New Plymouth's Finest

Ammon Tracting

I've got more or less everything I need at this point. My clothes are good. My books and scriptures and stuff are all good - speaking of which have you ever read through "Jesus the Christ" by Talmage? It's kind of like reading the dictionary and it's difficult to follow BUT in my assertive efforts it's thrown me for a loop. For one, I'm so grateful for modern revelation to clarify so many different things and also I'm grateful for the work others have done, like Talmage, so I can learn more about the Big Man of our church. I would highly recommend adding to your list. And I would recommend also reading it like you would a newspaper. It's a full blown life study if you don't because it's so complex and deep. Read through it casually and, not only will you be able to actually get through it, but you can get the gist of the book and better understand Christ. It's super sick.

Well we got that kid XX baptized last week FINALLY. It had a really good turn out and there were tons of people there. The family that was fellowshipping XX  had the whole thing under control.

The only thing my comp and I did were stand in as witnesses and turn on a movie during the intermission. It was nice to have a break!

YY will be baptized this Saturday. We finally got that all squared away and put in stone. She's been done with smoking and coffee for a couple of weeks now so she's ready. It's been a really interesting experience working with her because she's definitely converted. She doesn't know the reasons behind the things we teach except that their true. She's always been extremely hesitant about everything in life, always second guessing herself before she'd do anything but she's said she likes the gospel because that didn't happen. She said it was the funniest thing but she never questioned anything when it came to the gospel. I've had a good time with it because when we teach her something, she doesn't challenge anything. I'm used to explaining concepts and backing them with scripture and hellfire and damnation testimony. She goes right along with everything we tell her... I'm not used to being trusted like that. This has been a blessing working with her. She's a real sweetheart.

Regardless of the progress there, progress everywhere else has been super slow. Our teaching pool still yet wreaks and stinks of gratuitous quantity of SUCK right now and so we don't have a lot of folks to work with. In response to our extensively gay circumstances, we're still AMMON TRACTING! We go among members in the ward in naught but our civvies looking for service. So far we've done dang near EVERYTHING including unsticking tractors in the mud, roofing sheds and homes, - which is something I'm getting especially good at! You'll have to tell Don Adams he trained me right - various garden work, tarped and tired silage, wrangled a calf, dug 5'x5'x7' hole in the ground for a freezer, cleaned out the garage of ferocious nasty cat-people, leveled yards with jungles of weeds, burned the crap out of foliage and assorted greenery, knocked over and replanted dead trees to appease a cranky old woman's need to have a place to hang bird feeders, built steps, poured concrete, stacked a butt-ton of wood, and we're still looking for more. That's proved fruitful in that members are beginning to trust us with more referrals NOT TO MENTION Elder Nelson's heaven sent talk, "Ask the missionaries! They can HELP!" All these things should soon be amounting to our success!

Also would someone mind telling God to turn off the AC? It's starting to get COLD! I'm most thankful for the warm clothes I have, in addition to New Plymouth country folk who have wood-burning stoves.

It's been rather nostalgic and I've enjoyed the scent of burning pine in the air everywhere we go and familiar freakin' awesome warmth whenever we're near one. We watched conference with Gramma and Grampa Austin who we live with and they had a fire going in their stove... It was the coziest place I've been since Christmas of 2010.

The Giant at the Top of the Beanstalk

So that quote that dad does sometimes, "It is better to look marvelous than to feel marvelous" has been playing in my head the past couple of days and don't know where it is from. Do you?

Thank you SO much for the gifts and the letters around my birthday.

This birthday has been the best one yet. I got the G tops and they are perfect. As for the bottoms, my waist is a 32 I think which I think is a size Medium. The shirts are everything I hoped and dreamed they'd be

- I can BREATHE! Thank you! I also got the pills you sent as well as prescriptions from Sheree. I'll have to send her a thank you note.

She's awesome. But I'll be needed some money on my card to pick up the drugs because I don't think I'll have enough on my mission card to last me through the month. Could you put money on that card for me?

Thank you!

I hope Eric had a good birthday! I really, really miss him. The folks we're living with have a son and his family that live across the street from us and my time spent with them is probably one of my most favorite experiences on the mission. They are all super spiritual. We live on a small farm and they are almost 100% self-sustaining. They've got a MASSIVE garden and everything they eat is homemade. Anyway their kids across the street have got six kids ages 17, 14, 12, 10, 5, and 3. I love them all but the three youngest ones really make me miss Eric and Spencer. This is a family like I've never seen before. The youngest is the most articulate, well put together, confident, self-aware 3-year old I have EVER seen.

