Stay Warm!
LOVE YOU TONS!!!!
Hello and good morning to the best Family ever!
What a fun and exciting email! I absolutely loved hearing from you and you made me feel like I was with you this whole week! I loved hearing from you so much and I am so happy that you had such a great and fun week! We sure have been busy and the temperature has dropped quote a bit this last week. It really is starting to feel like winter and it reminds me of the holidays! Elder Solomon isn't quote used to the colder weather and so he has been bundled up for these last few days. We are working so well together and he is the best companion! I'm so blessed and grateful that he is my last companion because he is going to end my mission perfectly! I'm very excited to talk to you today and it will be so fun to hear how your next week goes! We have been busy tracting and finding and getting used to the Sister Missionaries' area since they left. It has gone really well and we even had a member invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday! The holidays are always a popular time to feed the missionaries and everyone wants to ahve us over so she made sure to invite us before anyone else did. We are really looking forward to taking our Temple trip sometime between November 15th and December 15th! President Hess told us to find a member that can take us and organize a trip date and then he will move our P-day to the day that we choose to go! I will take a Temple trip with all of the departing missionaries the day before I fly home and so I'm really excited to go to the Temple 2 times in the next month! Well, here goes my awesome week!
Today was such a great P-Day! It was Elder Solomon's very first P-Day and he really enjoyed it! Today went by so fast and I really enjoyed emailing you so much! It always makes my whole day to see an email from you! We got to unpack Elder Solomon so he is all settled in and ready to go! We got to clean the apartment and went shopping and did our laundry and we really had a great day! We are going to try and go fishing one of these P-Days because there are so many cool places to go! Elder Solomon is really into hunting and fishing and has been really good friends with Elder Sparks since he was about 11! Elder Solomon has had siblings serve in Virginia, Chile, and the Budapest Hungary missions. He worked for his Brother and did a lot of concrete work and laid concrete and repaired it as well. He wants to go into business and keep working for his Brother while he goes to school at Arizona State University! Elder Solomon's birthday is November 4th. He will turn 19 this coming November and so I'm excited to celebrate his Birthday with him! I had lots of fun reading your emails and talking back and forth! I sure do love and miss each one of you! After 6:00 came around, we headed out into the foggy and crisp air to do some tracting! We tried to visit Curt but when we walked up to his driveway and were about to walk to his door, we scared his dog and he came up and started to bark at us. We don't think that he was home but the dog wouldn't let us get to the front door and so we walked up the street to a new area that we haven't tracted before! It was really dark and hardly anyone had their lights on and so we just knocked on the doors of the people that looked like they were home and found some really nice people with many different religious backgrounds! As we were walking, we saw a lady in her 30s on her front porch and so we went up to talk to her! She seemed a little apprehensive that it was so late and we were walking towards her but she turned out to be really nice and friendly! She says that she goes to the Catholic Church down the street from her. I felt the spirit tell me to testify and as she was walking back into her house, I bore my testimony and it was a really powerful because we knew that the spirit was there. She asked us to come back in a few days in the afternoon and so we marked it on our calendar! I testified to her and said that our message will bless her life more than anything and we were on her front porch, 2,000 miles away from home to tell her all about it! It caught her off guard that we were so far away from home and was surprised we would do something like that! It was a fun way to end the day and it made all of the door knocking worth it to find her because we knew she was placed in our path for a specific reason! I hope you all had an amazing rest of your day! LOVE AND MISS YOU SO MUCH!!!!
Today was another very awesome day in the mission field! I have some crazy news! For the first time on my mission, we got the police called on us for knocking on doors. 
♂️ It was so crazy and it's funny how I've never had the police called on me and I almost made it through my whole mission but it happened from doing the same thing that I've done my whole mission and that is.....missionary work! Before I tell you the story, let me tell you what happened before we got the police called on us! Some story for Elder Solomon to tell huh! Hehe! 
We had another busy day and I have loved training Elder Solomon! It has been a special experience! We had service with Jane again and she is the lady that we found while we were tracting and she wanted us to come back over and help! She told us that her boss that lived in North Carolina was a member of the Church and so she knew a little bit about us and what we believe! We didn't have district meeting today because of zone conference this Thursday and so we had a great day of work! I was thinking about you a lot and sending my love and we'll wishes your way! 
