Driving to the church to skype mama!



Singing Christmas carols at the catholic food pantry



What?

Dec 19th - Dec 26th

Crazy week!!!
We started with Zone Conference in Yarmouth Maine with all Maine areas, right down to Portsmouth, so I got to see and talk to Elders Owens, Miskin and Wasilchen! All Spanish dudes! It was so awesome! It wasn't so much of a training, it was more of like an encouraging conference, we saw a family skit from the Blairs, we watched some clips, talked about some Christmas traditions and had a wonderful lunch from the members in Yarmouth. Afterwords we sang songs and then called it and we where able to hang out and talk with other missionaries for a couple hours. So nice! haha For dinner we went with Belfast and skowhegan and Machias elders to the Portland mall and had some Panda Express! A rarity here in New England. Then headed home.

We had another awesome lesson with Tristen. We talked about the restoration and we bore a solid, emotional testimony. We both had a solid confirmation that the Wiermen family will one day walk into the temple and be sealed. Awesome

Elder Iverson and I went down to Bangor for him to get some final stuff for going home and we ate at Chick Fil-A and talked and joked and got to know each other a little bit better. It always nice to spend a day and hang out with your comp.

We had another awesome day at the cow farm, the whole Bissell clan was there and we talked and worked and got dirty and smelly and the sisters made fun of me and all that fancy nasty and not so fancy stuff. haha

We also went down to Skowhegan with the Newport Elders and Faroles at a catholic food pantry place. It was pretty fun, we met some awesome people and sang lots of carols and brought Christmas spirit to these people. It was great being with good friends.

For Christmas, we were able to Skype home and I got to talk with my family. I love them and miss them so much! Then we went to Randy Dows' and had a awesome dinner with him and John Marshall also. In the middle of dinner Randy's kid chandler comes running in and says "we are stuck!" So we went outside and pushed and pushed sister Atwaters car out of 4 ft of snow... dang, then came inside and ate the rest if dinner haha

The weather here is cold. Doesn't get above 30 and a low of -15 or so with a crazy windchill. Good thing my clothes are pretty warm haha

Another crazy thing that happened this week....

When we where getting stuff in Bangor, we got a call from our financial advisor Elder Allen and said
"Do you elders remember the conversation we had last week about your apartment being closed?"
"Uhhh... no"
"Well, you're apartment is being closed at the end of the month.."
"Ohh"

So the elders here in Dover are being shut down. Elder Iverson goes home Thursday and I am being emergency transferred to Bar Harbor Maine. My new companion is Elder Boyle. Great guy! We leave Tuesday latest. Dang dang dang.

What a wild ride a mission is, one day you're having fun, teaching, doing your thing then the next, you're leaving in an instant, who knew haha never done this before but we have been spending all our time getting it cleaned up and ready.

It has been a crazy week but a good one.

My new Address is; 16 Blodgett Drive Bar Harbor, Maine 04609

love you all and Merry Christmas.

Elder Vogel

Winter in Maine   Dec 12th - Dec 19th


What a crazy week this was! Dang. We had a lesson with Tristen Wiermen. Tristan is kinda.. disabled, he's about late 30s early 40s and when he was younger, he had a stroke that pretty much ruined his life as it was. He's had to learn how to walk, write, and kinda talk, but we had a lesson about the Mormon message "good things to come" and the spirit that was in the room was truly amazing. Tristen could clearly feel the spirit and at the end of the lesson, he told us he wants to be baptized. AWESOME! Haven't had an experience like that before! Amazing!


After we had a.. interesting meet with a guy named... Cory. Cory is kinda.. off haha . He claimed he was in the marine corp and because of "to many head injuries" he got discharged and now he literally lives in some psych ward place.. but, he called us and wanted to do family history, so after getting on many tangents of him "Biting" people and fighting in his youth, some farts and some threats, we got some Info, and then left. Never to be seen again, what a experience. That's one of those moments when I look at my comp and we both agree that experiences like that are only on a mission hahah what a day.

District meeting was pretty good, we where asked to send in a video of something we loved about the Blairs, so we did. It was awesome, I'll send the video. After a great role play and friendly chat with Sister Turley, we had a powerful, and sad testimony by elder Iverson. It was his last one before he goes home, spirit was strong.


