All Mission Conference

Hey All,

We had 4 members of the quorum of the 70 meet with us last Saturday, including Pres. Snow. We almost had Elder Andersen of the 12 come as well. We are a truly blessed mission. They said we're still #1 for the biggest increase of baptisms in the entire world. :) Yeah! It was a spiritual feast.

Patriarchal blessing! Woot! go Josh – I’m way proud of you!

Missionary week for both Jenna and Josh -- It's a great opportunity for learning. Try to set goals for yourself about what you want to learn from this experience. Whether it's something to help you to prepare for a mission, or some other goal in your life. It will help.

:( No Father and Sons campout getting cancelled because of rain... That's really sad. I always enjoyed those. Hopefully they'll postpone it until I get back! ;-)

Keep it up everyone! School's almost out!  Endure to the end!!

I'll be writing Ben today.

Hopefully you wont get swamped keeping my website up-to-date Dad.  <<Editor’s note – he guilted me into getting all these updates done >>

Dad’s Questions:

1. There's only me and my comp in my current apartment. Which I probably prefer.
2. Our set of apartments is a gated community. We hardly see anyone, and it's pretty secure. The area round about is pretty nice considering that we're so close to the bay. It's refreshing. It's also very hilly. It's just slightly reminiscent of North Carolina.
3. We have the car everyday, but we do some really good exercise at the church in the mornings with early morning basketball, etc. I'm keeping myself in shape.
4. I don't have any interesting pictures, but I'll have some soon.
5. I hear that there are scary things that happen on those streets, but I haven't seen or felt anything to make me worry. For the most part gangs don't trouble us anyway. I'm not worried, but I'm not going to do anything stupid.

Story of other missionaries:

Elder Ames and his companion were zone leaders here in Vallejo and they were walking around talking to people when a group of 10 year old kids come out of nowhere and surround them, and ask them what's in their backpacks. I don't remember if the kids were armed, but what Ames said was that he knew that someone was teaching these kids how to be gangsters, and it was probably older siblings. So even though they could have fought off those kids, he didn't want to have any really dangerous people after him. :) crazy huh?

I heard this quote at my last Zone Conference, it's pretty powerful. I love Elder Holland. I can see him being apart of the first presidency someday:

Elder Holland from an MTC Devotional Address on January 11, 2011.

“We can get better at this. We can do better at this. We can grow into this. But it is going to take a masterful, modern, twenty-first century, last and greatest of all dispensations, kind of missionary to do it. And I love you for accepting the call. I love you for believing and knowing that you can do it because this is God’s work, the Spirit of the Lord is the key, essential, ultimate, ingredient.

The Spirit of the Lord itself will pronounce that gift upon your head and endow that mantle of authority upon your shoulders, from the first day, from the very first day! If you are as honest as we are pleading with you to be, in a day when you have got to be the best missionaries this Church has ever had. That’s what you’ve got to be.

We have a world in trouble. If we understand these scriptures it’s not over yet. You are God’s answer. You’re the hope of Israel. You are the hope of Israel. And you’re nineteen years old, or twenty or twenty one or twenty two or whatever. I stand all amazed at what a missionary is in this Church! What God would somehow know and have the confidence to believe could be done with people like you and people like me. Its a marvelous work and a wonder.”

Well everything's going great! And I love Vallejo! I hope everyone's doing well!!

Love your missionary,

Elder Richard Mackelprang

Post Mother's Day P-Day!

MOMs EMAIL

That was sweet! I did enjoy that phone call! We're going so fast, and are doing so much that I'm loving it! The days are whizzing past me, but I'm not as concerned because I know I'm doing all I can to help the people here. A funny thing happened yesterday. I felt like I should call Aunt Marsha to wish her a happy Mother's Day as well, but ironically due to something weird happening I ended up talking to Robert first. That was fun to talk to both of them as well yesterday. I'm thinking that I'm going to take a road trip to California after the Winter Semester 2012... at least that's the idea at the moment. I still have no idea about the details, but I thought that that would be fun. I'd get to see my mission President before he gets released that July, and the other families that I taught, and members that I befriended.  I hope I can work it out.

Even though Vallejo is a “bad” part of the area, I'm not on foot enough to be really scared about getting held up, and I don't take my camera around enough with me to worry about it getting stolen either. I really just carry my scripture case and pass along cards. They'd have nothing to steal. Too bad for them.