I hope you all had a very great day and are well and happy! We had a really cool experience while we were doing our companion study! We felt prompted to call Tricia Hamm who is a referral that we got a few days ago. She referred herself to meet with us a day before Elder Solomon got here and so we were really excited that she wants to meet with us! We called her and she sounds like a golden investigator! She is so ready for the Gospel and we feel like it was a blessing directly to us! She is so prepared and we are really excited and we hope that we can help her towards baptism! She says that she wants her kids to grow up in a good environment and wants an organization for women that helps each other out and supports one another! Those were here exact words and so we told her about the Relief Society! She has been to Utah before and recognized that every one is so friendly and noticed a big difference from the East and West coast. As we were talking to her, Elder Solomon and I just looked at each other and were so excited! She sounds like a young mother in her 30s and she is excited to learn more! We are working on a plan to help the Marvin girls come to Church more regularly and so I hope and pray that we can have 3 baptisms before Elder Solomon's training is done! We went out to go tracting and we knocked on every single door in a small neighborhood and on the last door, we met a really cool lady! She came right out almost like she was expecting us and we were able to read Moroni 10: 4-5 with her and she wants to know more! It's so cool how it only takes 1 person like her to make hours of knocking on doors worth it! After dinner, we went to Sparta to do some tracting in an area that we felt prompted to go to and we worked our way up the street and we talked to some very nice people! It was about 7:45 and it was pitch black and so we kept working our way up the street and then we decided to drive to a different area and as we were walking back, we saw a really bright pair of headlights coming our way and it slowed down and stopped and then we realized that it was a Sparta police car. The officer got out and he was so nice and friendly! He told us that he received multiple calls from different neighbors about "intruders" that were knocking on doors. We could tell that the officer knew exactly who we were and that we were missionaries and weren't breaking in. We told him that we were on our way back to our car and so he took our ID's and asked for our apartment address and our phone numbers. He took down our info and then he went to talk to the neighbors that made the calls. It was interesting but I won't ever forget this experience! Hehe! It was a weird way to end our day! Hehe! I hope each of you and a very nice day! "If you can't be good, be great!!!" LOVE YOU ALL MORE THAN ANYTHING!!!!
Wednesday was such an amazing and great day of work! Thank you so very much for the email! I was so grateful that you filled out the form! It really enjoyed hearing from you so much! The weather was so nice today and we were really grateful to have good weather to be out working in! I really am so thankful that you took the time to fill it out! I'm so grateful for all that you do for me! Today was another busy and great day of work! Elder Solomon has been getting better and better every day and we have been reading through the lessons and practicing different things we could say to people we meet. We have been reading through and studying together all of the different resource books that the Church has made for new missionaries. It has been such a blessing to have someone that isn't afraid to bear his testimony and talk to people! He has been such an amazing companion and is already a pro at being a missionary! I hope you had a really great day! I was thinking about you a lot and sending my love to you! I just want to take the time to express my Thanks for all that you do for me! I am so thankful to be on a mission and that I have this special and once in a lifetime opportunity! I have definitely enjoyed every minute of it and will be forever grateful for the hundreds of experiences I've had! We got some exciting news that we get to go to the Temple next month! It will be the mission wide temple trip month from November 15th to December 15th and so we can arrange a ride with a member to take us to the Temple during that time period and so I'm really excited to go back Manhattan and show Elder Solomon the cool sights! I'm really looking forward to it! We did a ton of tracting before Daniel came to pick us up and unfortunately, not very many people were home since it was the early afternoon and most people were at work. While we were with Daniel, we got to have a lesson with Carrie and she told us that she had been reading the Book of Mormon and had lots of questions! She wrote down a list of questions that she had and it was so amazing to see her Faith grow! We have been trying to help her understand that this is Christ's original Church and that she can receive an answer that it is true. She hasn't prayed and so she can't know it is true because she is just reading the Book of Mormon without praying and asking Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith really did translate it. It was such a neat experience and it strengthened my testimony of tracting and that anyone can be prepared for the Gospel! We are helping her little by little and she is making progress! She has 5 kids to take care of and so she is always running around to sports practices and different events but we are always grateful that she gives us 15 minutes of her time! Then we went to visit Jane Morse in the nursing home and then we went to downtown Newton to say a prayer with a member and her non member friend! Her name is Sister Harriet and she has a friend named Fran that the Sisters were starting to teach! Then we did some more tracting for the rest of the day and it seemed like there weren't very many people around. We went to a few streets but most of them were quite and we couldn't find anyone to talk to. Elder Solomon needed to practice for his special musical number for Zone Conference and he did an amazing job! He is so amazing at playing the piano and is going to start playing the organ for our sacrament meetings! We don't have an organist foe this ward and they just have someone play a simplified version of the hymns and so Elder Solomon is going to be a huge asset to the Ward! I hope you all had a great day at work and school! LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!
