Jared Howell Mission

Hey everyone, This will probably be a relatively short email, mostly because this morning was crazy and now I'm relaxing on the bank of the Susquehanna River. So it's pretty obvious that I'm supposed to be in this area, because all this week I've been running into people that I either have a surprising connection with, or I've personally met them before. The first day, we met an old war vet who asked me the same questions I used to ask myself, such as why is there so much evil in the world and if God is really a loving god, why does he allow children to suffer as much as they do. Because I've asked those same questions myself, I was able to use the Book of Mormon to help him see the larger picture, the Mercy AND the Justice of God. Recently, I've found a lot of comfort in a BYU Devotional from a few months ago entitled "Stand Forever" by Elder Corbidge, I believe. In that talk, he talks about the differences between the Primary Questions,

Hey Everyone, So first the big news, I'm getting transferred again. We remain in the pattern of getting transferred every two transfers and getting a new companion every 6 weeks. I'm staying in the stake though, which means that I've served in 4 of the 8 units in this stake. They're sending me to the YSA ward, so my apartment is only about 20-30 minutes from my old apartment.  In all honesty, not a whole lot happened this week. We helped a member move some furniture, we needed to have another male come with us. It was the middle of the day so we had a little trouble finding a man to come with us. But we managed to find a guy, and he took us out to eat afterwards, which was really good.  We also helped an older couple in the ward with this missionary project that they do every holiday where they make and pass out cookies to potentials and people we are teaching. So we help them make the cookies, then we went out with the other elders to deliver them, which

Hey Everyone, We had exchanges this week so Elder Coombs and I took on the city. We ended up finding three new people to teach, so that was fun. Also rearranged the upper level of the apartment so the bedroom is now the work out room and the workout room is now the bedroom. It flows better in my opinion. Friday was an adventure too, mostly because my bus card quit on me while we were down in the city, so I ended up coercing my way back to East Point Mall so we could go down to Dundalk. While we were waiting for the bus, some guy started giving away a day pass and he gave it to me. So miracles! We also had a super cool dinner with the Dawkins. On Saturday we called Elder Everts and he had to mail me a new card, so we had to get a ride from the other elders down to John Hopkins Hospital, where the Metro stop is (Inner Harbor ward, yaay!!) so I could buy a week pass, so that was fun. We did get to have dinner with the Willems that night and I learned a ton about Native A

Hey Everybody, This week FLEW by! It's so crazy that it's already Monday. So the main thing that happened this week was our exchange with the Zone Leaders. I went up to the other Elders apartment with Elder Jackson. The main thing we did was on the second day. We went to do service for one of the people they are teaching. He's a crabber so he's prepping his cages, called pots, for the season. He had us attaching extra pieces of metal gating to the door so the smaller crabs which are legal to catch early in the season stay in the pot, then when the legal size increases partway through the season, he just cuts the extra gate off so those smaller crabs can escape so they can get bigger and get caught later. He has about 1200 pots, which is about half of what some crabbers have, and we did about 500 of them. While we were attaching the gates, the guy was attaching these little rectangular prisms of Zinc, the prisms protect the pots from the elements in the water that would

Hey Everyone, So one of the main things that happened this week was Zone Conference. It was all about how our attitude affects the work and about finding not only the right sources, but also to find current sources. I think that that is especially applicable with General Conference right around the corner. The scriptures are amazing, but Peter never had a cell phone, John never went to the mall. So they never wrote about those things specifically, they wrote the Doctrine of Christ, with an emphasis on what was applicable in their day. But since we have modern day Apostles (yay), we can listen to God's will when it comes to the mall and cell phones. Even if they don't talk about the mall specifically, they will talk about the Doctrine of Christ and the Spirit will help us fill in the gaps for our lives specifically. So needless to say, Zone Conference was amazing. Also, one of the Assistants and a long time friend of mine, Elder Leonardo, finishes his mission this transfer,