:) It's too bad that I didn't get a chance to hear your Spanish when you spoke in the branch. You might be able to understand what I speak and say in the Branch when I give my homecoming talk. I'm thinking that I may just stick with the branch for awhile, just so I can adjust to my new life being home. But we'll see what happens.

I'm glad you had a fantastic Mother's Day / Week-end / etc.! I hope that we can have some fun together as a family when I get back. Have fun with your new gifts, and presents. :) I'll see y'all soon!

PS I'll be happily awaiting the stamps!

DADs EMAIL

That's cool that you're helping me out with researching the career paths. I'm not just going for game design (although that would be cool too.) but I'm thinking about CGI stuff as well. Save a copy of what you've found and I'll dig through it when I get home. I'm sure that looking at the various fields that there are now would be helpful. I'm also considering learning mandarin / or Japanese to further my value as a worker, then you and I could have some secret conversations, or just laugh that everyone else doesn't understand. ;-)

I'll figure out the details when I get home. I have ideas, and plans, but they need to wait.

Zone conference this week was awesome, and it involved us taking another step up from where we were at to a higher plane. Teach short lessons (5 minutes or less, depending on time) to people who will talk to us on the streets, and invite them to act on our message. Even set baptismal dates with people if so inspired. It was intense. President Bunker also taught us some amazing things with the scriptures, and I learned a lot and was able to piece some things that I've been studying about the law of Justice, and Mercy into place. It's deep, but surprisingly simple at the same time.

I'll get to experience more humidity here in Vallejo since it's closer to the bay, but it's starting to warm up here too. :) We'll see just how much a change it is from home in 4 months.

Our Zone Conference was on 5 de Mayo. We went out to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate. Nothing super special though.

It's funny seeing the Latinos driving around with Mexican flags, and having parties, etc. Latinos party when they can find any excuse to party. :) And they party good!

The chapel address is:

110 Los Santos Ct
VALLEJO, CA 94590

Well sorry this is so short. But we talked about almost everything yesterday. :-P So, I love you and I hope that you're doing well!

Love your son,

Elder Richard Mackelprang

Vallejo Week 2 Begins / Mother's Day Approaches

Dad's Email

It's crazy! I'm out of time to comment more about your email since I sent you pictures. I hope you like them. I'll write a letter to Kayla about what's all happened this week, and she can share it with you. You can see what's all happened.

1. My companions name is Elder Glaus. He's only a transfer or 2 younger than me. He's awesome, tall, blonde and hard working. I sent you a picture of him in the other email. He's from Florida, but he's also from Las Vegas. He like Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. I also served around him when I was in Sonoma. I was around when he was a greenie. He's a great kid.
2. Vallejo Zone. Quite literally the ghetto. It's very poor, and as a consequence there is a lot of crime, gangs, etc. I don't have any personal experiences, but I've heard lots of stories from missionaries who have served here. I'll let you know what happens.
3. I'm driving again. That's a surprise. I like the apartment. It's pretty nice, and It's not too big, and not too small. I have the biggest desk that I've ever had on the mission. I like it! :) Other than the small kitchen I don't have any complaints.
4. I'm planning on calling you guys at 2pm your time. that should be 11am my time. I don't think that Skype is approved last I heard.
5. Anything you want to send me is fine. I'm actually going to be needing new shoes again. So if you could include some shoe money I'd be grateful. (I know. again. I hate it. Stinking shoes.)
6. I have sent you pictures. I'm keeping the card because of your advice.

Mom's Email

I have been thinking about how much Joshua has grown recently. It'll be a surprise to see how much he has grown.

I'm thinking that I'll be calling around 11am here, so that should be 2pm there, (I checked the schedule so that should work for you hopefully). Our meetings don't start until 1pm, and I don't think we'll have meetings that morning. It should be good.

I’m glad Leah likes BYU.  I’ve told her again and again that Provo is better. Now she sees for herself what I've been saying all along. :) It just rocks. I'm going back there. Leah is trying to help her roommates out everywhere. She tried to send me pictures, and have me write her roommate, but it didn't work out.

Vallejo is great! I'll tell you about it soon!