(Sorry, the editing might get confusing but I don't want to leave in too much identifiable info about a family when I don't have their permission. -mom)

She is a RIOT. We've got S and S, who's 5, convinced that Elder O is a giant who came from the top of a beanstalk. He doesn't have a name anymore and they call him "the giant". But S and S are the best brother and sister I've ever even heard of. S is a wild child and he's ALL boy - kicking and punching and rolling in the dirt and pushing and all the while laughing his little head off - and his primary target is his little sister. I've never seen them apart and they are always wrestling each other. The cool part is S can really put up with a beating but she can dish it right back, and even though S always comes out on top, S really makes him work for it. They NEVER stop. They're extremely close. 

Last night we were at their home giving a short lesson and hanging out and S and S are playing with pillowcases. Well S climbs into a pillowcase and Elder O picks it up like a garbage bag and then says he's going to put him in dumpster. As he's making his way to the door and while we're all laughing, S come unglued and she starts to fight him and hit him and she screams, "You can't do that to my brother! He's my brother! You let him go!" and she started to cry and threatens Elder O she'll put him in the garbage if he dares to do anything to S. It was the FUNNIEST and most touching thing I had ever seen! Holy crap I had never laughed so hard in my life! Elder O let little S go and S grabbed him and hugged him and asked him if he was ok...

hahaha darn kids. I miss my boys :(

That phone call to Eric for his birthday came back and bit me though... My companion is a lot quicker than I gave him credit for and he was upset because I called you guys. I'm not mad because of that because I know I really shouldn't be calling home but still. Elder O is a really good guy and I love him but we don't always get along. I don't let it get to me though and I'll just go with it because it's not worth the fight. We still get stuff done.

That's so cool Dallin and Kadi and Eric got the go the Brigham City Temple dedication! They'll appreciate it more as they get older.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the Boise Temple dedication is coming up and the temple open house will be from October 14 to November 10. I remember the day I got into the mission, I heard the temple was closed just one day before. They closed it to remodel and renovate it and it's FINALLY opening back up! The entire community all over the Boise Temple district is super trucking stoked too and it's been a really cool experience to see the excitement in the community. They're planning a huge cultural celebration the youth will put on right before the dedication and they've been recruiting members all over to help with the open house. They're expecting roughly 300,000 people to go through so it's gonna be big.

It's funny you mentioned genealogy in your last letter because I've been thinking a lot about it too. My patriarchal blessing tells me I've got a pantload of work to do when I get back because I've got tons of ancestors that are waiting to have their work done. That's so cool you guys got to go through and do work for folks you know! I'm glad you got to spend time with your family and all. It's interesting to see that even old fogies like Grandpa Petty - dahahahaha - are still learning and growing and progressing. Old folks I've seen tend not to do that because they're so set in their ways that they don't think there's anything else to do. I sure do like old folks who are humble!

And I want to thank you and dad for your encouragement and support recently. I'm doing good now but I got really depressed and life just sucked. I recognized the adversary giving me crap - and he did a really good job at it! - but I was still feeling really down. I gotta write dad a letter too because the letter he sent me really helped. I felt he knew exactly what I was going through and I read and reread his letter several times over. You two are my saving grace. I wish there was more I could do to tell you how grateful I am. I'm working hard and improving more and more every day. I think about you guys several, several times a day. You're both still always with me even though you're not here. Thank you. I love you and I miss you two...

sincerely,

tay

I Know Your Dad

Hello All -

We received a great phone call the other day from a guy Tal works with for his job. He recently moved to Idaho and Tal hadn't heard from him a while.

He texted Tal a picture of him with the Elders in his ward. Guess who one of his Elder's is? Tal loves that our son has run into several people who know who his dad is. (Famous in song and tale, he alleges!) He is doing well and is really happy with his new companion - a white kid from Zimbabwe with a "sic" accent.

Love -Julianne

-----Original Message-----

From: Taylor Ehlers [mailto:taylor.ehlers@myldsmail.net]

Sent: Monday, August 27, 2012 5:35 PM

Subject: I would have to say asphinctersayswhat?

