Email from March 21, 2011

Hey Family

Another week come and gone. Just about to hit the 17th month mark.. But who is counting?? This day today is the first day of spring. Hallelujah. To bad it is still pretty cold out side. This weeks weather has actually been really good. Today is bad and snowy again. I figure probably like 2 or 3 more bad weeks then it will get way better! Well I hope at least...

This has been a miserable week! All week I just wish I could watch basketball! I had set people who would give us updates. It is great. I am stoked to see how BYU is doing. It looks like this game against Florida may be the toughest until the final four. Just imagine what could be happening with Davies on the floor! It could be some good stuff. I am excited to see what happens. We all made brackets, and I am definitely the most into basketball in the district.. Yet I am not doing so good. Just goes to show you that anything can happen in Basketball!

Besides March Madness, the week has been a trying week. We were supposed to have lots of good things happening, Yet it seemed like every time that we were supposed to pull up to a lesson with a non-member, they would call and cancel. We had a good sum of those this week.. That is real annoying. But hopefully this new week can be fresh and only good things will happen!! Hopefully..

The baptism with Naomi this Saturday is still good to go. It will be at 4 o clock. This is a really neat baptism that will happen. A couple of missionaries that were serving up here when I first got to the mission are coming back up to see it. That will be funny to see them. We are going to pick up the information on who is doing what in the program tonight, and we will make the programs tomorrow.. Exciting. Maybe I will send one home.

As for the baptisms on April 2nd. We don't know what is happening right now. We pray that they will happen. But we can't get a hold of them and they didn't show up at the lesson on Saturday, or to church on Sunday. So it may have to get pushed back. We aren't sure. We just hope to get a hold of them soon...

The new investigators we are teaching, Mike and Noel are way awesome. They ended up getting tied up this weekend so they weren't able to meet with us or come to church. We are suppose to set up another lesson with them today for possibly tomorrow. We will see what happens. We are working with them for the 2nd of April. At the beginning of last lesson. Mike came out and said that he doesn't see it happening and that he didn't want to give up coffee. We just said, ok lets do the lesson and talk about those things. By the end of the lesson the spirit was super strong and we resolved his concerns with being baptized that quick. He said he would love to do that, but was reliant on the wife to do it together. She isn't quite as ready so we will work with her.. He also said that giving up Coffee wouldn't be that bad! haha the Spirit is awesome. Definitely softens peoples hearts!

Me and my companions are doing great. We get along good. We are really trying hard to follow the spirit and talk to everyone!

Good things are happening in our area.. I can't believe that I have already been in this area for almost 4 1/2 months. I am guessing that I will be transferred on April 6th. But I am not sure yet.. We will see what happens.

Well I am super sick of typing so I am going to finish this up. I love you all and miss you.

Love Elder Dastrup

Email from March 14, 2011

This week I am definitely going to be asking a member to print off a NCAA tournament bracket... I heard BYU got a #3 seed. Which is awesome. I never remember them getting higher than a 7 seed. But they could have even gotten higher if they would have be SDSU..

I bet the boys were loving that tournament. I was thinking about it like every day. Hopefully they can keep it up so I have something to look forward to when I get home... I don't know if it is my imagination, but it sure seems like the sports world gets a whole lot more hyped up once I left.... That is too bad! It will just make me love it that much more once I get home.. I have been out a good 16 1/2 months now. Wow. It is weird seeing everybody in the mission that I know go home..

This week has been a really good one. We have been working really hard on finding new investigators and starting them right... We found two new investigators this week. The guy was taught in 2005 for a couple weeks then avoided the missionaries. So we went over there and invited him and his new wife to take the lessons. They were happy with that. They then came to church and loved it. They didn't accept a baptismal date just yet. But close. He didn't want to 'commit' just yet. But we think that he and his wife will get on that path very soon. The date we are hoping for is the 2nd of April. Their names are Mike and Noelle. They are way awesome though. I believe the Lord has been preparing them for quite some time!

Naomi is still on track for the 26th of March. She is so awesome. She is such an example to all of us.. We taught her a fun matching game with all the commandments this last week and now we only have a couple more lessons with her!

Trey and Trinity are our other baptismal dates. For April 2nd or 3rd. We don't know which one it is going to be yet. We meet with them tomorrow. They are pretty solid.

We also taught a new investigator named Nancy this last week. She just moved to our area not to long ago. She was taught by some other missionaries. When we taught her, she had tons of interesting questions. But after we taught her, she told us that this stuff had never made so much sense to her in her life.. But it was awesome to help her and see the spirit work on her!!!

It has been pretty tough having two companions this transfer. It gives us all a little less time to be able to say what we want to say in lessons. But it is good. We are learning a lot from each other.. There is always things that we can help each other improve on so. that is good. Our apartment needs a good clean every week.

It is way more fun tracting a little with three of us, because we can play games and stuff while we do it. It is pretty ballin. We have a pretty good time doing it!

This week for p day we are probably going to play hockey again. It is fun, but I am ready to play some basketball again! I can't wait to get home and get back in descent shape to be able to play some basketball!