Thursday we had an amazing Zone Conference! Elder Solomon played the musical number and the hymns and he is an amazing piano player! I was thinking about you today and sending you tons of love! I had a really great day and I love working with Elder Solomon! Sister Jensen, who is the mission nurse, said that they would be doing flu shots for all of the missionaries before zone conference started and so we drove down to Morristown and got there by 8:15 and then they checked our car to make sure it was washed, vacuumed, and everything was working and then we were able to get flu shots before zone conference started. It was really convenient to do because we didn't need to fill out any paperwork or anything because they had all of our records there and so everything went really smoothly! Now I won't get the flu for when I come home! Yay! I remembered that Brandon was playing at Sky View today and I just wanted to wish him good luck! Go get em Buddie! I hope you won and have lots of fun! We had such an amazing Zone Conference and it was so awesome! I have some fun news! They always have car inspections before the meeting starts and then they judge all of the cars from each zone and we had 2 zones combined for this meeting. They announced the winner for zone 5 and we won the cleanest car award for zone 2 and so Elder Solomon was happy about that! I told Elder Solomon that he started a streak and I joked about him getting that award for every zone conference of his mission! Hehe! They shared a video of a member of the Morristown ward and her conversion story. President Hess tied it into how we never know someone's situation and how we don't ever see the whole picture in someone's long road to conversion. Her name is Sister Justice and she had many experiences with the Church before she got baptized and so she recorded her testimony of all of these events that happened and what missionaries did. Elder Solomon did his musical number with another sister missionary and they played "Abide with me" and it sounded so good! It is always fun to get together with other missionaries and feel of the spirit! I was able to say the opening prayer and we also learned about how we can do better at weekly planning. It was a very fun Conference and I loved every minute of It! One cool story that Sister Hess shared was when she was single and she was granting wishes for the "Make A Wish" foundation. She had promised a young boy that he could meet the Pope since that was his wish and so Sister Hess arranged everything but right as they were boarding the plane, they realized that one of the passports was a one way and so that meant they couldn't go. Everyone, including Sister Hess, was crying and the Family left with broken hearts. Sister Hess went to the counter to get her money back for the tickets she paid for and the cashier simply asked her what was wrong. She told him the situation and he had the idea to go back to the back room to get a phone number for her to call to get the passport situated and the Family ended up going and meeting the Pope but Sister Hess said that if he didn't reach out, none of it would have worked out the way it did and so she said that we never know how we can answer someone else's prayers! After the amazing Zone Conference, we had dinner and then we drove to visit a new referral that we got from Hawaii. They weren't home and so we decided to do some tracting where we were and we met a very awesome man! His name is George and he is in his late 70s. He says that he reads a ton of books and when he saw my name tag, he asked me if I was related to Charles Lindbergh. He said that he had just read a book about him and asked us if we had anything for him to read. We smiled and pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon and gave it to him! He said that he would add it to his collection and we could come back and share more! It was such a great and fun way to end an awesome day! LOVE & MISS YOU ALL SO VERY MUCH!!!!!
Friday was another very great day from the mission field! I was so very excited to get your email and I just want to tell Brandon congrats on winning! That is just so amazing and I'm so happy for him! I thought it was so crazy how cold it got! I have loved checking the weather over there and it makes me feel closer to you all! It sure got chilly these past few days and it's crazy to think that the heater is already on! We have had some pretty chilly weather recently and it has gotten down into the low 50s. I was so happy for Brandon and was so excited to hear that they are region champs! That is SO AWESOME! I was also really excited to hear that Elder Thomas came home! It is really fun and cool to think that I'm the next one to come home! That is so unbelievable! I'm so, SO excited to see each of you and it will be such a memorable experience! I have some more crazy news! We got the police called on us again today while we were knocking on doors. Crazy! What is interesting is both times, we have no idea who called or which house the call came from because nobody is ever upset or mad that We are knocking on their doors. We have been tracting up until it was time to go back to the apartment at 9:00 and we haven't ever gotten the police called on us and now it has happened twice in 2 completely different areas. We will switch up our schedule from now on and not go tracting so late but we have so much work to do and so many people to find! The best time to find people at home is 6:00-9:00 and so it is hard when We get the police called on us. He was super nice and didn't tell us to leave since We are allowed to be out but he just didn't want us to have any mean people answer and not be very happy that we were knocking on their door so late. We got to serve at the food pantry again today and I'm starting to feel the weeks fly by and they feel like days. The fall always goes by really fast and I remember how quickly Christmas came up last year. I got transferred to Manhattan on October 17th and so it is coming up on my year mark that I got transferred to Manhattan! Hold on