Kentucky, Louisville Mission

Monday, March 30, 2015

Week 52

Reply from an email from Lily
whats up lily! thanks for the email! that video of you doing gymnastics was really cool! youre getting really good! and yes missionaries go to church! every sunday i got to 2 churches! i go to english church in the morning and later i go to spanish church! isnt that cool? i love church! love you! have a good day at school!

WHATS UP PEOPLE!! this week was another really good one! we have so many people we are teaching right now its kinda hard to narrow them all down haha but things are going really good here! we finally got the car back out of the shop so were back to every other day biking which is great! we  have been really busy and running around trying to help everybody the best we can! The Bishop in the English ward has a daughter who just got back from her mission in El Salvador, and she will not leave us alone haha every few days she texts us and says "elders when are we going to teach people? when are your appointments? what are we teaching them?" haha its great! she was really sick in El Salvador so she ended up coming home 6 weeks early but all she wants to do right now is missionary work so she has been coming with us to visit a lot of people which is great! 

We had a church tour with Yadira this week, a church tour is basically just when we take them to a church building and show them the chapel and talk about the sacrament and walk around the buildings and look at the pictures and explain them and we usually end by going in and looking at the Baptismal Font and talk about baptism, and it went really well with Yadira! she is really open and has lots of questions! she isn't quite ready to be baptized, she hasn't been to church yet and she is living with her boyfriend so the reason for the church tour was to help her feel more comfortable with the church and what not! sometimes people's agency is hard to deal with as missionaries haha you just want to help these people and if they just do what we tell them their lives would be so much better but we have to like help them understand that we cant just tell them and then they'll automatically listen to us! 

We have been making some really good progress with Michael this week too, his baptismal date is in 2 weeks and its coming up really quick but he still says he is unsure and hasn't received his answer yet. Sunday we did a fast with him and it went really well, all the talks in sacrament were almost like geared right towards him and later the YM president came up to talk to us and tell us how smart Michael was and how he knew more than a lot of youth in the branch and how he sets the example for others in the class and acts really mature and he asked us if there was anything he could do to help us get him baptized haha so the members are just falling in out laps right now which usually doesn't happen! so we have planned a mutual activity for the youth in the branch (which is only like 7 kids haha) but the YM president like set it all up and were going to have like a little testimony meeting and games so were running 90 miles and hour this week to help Michael get his answer! 

Missionary works great! love you guys, hope you have a great week! pray for Michael!

Para siempre Dios esté con Vos!

Love Elder Follett

i miss you guys! thanks for the words of wisdom about progression never ending and how my mission wont stop when i go home, i think ill just have to cross that bridge when i come to it haha. JAck is the oldest 16 year old i know haha he cracks me up! the picture of him in the paper shorts made me lose it haha he's a total goon! i hope you miss me in the back seat on the way to california! that sounds so fun! i miss road tripping with you guys! that video of lily doing gymnastics is sweet! she's really good! love you! tell everybody hi! 

Monday, March 23, 2015

Week 51

HEY! whats going on! this week went really well! we've been having tons pf people to teach and most everyone we see were teaching the whole family which is great! This Wednesday we had interviews with the mission president which happen every other transfer so about every 3 months, but it went really good! It is hard to not be inspired when you receive one on one council from someone with the authority over you like your mission president! he told me he thought i was going home soon and he thought he had done a recommendation for BYU and i told him i wasn't going home for a year but if he wanted to recommend me to BYU he was more than welcome to haha but he also gave me a lot of really good council and advice.  He also kinda made me feel a little better about my companion situation he really validated me feelings, like before i was kinda struggling having love for my companion especially since its been so long with him but he cracked a few jokes and made me feel a little better and less guilty for not loving my companion as much as i should haha but i asked him how he thought i could be a better missionary, and his response was really interesting, you could tell a big difference when he was talking normally and when he was talking and when he was speaking through the spirit, but he got in his military serious face and he told me "Elder Follett i need you to be bold and to not be afraid to say anything to anyone that needs to be said, and i need you to be obedient, and when you do those 2 things you'll have the spirit with you always and i need you to be obedient to what the spirit tells you to do." so 2 of the 3 things he told me to do had to do with obedience so i know what i need to work on now haha. 

On Friday i went on an exchange with a my district leader here named Elder Pyper (lance's nephew) and it was a lot of fun! he is a pretty cool guy and he said they go down to Lance's house a lot so ill for sure see him after the mission. 

In interviews our mission president expressed to both me and my companion later that we should try and baptize our 2 investigators, Michael and Viviana, as soon as possible they have met all the requirements for baptism so this week we committed them to be baptized the 11th of April so i'm really hoping we can make that date! so far its all looking good and we should get there!

This week we knocked on a door of a family that we knew were Hispanic but we had never met before and when we knocked a bunch of little kids ran to the window and were looking at us and the mom yelled at the kids in Spanish and asked who it was and a little girl like maybe 4 or 5 responded to her mom in English "i don't know but they're handsome!" haha the lady wasn't interested but we walked away from that door with a smile at least! 

