Asian Pastors, church of rock, Haitians and snow.

January 11th - 17th.

Monday - usual P-Day today. Nothing special, we planned, met a couple
people taught a lesson that was ca-bonkers, but we still had a
experience to take away from it.

Tuesday - today was a crazy, tiring day today. We where close in a
couple neighborhoods the whole day. We taught a lady on her porch and
that was pretty interesting. We had a lesson with a less active who
developed a terrible smoking habit over the years and we are now
teaching the addiction recovery program to her. We tracted into some
nice people that really want to learn and see what our lessons are
about. We had dinner with the Allan's and they are a really
cool, young family haha love being with them! I love hearing his
stories about the Air Force, his mission and just the member bonding.
Gonna miss them and their kids Remington and Gabriel when I leave
which hopefully won't be soon! haha

Wednesday - we had a great day today!! We met with Jean and he
accepted baptism!!!!! Holy smokes this is so exciting!! For March
5th!! Gosh this dudes lesson was amazing, spirit was so strong there
and we are just beaming with joy!
District meeting was cool, we all were clearly tired haha and Elder
Liljenquist was sick, so it wasn't the best but it was still well
planned and good. Pretty awesome day and I can't wait to see what the
rest of this week brings.

Thursday - today I was a complete spazz for a good portion of the day
haha I woke up, had breakfast and studies for 3 hours straight and I
just lost it haha I felt like a fat kid on a sugar high who just drank
coffee spiked with Red Bull haha I was ca-bonkers!! The elders have nerf
guns because some of the elders carry them on p days and sometimes we
have some crazy wars going on in the church. No one does them here in
Portsmouth... So in my lunch hour I made a big lunch and modified my
little nerf gun haha my mind was going 300 mph in a 45mph zone, I was
flying!!! After we released our cabin fever, we went to go teach Jean
again haha this dude is on fire for baptism! He's just doing great,
he's following all his commitments, being completely honest and he
shares stories about the earthquake in Haiti because he's a survivor of
that. He recognized that through his trials, he was guided here at this
point in time to know God better and that is what he's doing. He's
just fantastic haha we see him again Sunday. We went and did some
tracking where, my mind was racing again, and we tracted into a Asian
pastor of his own church and made my mind go from 300mph to a sudden
halt.... The stuff this dude was saying made absolutely zero sense...
He's from the church of "Rock".... So much nonsense that I questioned
where I was and I may or may not have started drooling, this dude was
just nuts... Elder Carlson said after that one, he almost questioned
if he was a boy or not haha. This Asian dude talked about God's kingdom,
how we are never going to make it there and how master Shifu will one
day see Jing Wae, train tigress, beat up Po, steal monkeys cookies and
have a tea party with Tilung.... This dude went on for about 20 min..
I literally felt 20 min of my life just pass by.. Kinda like Harry
Potter when the Dementors are sucking his face.... I'm pretty sure
that killed like 3 years off my life. But who cares, that's what makes
the mission haha ...and he took a book or Mormon lol score!! Anywho, we
went to Chris's house, a member, and just chatted about concerns he
had. Chris is in the coast Gaurd, a lot of people in Portsmouth are in
the coast Gaurd, why?? Because the base is right off the coast from us.
haha So he's hooking us up with some goodies haha love him. We then
went to a members home who, next week is gonna get us some bugs!
(Lobsters) I can't wait! This dude knows how to cook and I'm ready!!
Haha bugs and steak, his favorite!! After that, we spent the rest of
the night with the Gogans. Always a great place to wind down haha love
them. If my mind was a car, it would be the best performance car in
the world. It took quite the beating today. Wonder what will happen
tomorrow haha

Friday - Today was a day that we did a lot of finding and setting
stuff up with people. A lot of tracting and a dinner with some
members. Love their story and how the missionaries came into their
life at the right time. We then had an exchange with the Exeter Zone
Leaders, Elders Johnson and Young. Pretty simple day.

Saturday - The exchange went great, I was with Elder Young and we did
some tracting and we where able to see some members haha there are some
amazing people here in Exeter. Learned a lot and I was able to help
with some members needs. This morning we had 2 inches of snow. Elder
Young and I had to dig the car out and we came pretty close to
wrecking the cars. .. But the lord protected us and people even came
to help tow us out hahaha. The snow here is very moist and just like
Washington, it freezes, the snow turned to ice and melted and turned
into more ice.. Getting crazy and our cars may get grounded... We will
see... After that we went back to Portsmouth. Pretty good day, not to
shabby.

Sunday - Sunday was an interesting day. We went to meet some members
and an investigator came to church! So happy about that. We went to a
dinner with the Smiths and their story about their son is very heart
warming to know that they turned to God for the trials they endured.
Lots is changing and everything is getting better in time. People are
adjusting to change and getting a feel for it. In time things will
resolve. But a good day. Over night we got about 4 inches of powdery
snow! Kinda scared haha don't know what to expect!!

Elder Vogel