7/9/2012 Mt Vernon

Hello everyone!  Hope this last week has gone well for you as it has for me.  This last week it was in the 90s or above.  We had a little bit of rain but not much.  It was still humid and that only made it worst.  We did a little bit of service and helped the city with their antique festival on the fourth.  It was hot all day and we had exchanges with two other Elders that day.  We mainly walked around and handed people free waters.  It was awesome to see how happy people were when we gave them a water.  I completely drenched my shirt in sweat and so did a nother Elder and we all went to the apartment and took cold showers.  It was a lot of fun.  We also went on exchanges with the ZLs and helped the rest of the Cedar Rapids Elders with their service.  We worked at the Habitat for Humanity service place and helped with their grand re-opening.  We also helped them with packing up some stuff to send to kids in Africa.  So that is pretty much it.  We did some work but mostly tracted our area.  Didnt see much success but at least we still did our job.  I also found out I am being transfered this Thursday!  I am really excited and can't wait for that.  I will let you all know where I am next week!

July 2, 2012 Mt. Vernon

Hello everyone!  It is getting hot in Iowa!  The temperature has been in the 90's all week and the humidity has been in the 50%'s.  When you have the humidity above 50% it is hot every where you go and you feel like you are walking through water.  I have not overheated at all and I dont plan to.  I have been hearing about those fires in Utah and am glad everyone is safe.  We have been having some fires of our own in some nearby houses.  Nothing to seriouse and no one has died.  On Friday evening we had a big storm pass over us.  That storm we had at the end of last year with those giant winds, those are the kind of storms that happen a lot in Iowa.  The thunder I heard was earth shaking and the wind and rain was just crazy!  We actually got grounded into our appartments for the night because it was so crazy out there.  They say that this is the price that people have to pay to live in heaven.
We did help a less active with removing some old carpet in his trailer home and that was disgusting.  He has three dogs and one of them is a little chihuaua (hope I spelled that right) and it has a small bladder.  We also helped a part member family with some gardening this past week.  As far as lessons go we had one good lesson with this part member family that we are trying to get reactivated and baptized.This next week the one exciting thing going on is on the 4th of July!  We actually have exchanges planned for that day with the district leader and we are also helping with the city antique festival for the day.  We also have a nice member dinner planned so that is way exciting.  It will be nice to get a little help for a day and to have some different people to learn from and teach with.  We also have a heratage day festival this saturday and we are helping with family history that day.  After that the city has a firework show going on so that will be a lot of fun!

Here is a quote I have from an Elder in my district that will be leaving for home in a week:

 

"Be excited to share the Gospel!"

Sincerely;

Elder Spencer Ariotti

June 25,2012

Glad as always to hear from different people each week.  I cant believe that the month is already ending this week!  It feels like we just barely started!  July should be a great month.  I am not looking foreward to the heat that will be coming but it will be good celebrating things about what has happened to our nation.  Let me know how everything is going with the ward and with the city of Bountiful.

 

Well not much happened this last week.  We tried to visit with people but they kept on canceling on us.  We mostly visited with members this week and recent converts and less actives.  We have this recent convert that we visit a lot.  She was baptized in February and is 65 years old.  Her name is Judy and she is the happiest member I have ever seen.  She had been visiting with the missionaries for about 5 months before baptism.  She had to go through a quit smoking workshop which changed her life.

She treats the missionaries like her Grandkids and openly admits that she does.  The greatest lady and I cant wait for you guys to meet with her someday.

 

Well that is about all that I have to report!  This next week we have some plans to spend a lot of time in a town that we have yet to go to.  I should have some real stuff to share with you guys next week.  Oh and bad news......  Elder Langford is a real cowboy and has been talking like one and it is rubbing off onto me!  In case you all didnt notice I do not like this.......Love hearing from everyone and know that I am praying for everyone of you guys!  Love you all!

 

Sincerely:

Elder Spencer Ariotti

June 18, 2012

Happy Fathers day yesterday!  How is everyone doing?  Hope everyone is doing just fine and that everyone is happy.  Nothing much happened this week.  We did do a lot of service this past week.  We helped a less active member family with some remodeling there home.  It was fun and really got to bond with them.  The father is a Branch missionary and it was really good that we took some time to help him with this.  We also had Zone Conference this week.  It was really spiritual and it was great to see some of the Elders that I know.  They are having a great deal of emphasis on the website of the church called mormon.org.  It is aparently one of the ten most visited sites in the world.  We have been advised to make our own profiles on the website and give some of our own views on our profiles.  If you all have some extra time I recomend you have a visit to the website and maybe make a profile.