tight because these last few weeks are really going to fly by! At every zone conference, they have the departing missionaries bear their last testimony in front of everyone and so on November 28th, it will be my last zone conference! I found out that my Statue of Liberty trip will be on December 10th and so that is coming right up! We heard that it was supposed to get really cold this week and the weather was absolutely perfect today! We had the nicest breeze and it felt so nice to have cooler temperatures! The sun was shining and there were puffy clouds all over! We spent most of the day out and about and got to help out at the food pantry as well! There was a guy that came in to get his food and he told me how much I looked like his son. He said that I looked identical to him but the difference was the paths that we are on. He told me that I am on the right path and his son had taken the drugs and alcohol path. It was so sad for me how hard it is for his parents. He told me to keep going down the path that I'm on and don't ever change. I was able to testify to him that everyone makes mistakes and no one is too far off the path and Jesus Christ and his atonement allow us to come back. It was cool because he hadn't really realized that anyone can change and can be forgiven! It was a really neat experience! After we had some yummy lunch, we went out to do some tracting and the weather could not have been any nicer! I found out something really cool about Elder Solomon! His oldest Brother is married and they have 5 kids and his Brother is a Bishop in one of the wards in Arizona! His oldest Brother is 35 and it is so crazy to me that he has that old of siblings! I will be 27 when Puck is able to serve a mission! Wow! We got to have a lesson at the doorstep of a lady from Belgium named Freadricka and she is from Belgium. After we shared the Restoration with her, she told us that she wasn't interested. We thought it went really well and she felt the spirit but just didn't accept it. We met some cool people while tracting and we went to Hamburg and went to a street with tons of really nice town homes and so we got to talk to so many people since they were so close together! Then as we were walking across a street to knock on a few more doors before going back to the apartment, that is when we saw the police car drive up. We might try ending our tracting at around 8:00 because it has been past 8:00 when we got the police called on us. The police officer asked us what we were doing and realized that we weren't selling anything and so he just took down our names and phone number and let us go. I just couldn't even believe that it happened again and Elder Solomon and I just laughed because we thought it was so funny that it happened again. It is so crazy to me that it's happened twice in the last week because we aren't doing anything different and we are doing the exact same thing that Elder Caccioppoli and I did. It was an interesting way to end a great day! Hehe! Its funny because each town has it's own police department and so tonight we got the Hamburg police called and the Sparta police on Tuesday. I promise that it won't happen again! Then again, I've heard that missionaries will get thrown in jail in some missions around the world! Crazy! President Hess told us that it happens all the time and it has become such a common thing throughout the mission. He says that people call the police in everyone and everything. It was so crazy to have it happen again! We will keep trying and the work will move forward! I hope your day was so very awesome and you are having an amazing and fun Friday! I thought about you a lot and sending lots of love to you! LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!!
P.S: Have tons of fun at Utah State's homecoming tomorrow! GO AGGIES!!!
Saturday was so very awesome! I was thinking about you a whole lot and wishing you a very fun time at Utah State's homecoming! I hope you had a ton of fun and cheered loud! I was so happy and excited to get your fun email and I really loved hearing from you! I was really excited that you got to go to the Aggie homecoming parade and the game! How fun! I was thinking about you a lot and wishing you well! It sounds like the Aggies are doing so amazing and I'm so excited to see what they can do this year! We woke up this morning to chilly temperatures again and lots of rain. We had another great day planned and we were ready to get to work! It has been so amazing to work with Elder Solomon! He is so funny and loves to quote "The Best Two Years". Hehe! He is the perfect balance of hard working and fun to work with! I think I might be the luckiest trainer in the world because he hasn't struggled to adjust at all. It seems like I don't have much time at all since I will only be with him for 11 total weeks. We are almost done with 2 weeks and then we have a 5 week transfer and so it has gone by very fast! I was thinking about you as you went to the parade and the Aggie game! It sure was fun to think about what you were doing! I was looking back at some pictures from last year's homecoming parade and you sure looked so cold! Brrrrrr! I was so excited see your video and I couldn't believe how nice the weather was! Thank you so very much for thinking of me and sending me a fun video because it really made my whole day!!!! THANK YOU & Go Aggies!!!! It was a ton of fun to see the stadium and hear the Scotsman! It got me so excited and pumped! We had a really awesome service project with some of the ward members and it went so well! We drove over to Brother Thompson's house and he is the Dad to Daniel. Brother Thompson's son, who is in his 50s, isn't active and so he wanted us to come over and help him cut up a tree that had fallen a year ago. So we used some chainsaws to cut up a tree into chunks and then we loaded it into Brother Robertozzi's truck and we drove to Brother Gibbs' house and he splits it up to use for firewood for his house that he heats with firewood! I was thinking about you a lot and wishing you so much fun at the Aggie game!