We went to skowhegan again because elder Iverson had his exit interview in Waterville, so we headed down and had a fabulous time. Skowhegan elders and I went into town to get some things, hang out, look at other clothes and to try and see some people then headed back to the church for Iverson. After his interview, many tears and me talking to the Blairs and getting to know the new sister missionary, we headed to the skowhegan wards Christmas party and talked and hung out, ate awesome food and watched a funny play, we called it a night.

Here in Dover we are surviving, we had a huge snow storm and we got about 3.5 ft of snow, scary stuff... then, it rained and froze over. So the roads that where clear, have been iced over. For church, we only had sacrament meeting because no one showed up for church, the roads were to dangerous and we have had our cars grounded and when we walk, we slide everywhere. The linger longer was canceled sadly, so we are having it on Jan 1st, it's gonna be awesome!

Elder Iverson had a great talk that pretty much talked about goal planning, shared some experiences from his mission and cried about going home. Even though there wasn't many people there, the spirit was clearly strong and able to testify to us all.

We did however manage to have a dinner with the Page family, they are awesome family, full of love, jokes and good food, my favorite! Landon, their son, had his girlfriend over, and she's from china, so she is living with them for a while until she returns home, but I guess she's going to school here, so idk haha but we loved it, loved talking to them and getting to know them better.


Merry Christmas Everyone.

Love Elder Vogel

it is winter in Maine

This week was pretty eventful also, can't believe how fast they go, dang.

We went to Skowhegan for PDay and we went and hung out down in Bangor, went to the mall, some other little stores and outlets to get some city life haha. We are too lonely in the sticks haha. Then we went back to e mail and still hung out. Because it was snowing, we stayed the night at their place and left Tuesday morning for home.

We didn't do to much on Tuesday because it was transfer day, so we did some "my plan', language study and planned a little bit and tried to see some people that fell through. Wednesday we had district meeting from Elder Kulkarni! He's the new district leader because Elder Iverson goes home mid transfer, and that means I'll get a new companion then, or if our linger longer ( a social right after church) busts, we both may be leaving and no one will return... idk what's gonna happen haha anyway, to continue with our day, we continued to do some more my plan and language study until choir. We did that, then Elder Iverson taught Book of Mormon class, where, it was pretty good and pretty spiritual. We talked about faith, hope and charity, how we can use them, how they are important and how Christ used them. Very awesome, we then called it good.

Thursday we got up and headed to a lady named Zha zha (recent convert of a year) and covered her windows with plastic. For those of you that don't know what that is, here in New England where winters are brutal and is known for freezing people next to their fireplaces, people buy rolls of thick plastic and nail them to the windows to keep the hot air inside.so we did that while it snowed, for 3 hours... just us... that's gonna change. haha Afterwards we came home and grabbed a couple things and tried to see more people. No love  (see the video)

Friday we planned and planned some more for this linger longer we  are having, talked with the sisters and we are all trying to catch sister Hawes up to speed haha side note - sister Hawes and I flew out together, it's pretty awesome serving with another member of my flight group, especially when there wasn't very many of us! Haha anyway, afterwards we headed to the church and we helped prepare Thomas Atwaters baptism. It was  suppose to start at 6 and we got there at about 5:45 and no one was there and the font had not been touched.... you can guess how it went, we started at about 6:45 or so.. Mormons haha anyway, after that fiasco we called it a day.

Saturday we had another expedition at the cow farm. It was sister Hawes first time! I remember my first time lol I was scared out of my mind, so was she lol Elder Iverson and I were the cow wranglers. We went out and fed them, then to the stalls to get milked, pretty simple right? Nope.. as we where filling it up, a newer cow jumped right in and squeezed herself in, one to many.... and she was just glaring at us.. classic, so, we had to get her out.. fabulous haha so we smacked her leg with our smacking stick to get her out, then when she got out she panicked, rolled back (how cows do that, i'm not sure) and slipped and ate straight pavement.. heard that slap across the barn, then the other cows that where done where yelling and screaming, why? Because there where about 80 cows stuffed into a 50 cow holding grounds... awesome, so we let them out and they charged to the barn, slipping and sliding and humping and all that good stuff, all the way home... no me gusta bacas... me gusta caballos.. anywho, that's the exciting news about our Saturday.


