Email from 07/27/10 - 9 month Mark

Hello Family how is it going?

This has been a wonderful week here in Lethbridge.... I love my area so much, to bad it was my last week here. I am now on my way to Calgary. I willl be just about as far north in Calgary as I can. A town called Airdrie, I cover part of a place called Ballsak!!!!!!!!!! pronounced Ball zack.... but i dont know who named that place!

I do love the area I am in, but I am always excited for changes. My new companions name is Elder Graham. I never have met the guy. But we will have to see how it is. I am staying District Leader and I enjoy the position so I am excited about that!

As for this week, it has been awesome, We have worked pretty dang hard and we have more positive things that have come from it!

1. We taught 20 lessons this week ( our weekly goal was met )

2. We gave 4 7 Day Challenges ( our goal is 2 a week )

3. We kept Daily Contact with our investigators with baptismal dates (met the goal)

4. We had two investigators come to church.

5. I got to play basketball with Corey Gleave and Kurt Maccleanen (Next door neighbor to Austin)

6. I walked probably like 20 + miles this week. Way to much. ( my goal is to never walk.)

7. Now i am being transferred and I am leaving 2 people with dates, and several more Solid investigators. good news is that my new area i am going has had like 10+ baptisms in the last two months. Hopefully there will still be someone there for me to baptize!

I have really enjoyed serving with elder Green. It has been a good experience for me and i have learned quite a bit from him. I am sad i cant live with the pitchers any more. They are the coolest people in the world but i am way excited because i hear the new family i live with is like everybodys favorite! But i dont know if they can match the pitchers, probably not!

I almost started packing a couple days ago because i felt like i was going to be transferred today, but i decided i would just wait, it will probably only take like a half hour anyways.

Mother Congrats on being released as the president. When ever i tell people about my fam, i always bring up how you are a RS pres and how you are the best one in the world. I bet you are glad to be moving on though. Having seen you doing something with it every single day for like 4 years, I know that you definitely worked hard. Good news is that i dont EVER have to be a RS president. I am positive everyone is so sad to see you not be the president anymore. But life goes on and now you get to swim whenever you want!

DBoney! you the man, the mini is finally done! 3 years? not to shabby. I plan on taking it for a test drive in 15 months so dont sell it. Send some pics of it! I bet you crapped your pants when you turned the key and it started..... I am excited for you though. So cool.

Mom i havent gotten mail yet but i should get it all tomorrow at transfers so i should get it then. hopefully the mold hasnt started. I love banana bread.. Did you guys recieve my package yet? there wasnt really anything good in it sorry. But i promise i will get one out soon with pictures and everything. I just need to start taking pictures, that is all. :) I will get it done!

So just an update on how much weight i am gaining! not much actually. I am doing descent. i could do better and i hope that my new comp likes to work out so it gets me goin again. As of this mornign i weight 178. So about 5 pounds since i have been out. Not to bad but not good either. lately members havent been giving dessert like every night so that is a good thing!

You guys are the best family in the whole world. I love everyone of you so much. Thank you for everything you do for me. I Love you...

Love Elder Dastrup

Email from July 5th, 2010

How be it?

Another week come and gone. This was a good one. We have lots of positive stuff goin on now! It was really a week of blessings. It was very nice to be apart of that and have very few things go wrong. The Lord always blesses as long as we are doing what we should, it might just take a little time sometimes...

This week we have picked up several new investigators. Set a SOLID baptismal date for august 20th, he is going to be out of town for 3 1/2 weeks until then, so that is why it is so far away. His name is dominique. I am so stoked. Only bad this is that the next transfer is july 28th so i might be gone. But regaurdless i am so excited. His dad is way against it. And I definitely had to push him to ask (tell) his dad he is going to be baptized. but he finally did it and he has no regrets. he is so excited. He has three younger brothers and sisters that want to be baptized as well. But we will see what happens with them.

We are still working with lori and shawn. We cant set a specific date right now , it is a very long process and i can almost garuntee that it wont happen while i am here so we just continue to teach and wait until the bishop oks everything.

We have been giving challenges around the ward that are 7 day challenges.. It is a very spiritual lesson that gets them really excited about missionary work (or scared) but the ultimate goal from it is to find somebody for us to teach in the following seven days. our goal as a mission is to do 2 a week and eventually do like 10 a week. the most i have ever gotten is 6 and it was the hardest week yet. But that is where almost all our contacts come from and all our refferrals. So it is definitely something that needs to be done. Just if we could get people to have appointments with us............I just need Dana to come up here and schedule appointments for me and keep me busy! \

The latest family we have done a 7 day challenge with is the Varty's. it is day six today and they will have somebody for us to teach tomorrow. They are pretty cool! they got me a tie from china! yeah dog..

