WOW What a Week!

Wow what a week!!! So much has happened in this last week! One week
ago, president called us and told me and elder Fife that he wanted to
put us in a trio companionship. There was a Hmong elder in Chico who
was not getting along with his two trainers. So president wanted to
put him in a Hmong branch so he could be immersed in the work a little
more. The only Hmong branch in the mission is in our zone of Yuba
city. I guess since Tomlinson is an English missionary, president
didn't want in a trio with the other Hmong missionaries. So he put
elder Tomlinson with us! He wanted the whole thing to happen before
Christmas Day. So, on Monday elder Tomlinson moved all his stuff into
our apartment. We were not there to help him move in on Monday. We had
to go down to Sacramento to get a bike rack and hitch put on our cute
little Toyota Corolla. Since we were down in Sacramento, we went and
played sports with our old companions, Kelly and Inman. It was so good
to see Kelly again and I'm so sad that he's leaving.

Tuesday I ate some bad tuna and got way bad food poisoning and puked
all over the side of a jeep! We were with another set of missionaries
riding in the back of their car after I had eaten some bad mayo with
my tuna for lunch. The car ride made everything worse and I got sicker
and sicker in the car. We almost made it to the stake center but it
wouldn't stay down. Before I knew it I was hanging out the window
puking in front of an intersection full of people.

 

Wednesday we had to drive down to the mission office to pick up a few last minute packages for some people in our zone. We had to leave at 7:30 in order to make it back for our district meeting on time.

Friday was Christmas!!! It was so awesome talking to my family. I love them so much and it was a true blessing to be able to see all their beautiful faces. I called them around dinner time and was asked to bless the food over Skype. It was so cool that I was able to do that with them. I received a lot of presents from people and I appreciate all of them!! But being able to say a prayer with my family over Skype was probably the best Christmas gift I have ever received!!

Yesterday was an awesome day as well!! We had our investigator at church finally! Last week she had problems with her ride and his car broke down. But this week, everything worked and Donna came and stayed for all 3 hours!! She liked it and is excited for her baptism on the 15th! She's super excited and cannot wait for all the things we are teaching her.

I love you all so very much and wish you all safe journeys as you travel this week!!

Elder Funley

 

 

Merry Christmas from Elder Funley

Guess what happens this week!?!? CHRISTMAS!!! I love Christmas so much. It's such a wonderful time of the year. It's especially great because I'm on my mission!! I am able to appreciate the meaning of Christmas so much more now that I'm serving the lord 24/7! I'm so super excited to skype my family. This is my first Christmas away from home and I feel like a little kid again! I've never been this excited!!

We were so fortunate as to be able to put someone in date this week!

We picked up a new investigator 2 weeks ago and were able to teach her the restoration Tuesday and invite her to be baptized! She was very enthused about the whole thing and we were able to put her on date for the 16th of January! She has no word of wisdom issues of anything like that and she's super awesome! She told us that there's a void in her life and she's been thinking that it's religion. The way we met her was through a member in the feather River ward. His names Jose and he attends our weekly Book of Mormon class. He has told us about his friend Donna and we've been trying to meet with her since September.

So us being able to meet with her has been a blessing of it's own. And then putting her on date for baptism!?! Wow!!!

We invited her to church yesterday and she said that she would love to come. The only problem is that she doesn't have a car. So we thought about what we could do and came to the conclusion that Jose can take her! We called up Jose and and asked if he could take her. He agreed and we were super stoked! So Sunday rolls around and they never showed for sacrament. 15 minutes till sacrament des, we get a call from Jose saying that he's stuck at donnas house and his car won't start!!

(Should have bought a Toyota) so we were sad about that, but there's always next week!

This Sunday there were a lot of less active members that attended sacrament. I don't know if it was just because yesterday was Christmas Sunday. But there were 3 less actives that attended! It was good to see them there taking the sacrament and renewing their baptismal covenants.

 

Here's some pictures of me, Fife, and our beautiful Christmas tree!!

A Message For Christmas.... from my Mission President

Dear Missionaries:

It is Christmas week. Sister Marston and I send our love to each of you and desire to express our gratitude for and testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ.

There is no better time, Christmas 2015, or place, California Roseville Mission, to serve as missionaries.  Our message this season, “A Savior is Born” is the same message declared by angels to humble shepherds and seeking wise men. 

Truly ours is a message of “peace and goodwill.   As our Savior, He grasps us as we fall, holds us with His might, and, through our obedience to His commandments, lifts us to eternal life.” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, April 2015 Conference)

 

There are no words to fully express the meaning of that rescue.  No other person could have done what He has done for us.  He truly is the “author and finisher of our salvation.”  He is “the light, the life and the hope of the world.”  It is a magnificent responsibility given to missionaries to declare His truth to all the world.

We know that He lives, He loves us, He is with us, going before us, preparing hearts and minds to hear the “glad tidings of great joy” which is for “all people.”

Our prayer is that each of you will have a peaceful, spirit-filled Christmas day as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We say again, there is no better time or place to be a missionary.

We love you.  We pray for you.

Best regards,

President Michael F. Marston

California Roseville Mission

 

 

It's Christmas time here, It's Raining and Hailing!!!

Guess what happened this week!?!? It rained!! Yes, that's right. RAIN.

In California! Can you believe that?! It rained like 3 days out of
the past 7! It hailed on Sunday! And we had stake conference! The
whole stake presidency was reorganized and a few general authorities
came to the stake center and spoke to us. It was awesome! I was very
spiritually uplifted and learned a lot!