Life is good! We had a baptism a couple of weeks ago. We baptized this joe by the name of XX. He's led a rough life with many ups and downs but this is a guy who's got a real testimony. He doesn't know much about the actual gospel, church history, priesthood organization, or green jello BUT he recognizes the hand of God in his life. His temporal knowledge is limited but his spiritual knowledge is super intense. One thing I love about him and his family is they keep a really clean house - no beer cans, dog leftovers, tv dinner packages, used paper plates, broken toys, or the like to be found ANYWHERE. A clean house is something I've come to appreciate after all the homes we've been in. His truck is broken but he either walks or bikes the 2 mile distance to church every sunday.

This week on Thursday we've got another baptism. Something I gotta say about baptismal candidates is they've got such an awesome spirit about them. After they know it's true, they stop questioning things. It's a lot of responsibility on our shoulders so we've careful not to feed them any "false doctrine" - like caffeine being against the word of wisdom and the Book of Mormon's authenticity was validated by Joseph Smith taking the actual gold plates to the local egyptologist to verify the ancient reformed-Egyptian characters. But there's something to be said about a totally devout coffee-worshiper who will quit on a dime because it's what she has to do to get dunked. The baptism coming up is a young single mother named XXX. She's got an 18 month old baby girl and she's ready. She's been coming to church and she's already more or less a part of the ward.

 

The members here are pretty die hard too. We have a general sense of support and everyone we ask for help is ready and willing to assist.

We cover four wards, which isn't bad but I prefer covering three. It tends to complicate things on sundays when three wards go to one building and one ward goes to another. I like being able to see everyone in one day. One to mention is dude by the name of Merrot. He told me his profession is emergency response and I told him that's what my dad does - the emergency response king for Uintah county. Then he asked me who my dad was and when I answered he said "I KNOW TAL!"

And so it was super cool to see someone who's seen my dad more recently than I have! And then he has a training this week in Salt Lake where he said he'll see dad anyway. Small world!

tay

Dipping Oreos in Nutella

Hello All -

I am including the email I sent to Taylor so you can get a picture of what he's talking about. We went through Boise on our trip and stopped at Walmart in his area. The mission president had asked that we not see him and we wanted to honor that guidance. We did stop by the mission home and drop off bags of goodies for Tay and his comp.  I sure love that boy and miss both him and Dallin.

Thank you for encouraging him and being supportive!

Love, Julianne

Subject: Re: Sometimes when you are a man ...

Yeaaah it was kinda hard to come by but go figure it might cause more problems than I'd need, and I'm referring to me being obedient and the Lord and the spies president Cannon has lurking everywhere. The package was AWESOME! Thank you so much. Elder M appreciated it a whole lot too... even though I appreciated them the most BECAUSE I've learned that the Trazadone has some seriously deterring side effects.

It'll start to kick in and do its job after about an hour BUT after about a half an hour, I get the munchies SUPER BAD. I think that's what attributed to my weight gaining. I suppose there does need to be a little give and take.

Nutella is the coolest thing since velcro shoe fasteners. Freaking balls it's amazing. I have it with my Oreos.

So the lady who called you is Sister Bahr. She's in the Ustick ward and her kid left to Reno. It was a lot of fun because she would panic and get anxious about making sure Austin had everything he needs and we got to help!

She had little questions about backpacks and luggage and food and the MTC and clean underwear and the like. It's been really interesting getting to know mom's who have had kids go on missions, have kids on a mission, and have kids getting ready and leaving on a mission. I think of you a lot when that happens. But on second thought I think about you all the time anyway.

If I could, I would change the scripture on my missionary plaque to Alma 56:47-48.

It's funny you mention me touching the lives of families in Idaho. It was in this area that I finally began to see the reason why I was specifically sent here. I think I got on this soap box a little while ago but it was in this area that I sincerely feel like I'm actually doing some good. There are so many families in these wards that I've really grown to love and I feel their love for me. These people particularly are the ones I'll make a special effort to keep in touch with.

So what's going on with Dallin?  I pray for him every day. A couple of weeks ago I sent him a package with the military editions of the standard works and gospel principles. I'm sure he got it but I hope he uses it.

It finally dawned on me the other day thinking about you having your oldest boys out on their own. You've got one kid on a mission and another kid in the army... Time really does fly. And now my mission is almost over - meaning I've got 11 months instead of 23. And when I think about it, it'll probably be a while before the whole famn damily is back together again.

