Email received December 16, 2013

Hello Family!

Once again I hope that you all had a great week! Elder Hillebrant and I have had a couple of rough weeks on Tuesday we had to drive up to the mission office because someone keyed the side of our car really bad. We had to go to a shop and get an estimate of how much it would cost to replace it. After that we went to Specialized Training. We took a picture after and it's up on the mission blog. Most of us look retarded because the sun is right in our face! I look double retarded because I just got a fresh haircut. Anyway, the specialized training was about using our time wisely and using the Lord in our planning efforts. It was awesome. I wish you guys could meet President Pingree. He is so amazing and a great teacher. He also would make a great comedian.

The reason this was a hard week is because everything fell through! There was one appointment that we had that didn't fall through. It was with Michael on Wednesday, but I was on exchanges so I missed it. haha. I went on an exchange with Elder Hamelau. Who is a Spanish missionary. One of the appointments we went to was really cool because I understood like half of what was said. Of course I didn't really have any input but oh well. haha. At least I can bear my testimony in Spanish. We went to an old lady's house that someone told Elder Hamelau to go visit. It was such a cool experience. She's in her 80's and has been told repeatedly that she could go any day. We talked for about an hour about the gospel and she bore her testimony to us of it. We gave her a blessing and it was awesome. The Plan of Salvation is so great. She shared an experience that she had that goes along with something in her Patriarchal blessing. I won't share it because it's kind of personal and I don't wanna put her story all over the internet haha. It was just a great experience.

On Thursday we went over to Gilbert's house and watched The Testaments with him and his wife. I'm sure most of you have seen it but it's probably been awhile since you last saw it. I encourage you to watch it again. It's great and very spiritual. On Saturday our zone went to do some service at the Houston Food Bank. We were surprised that it got approved because it was outside of the mission. It's in the East Mission! So I was in Shayla's mission for about 4 hours! It was great. We put boxes of food into trucks and then we made bags of oranges in the preparation room. At the end they tell you how many pounds of food that the volunteers collectively loaded and prepared. That morning we loaded 18,000 boxes! It was great fun. Other than that our week was pretty disappointing. Full of dropped appointments and hundreds of wasted miles going to those appointments. haha. I guess I shouldn't say that miles are wasted. haha. I did get a letter from a great friend this week so I was very excited about that :) Yesterday we got a new Ward Mission Leader in the Melbourne ward. He's young and he's very excited and motivated. Hopefully we will get to see some improvement in the ward effort. We are really excited. Although Elder Hillebrant is probably out this next transfer. He's been here 7 months! I finally had my first correlation with the Ward Mission Leader. haha. Well that's it for this past week. Sorry there wasn't much to report about. I've heard a lot about friends deciding to go on a mission. I'm proud of them and I know that they won't regret it. I love you all!

love, Elder Steed

Email received December 9, 2013

Dear Family,

I hope you all had a great week. Mine was pretty good. Last Monday we played Frisbee with most of our zone and that was really fun. Tuesday we had 3 really great lessons. The first was with a man named John. We reviewed what the Apostasy was and why a Restoration was needed. Then we watched the Restoration DVD. That lesson format has been working well for us. It's hard for people to understand the whole Apostasy/Restoration/Priesthood concept and that lesson plan has been working well for us. He said he now has some reading and praying to do.

We later met with a lady named Paula. It was my first time having a lesson with her. We almost dropped her a bunch of times and she is now working from home. So we should be able to visit her more often. We read the BofM with her and touched on the importance of church. She said she was gonna come but she didn't :( it's really frustrating.

We had another lesson with Laura this week. And it was awesome. We talked about The Gospel of Jesus Christ. After Elder Hillebrant taught baptism, I told her that as missionaries we have prayerfully considered a date for her to be baptized, the 28th. She said she wants to be but she was a little confused. She thought that it would mean being committed to do what we as missionaries do. This is why it's so important to have members come to lessons. So they know that we are normal people. She said the only obstacle is she likes the church she goes to and the people there and would miss them. She understands that this church is that one lord, one faith, one baptism stated in Galatians 4:5. She said she would be coming to church, but she didn't come. That means that her baptismal date has to be pushed back because she has to go to church at least 3 times before she can be baptized.

