Jared Howell Mission

Hey all, This week went super fast so hopefully I can remember everything.  On Monday  we had our interviews with President. Julia also had her baptismal interview, which she passed with flying colors. We are set for  this Saturday, the 2nd . It is amazing to me to see the gospel change people so quickly and so completely. it has been a really cool experience for me to see this change in Julia.  We also had Thanksgiving this week, in case you didn't know. Since it is such a big holiday, we were told not to actively proselyte. We were invited up to the Simpsons place where they were having a large Missionary dinner so it was like being with family. Even though our whole district lives so far away from each other, we all have grown to view each other as family, Elder Funk (our fearless leader) and his companion Elder Shick are the only ones who have passed their year mark so they have deemed themselves the crazy uncles. Being with them for the afternoon and eve...

Hey all, This week was really long but there isn't a whole lot to report on.The only appointments we were able to keep were with Julia, who has her baptismal interview  tonight . She is doing awesome and is progressing at an amazing rate, despite the stresses coming from home.  Elder Haslam and I got to go to the mission office  on Thursday , Elder Haslam had some Medical Issue the mission doctor wanted to look at. It was my first time being there. It was really great to see the office staff again, as well as Sister Christiansen. She took us out to lunch afterwards with the Assistants, so that was a lot of fun. It's going to be really sad when Elder Burtenshaw goes home this transfer. I've really enjoyed having him around.  I ended up taking an impromptu nap for about 20 minutes or so during dinner, which made me kind of loopy for a couple of minutes until we walked back outside and the cool wind really woke me up. But while I was loopy I looked at the ph...

Hey all, It does not feel like I hit 4 months yesterday. My mission is going by too fast. I also realized that I never provided the background to the Scripture I put last week, Matt 27:19. So here's the context. The  Thursday  before last I got an awesome package from my sister, Beth, and it had a great CD with songs about Christ's life. The best thing about this CD is that it is mostly told from the point of view of secondary characters. For example, one is told by a Sadducee and a man who Christ healed, another is from the Point of View of a Blind man who received his sight, and the song that is probably my favorite is the one sung by Pilate's wife. She sings this incredibly powerful song about how even though she doesn't know who Christ is, she never even says his name, she just knows that he's innocent and that she doesn't want Pilate involved with him. The chorus has lines like, "I don't know who he is, but I know what I feel" and "Po...

Hey Everybody, This week has been a week full of long days but a surprisingly short week,  Friday  felt like a  Wednesday . We picked up a mother and her adult son this week and had a great lesson about why there are so many churches. it was really cool and they were all set to go to church yesterday but the mother got a serious headache so they weren't able to come. Then we also met Antonio, who has been really prepared for the Gospel. He wasn't able to make it to church yesterday either but we hope that he will next week. He is a really cool guy. Julia is also doing amazing, she is eating up anything we throw at her and she's really starting to act like she feels like she belongs during church. We didn't get to meet with her  on Tuesday  like normal, because we had to be at the Simpson's that evening, because of Halloween, but we were able to have a great lesson  on Friday .  We also had Zone Conference this week, which is always a time of gr...

Hey all, So this week has been interesting. Elder Haslam and I have definitely gotten our quota for walking this week. For some reason, the whole transit system has been so slow this past week that we usually have ended up walking from place to place because it's either as fast or faster than waiting for the bus. We had a referral that we've had for a while and haven't been able to get in contact with so we decided that we were just going to go down there since I hadn't ever been to that part of the area, right near the southwestern tip, where it takes a few long bus rides to get to. So we went out there and realized why we couldn't find the house on my GPS. Because it  doesn't exist. Not only does the house not exist, but the Whole ROAD doesn't exist. It's just a big field... So we walked back to the bus to go to the next closest referral. When we got to the stop we learned that it was going to be at least 20 minutes until the next bus. So we decide...

Hey all, So I didn't mention this last week because I wanted to be sure, but Elder Moffett got transferred into the Inner Harbor area so we spent some time deciding how to divide up the area and who's going to take which area. We finished by deciding to split the area close to the original boarder when there were three sets in the ward, we moved it a little south to even it up, and Elder Moffett and his brand new trainee, Elder Munden, took the Northern area while Elder Haslam and I are now fully in the city. It is so much fun!! We see so many cool things, and quite a few strange things too, and we couldn't be happier. We've spent quite a bit of time down at the harbor simply because there are so many people down in that area.  We managed to get two new investigators this week and one of their stories is so cool! The first one was originally a Bible referral near North Ave who we got to teach  on Wednesday . Her name is Sherilla and she is so cool. We got right ...

Hey all, It felt weird to have this week go by, simply because it doesn't feel like I've been out for 3 Months! And this transfer has simply flown by. Elder Haslam and I hit yesterday and we both just looked at each other and said that we don't want to leave, and we especially don't want to get split up. Then we got the call from our District leader and found out that we are not only staying together, we're going to stay in the Inner Harbor!! We aren't quite sure if we get to stay in the city permanently or if we're staying in Pikesville permanently but either way we're super excited. We both have fallen in love with this area and these people.  This week was especially long probably because we were able to get so much done. You might've heard me mention before that this area gets the most Headquarter Referrals in the mission. The past few weeks we've been absolutely swamped by them, at the beginning of the week we had close to 40 of them...