Love you guys, hope everything is going great back home!

Para siempre Dios esté con vos!

Elder Follett

Monday, March 16, 2015

Week 50

WHATS UP! this week was definitely a different one but it was still pretty good! 

We had some different experiences and people we thought for sure we would continue to teach we aren't teaching now so that gave us a lot of time to find new people and knock a lot of doors this week!

So we were teaching 2 different families and both of them were part member families, the one 14 year old girl named Jennifer and the other family of the less active guy Antonio/Pedro and his girlfriend and her 2 daughters, but we were biking on our way over to see them and Elder Torrico got a flat tire and as we were stopping to figure out what to do, Antonio called us and told us that he and his girlfriend just started working 2 jobs and don't have time for us right now and so the time has officially started where every Hispanic in the united states works for 20 hours a day and sleeps for 4 and don't have time for the missionaries and this will last for about the rest of the summer until it gets cold again haha and then we had a lesson with Jennifer and she told us she is not going to get baptized until "next year" so we are going to drop her and not spend much time with her anymore because we are kinda wasting our time.  We will still stop by to see her and the family every once in a blue moon but for now were leaving it in the lords hands.

We also got a car this week! haha so finally we are going to share the car with the English elders every other day so i'm really excited for that! we'll be able to do a lot more work! So the combination of losing a few investigators and getting a car we met some good new people and i'm excited to keep finding new people! that's one thing i really love about missionary work is knocking on doors haha especially trailers! you never know what will open the door and you have some really cool experiences! 

Also we had a meeting as a zone and the leaders finally announced that in mid May two of the apostles will be coming to meet with the Mission president and train him on IPads and soon after(2 or 3 weeks) we will get the IPads! and they said everyone going home in November or before will have to turn them in before they go home but everybody else will get to keep them after their missions so that's cool! also they told us that we will not have to worry about paying for them, the church will provide them through your home ward and stake funds so temporal blessings are pouring down on Elder Follett right now haha

Love you guys, hope you have a great week!

Para siempre Dios esté con vos!

Elder Follett

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Week 49



Whats up fam! this week was not too bad!
Tuesday we had a lesson set with a lady named Yadira and so we were able to go with Frank (donut shop man/elders quorum president) and we had a really good lesson with her and the spirit was super strong! we were able to answer a lot of her questions and it went really well. After the lesson Frank told us he could drop us off at our next lesson but he couldn't stay which was fine for us but we got to the next place and he ended up staying with us and teaching the next family which was really cool haha so this is a guy who's name is Antonio, but sometimes he tells people its Pedro,  and how we found him was really weird haha we were just walking down the road and we saw his car parked and he rolled his window down and yelled to us to come over so we came over and he told us that he was a member and was baptized in Ogden Utah like 15 years ago but he really doesn't know anything like we asked him if he reads the book of Mormon and he said "the little blue book?" haha but he told us he wanted us to teach his girlfriend and her 2 teenage daughters because they were a little rebellious and we mentioned to him that here in georgetown the youth have an activity every wednesday at the church at 7 if they ever wanted to go and he was like oh yeah that would be cool and after that we didnt see him for about a week and one wednesday at about 6:55 and he said "hey were at the church right now with the 2 girls, are you guys gunna be here?" haha and we were on the other side of town with our bikes in the middle of an appointment so long story short they ended up going to mutual and the georgetown ward has a huge youth group, there's more youth in the georgetown ward then in the entire stake so they went and played dodgeball with a bunch of kids they didnt know and when we went and saw them with Frank we asked them how they liked mutual and they said "we hated it and we dont want to go back" haha so that was a little disappointing! but we had a good little lesson with them and their mom is really interested, and the younger daughter Maria(15) was at least friendly but the older daughter Viviana(16) was really not having it haha i was trying to like joke with her in english and everything and she just gave me the glare so she'll be a little harder to work with but im excited to keep working with their family!
We also had a lesson with Michel and his sister, who is also named Viviana, and his mom decided to sit in and she was super hostile like arguing with everything we were saying and telling us the book of mormon was a lie and it was really hard haha we were just trying to like ignore her and teach michael but it was kinda just us trying to talk while getting yelled at BUT we were able to testify about the book of mormon and it really brought the spirit into the lesson so that was good!
Wednesday night we went to a members house for dinner and it was raining all day so all the snow was gone and by the time we left the members house an hour later there was 6 inches of snow on the ground and by the next morning there was like 14 it was pretty crazy! so thursday we were stuck inside all day, other than shoveling Franks Donuts parking lot we couldnt do anything which was rough! but the next day we biked down to the trailers and had a lesson with Jennifer, the 14 year old living with her aunt and uncle who are members, and we set a baptismal date with her so hopefully she can make that date! she is not lacking anything she comes to church every week, she's been taught every lesson and has a testimony so all she needs is to tell her parents that she's gunna do it! so im excited for that!
love you guys, hope you recognize all the lords blessings this week!
Para siempre Dios etsé con vos! 