On Wednesday we were finally able to meet with Carlos again. We touched on the Apostasy and watched the Restoration DVD. It was a great lesson. It's just that his same gender attraction is a big obstacle. At the end, he wanted his family to come in the room and hear him pray so that they can see that his faith is growing. His family is Catholic and he has been atheist most his life. His family isn't very supportive so he wanted them to hear him pray. It was cool. We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday and the Christmas devotional yesterday and no investigators came :(. I can't possibly tell you how frustrating it is when they don't come after saying they will. Oh well, that's part of the work. Well there is a little update. Hope you all have a great week and stay safe! Love you all!

Love

Elder Steed

Temple trip number dos!

I told him I'd take a cool picture for him.

Ugly Faces R Us

Best Buds. We have way too much fun.

cool accident photo. Looks like it should be in a magazine!

Productive Companion Study

Typical dinner with bbq chicken, veggies, and pizza.

P-day frisbee!

Email received December 2, 2013

Hello Family,

This week was pretty interesting. Unfortunately we weren't able to have our lesson with Laura this week :( but we have one scheduled with her tomorrow! Some sisters in our zone gave us a referral for this lady that they had pretty much already taught everything to. She is very interested but wants her family to be interested in it as well. So we went over there and taught her whole family! We weren't sure what they had been taught so we just watched the Restoration DVD and answered questions. It was awesome. That was pretty cool. 3 new 'gators! We were able to finally meet with Michael again. Maybe you still remember who that is or maybe not. He is like the biggest homie ever. He's this huge, buff black guy that is just the coolest guy ever. We met with him twice this week. we read the book of mormon with him and got him interested in it again. Later on in the week we watched the Restoration DVD with him and were able to clearly explain the Restoration and Priesthood authority. It's actually a hard thing to get people to understand the claim we are making that this is the one true church. We committed him to come to church but he didnt come :( its frustrating. haha. Well, as far as appointments go, that's all we had. All the other ones fell through. It was pretty discouraging. We did have a couple of miracles happen this week though.

So here's one miracle that happened this week. We decided to go street contacting on a street where there is usually a lot of people. Before we got out of the car, we prayed that the Lord would place someone in our path that is prepared to hear our message. Well, we walked around for about an hour and a half and talked to everyone that we saw. It was pretty much the worst street contacting session that I've had. People were really rude and it was just not fun at all. Well we were on our way back to our car and we were passing by an apartment complex. We were almost back to our car when we heard "Hey Mormons!" and it was some lady sitting on the balcony of her apartment. We walked around so that we could go inside the complex so that we could find her. We asked how she knew who we were and she said that her an used to go to a mormon church and that she used to go with her (she was about 8 at the time). Turns out she went to the same building and the same ward that I am currently serving in like 25 years ago. We asked if we could come teach her family and she said yes. We got her number and we have her address so we will try to contact her this week. It was truly a miracle. We prayed that we could contact someone who the Lord put in our path but someone contact us! It was awesome! I know that it wasn't a coincidence that we walked by at that time.

Well there's a little update. The work is going well and we have some awesome investigators that we feel are prepared. Unfortunately, sometimes peoples agency gets in the way and they don't do the things that we've committed them to do. It can be really frustrating and discouraging at times, but I'm having a blast! I hope you all have a great week and I hope to hear from friends and family soon! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Steed 

Email received November 25, 2013

Hello there!

I hope that everyone was able to have a great week! Mine was not the best haha. It started off with a bed bug problem. So last Monday we found out we had bed bugs. Some people at the mission office gave us this chemical called Permethrin. We basically had to spray everything with it. Our mattresses, box springs, sheets, carpet, walls, clothes, everything. We ended up having a lot more than we thought. There were some blankets covering the window next to Elder Hillebrant's bed and we found a bunch wehen we took them down. I was relieved when I saw that they were mostly by his bed. But then we looked under the lip of my mattress. Yeah, horrifying. so gross. So we ended up having to spray EVERYTHING and vacuum soooo much. It basically took us two whole days! Then on Wednesday and Thursday I was sick, so that wasn't fun.

