a change. We always have our days swamped with teaching and setting up more appointments so that we can teach new people and help all of them get baptized. That was definiately a change. And every single companionship has changed. I am now the oldest missionary in the zone. Just call me Father Fellows. That is change. I have been in this area for over 6 months(the longest time i have been in an area yet), and I might stay here until my mission is done.
A little info for Dad and Holley. PAY ATTENTION HERE! There is a man named Bob Brown that is going to be baptized up in Murray, Utah this weekend, 2 July at 10am. We have been visiting him for the past few months and he is wanting to be baptized where all the people that were influential in his conversion. It's in the Riverside 5th Ward/Murray Utah North Stake with Bishop Meyers there. He is going to be baptized with the granddaughter of one of his friends. His friend's name is Mary Kay Pearson, and her granddaughter is named Rebecca Anderson. I think it would be cool if you attended that baptism of Bob's. I know it's not very far from where ya'll live, so you should consider going and supporting an investigator we have been visiting.
Well, that's all I got for everyone today.
Love ya
Elder Fellows
So, last week was transfers and Elder Argyle went home. He is the 4th missionary I have seen go home in our apartment. That made me feel really old mission-wise. The apartment now has two new additons. Elder Peters and Elder Andersen(my companion). He's been out for about 17 months and he is awesome. He is from Modesto, Califonia. That is just south of Sacramento in the central valley, just east of the bay area. He and Elder Peters actually both served in Mingo Valley after I was there and so we have a lot of cool conversations about the people we would visit and the members that lived there. Elder Peters is from Orem, Utah and he's a stud too. He and Elder Bell are tearing it up in there area right now and our entire zone is doing really great. I am so excited for the effort that is being put out by the missionaries in and around the Springfield area.
Right now, Elder Andersen and I are covering both the Springfield 1st Ward and the University Ward. They pulled the Sister Missionaries out for a transfer(6 weeks). That was a change. We always have our days swamped with teaching and setting up more appointments so that we can teach new people and help all of them get baptized. That was definiately a change. And every single companionship has changed. I am now the oldest missionary in the zone. Just call me Father Fellows. That is change. I have been in this area for over 6 months(the longest time i have been in an area yet), and I might stay here until my mission is done.
A little info for Dad and Holley. PAY ATTENTION HERE! There is a man named Bob Brown that is going to be baptized up in Murray, Utah this weekend, 2 July at 10am. We have been visiting him for the past few months and he is wanting to be baptized where all the people that were influential in his conversion. It's in the Riverside 5th Ward/Murray Utah North Stake with Bishop Meyers there. He is going to be baptized with the granddaughter of one of his friends. His friend's name is Mary Kay Pearson, and her granddaughter is named Rebecca Anderson. I think it would be cool if you attended that baptism of Bob's. I know it's not very far from where ya'll live, so you should consider going and supporting an investigator we have been visiting.
Well, that's all I got for everyone today.
Love ya
Elder Fellows
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