Lots of Love

Elder Mackelprang

Pictures!

Here's a generous handful of pictures that I've taken recently. I was going to send home the card, but I guess we don't want to risk damaging all of the pictures like last time.... that's such a bummer, I had lots of cool pictures on that SD card that got destroyed in the mail. Enjoy!

Happy Easter Surprise!!

Hey I'm at a new address. I got transferred. To Vallejo!

Things are good. I'm alive.

From DAD's email:

Go Ben! Woot! I'm sure he's loving his Japanese.

Happy Easter! I hope that everyone enjoyed it!

That's sad that the rainstorm killed your campout... I'm sure that the kids still had fun in the tent in the living room though.

:P I hope that Leah's letter is still there (BYUI) waiting for her. I sent it almost 2 weeks ago. Good luck at Provo!

Thanks for the help Dad. I'll find a job. Can you see if the Best Buy near our house is hiring? I'm still going to try to work for the Geek Squad, that would be fun.

The music at church went great! Still not as good as the Cary 2nd choir, but it was reminiscent. :) It's too bad I couldn't hear our choir sing it.

There is nothing to do in Dixon on a PDay. Absolutely nada. The other missionaries are too far out to want to do anything with us, so we're stuck with cleaning, drawing, and writing letters. I don't know what there is to do here in Vallejo, now that I'm here, but I'll get to know more as we move along.

We just went to the temple a few weeks ago. I forgot to mention it in my letter. since I'm in a new area that actually works for sending pictures I'll send pictures I took there in a moment.

We have an All-mission conference in about 2 weeks. The rumor is that Elder Neil L. Andersen of the quorum of the 12 apostles will be meeting with us. That should be interesting. I was in the Woodland zone in Dixon, and now I'm in the Vallejo zone, back in a Spanish branch with my people. Vallejo is supposed to be the ghetto of the mission. Lots of gangs, gangsters, and crime. Ironically, all the missionaries want to come here. :) Everything looks good so far.

From MOM's email:

Hey Mom! I did get your letter! I loved it, but surprise! I got transferred, so I may be behind some of those letters that just got sent :( I got letters from Grandma Johnson, Aunt Marsha, Robert, and Andrew, and a package from Kayla :). I don't know if there is more coming, but I left plenty of notes asking the new Elders in Dixon to forward my mail to me.

I think I already sent Kenny's letter to him, hopefully it got there before he moved, I don't know if I sent it to his new address. That's funny about losing your voice! Wow... We could have sung in harmony! :P I heard in Grandma's letter about Leah being asked out. It'd be great to hear how that went from her words. :)

Happy Birthday Sis Everett!! May it be a happy one! I don't have as much time to write today because of transfers, but I'll still be a writing machine!

Thanks for all of your love and support.

Elder Mackelprang

Birthdays Everywhere! 3 Transfers Remain…

Hello Family!

So you've all been asking for a cool spiritual experience lately, so I'll share something special that happened yesterday. So we were out contacting a few people that the ward wanted us to go see, and while we were out walking, I decided to cut through the park to save on time. So as we're cutting across I see a Latino family a little ways off, and they're all playing soccer, and having a blast as a family. I smiled, but didn't think anything of it. As we get across and are walking up the side walk passing by the family, one of the women calls out to us "!Hermanos!" Oh! I thought, they must be members if they recognize us like that, so I waved. She called again, "!Hermanos!" Then I realized with my very dense head that she wanted to talk to us. So we walk over, and I start talking to her since I'm the lone Spanish missionary in my companionship. I didn't recognize her, or her family at first, but as we started talking I began to realize that this was a family that I had taught periodically while I was in Fairfield! One of the family members lived out in the fields here in Dixon, and the rest of the family lived on a Ranch between Rio Vista, and Fairfield where there are tons of windmills! Apparently the missionaries had stopped visiting them after I had left and they hadn't been visited in almost a year! They both wanted missionaries over again, and so I was happy to oblige. It was like a little sign from the Lord that yes, I was supposed to be here in Dixon, even though things are slow right now, and that yes, He has a work for me to do. It was inspiring, since it's been difficult to have a super strong faith in the work here with things going so slowly with our investigators in Dixon right now. A inspiring and gentle rebuke that the Lord is in control, and that I need to have more faith in Him, and rely more on Him to accomplish what He would have me do. I know that He lives, and that He leads us and guides, even on a daily basis, if we will be humble, ask for direction, then LISTEN. That can be the hardest part sometimes. :P  May we all have the ability to move forward, and follow the example of our Savior Jesus Christ, and change. Whatever is holding us back let us change. Our ultimate desire is freedom, and we truly can become free as we master our feelings, appetites, and whatever may push us towards sorrow and misery. Be the master, be the captain of your soul. For that is your unalienable right. This is the test of life.  