One really cool thing that happened this week happened last Monday. We knew all day that when we got back to our apartment we would have to try to get rid of the bed bug problem. We were dreading it all day and kind of just putting it off. When we got back to our apartment we said a kneeling prayer to help us to have a better attitude and to know what to do to get rid of the problem so that it wouldn't be a hindrance to our missionary work anymore. Well it was really cool because something that we had been dreading and had been in such a bad attitude about ended up being fun! The Spanish Elders came and helped us and we had a blast! We worked until midnight and then set up fans to dry our mattresses. We slept in the other missionaries apartment that night and the next day started working again. We started finishing the process and cleaning our apartment at 10 and didn't stop until 5:30! We think that we were able to get rid of them all! (fingers crossed).

We were able to have another lesson with Laura this past week. It was by far the coolest lesson I've been in yet! We taught her the Plan of Salvation and it was cool to see how it answered questions that she had. She had just read the first half of Genesis so Adam and Eve were fresh in her mind. It was cool because we were able to explain to her WHY the fall happened, what it means that it happened, and how it fits into God's plan. We were also able to do the same thing with the Atonement. She knew what they were and what they mean but she didn't really understand why they had to happen. The Plan of Salvation is so cool because it teaches us why things happen. She's a very christian woman and it was cool to show her the plan. She was completely blown away by it! It was so cool! I'm glad that the gospel has been restored and that we had a way to learn God's complete plan for us. We are working on getting her to come to church. I think that she is hesitant to come and to read and pray because she has a fiance that is not interested in God at all. And she is afraid that if she came to a knowledge that these things are true then she would have to end things with him. We also had a pretty cool dinner appointment with Gilbert and his family this week. We talked about temples the whole time and he is excited and is preparing himself to go to the temple with his wife. After he has been baptized for a year, Elder Hillebrant and I will still be in the mission so we will have to chance to go with them to get their endowments and to be sealed! That would be great!

Well there is a brief rundown of my week. I hope that you all have a great week and a happy Thanksgiving! Eat tons of food for me! Also, here are some pictures! Love you all!

love,
Elder Steed

1. A kinda cool picture near downtown Houston
2 and 3. All four of us with our Permethrin bottles spraying everything! Die bugs!
4. Our soaked mattresses. We had fans on them all night!
5. Me with a cute puppy. Although we think it might have problems since it's dad is it's mothers son. haha. :(
6. Senior Missionaries, Elders, The Smiths, and Sister missionaries after Gospel Principles.
7. Minute maid park from a distance haha. It's actually in the South mission :(

Email received November 18, 2013

Hola, Yo naci en una pupusa.

So there is a set of spanish missionaries that live in the same apartment complex as us. They are really cool and we are all really good friends. I've been practicing my Spanish with them and like to say really random things to them. (hence the introduction) haha. So this week I went on another exchange with a spanish missionary so I got to learn even more. On Saturday (with my normal companion) I bore a simple testimony in spanish to a guy we tracted into. I did the missionary intro in Spanish and he said that he was a christian. I said "creemos en Jesucristo tambien y que El es el hijo de Dios y el salvador de todo el mundo. Yo se que el libro de mormon y la biblia es la palabra de Dios y que podemos orar para que sober que las cosas son verdad." It probably isn't completely correct but it was pretty cool. We were able to get his number and give it to the Spanish missionaries!

Yes I got both a jacket and some sweater vests. Thank you! If the gift cards you are referring to are Whataburger and Luby's then yes I got them. Thank you so much! The Whataburger sure ran out fast. Hopefully we can go to Luby's sometime in the near future!

I'm sorry to hear about your face, that sounds not fun. I have some bad news too. We have bed bugs. Those suckers are nasty and I've read up a lot about them. They can withstand lots of things. punks. We're going to talk to people at the mission office today to see what we can do about them. I'm sad that you got to eat dinner with those Elders. They are so cool and I miss them a lot! I was wondering how Elyssa was doing when I heard about the storm last Monday. Hope she is doing well :) Henry's story is so cool, I really had no idea until mom told me he got baptized haha. I didn't even know he was taking the lessons.

This past week we had another really awesome lesson with Laura. She just gets it. She is continuing to meet with us and is now interested in reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. She understands that if she finds out that it's true, that this is the only true church and that she couldn't go to anyother churches anymore. She said that to us without us even telling her that. It was really cool. She also was expressing interest in going to church. Unfortunately she wasn't able to make it. I know she had a big weekend this week with a birthday party and some other things so maybe that was why she wasn't able to make it. We are meeting with her again on Tuesday  and maybe we can get a picture so I can show you guys what she looks like.