I dont really know what else to say, but i love you all and miss you a ton.

Love Elder Dastrup

Email from March 7, 2011

Family

Yo what is up eh??

It is still freezing up here. It has been like the coldest week of my life, every single day it is like -25 Degrees or colder. It is ridiculous. This week it is supposed to get a little bit warmer. But in Canada, nobody really knows if that is true or not. So tracting this week was killer. The whole time we just wanted to go back to the truck. Our face kept getting numb. I was wearing a ear warmer and a beanie. And i was still cold. Ridiculous. But it is almost over. HALLELUJAH... I can't wait for it to be not cold anymore..

So this was a rough week in the sports world. Everyday I was hearing about something else that wasn't good. First of all D Will is gone and I don't know what to think about that. But Dad you made me a little bit happier with filling me in on the details. Then for Brandon Davies, that's to bad. But hopefully things will work out for him. It is a rough time to lose him in the season, but it is good that BYU is sticking to what they believe. To much, in the world today does stuff just get shoved under the table. But hopefully some how over time, he will be able to get put back on the team.. What ranking did BYU drop to after losing to New Mexico?

Then finally it is to bad Timpview didn't do better in the playoffs. I was thinking about them all week long. One of the other missionaries that is right next to me when to Bountiful so we have been beaking at each other all week. I guess he gets the last laugh this time... Hopefully BYU can pull it together for the MWC championship though. They gotta win that to get a descent seed for the NCAA tournament.

Dad or Dusty or Shawn or somebody can you email me a bracket when the NCAA tournament gets all filled out. Then I will fill it out and probably get them all right!

So this week in the missionary work was really good. We set two more baptismal dates with ten year olds. So we have three right now!

1 on the 26th of March and 2 on April 2nd. Which is general conference. So that will be fun. Have conference, then baptize someone, then conference again! What better day can you have!

Naomi, which is one of the 10 year olds, (march 26th) Got up in church on Sunday and announced her baptism and invited everybody. It was awesome. There will be a lot of people there so that will be fun..

Trey and Trinity, which are the twins we set baptismal dates for, were supposed to come to church with there dad. But something must have happened because they weren't able to come. i don't know exactly what happened. We will be working with them to get the church attendance thing more consistent! So we are all getting really excited about that.

While we were tracting yesterday in the -30 weather we were able to set up like 3 or 4 more return appointments for next weekend. So hopefully that can go somewhere. We are really making sure and working hard right now to talk to everyone and work really hard. This area is so close to having so many good things happen. We are right on the verge, So I don't want to get transferred thinking I could have done better. My comps and I are getting along really good. We are on the right track. It is really hard getting used to teach with 2 companions. But we are getting the hang of it. it is fun stuff. Gotta love it.

Well we are going to head out and do some fun p day things. so I will talk to you all next week. Love you and miss you all!

Love Elder Dastrup

Email from February 28, 2011

Family..

So it is the last day of February and also my 16 month mark.. 2/3 of the way completed. How crazy is that. It is weird how time works. Especially on a mission. hmmm.. It still feels like I have forever left though! So this week has been interesting. Transfers came and went and nothing happened to our companionship, or so we were thinking. On Thursday afternoon we got a call from the assistants to the president informing us that we have a new companion. Elder Hendershot. So there is three of us now. I guess he got put with a companion that neither of them could drive. Long story short they switched things up and he came with us! So we will be in a three leg for the next little while now! It will be good. The elder that was put with us has been known in the past for not being the hardest worker. But so far he has expressed that wants to be a hard worker and everything is all good! So I am excited to be able to get to work.

Mom, no we didn't have a baptism last week hah, I don't know where that info came from. I think we might have been working towards that day with a family way back, but that got moved a long time ago! Sorry. We set a baptismal goal of four for the month of march. Hopefully that can go somewhere and we will reach our goals.

We got news this morning that Elder Christofferson from the quorum of the 12 is coming to our mission on march 12th, how sweet is that!!! That is two in a year! So sweet. I can't wait. That will give everyone a boost..

Our investigators are doing pretty good. Blake came to church this Sunday! Even without his mom so that is good. I don't know how much he liked it but he stayed all three hours. We had about 5 lessons set up with Blake and Stephanie but they all got cancelled. One thing after another.

We are going to try again for tomorrow. The problem is that she works when it snows and it is supposed to snow everyday this week. Good news, it is only -22 degrees today. So not that bad. We are going to play street hockey though... so we will be outside. I can't wait for the warm weather in Provo Utah! crazy.

Mom I have been meaning to ask you, we have been talking about people over 100, and I wanted to ask about Helen Cragun and how she is doing!

We should be picking up like 3 or 4 new investigators this week. All 10 year olds. hahah. It will be sweet to work with the families to get them back to church! Awesome.

I am out! gotta go play some hockey. I love you all. Miss you!

Love Elder Dastrup

PS Terrible news about Derron Williams. I was so sad when I heard that. The jazz better pick up Jimmer! Go cougs.