Jared Howell Mission

Hey Everyone, It's transfer week, and I'm staying in Susquehanna for the next 7 weeks, not what I was expecting but I do love thus area. I'm also getting a new companion because Elder Apgood is leaving to go train a new elder. My new companion, Elder Lape, is coming down from the Lancaster area after being companions with Elder Moffett, my MTC Companion. The funny thing is that we got word that Elder Apgood is leaving around  10:10 , after several hours of stressing out. Then we got a call from Elder Palmer at  10:28  that he is training, apparently they forgot to call him hours earlier. We had two exchanges this past week and I got to stay in the area both times. We got yelled at by a lady  on Tuesday  that we aren't allowed to solicit in that neighborhood. Side note, missionary work is not Solicitation. Soliciting requires that we are asking for money in return for a product, which we don't do at all. What we do it legally called proselytizing. I mainl...

Redesigning our room, biking selfie, President and Sister Christiansen, and wear sunscreen kids

Hey All, SO you remember how I said hopefully I had more to talk about this week? Well when you ask God for rain, it pours, thankfully not literally this week, I'm not sure Ellicott City could take anymore rain. Tuesday  was Zone Conference and the predicted emotional roller coaster flew in with a passion. I learned so much about the temple and our personal ministries. But The real emotional part was during the afternoon, where we not only had to say goodbye to Elder Palmer, who has been an amazing influence in my mission, but also to President and Sister Christiansen. Words cannot adequately describe my feelings for that final exchange I had with them so I won't even attempt it. Suffice it to say that I felt as if I was saying goodbye to my parents all over again.  The other major event that happened this week was exchanges  on Friday . I got the opportunity to go down to the Winter's Run ward with Elder Dixon and spend my first day of my mission on a bike....

Hey Everyone, I'll be honest, this week was harder than many of the weeks of my mission, but it wasn't because anything bad happened to us or anything like that. From about Wednesday on, there just felt gloomy, I'm sure it was mostly due to the weather. Tuesday was awesome though, we had our exchanges with the Zone Leaders so Elder Smith and I got to drive everywhere. Funny story about that, we were headed back from District Meeting, in the Winter's Run Ward boundaries, and we have to take a major highway home, it's the only way I know. So naturally, it's closed. So we ended up spending a bunch of extra time and miles trying to weave our way to I-95 so we could get home, which took an extra hour or so. But after that we got out and right to work. We talked to a lot of interesting people, one guy who was sitting on a lawnmower who told us about how he used to fly Air Force One, rebuilt a Dodge Viper and Chevy Camaro from scratch, has flown every type of pla...

Hey everyone, The main highlight of this week was our exchange with the Special Assignment Elders. They and the Assistants came to District Meeting  on Tuesday , which nearly doubled the size of our district since there are three assistants right now. That made for an awesome District Meeting because there was so much experience in one room, it taught me so much about the best ways to connect with people and most effectively bring them home. What made it even better is that we got to go back to our area and I got to spend the rest of the day with Elder Marshall, who was one of the Assistants up until this past transfer, then President felt impressed to move him to Special Assignment. We took the plans we made for the day and went to work while Elder Apgood and Elder Fogle went to work in a different part of the area. The second person we tried by was an old referral from about 3 or so years ago. Usually I don't put much stock in those referrals because there's never an...