 

I also had my 4th click day this past week.  I have already been out for four months!  It has been so long but at the same time I am asking where it all went.  These next 20 months will go by really fast.

 It is beginning to warm up in Iowa.  The humidity will be rising up soon and that means more heat!  When the humidity is high there is no where you can escape to from the heat.  Wish me luck with that.  Well that is about everything!  Mom stay inside and keep cool!  Everyone: keep being awesome!  I know this church is true and that God really did send me to Iowa!  Dont forget to go to mormon.org!  Look me up!  I should be on there soon!  Love you all!

 

Sincerely;

Elder Spencer Ariotti

June 11, 2012 - Mt. Vernon

Hello Everyone!  Hope this last week went well.  It was a long week for some reason.  It seems that it is always like this with transfers just happening.  Me and Elder Langford are getting along just fine.  His little accent that he has is starting to rub off on me and that worries me.  I dont like hicks very much and Elder Langford is the only exception to that.  We are teaching mostly members now and we are dieing to get a new investigator.


We mostly did service this last week.  We helped this less active guy with scrubbing his house for inspections and will be helping him with some remodeling the inside of his house soon.  A recent convert that we helped this week found out she lost her job for this next fall.  She was way upset and confused so we gave her a blessing.


We have a great branch to serve in.  So strong to.  We also had a baptism as well.  This guy was taught in Washington state but wanted to be baptised in the place he first went to church so we helped him with that.  Didnt count it for ourselves but we stilled wanted to help him.  Awesome guy.

I am doing fine.  My feet are fine and have gotten use to the shoes.  My knees are fine as well.  My back is doing better.  I have been given some strengthening exercises to do on my back so it is going good.  I am continuing it exercise more and more and I am in the best shape I have ever been in my life.  The other elders still beat me at the sports we play but I am still doing better then I ever have.  I am still getting use to the environment.  It has been in the 90's for the past few days and it is continuing to get hotter.  We will just have to wait until it gets hotter and then we will find out if I can survive one more year of this Iowa heat.

 

Well that is all I have to report on.  I did get Grandpas letters.  I find it is less expensive to do Email but I will try to mail him and Roseanne a letter.  Tell the Tuttles and the Waits and the Barkers thanks from me.  They all sent me a package of stuff and notes for me this week.  Tell everyone that I am still having the time of my life serving the Lord!

 

Sincerely;

Elder Spencer Ariotti

June 5, 2012-Mt. Vernon

Dear Family:

 

Hello!  My new companion is Elder Langford.  He is from Cedar city in Utah and is number 3 of 8 kids.  He is a really awesome guy!  This past week has gone by really slow.  transfers was awesome though.  Met up with the missionaries that I was with at the MTC.  Welcomed several new Elders in the District.  We have the greatest district here in Iowa. 

Sincerely;

          Elder Spencer Ariotti

May 28, 2012-Mt. Vernon

Dear Family:

 

Thanks for the cards on my birthday and my package!  It was so awesome seeing all those letters in the mail box when we got to the appartment on saturday!  Love all those pictures I got and they are now going on my wall of family pictures.  I love the watch by the way and the hymn book.  Thanks for everything!

 

Not much happened this week in Mt. Vernon.  It has been kinda frusterating because one of our investigators kept on pushing us back because he had some stuff to do at the time.  We will be visiting him today for sure (it is memorial day though......) We did visit with one of our more younger investigators.  Her name is Caitlyn if you remember her at all from my past letters.  She is about 13 and has a very short attention span.  We taught her the plan of salvation using an idea that I came up with.  We made it almost like a board game using the different stages of the Plan of Salvation.  It went very well and she really paid alot more attention then she has in the past.

Well, hope all is still well with everyone.  Love all the cards I got.  Before I foreget again tell Sister Welling thanks for that package at the MTC.  I have been wanting to say that I just keep on foregetting.  Love you all!

Elder Spencer Ariotti