When I get home Dallin will be gone and by the time he gets back I'll probably be at school or at work or in a Mexican drug cartel. It really upset me when I first got to thinking about it and I really do miss it, even though it was chaos at times, being at home with the whole family. But as I thought more about it, I think it'll be ok. nothing bad is happening, it's just another chapter... and it may not be much longer that you'll have another daughter, too... a super hot sexy amazing daughter.

I miss you, mom. I love you so much and I think about you a lot. Every day I see more and more of how you've impacted my life and I have everything to owe to you and dad. I am growing and learning and becoming the man you want me to be. I am doing things that I know would make you proud. I love you, mom. Thank you.

love,

tay

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 10:37 PM, Julianne Ehlers <loa337@hotmail.com>

wrote:

> Elder Tay -

Let me first say that I am impressed you did not give in to Kadi's pleas to meet us at the Walmart. We would have loved to have seen you but it was important to follow the guidelines set by your president. I'm glad you got our package and that you both enjoyed it! I know you had said before that Martinez was on a diet so I hope I wasn't undermining his efforts by supplying some much needed Oreos!

And ...... what do you think of Nutella? You can just eat it with a spoon but it's really good on pretzels, bread, tortillas, fruit, dirt - you get the idea. It's our new favorite and Kadi's obsession! We may have to do a Nutella intervention with her soon.

I was so thrilled to get the phone call from the sweet lady in one of your wards. I didn't ask her name again so I don't remember. But she' the one with the son who went to Reno. We had a lovely conversation and she was so complimentary to you. You have been such a blessing in their lives and she truly appreciates you. I thanked her about a hundred times for calling and making me feel so good but if you would just thank her again that would be great. It seems that you have worked your way into the hearts of many Idaho families!

I'm very proud of your ability to make a real connection with people. You have such a gift for that. There are many people who can't relate with others in any way but it seems like you do it effortlessly. What a talent!

I can't tell you how much I have missed you since Dallin has gone. I mean I missed you before but his leaving magnified your absence, too. I'm missing my boys and realizing what every mom goes through as they watch their kids go out on their own. I know you had already done that in Cedar but I got to talk to you all the time and see you to make sure you were OK. Now I get to trust in the Lord, in you and in your mission president and families that you are in good hands. And I do believe you are and I wouldn't have it any other way. You are where you're supposed to be doing what you need to be doing. I'm thankful for that and I'm thankful that you are my son.

I love you and pray for you. You are very dear to me.

 Mom

big 'ol thank you

Before anything else, I gotta send out a great big ol' THANK YOU to
everyone who reads this. Fist and foremost, there's my family. Mom and
Dad, you twos are responsible for anything virtuous, lovely, or of
good report I've ever had in my life. You taught me everything I know
and set the bedrock foundation for the rest of my life. Dallin, I love
you and respect you and I'm extremely grateful for your willingness
and determination to serve my country. Kadi, I'm grateful for the
laughs and the packages and the "Once you go gay, that's where you
stay. Stay straight!" postcard. Eric and Spencer, I think about you
guys every day and I miss you and as soon as I get back, we're going
out for drinks. 

For all the extended family - Petty's, Nunn's, Ehlers'
- for cheering me on and always being there with cards on holidays and
birthdays and new recipes and camping trips and movie nights and
motorcycles and late nights and working at a hospital and love and
cash and memories and scrapbooks and shooting and concerts and Papa
John's even when I'm outa money and road trips and blablablabla. For
all the friends and their families along the way, thanks for taking me
in like one of your own. For the crew at Cafe Diablo, thanks for
breaking me and building me and teaching me all about friendship and
work ethic and the goodness in the world. For every person I ever knew
all throughout Arizona and Utah, thanks for caring and worrying and
putting up with me and working me for the past 20 years. For all
ya'lls I'm dealing with in Idaho, thanks for learnin' me how to be a
real man - beater of the bad guys and defender of the faith. Buena
vida, baby.
 
In recent news, by the end of this month, 29 elders will be going
home. That's roughly 15% of the whole mission. Holy balls. Things are
gonna CHANGE around here. PCan's gonna do some shufflin and chances
are stakes that have 2 sets of mercenaries will only have one now. For
example, my stake, Meridian East, will have 2 elders covering 7 wards
instead of 2 elders covering 4 and 2 elders covering 3. There will be
PANTLOADS of work going undone because supply will be less than
demand. Quality will decrease because quantity will decrease. Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the
land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing
the ELDERS 'cause there be NO MO'!