Letter

This week was awesome! We saw a lot of growth in our investigators and we contacted a ton of people. The bad news is one of our investigators on date had to push her date back, but two of her sons are now preparing to be baptized with her! They are all preparing to be baptized on December 15! That is Reina and her sons, also, her oldest son at home, Henry, is a less active member. He set a goal for himself to read the Book of Mormon all the way through before the end of the year, when we stopped by on Friday night he had been reading almost 20 pages every day! 

Michelle is so excited to be baptized on December 5, she has been baptized twice before into different churches but it never felt right to her, she knows it will feel right this time. We have another investigator, named Jeri, she is catching a lot of flak from her family for reading and studying the Book of Mormon. When we left our lesson on Wednesday she said she wouldn't be available to meet again until after thanksgiving. The next morning we got a text from her asking if we could meet 2-3 times a week! We were going to do that until her father had a medical emergency and she had to travel to California with him.  She asked us to pray for her to "not succumb to her family's negativity towards her studies". 

We see a lot of little miracles, many times there are so many in one day that I don't have time to write them all in my journal before 10:30. I love my mission so much and I'm training myself to truly open my eyes to gods hand actively affecting the people around me and myself. 

-Elder Andrew Deppe

Letter

We had some interesting experiences this week. We met lots of cool people and had our bikes die. We bike and walk a lot so we can talk to everyone.  We have lots of people honk at us or yell, some because they don't like us and others because they really don't like us. We kinda just smile and wave back at everyone. 

Our area has lots of hills and they suck to ride up but they are SO much fun to go down! The only problem is that if your tires aren't inflated enough then the bumps between sections of sidewalk can cause your rim to "bite" your tube and make your tire instantly flat. A long walk home solidified that lesson. 

I love tracting! We meet so many interesting people! I found someone who is legitimately nocturnal like as in a way of life not because of their job. Needless to say he wasn't too thrilled that I knocked his door in the middle of the day. I love showing kindness to people who are rude to us, just ask elder Poston.  I've perfected the art of saying with a big smile "have a great day" just as the door is slamming shut. He laughs every time. 

So we've been teaching this guy, Wally, for a couple of weeks and he invited us over to dinner. While we were there we found out that my dad went to high school with their daughter in law! And she lives in our area! So that's pretty darn cool.

Funniest/coolest story this week was Elder Poston and I decided to go tract up on "The Hill" which is a pretty big deal because of how many miles we put on our car to get up there. We tracted for hours and really didn't have a lot of success. Finally we crossed a major road and started tracting there before dinner. As we were about to head to dinner we knocked on a house and no one answered, so we walked away. In the middle of talking to the person who answered the door at the next house someone came out and started yelling "HELLO!", trying to find who had knocked on his door. Elder Poston then yelled back that we would be back in a minute or two. The lady we were talking to wasn't too interested in talking with missionaries, but we are going to send some relief society sisters to fellowship her due to the fact that she is actually an inactive member. 

We then walked back and the previous house, Jerry was a little drunk, and told us so haha. He told us that he's looking for truth and where he needs to be.  We didn't have a lot of time because we had dinner, but we set up a return appointment, and he seemed really excited! After dinner it was late (7:45 but people get angry if we knock on their doors after 8). I was ready to head home and do some new missionary training, but elder Poston said we should knock a couple of houses down. So as we were walking down this street with SUPER nice homes we were drawn to the closest house that had lights on. I'm super scared walking up to it (I was scared they'd get mad because of how late it was) and praying like crazy that God would help this person be happy to see us. 

A boy around 17 answered the door and he was in nice clothes (at first we thought he was a butler or something). It turned out that he had gone to a (Mormon) baptism today for the little sister of his friend.  He explained to us how simple and beautiful the baptism was. We talked to him and he is TOTALLY prepared to hear the gospel! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd love to read it, we got his number and everything and set up a return appointment!

We knocked on the next house and had a member answer the door. It turned out that we weren't even in our assigned area! God is awesome. Elder Poston and I were joking around that the reason we were put together as two green missionaries is because that's the only way we'd make the mistake of not being in our area on accident and that boy needed us that night specifically. God works so many little miracles in everyone's lives and I'd challenge everyone to take a minute every day to recognize them. You'll be blessed for it and you'll be better able to recognize God's love for you. I love you all, but God loves you more! We all have infinite potential in his eyes! 