It got so cold tonight and the wind felt so chilly. It was down to the 30s with the wind chill! We wanted to make sure that we didn't get the police called on us and so we stopped tracting at 7:45 just to be safe and then we spent the rest of the evening calling a ton of people and inviting them to Church to make sure our investigators came! While we were tracting, the highlight was meeting a man from Iran who says that he doesn't live in the house that we knocked on and was watching it while the owners were away for a few days. He told us that he lived in Chicago and his roommate was a member of our Church and so we thought that was really cool! We got to share a tons of different scriptures to the people we met and everyone was so nice! It was another really cool area of town homes that were built since I got here and now people are starting to move in and so we feel like it is a goldmine of people to teach! I'm so glad that you all had a very fun time at the Aggie game and didn't freeze! Brrrr! I just saw your email and I am so excited that the Aggies won! I'm so happy that you got to go! Thanks a ton for the email! Have an amazing Sabbath tomorrow! LOVE & MISS YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!!
Sunday was another very awesome day! I had so much fun reading your awesome email and loved reading every word! I just couldn't wait to read your email and I got so excited when I saw it pop up! I was really excited to hear all about your week and everything that was going on in good old Utah! We were looking forward to Sacrament meeting because the former Bishop's son came home from his mission in Guatemala and was giving his homecoming talk! It was about 39 degrees when we woke up and the heater in our apartment kicked on for the first time. I have some exciting news! So I was looking back in my journal tonight and today, October 14th, was the day that I found out that I was getting transferred to Manhattan from Kingston 1 year ago today! I couldn't believe that it was 1 year ago! We had such an amazing day at Church and Elder Solomon loved meeting all of the members! We had a homecoming talk and so there was an extra amount of members in Sacrament meeting! His name is Tanner Jensen and he just got home from serving in the Guatemala mission and I'm not going to lie, it made me even MORE excited to come home! I'm most excited to see you but it makes me even more excited that I come home right before Christmas! I mean come on, that is really exciting if you ask me!
The temperature ducked below 40 degrees today and the skies were so nice! This is not only my favorite time of the year, but my favorite temperatures too! We got invited by Brother and Sister Mills to have dinner at their house and so we were really looking forward to that! I'm always extra happy because I know that your email is coming in and that I get to hear from you! We went over to their house and they have a very pretty home! You won't believe what they made for us! 3 words! Sweet......pork......salads!!! They tasted a lot like yours and they made everything just like you do! I have to admit, they weren't as good as yours but they were so tasty! It reminded me so much of our last meal together and so I thought of you! They have 3 girls and 1 boy all under the age of 10 and so they always love having the missionaries over. Brother Mills is from American Fork and knows where Barrett Elementary is! Sister Mills is from Illinois and they used to live in Provo! It was such a yummy dinner and we had a great time talking about their Family Mission plan and some of the things they learned from General Conference! Then we did some tracting and met a guy that knew about how missionary work works and he asked us how long we had been out! We didn't get the police called on us and so we were happy about that! When we got back to the apartment for the day, I was so very happy and excited to see your email in my inbox and pictures on my drive!
THANK YOU a million times for the fun email and pictures! I am always so very happy to hear that you had a good week and had lots of fun! When you are having fun, I am always happy! I enjoyed a brownie that Sister Mills made and a cold glass of milk while I read your email and it was such a fun time! I can't wait to talk to you tomorrow about all of the stuff you got to do! I was so happy to hear all about the happenings of the week and I was so thankful for all of your updates! I have so much to talk to you about and I'm very happy and excited that we get to talk tomorrow! It sure does feel like the holiday season and these colder temperatures make my release date seem a whole lot sooner because it is that special time of year again! I loved the videos of Dubbie in action and the homecoming parade! So much fun to see! You are always in my thoughts and prayers and I love you so very much!!!!
Well my dear and amazing loved ones! The days sure are counting down and I'm getting so excited for this holiday season and the fact that I'm down to almost 2 months left blows my mind! I'm so excited for these next 2 months because they are going to be so special! The holiday season is so much fun and it's so fun to think that I will be home for Christmas and back in school this January! I need to work extra hard to earn money so I can pay for my school and books. I am enjoying every minute of my mission and I'm so thankful that I can serve! Thanks again for everything you wrote to me and all of your fun stories! I have loved the system that we have had while I've been gone and it has worked so well for us! I hope you all have an amazing day and week and have lots of fun! I really am so thankful for you and I can always feel your love and support in all that I do! Thanks so much for being here for me and supporting me! I hope you have another really great and fun week! LOVE & MISS YOU SO, SO, SO VERY MUCH!!!!
Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg
Today was such a great P-Day! It was Elder Solomon's very first P-Day and he really enjoyed it! Today went by so fast and I really enjoyed emailing you so much! It always makes my whole day to see an email from you! We got to unpack Elder Solomon so he is all settled in and ready to go! We got to clean the apartment and went shopping and did our laundry and we really had a great day! We are going to try and go fishing one of these P-Days because there are so many cool places to go! Elder Solomon is really into hunting and fishing and has been really good friends with Elder Sparks since he was about 11! Elder Solomon has had siblings serve in Virginia, Chile, and the Budapest Hungary missions. He worked for his Brother and did a lot of concrete work and laid concrete and repaired it as well. He wants to go into business and keep working for his Brother while he goes to school at Arizona State University! Elder Solomon's birthday is November 4th. He will turn 19 this coming November and so I'm excited to celebrate his Birthday with him! I had lots of fun reading your emails and talking back and forth! I sure do love and miss each one of you! After 6:00 came around, we headed out into the foggy and crisp air to do some tracting! We tried to visit Curt but when we walked up to his driveway and were about to walk to his door, we scared his dog and he came up and started to bark at us. We don't think that he was home but the dog wouldn't let us get to the front door and so we walked up the street to a new area that we haven't tracted before! It was really dark and hardly anyone had their lights on and so we just knocked on the doors of the people that looked like they were home and found some really nice people with many different religious backgrounds! As we were walking, we saw a lady in her 30s on her front porch and so we went up to talk to her! She seemed a little apprehensive that it was so late and we were walking towards her but she turned out to be really nice and friendly! She says that she goes to the Catholic Church down the street from her. I felt the spirit tell me to testify and as she was walking back into her house, I bore my testimony and it was a really powerful because we knew that the spirit was there. She asked us to come back in a few days in the afternoon and so we marked it on our calendar! I testified to her and said that our message will bless her life more than anything and we were on her front porch, 2,000 miles away from home to tell her all about it! It caught her off guard that we were so far away from home and was surprised we would do something like that! It was a fun way to end the day and it made all of the door knocking worth it to find her because we knew she was placed in our path for a specific reason! I hope you all had an amazing rest of your day! LOVE AND MISS YOU SO MUCH!!!!
Today was another very awesome day in the mission field!
Wednesday was such an amazing and great day of work! Thank you so very much for the email! I was so grateful that you filled out the form! It really enjoyed hearing from you so much! The weather was so nice today and we were really grateful to have good weather to be out working in! I really am so thankful that you took the time to fill it out! I'm so grateful for all that you do for me! Today was another busy and great day of work! Elder Solomon has been getting better and better every day and we have been reading through the lessons and practicing different things we could say to people we meet. We have been reading through and studying together all of the different resource books that the Church has made for new missionaries. It has been such a blessing to have someone that isn't afraid to bear his testimony and talk to people! He has been such an amazing companion and is already a pro at being a missionary! I hope you had a really great day! I was thinking about you a lot and sending my love to you! I just want to take the time to express my Thanks for all that you do for me! I am so thankful to be on a mission and that I have this special and once in a lifetime opportunity! I have definitely enjoyed every minute of it and will be forever grateful for the hundreds of experiences I've had! We got some exciting news that we get to go to the Temple next month! It will be the mission wide temple trip month from November 15th to December 15th and so we can arrange a ride with a member to take us to the Temple during that time period and so I'm really excited to go back Manhattan and show Elder Solomon the cool sights! I'm really looking forward to it! We did a ton of tracting before Daniel came to pick us up and unfortunately, not very many people were home since it was the early afternoon and most people were at work. While we were with Daniel, we got to have a lesson with Carrie and she told us that she had been reading the Book of Mormon and had lots of questions! She wrote down a list of questions that she had and it was so amazing to see her Faith grow! We have been trying to help her understand that this is Christ's original Church and that she can receive an answer that it is true. She hasn't prayed and so she can't know it is true because she is just reading the Book of Mormon without praying and asking Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith really did translate it. It was such a neat experience and it strengthened my testimony of tracting and that anyone can be prepared for the Gospel! We are helping her little by little and she is making progress! She has 5 kids to take care of and so she is always running around to sports practices and different events but we are always grateful that she gives us 15 minutes of her time! Then we went to visit Jane Morse in the nursing home and then we went to downtown Newton to say a prayer with a member and her non member friend! Her name is Sister Harriet and she has a friend named Fran that the Sisters were starting to teach! Then we did some more tracting for the rest of the day and it seemed like there weren't very many people around. We went to a few streets but most of them were quite and we couldn't find anyone to talk to. Elder Solomon needed to practice for his special musical number for Zone Conference and he did an amazing job! He is so amazing at playing the piano and is going to start playing the organ for our sacrament meetings! We don't have an organist foe this ward and they just have someone play a simplified version of the hymns and so Elder Solomon is going to be a huge asset to the Ward! I hope you all had a great day at work and school! LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!
Thursday we had an amazing Zone Conference! Elder Solomon played the musical number and the hymns and he is an amazing piano player! I was thinking about you today and sending you tons of love! I had a really great day and I love working with Elder Solomon! Sister Jensen, who is the mission nurse, said that they would be doing flu shots for all of the missionaries before zone conference started and so we drove down to Morristown and got there by 8:15 and then they checked our car to make sure it was washed, vacuumed, and everything was working and then we were able to get flu shots before zone conference started. It was really convenient to do because we didn't need to fill out any paperwork or anything because they had all of our records there and so everything went really smoothly! Now I won't get the flu for when I come home! Yay! I remembered that Brandon was playing at Sky View today and I just wanted to wish him good luck! Go get em Buddie! I hope you won and have lots of fun! We had such an amazing Zone Conference and it was so awesome! I have some fun news! They always have car inspections before the meeting starts and then they judge all of the cars from each zone and we had 2 zones combined for this meeting. They announced the winner for zone 5 and we won the cleanest car award for zone 2 and so Elder Solomon was happy about that! I told Elder Solomon that he started a streak and I joked about him getting that award for every zone conference of his mission! Hehe! They shared a video of a member of the Morristown ward and her conversion story. President Hess tied it into how we never know someone's situation and how we don't ever see the whole picture in someone's long road to conversion. Her name is Sister Justice and she had many experiences with the Church before she got baptized and so she recorded her testimony of all of these events that happened and what missionaries did. Elder Solomon did his musical number with another sister missionary and they played "Abide with me" and it sounded so good! It is always fun to get together with other missionaries and feel of the spirit! I was able to say the opening prayer and we also learned about how we can do better at weekly planning. It was a very fun Conference and I loved every minute of It! One cool story that Sister Hess shared was when she was single and she was granting wishes for the "Make A Wish" foundation. She had promised a young boy that he could meet the Pope since that was his wish and so Sister Hess arranged everything but right as they were boarding the plane, they realized that one of the passports was a one way and so that meant they couldn't go. Everyone, including Sister Hess, was crying and the Family left with broken hearts. Sister Hess went to the counter to get her money back for the tickets she paid for and the cashier simply asked her what was wrong. She told him the situation and he had the idea to go back to the back room to get a phone number for her to call to get the passport situated and the Family ended up going and meeting the Pope but Sister Hess said that if he didn't reach out, none of it would have worked out the way it did and so she said that we never know how we can answer someone else's prayers! After the amazing Zone Conference, we had dinner and then we drove to visit a new referral that we got from Hawaii. They weren't home and so we decided to do some tracting where we were and we met a very awesome man! His name is George and he is in his late 70s. He says that he reads a ton of books and when he saw my name tag, he asked me if I was related to Charles Lindbergh. He said that he had just read a book about him and asked us if we had anything for him to read. We smiled and pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon and gave it to him! He said that he would add it to his collection and we could come back and share more! It was such a great and fun way to end an awesome day! LOVE & MISS YOU ALL SO VERY MUCH!!!!!
Friday was another very great day from the mission field! I was so very excited to get your email and I just want to tell Brandon congrats on winning! That is just so amazing and I'm so happy for him! I thought it was so crazy how cold it got! I have loved checking the weather over there and it makes me feel closer to you all! It sure got chilly these past few days and it's crazy to think that the heater is already on! We have had some pretty chilly weather recently and it has gotten down into the low 50s. I was so happy for Brandon and was so excited to hear that they are region champs! That is SO AWESOME! I was also really excited to hear that Elder Thomas came home! It is really fun and cool to think that I'm the next one to come home! That is so unbelievable! I'm so, SO excited to see each of you and it will be such a memorable experience! I have some more crazy news! We got the police called on us again today while we were knocking on doors. Crazy! What is interesting is both times, we have no idea who called or which house the call came from because nobody is ever upset or mad that We are knocking on their doors. We have been tracting up until it was time to go back to the apartment at 9:00 and we haven't ever gotten the police called on us and now it has happened twice in 2 completely different areas. We will switch up our schedule from now on and not go tracting so late but we have so much work to do and so many people to find! The best time to find people at home is 6:00-9:00 and so it is hard when We get the police called on us. He was super nice and didn't tell us to leave since We are allowed to be out but he just didn't want us to have any mean people answer and not be very happy that we were knocking on their door so late. We got to serve at the food pantry again today and I'm starting to feel the weeks fly by and they feel like days. The fall always goes by really fast and I remember how quickly Christmas came up last year. I got transferred to Manhattan on October 17th and so it is coming up on my year mark that I got transferred to Manhattan! Hold on tight because these last few weeks are really going to fly by! At every zone conference, they have the departing missionaries bear their last testimony in front of everyone and so on November 28th, it will be my last zone conference! I found out that my Statue of Liberty trip will be on December 10th and so that is coming right up! We heard that it was supposed to get really cold this week and the weather was absolutely perfect today! We had the nicest breeze and it felt so nice to have cooler temperatures! The sun was shining and there were puffy clouds all over! We spent most of the day out and about and got to help out at the food pantry as well! There was a guy that came in to get his food and he told me how much I looked like his son. He said that I looked identical to him but the difference was the paths that we are on. He told me that I am on the right path and his son had taken the drugs and alcohol path. It was so sad for me how hard it is for his parents. He told me to keep going down the path that I'm on and don't ever change. I was able to testify to him that everyone makes mistakes and no one is too far off the path and Jesus Christ and his atonement allow us to come back. It was cool because he hadn't really realized that anyone can change and can be forgiven! It was a really neat experience! After we had some yummy lunch, we went out to do some tracting and the weather could not have been any nicer! I found out something really cool about Elder Solomon! His oldest Brother is married and they have 5 kids and his Brother is a Bishop in one of the wards in Arizona! His oldest Brother is 35 and it is so crazy to me that he has that old of siblings! I will be 27 when Puck is able to serve a mission! Wow!