Congrats on your Cary High “Green Tie Gala” concert Jenna! I wish I could have been there!

Happy 13th Birthday to my little Brother Josh! I know he had a blast at his party.

Also Happy 24th Birthday to my cousin Robert! Hopefully he got my letter that I sent off to Leah...

I hope that everyone is OK. Tornados, huh? I'd have never thought we would have problems with those.

You guys seem to really like Bahama Grill. We'll have to go there. Have you made a list of the top 5 places you want to take me to when I get back? :) I like good food.

So Ben's over here near the West Coast now, huh? That's funny. He's probably in SLC right now. It'll be weird that I wont get to see him for a long time. I hope that he had a chance to write, or that he will have a chance to write at some point. We'll see what happens.

Hey Jenna, How do you like driving on your own? :) I'm sure it's fun.

Have fun camping at Jordan Lake!

Dad's Questions

1. <<We got an email from a family you met who knows another family here in the Apex Stake.  Tell us about that>>  The Wadell family is a family here in the ward. Sis Wadell apparently grew up with and/ or college roommates with Sister Garner (in Cary 1st ward?). We stopped by because her son was part of the focus 15, and they both happened to be there, and when I mentioned that I was from around Raleigh she talked about Sis Garner being from Cary. I smiled, and told her that's where I was from. Being here in California I haven't found very many people at all who have heard of it. So it's cool to see how small the world is sometimes.
2. <<Have you sung or spoken in Church recently?  Is your ward all English, or is there a Spanish Branch in Dixon?>>  I haven't spoken or sung in church recently, Although I'm part of the ward choir at the members request. We'll be singing this next Sunday, "This is the Christ" I love that song! I remember singing that with our ward choir back home. Oh how I miss it! I am working on building a Spanish branch in Dixon. But for right now it's just an English ward.
3. <<How are your clothes holding out?>> My clothes are holding out. Everything is flat here, so the biking isn't super strenuous, nor straining on my clothing, and since I'm slimming down, my clothes are fitting better. Things should be fine. I'll let you know if there are any problems.
4. <<When are transfers?  Do you think you’ll stay in Dixon, or do you think you’ll move this time?>>  Transfers are next week. Although I'm 99% sure that I'll still be here, so I'm not worried. It's the last 2 transfers after that will keep me guessing. wow... I only have a total of 3 transfers left. 4.5 months... WEIRD and funky, but not quite trippy :-P.

Mom’s Email

I figured that I was going to get asked to speak in the Branch anyway. :) So go ahead and tell them to expect me . I impress everyone out here with my Spanish. I look forward to seeing what they will think of my Spanish now -- I still remember them teasing me about my Spanish before I left.

I hope that the Wells are getting along well. I still need to write Erik back... I wonder if you can ask Sis Wells about his address. Speaking about addresses, have anyone been able to get Uncle Kenny's and Jenny Jump's addresses yet? I have the letters for them written up, but I can;t send them because I still need their current addresses.

:P I sent Leah a letter to her new address already, hopefully she can get it. Have her ask about it, I hope they wont re-send it back before she gets there. I sent it off last week, so it should be there. Hopefully Rob can find it, and the letter I included in Leah's letter for him.

On the school / college front -- I do plan on taking a few courses at Wake Tech or something, but I am going to shoot for working with the Geek Squad at the Best Buy near home, or whatever is available, and I will look for things that will keep me busy. I know that I need to keep moving in order to get back to college, and schooling etc. I should be back in time to be able to schedule stuff myself for BYU, since I _will_ be going there in the Winter Semester 2012. So hopefully I can get started with some art classes and some computing classes since I have a better idea of what I want to shoot for at BYU (their "animation" major check it out at BYU.edu)

I love you all! Have a fantastic week! I will write back to people who send me letters! I've gotten a couple of straight weeks of air-boxes. It's kind of depressing, more so since I'm trying to write absolutely everyone now. :P Anyways, Keep it real!

Elder Richard Mackelprang

Joshua’s Birthday Approaches…

WOW!! That's cool that Andrew is getting sealed to the Everett family. That just seems so perfect, and right. Wow... I'm sad that I wont be there to see that.

HEY! I need Jenny Jump's and Uncle Kenny's addresses! Please let me know soon.

Dad's Questions (starting with last weeks)

1. Dixon is a small town along the highway, about 17,000 people. We can bike across it in about 20 minutes. So it can be difficult to plan a full day if everyone isn't home. We do cover area outside the immediate city limits, but it goes out for quite a few miles in many directions, but it's all farming fields, ranches etc. Very sparse population.
2. We easily ride 10 - 20 miles a day. for the most part. It can vary depending on how we're inspired, and how much we feel like walking instead. But I definitely get my exercise in during the day, and I'm working on getting my exercise at 6:30 in as well, though my legs scream at me for it The bike is doing great. No problems there.
3. We do have a handful of Spanish people that I'm working with, and we're slowly finding more English people as well. It's getting better as we go along, but the progress is slow here, even though as a zone, and a mission we're still accomplishing miracles, and growing amazingly rapidly! This week found a lady named Karen who is a friend of a less active sister here (out in the boonies). She's just moving in, but we should see her tomorrow! I'm excited to see her. We also found a Spanish guy named Antonio. He was slightly drunk and so he was kinda out of it. But he wants to stop drinking and invited us over to see him again. That will be interesting. I hope that I can catch him early enough so that he's not drunk when we teach him.
4. For my next package, a couple of cookie mixes would be nice, but other than that whatever you guys feel is good. I like letters, so if you could get letters from Ben or Jordan or anyone that I know there it would be cool. If I have any special requests I'll let you know. (The $20 I had is now gone, because I lent it to a man who had an accident so that he could get his car towed to a shop.) So if I could get $10-20 that would be nice.
5. Conference rocked, I took a lot of notes, and so I liked parts of all of them. But since we went over Elder Christoffersons talk yesterday in church I've been thinking more about that. It was good. Receiving chastisement. Something we could all learn something from. 
6. At the moment we have about 6 investigators that we see off and on. They are really hard to find sometimes. But we have lots of potentials that we'll be seeing and finding this week, so that number should grow.
7. Elder Morrison and I get along very well. He is trunky, but he has a strong desire to work hard and accomplish stuff to strengthen the area as he leaves, so no worries there either. I'm slightly affected by his trunky-ness, but I'm focusing on the work here. I don't know if President Bunker will ask me to train, but there's always a chance with these last 3 transfers that I have.
8. I've been feeling good. Changing is a struggle. It always has, and it always will. I'm making progress as I try to make the best use of my time, and I don't always succeed, but I move forward, and I know that as I continue to strive, and inch my way forward, that I'll make it there. It reminds me of a story, when our young men's group went on the 50 mile canoeing trip. There was a point in the river where we stopped and made camp. It was late afternoon going towards the evening, and we went swimming, because we were all hot and tired from rowing all day. The river currant ran downstream at about 3 miles an hour, so we had a competition to see who could make it to the tower about 150 yards upstream. There were about 13 of us who jumped from the pier and started swimming. about 5 were swept back from the get go, and they gave up just as they began, the strongest swimmers made it there with little to no difficulty, but I think that I was one of the ones in the water the longest, because I just kept swimming against the currant, only inching my way up the river, it was so slow that Bro Wells our young men's president told me to give up. I told in in short breaths to forget it, and that I would make it. I was the last one out of 5 maybe 6 people who made it. So even though I was tired, even though it was difficult, I did it. If you put your mind to it, believe and have faith, and put your actions where your mouth is, then we can make miraculous things happen. I know that there are still blessings in store for me that I need to grow more to achieve, but I'm working hard, and making my way there.

So yeah. I'm doing well, and I'm happy with where I'm at and how I'm doing. I wish you all the best wishes, and pray that God will continue to watch over you and protect you.

Your Missionary,

Elder Richard Mackelprang