So it sounds like you guys are all having a wonderful 4th of july week. Good news is that me and my comp got the hamiltons (another sweet family in the ward) to sing the star spangled banner on the first of july. they were so mad. but hey it made me happy.

Mother i would also like to take this oppertunnity to wish you a happy birthday this week! a couple days ago. I know for a fact by the time that i get home i wont be thinking you have aged a lot. you probably will look younger! you tend to do that mother.. but happy birthday and i love you. you are the best mom ever!!!!

And Kaatttttttie! Happy birthday to you as well on the 8th.. I think you said you were turning 30 this year?? milestone!!!!!!!!! good work! Love you Kate!

So today for pday me and elder green have convinced everybody to play baseball. and the weather is wonderful. so good! so we are going to have some fun. i will probably hit a couple home runs. i dont really know yet. but it will be fun regaurdless.

the familly i live with, their son came home from his mission this week so it has been way cool seein him. he is totally still a missionary which is cool. so now there three missionaries living there!

Everything up here is doing really good acrossed the border! Still havent seen a mountie so i am bugged with that... but time will come and eventually i will seee one!

well i am hungry and want to play baseball so i love you guys so much and miss ya. but not to much!

Stay Classy

love Elder Dastrup

ps.. mother can i send home my white long sleeve shirts so that you can have nancy austin hemn them and take them in on the sides? ya neva answered me! And i will look up that contact. it might not be in my area but we will get somebody on it! Love you

Email from June 28th, 2010

Today is my 8 month mark.... but who is counting?? just to let all of you guys know :) I have been having a wonderful time this week. it went by fast. I didnt know how i was going to like the whole monday pday thing, but this week has gone by way faster so obviously i am going to like it. We did a lot of work this week. We moved two families and taught 17 lessons. Still just working our hardest to find as many investigators and people to teach as possible. We have so many goals to reach every week it makes it hard, butttttttttttt we are doing our best and thank goodness for a father that pounded goal setting into my brain! it makes it a lot easier!

our investigators, Lori and Shawn Patterson. Wont be baptized this month.. they will be baptized, it will just take a little bit of time. They have some things to work through before they are baptized. but i still like teaching them hahah..

we have a ton of lessons set up this week. every night actually, except july first. That is CANADA DAY.. so like july 4th in the states. no one will invite us over so i dont know what we will be doing. maybe street contacting, when they are lighting fireworks??? they might not be to happy with that..

so yesterday at church was awesome, both bishops were asked by the stake president to give about a five minute talk about missionary work.. the spirit was so strong, both bishops cried and so did half the congregation... Both bishops also invited us up to the stand and had us recite one of our missionary scriptures... It is called my mission commission... Maybe that is what got people crying??? i dont know... :)but it was awesome. The longer i have been out the longer i am comfortable speaking in front of the whole group.. after the meeting. we had quite a few people come up and ask us when they could have us over. normally NO ONE asks us, we normally have to pin them down. so that was pretty cool!

The family we live with.... the Pitchers.... Havve a son coming home from a mission on tuesday night. So that will definitely be weird living there at the house with a return missionary. i will be pretty cool though i think.We will have somebody right there that will always be able to go on splits! He was serving in The Sydney australia South mission.. Everybody in the ward talks about him and really likes him so he seems like a pretty cool kid..

So we have another girl in our ward that has been coming to church for several years now and still isnt baptized. Her mom and dad are members but they wont let her get baptized... weird? but just barely her mom just gave her the ok to get baptized this summer so the bishop is going to meet with her asap then hopefully we can start teaching her! We will see what happeneds.

So me and my comp are getting along pretty good. He just tells me all the time about the people he hates and why.. funny, the people he hates in arizona are the people i hang out with.. so im guessing me might not like me either... i dont know! no but we do get along pretty good. He thinks about home quite often and how long he has... It just makes me happy that i am not homesick at all and that it doesnt effect me like it does some people..

This has been a wonderful week and i love you guys and miss ya! but we are going to get heading out to go do our pday stuff! which for me and elder green, we got invited to go golfing on a nice course so i need to go to the thrift store to get a 2 dollar collard shirt!

love you guys

love elder dastrup

Email from June 21, 2010

How be it family??

First of all i want to say happy fathers day yesterday! I gave a little note to elder owens you write you dad but i dont know if he did. i hope so. it was a good one! i hope you had the best fathers day ever, even though i couldnt be there to spend it with you!

