February 29, 2016 FAM BAM

Missionary March Madness... in the North. Laying out the brackets for my zone.

Hey Fam,

First off S/O to my cuz Wilhelm Clark for tonight and his first playoff game! #OHS

Thanks for all of your prayers, my health is 100% and I'm good to go and I have feeling in my face again! I'm on some meds that are helping my nerves recover so it's all good. 

Elder Smith and I are having a lot of fun. It's a perfect area with an exponential amount of work and solid members and people to teach. My Spanish is getting better day by day too. One person were teaching is named Octavio. He has already read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine &
Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and Teachings of Howard W. Hunter book. We're just waiting for approval from the first presidency for him to get baptized. 

Another person we are teaching is Maexdrey. She's from Cuba and is almost done with the Book of Mormon. Elder Sawyer is
teaching her daughter in the YSA Ward by the temple and she's getting baptized soon too and wants to serve a mission! 

On Tuesday we had interviews with President and Sister Snow. I love them so much! President Snow gave me some good advice about college and my career after my mission. I just feel bad for young kids that dream about coming to this mission and don't get to. #NLVM 

I was on exchanges in the Nellis Manor Ward this week. That's the Air Force Base Ward. There was a member named Brother Coombs that came out to teach with us. He said he grew up in Orem and I asked if he knew any Faldmos. He said when he was younger he would collect fast
offerings from Nana and Papa's house and he said his brothers knew some of my uncles pretty well. 

I studied King Benjamin's discourses this week in Mosiah and learned a lot of cool things from those few chapters. My favorite verse from those chapters is :
"13 For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who
is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?"
To understand Christ, we need to serve Him. To serve him we must serve others. 

(See Mosiah 2:17)

Love you all!

Elder Faldmo 

 I met a guy with a sick mullet this week. I told him I would grow one after my mission! Can I mom? You can't see it very well in the picture but this is him haha

February 22, 2016 Somos gabachos‏

I had a super fun and busy and crazy week, especially Saturday.  So I started Saturday with my

long, lost friend Dustin Marsden who was down from Idaho with his sales team took us to breakfast. 

Me & Dustin... not really smilin' --see end of letter

Then after that, I was able to go to the temple for Makay's endowment session!

I'm grateful to serve in a mission where you can stay close to all of your converts! It was a really cool experience and she deserves all of the blessings she got! President Snow also came to it and I was sitting with him in the chapel in the temple before the session started and he told me that in July 2017, there will be a 3rd mission opened in Las Vegas! I'm super pumped! That was what we all wanted to do when we got here and it is going to happen now!

Then later that day I was able to go back to my last area for Jason's baptism! He was someone Elder Chambers and I found on exchanges a little over a month ago and he's one of those people who is just ready for the gospel and he accepted it right away. He's going into the military and so there were lots of people from  of his unit and some of his officers that were at the baptism. Naturally, one of the songs was "Onward Christian Soldiers."

Jason in the white shirt... 

Our district volunteered at three square food bank this week!

This weekend was stake conference and Elder Palmer of the 70 came to speak. North Stake is exploding right now. The zone broke the mission record for new investigators last week and then we broke our own record this week! The people here are so prepared! The Lord is blessing us hard core right now and everyone is working really hard.

I was able to reunite with Elder Thorne on Tuesday! He came to my area for exchanges and it was good to be with him for the day. He's finally made his decision and is going to try and walk on at the Y for football!

Elder Thorne & I on exchanges in front of the Loveshack!

So I got this weird disease this week that we think is Bell's Palsy. I'm kinda paralyzed on the right side of my face. It's actually been a blessing because it's helped my accent a lot for Spanish! I think It's starting to fade away... but I'm going to see a PA on Thursday just to make sure everything's ok.

"Handing out so many Book of Mormons, we need a new case

My right face can't move, call it 2 face" -Drake

"Rapping for me is like performing surgery, 

I don't want you to see me when I get my hands dirty 

but I want you to see the final product."

-Elder Smith
Love you all!

Elder Faldmo

February 15, 2016 ¿Que milanesas que no bisteses, ya pensaba que tú morongas?‏

It was a good week #2 here in the land Northward. We did everything we could to "...fortify against the Lamanites, from the west sea, even unto the east; it being a day’s journey for a Nephite, on the line which they had fortified and stationed their armies to defend their north country." (Helaman 4:7)

We went on 2 exchanges with 2 of the District Leaders in our zone and their companion's this week.  On one of these exchanges  I went with my MTC companion, Elder Bunch! If anyone has any questions about technology, ask him. He is going to make a lot of money doing whatever he's going to do after the mission. This is our first time serving in the same zone on our missions, so it was good to catch up and talk about the things we are going to do to finish strong.   We had a pretty cool experience with a family that we taught in my area. 

So we are teaching this guy named Luis who was in the Mexican Mafia. He has a pet pigeon. No we're not talking like President Monson owned pigeons, it's just a pigeon that came off the street. It doesn't even have a cage. But I've gotten used to it and we're buds now. 

Some other awesome people we are teaching are Maexdre & Ana. They are a mother and daughter and from Cuba. They came to church and loved it! Maexdre read all the way to Alma 5 in 3 days. Then, on her own terms, she drove to the temple to look at it! 

All in all, things are going great! I love serving with Smitty and we are having a fun time getting Spanish back up to speed!

Have a great week!

Elder Faldmo

This is my companion Elder Smith with a savila plant a lady randomly gave us after we knocked on her

door:)

 

February 8, 2016 #Number1North

Hey Fam!
I'm having a blast serving back in El Rancho with Elder Smith! He's the funniest companion I've had and we are having a great time together. I don't know of I told you last week but he's from Vienna, Virginia right by DC. He went to BYU for a year before his mission. He's also an amateur rapper. 

So there's probably too much work here for us. We actually need like 2 more companionships for our ward.  In order for us to cover it like we would like to, it would be great to have it like it was the first time I was here. But we aren't complaining about that FOR SURE, we are just running around all day every day finding and teaching. We have the most functional Spanish Ward in the valley and they are extremely supportive.

The Lord is blessing the North Zone a ton right now. This transfer we are "#KnockOutNorth: KO'd for KI's" (key indicators). That's our zone vision and Elder Smith and I rolled it out this week at our Zone Council. We are focusing on finding for the month of February and already broke our zone
record for finding this past week! Our local leaders are all on board and we have a great Ward Mission Leader and if we stay humble and hungry some positive outlying things can happen these next few months! #Number1North 

Already broke the zone record... KO'd for KI's and Knocking Out Satan too!

At ZTC I trained on "knocking out Satan" and how we need to remove the obstacles and temptations in our lives that allow him to be in the ring with us so we can win by KO.

My Spanish is doing ok right now. Still knocking some rust off but through fasting and prayer we're going to get there. Like 90% of the people we talk to are Spanish speaking so that makes it easier to progress faster with the language. It was cool to come to church yesterday and see the Rubio Family, a family Elder Rivas and I baptized.  They were all there and very active. I'm going to get them to the temple before I leave here! I love serving in the ghetto areas. People are so humble and crazy! :)

So it is with us, North Town is the place to be for missionary work and seeing miracles everyday! This has been one of the best weeks on my mission!

Elder Faldmo

February 1, 2016 Ode to Warm Springs Part II

Hey Everyone!

I'm getting transferred to North Las Vegas tomorrow. I'm going to be serving in the El Rancho Spanish Ward! That's where I started my mission so I'm excited to go back and serve there again! My companion is going to be Elder Smith. He's been out almost as long as me and he's from Washington DC (Vienna, VA to be exact). He's pretty much the same person as my cousin Christian Clark so it's going to be a lot of fun!

On Saturday, Kaleb got baptized! A few months ago, Elder Thorne and I went to prosball at Sunset park. Kaleb and his brother were there and we beat them in a little 2 on 2 pickup game and then shared the lesson of the Restoration with them. They didn't live in our area so we passed them over to Elder Sawyer and Chambers who were assigned to Kaleb's area. So they started teaching Kaleb more and he progressed really quickly and was baptized on Saturday!

Kaleb's Baptism

Me, Elder Chambers, Kaleb's brother, Kaleb, Elder Thorne & Elder Sawyer

After staying put for the last five transfers, it's time for me to leave Warm Springs again. Throughout my mission, I've served in 4 different wards here in the Warm Springs Stake for a total of about 1 year. What a great experience it has been!  I'm so grateful to have been able to have had the opportunity to serve around the amazing members here that understand what it means to be consecrated and how to best help the missionary work here. I'm also grateful to be have been able to serve so closely with President and Sister Snow and for all that they've
taught me! And of course, I'm super blessed to have had the opportunity to serve with Elder Thorne these past 2 transfers. He has taught me a ton and also helped me get back into shape :) But, I'm also super excited for the future and the opportunity I have to serve back in the North! We're going to be #Number1North and break some records! Let's go to work!

Elder Isaac Faldmo