P.S. Have mom edit this so it actually makes sense haha 

Note from the editor: Hopefully an edit by his Dad will suffice!  :)

P.S.S. Below is a picture from our zone training meeting:

Letter

This week was pretty awesome!  On Tuesday we went to the Church pear farm to do some service (picking up sticks from a field... literally picking up twigs haha).  It was perfectly timed so we were able to pick ripe pears that were left over from the harvest. Fresh off the vine Asian pears are the BOMB.

We also were able to go to the temple this past Tuesday. That was amazing except for it went long and we missed our dinner appointment as well as a teaching appointment :/.

We did a lot of knocking doors this week. So lots of cool conversations and some people who didn't want to talk to us :).  The coolest thing that happened this week was we were looking for a former investigator that a missionary who used to be in this area told us to talk to. We decided to walk and as we were walking down the street we started a conversation with a guy named Martin (marteen) who was reading a comic book on his porch.  He has talked to missionaries before and is excited to talk to us again. We gave him our number and said we'd be back, but he has a very full schedule.

After that we were walking down the street and remembered another lady who had told us to come back when her husband was home (we thought she wanted that because he'd be more mean) but we found him outside fixing a vacuum. His name is Brother Fidow, he is from Samoa, and was baptized there while enjoying the youth programs.  He had later gone inactive after joining the military, but he seemed excited to possibly get his children involved in the youth program.

The funny  part of this whole story is that we never located the house that we were originally trying to find (but we are going to try again later). God has a plan.  Prayer works.  God and Christ love all of the children of God. By trying to be more like them, we can help people realize their true potential. The church is true. Missions teach you a LOT, and I love you all!

Letter

I've had a good week. Nothing super exciting to report, I got my bike up and running so that's nice! I love biking here, we get to say hi to everyone, which we can't do in a car.  I love that!

It started to cool down so now the hot days are 85 instead of 103. We also got some rain which I loved! There's an elderly couple in the ward who asked us to come and mow their lawn and the only day we could was on a rainy day. We were going to mow anyways but we couldn't get the mower started.

So it's all chill. Well like I said, not a lot to report but I love you all!  Remember that God and Christ love you more than you know!

-Elder Andrew Deppe

Some recent photo's of Elder Deppe at Zone Conference from the OEMRussel blog:

Letter

So needless to say it's been a pretty exciting week. We flew to Oregon
last Wednesday (9/9) and that was kinda funny, 30 missionaries walking
through the Seattle airport definitely turns some heads (haha). We got
to Eugene and my mission president and his wife are the best! I got to
go knock on doors that first night and everyone turned me down but it
was so fun!

Well most of you probably know that Elder Nathan Poston is
my companion! He's awesome! It was really funny but there was a room
full of trainees and trainers, like 30 companionships, and he and I
got called last. I'm learning so much from him and we are learning a
LOT together because he's only been out 7 weeks now.

I think the coolest experience we've had is we were out trying to find
someone that the sisters had contacted before and we knocked twice and
figured no one was home so we started walking away.   Halfway up the
street I got the feeling we had to go and knock one more time. So
we went back and they answered!  We have a lesson planned for this
Saturday!

Then we were walking to another appointment and a
guy yelled at us asking if we were Mormons.  He said he could tell
because we carry ourselves differently than like Jehovah's witnesses.
So that's cool. We had a long talk and everything we said made sense
to him, so we exchanged numbers and homework (he gave us some bible
verses and we gave him a Book of Mormon), and we are going to call him soon.
Anyways it's awesome here! I'm excited for what we have planned
this week.

Love you all!
-Elder Andrew Deppe

Photo of a service project from this past Saturday:

A note from the Rose family

We received this kind note and shared photo from a family in Medford Oregon:

"Sis Poston and Sis Deppe, I promise that I don't normally do this but I am so excited for your sons ( and you!) that I had a share a picture of Elder Poston (trainer) and Elder Deppe (trainee).  What a choice experience to be working together!  :).  I am sending these pictures AND letting you know that P-day this week will be a day late….so don't worry, mail will come and all is well!  :)

We had them over for dinner tonight and they asked us to role play with them so they could teach the restoration.  We played along and put them to the test.  They gave an amazing lesson addressing each of our questions and "concerns" very well.  Most of all…. the spirit was very strong.  What a powerful team these two will be!

And I am excited for your journey as well….something SO special about having a missionary in the field.  Take care and know your sons are happy!    Barb Rose, Medford 8th ward"

Arrived!

Elder Deppe's arrival are detailed by President and Sister Russell on their OEM Blog.

 Part One

 Part Two

Some photos they shared: