Elder Karaoke Needles

HELLO EVERYONE!

I'm super late today and I apologize, but HAPPY PREPARATION DAY! :) Miss you all a ton!

This week was a great one! I had a ton of fun and great stuff happened. On Friday, we had this big party with the YSA branch. There was karaoke, gaga ball, jump houses, board games, photo booths, ping pong, and I even got a hair cut! It was a blast! I did the karaoke and on Sunday the branch president asked me to say the closing prayer. When he announced it in church he said "then the benediction will be offered by Elder Karaoke Needles." It was great! On Saturday, Priscilla Bradley was baptized! She's become one of my best friends. She's so awesome. I was very happy to see her get baptized and Elder Smith even got to come back for the baptism so I got to see him as well! On Sunday, I confirmed Priscilla a member and gave her the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a great experience and I was so happy that she chose me to do the confirmation :) After sunday we had a huge meal for breaking the fast. I have loved this week and I'm really enjoying my mission. We also were able to set 2 new baptism dates in the YSA branch this week! We're hoping that everything goes smoothly for them. I hope everything is well in Idaho and Utah and wherever else y'all may be. Love you all!

Elder Needles

New Companion!

Hello Everyone!
 I hope y'all had a great week! I miss y'all so much!

So Elder Smith got transferred and I was so sad! We became best friends this last transfer and I'm grateful that the Lord put us together for 6 weeks, because those six weeks were a blast! He's now in Lake Highlands on a bike. My new companion's name is Elder Harvey! He's awesome and we already get along great! He's TALL, and is always optimistic about everything! I love it!

On Sunday, we had a miracle happen! We are always late to YSA branch sacrament meeting because of meetings right before in the Desoto ward (two-ward-struggles). But this last sunday (yesterday) we decided we wanted to be early to YSA branch sacrament meeting so we could talk to people before. That meant leaving our meeting in Desoto ward early, but we felt like we should. This would be the FIRST time we had time to talk to people before sacrament meeting. We walked in and a non member was sitting there, so I went up and talked to him! We joked around and laughed and got to know each other a little bit, and by the end of church he gave us his address and phone number and asked if we'd come visit him! He said he's thinking about joining! It was so awesome it all happened, because that would've been the ONLY time we would get to talk to him and the one week we decided to leave our meeting early, he was there! MIRACLES ALL AROUND BABY. Also, I heard about the dancers winning state! Congrats to my sister on that! I'm so proud of her. Miss you all and hope you have a great week

Elder Needles

Car Rides

Elder Needles and his high school friend Elder McAllister

Elder Needles with his new companion Elder Harve

Elder Needles and Elder Smith on transfer day. One of Josh's favorite companions.

6 Months!

Tomorrow is my 6 month mark!!!

Unfortunately, I will be getting a new companion though :/

Elder Smith is being transferred for his last transfer! I'm so sad. Elder Smith has become one of my best friends and I wish we could be companions for his last transfer. I'm taking over the area though. They are making our zone into 3 companionships... 3 COMPANIONSHIPS. That's the smallest zone in the world. Well, maybe not in the world, but it's very small! All of my good friends are being transferred though and I'm staying. We were all sad about it. Hopefully my next transfer is as good as this last one, because it definitely has been my favorite transfer my whole mission so far.

Priscilla is still working toward baptism and we're still very excited for her. Her date is the 28th of March. Elder Smith is going to do what he can to come back for the baptism. We can't wait for it!

At the zone conference, I played the piano and it was great! It was a very stressful experience to prepare, but I'm glad I was able to pull it off. I had Elder McAllister record it, so hopefully I'll be able to get it to y'all soon! Hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Needles

Temple Trip

HMMMMMMMMM???

Trip to the Temple

Bowling on P-Day

Rain,Rain, Go Away!

This week has been a great week! The weeks are actually going by a little faster now, which is great :) It's raining a lot still. It snowed a couple more days this week too! I like that it's not hot outside, but I'm tired of the rain! haha. Priscilla finally was able to make it to church today! We were so happy to see her there! Now she's coming next week and we'll be able to baptize her hopefully this month (That is if I stay in my area again) On Friday, all the women in our stake had a volleyball tournament. Priscilla went to play on the YSA team so we went to watch and support. The YSA team was losing... pretty bad. haha. After they lost their first four games they told us they didn't hear us cheer once for them. I told them I'd cheer for them, so I did. A LOT. I was yelling really loud and everyone was looking at me as I shouted "GO YSA!" "NICE SERVE!" and shouting people's names. BUT GUESS WHAT. They won their next two games when I did that, sure it made 'em laugh, but hopefully it helped! We play volleyball with the YSA branch a lot. It's a lot of fun. We got to go bowling last week for P-Day! I love bowling. I like being able to do fun things AND share the gospel while we're at it. It definitely is an effective way to share the gospel. I hope you all had a good week! Have another good one!

Josh

Snow and Ice!

Hello everyone!

This week has been crazy slow because of how much we had to stay in the apartment from bad weather! We weren't allowed to drive Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday... that gave us three days out of the week to do something! It was crazy haha. I never thought I'd see so much ice and snow in Texas. It's all melted now and I think it'll stay that way, though. So on Thursday, institute was canceled because of the weather, but that was one of our "we can drive" days, so we invited a few investigators and members of the YSA branch to come play volleyball with us. Rose, Priscilla, Bryan, Anna, Joyma, and George came. Then members of the Irving ward and the Irving missionaries came as well. It was a lot of fun! It was cool to see Rose out doing fun things, because she has a lot of health issues that keep her from being able to do lots. Bryan (one of our investigators) had a blast as well. He's hilarious and a lot of fun to be around. Tonight for FHE we're playing a game called Murder in the Dark... I've never played it so it'll definitely be new! Hopefully it's fun! haha. On Sunday, we went to the Chase's house and they invited two of the people we played volleyball with. The guy's name was Vinny, and he out of the blue asked for my mom's number and called her! He just talked to her for a little bit and told her that I'm doing great. It was awesome because I could hear my mom's voice faintly. There was one guy this week who was ranting to us about reasons he hates white people. I felt awkward! But I gained his trust and he ended up hugging me by the end of the visit. He said to his family, "Look! I'm hugging a white boy!" Some of the places here I'm surprised that I can sit comfortably in. Some people's houses are just a scary environment. I was thinking about it last night and I thought "If Megan or Sam were here they'd probably be scared out of their minds." Well I hope y'all have an amazing week! Break a leg with the musical Rocky!! You'll do awesome - wish I could be there.

Josh