So last week, we had an investigator named Adam. He was solid. Awesome
guy. Interested in the gospel and wanting to go to church. We taught
him the restoration and it was awesome. Then, on Wednesday, as we were
heading to our scheduled lesson with him, he texts us and says that
this wasn't a good time in his life and that he's sorry for wasting
our time :( I was super sad to drop him as an investigator :( but such
is missionary life.

Also, on Wednesday, I went on exchanges with the Hmong elders. They
speak Hmong!
We ate at a Hmong home and I recorded a Hmong name!!! It is "Nraug
suav xyoo" please don't try to read it because it's crazy weird.
(Blame the French.) but it means handsome Chinese boy.  We taught a 7
year old about missionary work and it was really cool!

We also had the most spiritual dinner with 2 member families. It. Was.
Awesome! We shared a spiritual message with 9 kids and like 5 adults.
The children were so well behaved and immersed in the spiritual
message, it was awesome. It made me think of how much I want that type
of participation and faith in the gospel with my family. I almost
teared up when all the kids went around saying what they liked about
the short video we shared. One boy said that the spirit whispered to
him that it was true and I just about cried. Man it was so touching.

Well, I hope you all having a wonderful holiday season filled with
warm fuzzies from the spirit! I love you all, and can't wait to hear
back from you.

Elder Funley

This is my companion Elder Fife.  He is smart, articulate, knows detail and pays attention well.  He is from "Sandy" Utah.

               Our house is nicely decorated with Holiday cheer that both of our mother's sent to us.

It's December in NorCal

It's December!!! Christmas time! Woohoo!! It's just a shame that there's no snow here in NorCal. It doesn't quite feel like Christmas time without the snow. It's a little nippy outside in the morning and at nights, but that's about it. I received my first Christmas present the other day in the mail! Well. Actually, it was about 20+ presents.

Thank you to my home ward for putting together that wonderful Christmas box! They wrapped over 20 items and wrote scriptures on the out side of each one. Each scripture is a clue to what is inside! It's super fun to read the scriptures with my companion in the morning and guess what's inside!

Last week, on Sunday, the church came out with a super cool video titled "A Savior is Born" it's a short clip about Jesus and why he came to this world. This is the link and I encourage each and every one of you to watch it! Watch it, and email me back about what you thought of it! Tell me what you felt during the clip!

https://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=mpad-christmas-2015-100&player=bc&full=no

This last week was super awesome! We picked up two new investigators and one of them is progressing! We taught him the restoration which took us almost 2 hours!!! His name is Adam and he is Latino. He has 2 kids and isn't married. He wants a better life for himself and his kids. His neighbor, sister McDowell who is a member in our ward, introduced him to the church and invited him to sacrament. He attended last week and really liked it! He wrote down lots of questions that he had during sacrament meeting! They were mostly comparing our church to the Catholic Church, since that's what he used to attend. He told us that he doesn't like the Catholic Church because nothing makes sense.

Well, it's a good thing that our church makes sense!!! Haha.

Oh! So, I got a new companion like 2 weeks ago. Haha I guess I can tell you all a little about him! His name is elder Fife and he's from Sandy Utah. He's 20 years old and loves soccer!! He's only been out as long as I have, so we both have no idea what we're doing 😂. We get along very well. He's into street cars and is teaching me about Subarus while I teach him about Toyotas! He loves skiing and dirt bikes! He's got a CRF 250x back home that he rides wherever he can. He always has a Rubix cube that he solves in the morning and when we have a little down time. I bought myself one, and he's teaching me how to solve it!

 

Here's a few pictures from things this past week!

Hellooooo. I love you all and can't wait for Christmas!! I'm so excited to skype you guys!! We decorated our house all festive for the holidays! Heres some pictures!

 

I just got transferred

December 1, 2015

Well I just got transferred to the Olivehurst town in California.  I am really near to Yuba City, and just south of Chico, CA.  I have moved south by about two hours, and yet I am still north of the mission home by about 2+ hours.  There was snow up north, but I don't think there will be any this far south.

First off, sorry for the short email last week. I wasn't in the best of moods. I was a little ticked that I was being transferred, well it took me off guard and I wasn't expecting it.  There was so much to do in preparation to leaving the Palo Cedro area. But there is a lot of work to be done here in my new area of Olivehurst! I love you all and hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving! I sure had an awesome time at the Kahn family house for dinner. We had awesome food and lots of fun!! We played scum for an hour and phase 10 for 3 hours. Yes a 3 hour game of phase 10. It was the first time I've ever played the game but I had a lot of fun! The members put on the football game because they fell that thanksgiving and football go together. (Don't worry I didn't watch anything) the packers played some other team and lost :( Kelly is a big packers fan, so I feel a little bit of the pain he does. So in my new ward, there is a set of Hmong speaking missionaries. They cover pretty much the whole southern half of the mission and they overlap our ward. So they were invited to our thanksgiving feast and had a great time.  I have much respect for them for being able to speak Hmong. It's a very difficult language with 6 different tones and 4 different dialects.

My district is pretty cool. This is my first out of 3 that have sisters. Its different having sisters. I don't want to say its not as fun, but the sisters definitely keep us all in line during district meeting. The other missionaries in our district, are elders Mclerg, and Kirby. Kirby, He's my mission cousin!! Zaugg trained elder Kelly and elder Swanner. Kelly trained me, and Swanner trained Kirby!

It has been a busy week, with the move, and then the holiday.  A lot of adjustments really  quickly.  I will keep you updated.

Love you all,

 

Elder Funley