We were finally able to meet with Renee again. Remember when I had emailed about her? We lost contact with her for a long time. Well we were supposed to meet with her but her husband wasn't home so we had to schedule another time when he would be home. Well when we went there her husband sat in on the lesson and is now interested in reading the Book of Mormon and taking the lessons. We are working on getting him a bigger copy of the BofM so that he can see it. We are meeting with them tonight! Hopefully that goes well!

Well that is a little rundown of what happened this week! Also I am no in my second transfer! I am staying put. Crazy I've been gone for 8 weeks! Thanks for sharing that dad. We actually have been listening to those lectures and listened to that part with Brigham Young. We listen to a lot of talks while in the car. We listened one by John Bytheway the other day where he mentions when someone asks Joseph Smith who he is and he replies "Noah came before the flood. I have come before the fire." John then goes on to say something along the lines of "can you imagine being the one who asked him that? what would you say after that? Ok thank you." hahaha I guess you just have to hear him say it.

Hope you all have a great, safe week!

Love,
Elder Steed


[from papa steed: below is translation from Nate's Spanishing in this letter:

Hola, Yo naci en una pupusa. [Hello, I was born in a pupusa]

Creemos en Jesucristo tambien y que El es el hijo de Dios y el salvador de todo el mundo. Yo se que el libro de mormon y la biblia es la palabra de Dios y que podemos orar para que sober que las cosas son verdad.  [We believe in Jesus Christ as well and that He is the Son of God and the Savior of all the world. I know that the Book of Mormon and the Bible are the word of God and that we can pray in order to know that these things are true.]

Email received November 11, 2013

Hello family,

I hope you are all doing well. I got 2 packages! Thanks for the shirts!! and thanks (shay) for the package! I love the bags of Flipz and I'm going through them so fast haha. And thank you for the music! That must have taken forever but I'm glad that I have it and it will be put to good use! The blog is pretty sweet. We are allowed to go on it as well so that is pretty fun haha. Sister Koch is pretty cool. She is in my area and she played volleyball! So we usually pepper every Monday! Sounds like Henry's baptism was awesome! Tell him I said congrats and that I miss him.

So guess what I had the privilege of doing today?? I got to teach seminary haha. We had to wake up at 4:40 to get ready to go to the church. There class is from 5:40 to 6:20 and we taught about 2 Nephi 26. It was alright. I just don't know how you do this everyday, dad. I mean it's hard enough to get up everyday to go but it's a whole different thing to get up to go and to teach to these kids. Man, it's like talking to a brick wall. haha that's alright though. It was an interesting experience.. haha. Hopefully it's not an indication for the future...

So this week was pretty good. On Wednesday we had exchanges. There are only 2 english elders in our zone because our area is so densely hispanic. So I got to go our with Elder Valdez and listen to people speak Spanish all day and try to guess what they were saying haha. Sometimes I actually knew what they were talking about so that was pretty cool. Ensenamos un mensaje sobre la restaruacion del evangelio de Jesucristo. I got to say that a lot on Wednesday haha. So other than that we had some pretty cool lessons this week. One was with Laura, I think I have written about her before. She is awesome and the lessons we have with her are really powerful. We watched the 20 min Restoration DVD and the Spirit was really strong. She said that she feels like she is in the situation of Joseph Smith and that she needs to find out. We got a soft commitment from her (she will be baptized if she comes to know these things are true). We are meeting with her again this Thursday! I'm excited! We had a lesson with Gilbert this week (recent convert). We set a time for him to go to the temple to do baptisms and he is really excited about that. We also talked to him about getting the priesthood and that he could baptize his kids when they get old enough. He was really excited about that. He was able to get the Aaronic priesthood yesterday. It was really cool to be there for that. We had a lesson with a man named John. We taught him the Restoration and it went really well. Hopefully we can meet with him again soon. Last week I wrote about Carlos. We are still meeting with him and are trying to work around that road block. We are planning to have a lesson with him where the bishop can be the member present. We figure that's something that he could better address than us haha.

Thanks for the quote from President Eyring! It's a good one! I hope that you all have a fantastic week. I will be thinking of you everyday. Love you!

Love,
Elder Steed

Pictures:
1. Bro Elders
2. Crazy drunk guy that we talked to. He said we can visit him, although he probably won't remember us haha.
3. A drawing that a LA girl drew for me!