Sunday was good, it was a spiritual day, the messages where centered around the temple and I honestly love the temple.

I can't even express my love for the temple, last time I went was with Elder Espinoza like 4 transfers ago! I'm due to go again! Dang! Well... I hope I can go sometime.. soon.. well on with my day, we went to second hour and third just getting people to sign up for our linger longer and we had a surprisingly great sign up! Super proud of them! Afterwards we cleaned the apartment because it was... bad haha oops, so we cleaned and waited until Skowhegan elders got here and we called it.


This week has been cool, I've been pretty happy and pretty excited for the linger longer, we are getting great results, I can see the lord working miracles here. Amazing! And a special thanks to everyone that sent me Christmas packages! I love them so much and I hope you all also have a great Christmas! :)

Love, Elder Vogel

singing at the branch Christmas party

Why don't you know the words to Frosty the snow man.

The poor cow that fell

Nov 29th - Dec 5th

So for Monday we went down to Skowhegan and had another exchange, we stayed for 3 nights. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night haha elder Kulkarni and I went and talked to guy named Pedro, who speaks Spanish! I talked to him for a little bit, loved it. Love speaking Spanish! After, we tried and hit potentials then we went back home and did some studies for the rest of the time.
Next day was more work, more finding, and we didn't feel to good AND we got snow. No good

Wednesday we had our last district meeting of the transfer. Transfer calls were this week and I'm staying in Dover for another 6 weeks! Kinda saw it coming, Elder Iverson and I are also still together! Pretty awesome!

After district meeting we went and helped set up for our Branch Christmas party, we did that for 3 days, all day. Elder Iverson and I made a ton of snowflakes and a ton of stockings for it, sister Atwater seemed very upset about the short notice and little planning, but she asked us for help and we where able to help as best we can! All of us, elders, sisters and her family members where going crazy with all the prep! And, it sure payed off.

On Saturday we had it at 1 o'clock. (Weird time right?) and we had more people come to the Christmas party then there were at sacrament meeting! How awesome! It went great, we had tons of great food, lights, games, music, all the fancy stuff! I think I got s video I'll send.

After the Christmas party was over, we went to the barn to help out brother Bissell at his dairy farm. We got there and we didn't want to get in the nasty pit and milk, so we decided to help him with other things. We went and fixed a lock on a gate, then herded some cows out of the barn to the milking parlor and then we got to... wait for it... we assisted in mating a couple that where in heat.... HOLY SCARY! I don't care who you are, but when you are wide shouldered and tall and it's dark and there's a horny momma cow behind you just glaring at ya, you tend to poop yourself in absolute fear... I was on extreme caution, nope nope! After that little experience we went again to the baby calves and fed and played with them, then went to help the crippled cows get milked.. We where watching one (who was using only 3 legs) gonna go and jump up in the stall and get milked, well, she jumped, and fell.. hard.. the loud wailing and loud howling after you heard a snapping sound was terrible... this 1400 lbs cow was.. immovable. But, Brodie the wonder dog got her up, we milked her, and she went and laid down when she went back to her little corner, poor thing. Never heard something like that in my life, scary..

Sunday was very spiritual. We had fast and testimony meeting and shared that sister Mortimer was leaving. She went up and thanked the Branch for all their hard work and effort, after she spoke, sister Atwater got up and shared a story of her daughter that's on a mission and then, was emotional because of the gratitude she had that we where here right now. It was amazing, especially because she's a missionary mom, I got up and shared about my family and how much I missed them and how much of a sacrifice a mission is and how grateful we are to feel loved by someone in the area we serve.

What an eventful week, doesn't seem like much, but it made a wonderful impact on me and my mission. We currently have about 6 inches of snow, and it's still falling. But, I know that we will be protected, I also know that because we are staying here in Dover, that someone needs us, and we are going to try and find them.


I love you all, thanks for all you do!

Elder Vogel