I am doing great this week.. It has been a different week that is for sure and the week of transfers is always really slow! But it has been fun and lots of new stuff going on!

I have a new companion, as you guys know, elder green... we are getting along descently. He is a pretty cool kid he just doesnt like some of the rules.. Dont worry i have taken care of them for the most part. He recognizes that i am not going to let him get away with little things haha. dont worry dad i am doing it in a loving way! and by example...

We have several solid investigators now! they willl be baptized in july sometime.... hopefully... they came to church yesterday.

It has been exciting being a district leader for this week so far. I have already done two baptismal interviews which are way fun.. and also i just finished my first lesson for our district development meeting tomorrow.. I have to teach about a 90 minute lesson so it was kind of hetic but... i got done! hopefully it takes all 90 minutes haha. who knows it is my first one.

i am so ticked the lakers won.. i hate the lakers. our members we live with were telling us about it and we may have seen the last minute or so :)..... it was a joke. i hear the celtics were winning the whole game and choked.. ahhh but i do hear that lebron is going to be a bull possibly... i think he would look better in a jazz uniform but that is just my opinion..as long as he doesnt go to the spurs or the lakers then i am ok..

I have had so much fun doing baptismal interviews this week. it is awesome to sit in the person wanting to be baptized and hear their conversion story and what has been the greatest thing that has happened to hthem as they have decided to be baptized. it is fun finally being involved with a baptism even though it isnt mine.

We are still getting more and more trust from the members and we will be doing a lot more seven day challenges with the members to help them find somebody for us to teach..

we have had to give up several more refferals this week because they dont live in our area, i cant wait until somebody gives us a refferal! that will be the day!! I dont know if i ever told you but last week at church. like 8 days ago, you guys missed a good talk. dang it was good, i got up and spoke even longer than i was supposed to and i didnt even have time to email mom before i got asked to speak so you know i actually wrote it.. pretty impressive huh?

Well today we are going to go eat crepes for lunch then play some basketball! I love you guys so much and miss you tons!

love elder dastrup

ps, sorry my emails are weak.. the only other thing i can think of is...... GET MY SCOOTER ON KSL!!! :)

Email from June 15th, 2010

Hey family!!!

So another week come and gone. It always seems like the last week of the transfer takes the longest. Everyday was a drag. It was killing me..

The good news is that Transfers have come and i am now almost out 8 months! this transfer i will be hitting the 8 and 9 month mark. so stoked!!! More news, elder moore is getting transferred to Calgary and i am staying right where i am at... At least for one more. My new companions name is elder Green... And I am now the district Leader... hmm we will see how that goes.. haha i would rather just skip right to zone leader. district leader has to do a bunch of tedius things... oh well i am excited for the new challenge and new things i am going to have to take care of. We will just have to see how it goes!!! I havent heard anything about my new comp but hey if he hasnt been obedient, he will be now :)

This week has been a very productive week. We had 16 lessons and a whole lot of service. I was writing in my journal this week and realzied how much i really do enjoy service now.. its weird coming from me i know. haha but still, i have definitely changed a lot in the last 7 months and i plan on only getting more devoted to the work. The great things missions do to ya!

We have two new investigators this week! We taught them on sundays. they already have their own quads, gospel principles manual and preach my gospel..... talk about a golden investigator. we set the date for july 16th or 17th. but we need to work very closely with the bishop with everything...

We also have had several other good lessons this week and have new investigators from that. but they dont live in our area so we will have to have other elders teaching them that cover the area they live in. oh well the lord is blessing us in so many different ways it is unreal!

Mother i have not recieved a package yet but i will be getting mail tomorrow when the transfers happen so i will hopefully get it then! hopefully i have a ton of mail! probably wont happen.

Rumor on the street is that my scooter still isnt up.. hmm funny how that works...

the family i live with has a son coming home from his mission in like two weeks from australia.. so that will be pretty cool getting to meet him..

Boston celtics are going to win tonight!!!!!! they better. i hear that rondo is the man and ray allen is doing nothing. my goodness. lots has changed since i have been gone..

worst news of the day, i hear that harvey unga isnt playing this year. he screwed up! what the heck i heard that and i almost started crying. any word on where he is going to play? that upsets me. i love unga. why do people have to be stupid!!!!!

Well i am starving so i guess we are going to go eat. i love you guys so much and miss ya a ton..Stay classy and get that scooter on the net!!!!!!!

love elder dastrup

Hows it hangin??

This week in the mission field has been a good one. We got lots done and still more to improve on. There is always something or another to work on! So it sounds like it is still pretty cold down there??? That confuses me.. It is warm up here and i guess that is all i need to worry about right now.. haha my jacket is finally off and willl stay off (besides sundays) until october! and by then, woah the year mark will be right around the corner.. Who am I kidding.. I still have a very long time! haha.

We taught lots of lessons and asked lots of people for referrals. nothin to new! but what was different about this week was :. We did splits one day.. that was ballin.. mos definitely showed up our district leader.. I got a pretty good day planned and he was just like, wow this is the most effective english missionary day i have ever seen ( he is a spanish elder) but then again he is kind of loopy. IIt was an ok day. not the best ever but hey whatever..

Stake conference was this week so that was fun.. We had a broadcast coming from vancouver.. President Uchtdorf was there along with elder Ballard and Elder Pace (of the 70) So that was cool. Elder pace's talk was the best, oddly enough.. All three talked about gaining, or regaining your testimony. then to share it with others. so basically missionary work. It was a good stake conference. I thought i was getting the day off for stake conference.. It was news to me that we had to go!

Everything else is pretty good around here. I dont know really what to type this week haaha.. just all is well in zion..

oh yeah i got a new hobby!! carving golf balls.. it is pretty fun.. We take a hack saw and cut through the first layer of golf ball, and pry half of it off. then we carve the rubber on the inside of the golf ball. i have picked up this habbit just in the last week or so and it is pretty fun. i am carving Hulk Hogan right now.. it is a blast!!

that is all about that is new with me..

I love you all so much and miss you dearly. sorry i am a short writer this week!

love elder dastrup

ps dev you sell my scooter or what?

Email from 05/26/2010

Yo fam what up!!

This week seemed like it went by much faster then the last few. It was a fast week. That makes it nice. This week was a very good week. That must be why it went by so dang fast! Lets see what happened this week...

We Taught about 20 lessons..

Last pday we played basketball for like three hours, i got elbowed in the chin, chest and groin, all by the same "thick" Elder..

We had lots of lessons with less actives and that seems to be our focus right now.

We found out about another part member family in our area that we are going to work really hard on.

We had an amazing sacrament meeting, ALL on missionary work.. Elder moore had to speak. somehow i got out of it.

We had Zone Conference, and interviews, President Archibald is amazing. He could tell i was kind of struggling and he flipped it all around

I got my comp running almost*** everyday..

I got him to go to the "cooley" HUGE revine in lethbridge. We ran stairs in it. By far the hardest work out since i have been here.

My calves still hurt from it.

Today I want to play basketball though so i am just going to stretch them a ton.

My hair looks like a mop. It is sooooo long. i cant find anyone to cut it. i might buzz it today. but i want just a regular cut. so we will see..

i smell like bacon today, we had breakfast at a members house because they couldnt feed us tonight and he fried the bacon.

I have gained a little wait. lethbridge is killing me, everysingle night they force dessert down our moouths.. about 7 pounds now. but i am working out hard again so hopefully that helps.. I weigh a grand total of 177 ughhhhh

We did a TON of service this week, so that was fun.

So all in all in was a really busy week. But I enjoyed that. It sounds like you guys are having fun in the snow down there! ha! It has been pretty warm up here. no snow, but it might on saturday, we will have to see.

I cant believe mack conquerred the undies... that is tight! The "Sky fort" sounds sweet. It better be sterdy enough to last 17 more months. because i need to see it! the zip line still goin at it??

Big cole got had his recital huh? that is sweet. Did he play Joy to the world or what? I know how to play a simple version on count your many blessings. i am pretty stoked about that.

It is tons of peoples birthdays this week!!! i want to write happy birthday before i forget... drewski, dev Today!!!dang you are like what, 28? sphh and coleMAN! Im sorry if i forgot anyone hahaha. forgive me, my excuse that i am focused on the work.

But happy birthday!

So it sounds like this is a pretty exciting week for dad, you made it out to the lake exactly ONE time and the boat hasnt broken down! new record. i am pretty excited for ya! the boat have a name?? drift wood, noahs ark, what is it?

Dad you getting used to the i pad? they should give missionaries those things and we could do an amazing lesson... i think that would be fantastic..

Mother transfers arent next week the nexxt transfer day is june 16th, so i will be emailing the 15th... haha come on.

The last thing i am going to say is, devin since its your birthday today, can you get my scooter on ksl tomorrow?

I love you guys so much and miss you a ton..

Love Elder Dastrup