Week 48

What's up!! so we got transfer calls on Saturday and i am not going anywhere.  I am staying here for 6 more weeks until My companion goes home and I'll probably be here for 6 more weeks after that so I'll be staying put for a while haha so I'm gunna go ahead and get used to Georgetown.
This week was actually a pretty good one though, we had some good lessons and did some pretty good work.  we have a lot of investigators here and not enough time to see them all! its good that we have such a large teaching pool but now we kinda have to sift through all the people and find which ones will be willing to act and do anything, which ones are really ready to change! so the work is going on really good here and I'm really enjoying the area. We got some rain last night so that's helping to melt all the leftover snow finally! this email might be really short haha i really cant remember a lot of what happened this week! the week was really pretty average! We had a few lessons with Jennifer and just took one topic and discussed it really simply, like we tried to explain to her that God and Jesus are 2 different people and she gets it and then you ask her to repeat it to you and she says "Jesus Christ is the father of god??" haha so its really hard teaching her! i feel like the simpler we teach the more confused she is! We also were supposed to have a lesson with Michael on Friday but he called us and said his mom was going to the hospital for something so we just stopped by the next day to see how everything was going and when we got to his trailer it was him and his cousin, who is a member, and like 7 or 8 adults just partying and listening to really loud Mexican music and they were all super drunk and it was like 3 in the afternoon haha so we couldn't teach him but we had a good little chat outside in the cold for a few minutes! On Sunday we had a guy just call us and say hey i wanna come to church whats the address, and what do you know he showed up with his girlfriend and her daughter haha so that was cool!
Also Sunday night we had a pretty unique first time experience haha it was raining and we had a lesson with a white lady on her porch, and she is 8 months pregnant, while she was chain smoking and not wearing pants, just a big baggy UK sweatshirt haha so i don't know what i expected when i got a call to Kentucky but that pretty much sums it all up.
I hope everybody has a great week!
Para siempre Dios esté con vos! 

Week 47

Whats up family! So this week ended up being not too shabby! we had a really slow first couple of days due to the crazy weather but things really picked up towards the weekend! 

So Wednesday we took a long walk over to a small apartment complex to try some people! it took us like 2 hours to walk there and we were there all day and had 2 really good lessons! We found a kid named Santos who i taught here a long time ago, we hadn't seen him since about November and we started teaching his cousin, Bernabé, as well. 

Later that week on Friday we made our way down to the trailer park and had a good lesson with Jennifer and her Cousin, who is a member but doesn't have a huge testimony of the church. So that was a good visit.  after that lesson we had a little extra time on our hands so we decided to go and knock on a trailer we had tried before.  We knocked and met a lady named Pili who wasn't super interested but she knew who we were because her nephew, Nico,  is a member here in Lexington and she told us actually he is here right now! so she let us in and saw Nico and talked to him a little and met Pili's son Michael, who is 14 and we had a little lesson with him and his Aunt Maybeth(the mother of Nico) who goes to 2 churches every Sunday, the Catholic Church and the Mormon church haha she has been taught everything for years, by every missionary in Lexington and is super great and loves missionaries and loves the church but loves the Virgin Maria too much haha she doesn't want to give it up so she still hasn't been baptized! but we were teaching a lesson to Michael and his family and Maybeth started testifying like she was a missionary herself! she was saying how great the church was and how true the book of Mormon was and how these missionaries are sacrificing so much because they love their savior Jesus Christ! it was awesome haha the spirit was strong! and then to end her testimony she said, "and Mormons like the Virgin Mary too, they just don't say it that much, but that's a topic for another day" haha so that was pretty funny! but we invited Michael to come play soccer with us on Saturday night with a bunch of guys from the branch and he said sure i'll come! so Saturday roles around and we go with Frank (the donut shop guy) and we picked up Michael and Nico and went and had a blast playing indoor soccer.  After we asked him if he wanted to come to church and he said Yeah sure! haha so Sunday came and we picked him up in the morning and he came to church with us and really enjoyed it! there is only 3 young men in the ward, on is his cousin Nico and another was baptized last month but he fit in really well and had a good time. After we asked him if he liked church and he said "¡me encanto!" which means I loved it! haha and he told us he wanted to come again next week so and that we could come over Tuesday to teach him so I'm super pumped about him haha 

Last night a member family from the English ward invited us over for dinner and so after we had eaten we gave a little spiritual thought like always and the Dad started to tell us this story about how the other night he had some weird dream about missionaries and about how one of them got a letter and it was a dear john from his girlfriend and the member was saying "what was the name? i think the person who wrote the letter was named Courtney" haha and he said that and i flipped out! i was like WHAT?! haha and me and Torrico were all freaking out and after about 10 seconds of me having a heart attack i figured out that one of the other missionaries put the member up to it and told him to tell me that story to freak me out haha it was a pretty funny joke! 

I love you guys, hope you have a great week!

Para siempre Dios esté con vos!