P.S: Have tons of fun at Utah State's homecoming tomorrow! GO AGGIES!!!
Saturday was so very awesome! I was thinking about you a whole lot and wishing you a very fun time at Utah State's homecoming! I hope you had a ton of fun and cheered loud! I was so happy and excited to get your fun email and I really loved hearing from you! I was really excited that you got to go to the Aggie homecoming parade and the game! How fun! I was thinking about you a lot and wishing you well! It sounds like the Aggies are doing so amazing and I'm so excited to see what they can do this year! We woke up this morning to chilly temperatures again and lots of rain. We had another great day planned and we were ready to get to work! It has been so amazing to work with Elder Solomon! He is so funny and loves to quote "The Best Two Years". Hehe! He is the perfect balance of hard working and fun to work with! I think I might be the luckiest trainer in the world because he hasn't struggled to adjust at all. It seems like I don't have much time at all since I will only be with him for 11 total weeks. We are almost done with 2 weeks and then we have a 5 week transfer and so it has gone by very fast! I was thinking about you as you went to the parade and the Aggie game! It sure was fun to think about what you were doing! I was looking back at some pictures from last year's homecoming parade and you sure looked so cold! Brrrrrr! I was so excited see your video and I couldn't believe how nice the weather was! Thank you so very much for thinking of me and sending me a fun video because it really made my whole day!!!! THANK YOU & Go Aggies!!!! It was a ton of fun to see the stadium and hear the Scotsman! It got me so excited and pumped! We had a really awesome service project with some of the ward members and it went so well! We drove over to Brother Thompson's house and he is the Dad to Daniel. Brother Thompson's son, who is in his 50s, isn't active and so he wanted us to come over and help him cut up a tree that had fallen a year ago. So we used some chainsaws to cut up a tree into chunks and then we loaded it into Brother Robertozzi's truck and we drove to Brother Gibbs' house and he splits it up to use for firewood for his house that he heats with firewood! I was thinking about you a lot and wishing you so much fun at the Aggie game!
Sunday was another very awesome day! I had so much fun reading your awesome email and loved reading every word! I just couldn't wait to read your email and I got so excited when I saw it pop up! I was really excited to hear all about your week and everything that was going on in good old Utah! We were looking forward to Sacrament meeting because the former Bishop's son came home from his mission in Guatemala and was giving his homecoming talk! It was about 39 degrees when we woke up and the heater in our apartment kicked on for the first time. I have some exciting news! So I was looking back in my journal tonight and today, October 14th, was the day that I found out that I was getting transferred to Manhattan from Kingston 1 year ago today! I couldn't believe that it was 1 year ago! We had such an amazing day at Church and Elder Solomon loved meeting all of the members! We had a homecoming talk and so there was an extra amount of members in Sacrament meeting! His name is Tanner Jensen and he just got home from serving in the Guatemala mission and I'm not going to lie, it made me even MORE excited to come home! I'm most excited to see you but it makes me even more excited that I come home right before Christmas! I mean come on, that is really exciting if you ask me!
Well my dear and amazing loved ones! The days sure are counting down and I'm getting so excited for this holiday season and the fact that I'm down to almost 2 months left blows my mind! I'm so excited for these next 2 months because they are going to be so special! The holiday season is so much fun and it's so fun to think that I will be home for Christmas and back in school this January! I need to work extra hard to earn money so I can pay for my school and books. I am enjoying every minute of my mission and I'm so thankful that I can serve! Thanks again for everything you wrote to me and all of your fun stories! I have loved the system that we have had while I've been gone and it has worked so well for us!
Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg
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