Elder Chad Vernon really wore out his shoes while on his mission.  He put shoe goo on them so they would make it through the last few months.

Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate and welcome Chad home!  We love you!

Elder Chad Vernon Arrived Home!

Elder Chad Vernon flew into the Denver airport on Thursday and Brent, Tina and Ellaina met him there.  It was a wonderful reunion.  Tina was so excited that she dropped her camera and broke it.  Of course we had our big Yoda sign so Chad could find us easily.  From there we drove to the temple and did Baptisms for the Dead as a family.  It was awesome!  A very special thing to do with our missionary while he was still a missionary.  We then ate at Olive Garden and drove to Fort Collins to our Stake Presidents home. There Elder Chad Vernon was given an honorable release and wonderful advice.  It was a very special time.  We have been finding Chads clothes and things and getting him moved in and tonight he had a late Christmas.  He gets to go visit his married brothers, since he hasn't seen them for so long and hasn't met their wives in person yet.

We are having an Open House for him on Saturday January 11 from 5-7 PM if you want to come visit and have dinner.

Elder Chad Vernon at Christmas

So this week was good. Played B-ball on Monday.

 

On Tuesday we visited the Gutheries a less active part member family and the son who is a yr or 2 younger then I am is like a crazy good singer. We asked him to sing for us and he had his guitar and he did. It sounded great and was like a lot louder then I thought it was going to be. It is amazing what some people can do with there voices. The team up Bro Ripperdon that brought us there also took us to another potentials house and the persons small dog bit his ankle, not to hard.

 

We visited Connie and just read from the Book of Mormon since she has had troubles reading it. She is really good at reading the Gospel Principles book but I think the Book of Mormon was a harder for her to understand.

 

We had our Christmas party this week. So got to see a lot of people I haven't seen for a while. Got a picture with my whole MTC District that came to this mission, since Elder Jones came back out after he got healed from breaking his arm. 

MTC reunion at the Mission Christmas Party

Elder Chad Jason Vernon's Address for the last month of his mission will be directly to his apartment.  Here it is:  

Elder Chad Jason Vernon
601 Willow Creek Lane
Woodstock, GA 30188

Teaching and Finding

November 11, 2013

This week was good we actually had one night where we were able to go on splits because we had 2 team ups. It was a really good split. I went with Brother Long and visited a less active lady who he had home taught for many yrs. As well as visiting some potential investigators. One guy John was really interested in the Book of Mormon and said he would read and come to church. He is also looking for a job so we told him about the ward employment specialist. He didn't come to church however so we will have to see what is up on Tuesday for our return appointment.

 Connie is still coming to church she has a couple things she needs to work on to get baptized as well as gaining the desire to be baptized again. We have been working with a few members in the ward on quitting smoking who are on the 5 5 5 list. The 5 5 5 is 5 people from the Relief Society the Elders and high priests quorum that the ward is working with.

Also I finished the Bible this week. The Old Testament. Took me forever and was super boring. I did a little jig after I finished the last page. I was glad I read it however so that I know what is exactly in the Bible.

So we go to this one house the Mclays they have this huge dog that drools and always gets super excited when you get there.

We helped Brother Orchard move his daughter into the area. As we were doing that a really big fat man ran through the gate as it was about to close since it was in a gated community.

Taught Sister Guthrie again. She is nice just still no faith there.

Elder Thorn gave me some Thermal garments which is nice. They were too small for him and just right for me.  . Elder Thorn doesn’t have cancer anymore, he just lost the eye when he was younger.

Had Zone Conference this week. It was good. It was my last zone conference so I was able to get up and bear my testimony at the end.

November 25, 2013

So Connie is still doing great. She said in Gospel Principles that she wanted to join our congregation. We met with her with a older husband and his wife the Longs and the connected really well. Sister Long had trouble with her kids and Connie right now has a son making wrong choices so they really liked each other. We also visited a few less actives. Brother Backeus one guy was nice and we will try back with him. He drinks however. 

So we did service for Tracy this week. Just moving dirt. It wasn't to hard of labor but my name tag fell off and I could not find it. I had just lost another tag. So now I am down to 2 tags. I probably won't buy any more tags since 2 should be enough to get me the rest of the mission. 

I prepared a talk a lot this week since they asked me to talk this Sunday. It went well and I talked for about 12 minutes which is the longest talk I have ever given. I had plenty of material however so it went well. We played B-ball last week for P-day and we are going to play again today with all the young men since they are off school. Which will give us a lot more people to play with which will be fun. 

We walked a lot this week and there is this old guy who is 96 yrs old who lives with a member who would drive accoss the country at 96. 

We visited Bill this week and he is nice but always busy. We just need to find a time to sit down and teach him. 

Went on a team up with Brother Knudsen which was good. We visited a referral Grace but she is just nice not interested in learning. 

I faced Elder Thorn in an arm wrestle and won with the right hand but lost with the left. We will be staying together this last transfer in Shallowford. 

Teaching and helping!

November 4, 2013

So this week was good. P-day we played B-ball and on Tuesday I was able to go over to Allatona on exchange with Elder Buckway. It was cool serving with him again for another day. We visited a guy named Victor who was a referral from the sister missionaries in the Allatona ward. He was crazy and he had a cat that was twice as fat as it should be it also was shaved and looked freaky. We also visited a less active Brother Units. He told us his life story about how he went to jail and then a bishop bailed him out for a 1000 dollars and invited him to Thanksgiving.

The Connells are members they just are trying to overcome smoking and some Word of Wisdom stuff which is why we go over there. We committed them cut down a lot on cigarettes. The husband is really into it. The wife is a little more scared about giving them up but she is trying. We send them a scripture every night in text to help them.

On Wednesday we went and taught the Deacons about Preach my Gospel. It is hard getting a bunch of kids to focus.

So one day we were walking by the road and the cars were in stop and go traffic. One of the cars turned there music way up as we walked past and started singing and doing a little dance in there car as we walked which was a little odd.

We taught Connie with a team up on Wednesday. She made us Cookies and it went well. She isn't ready to commit to baptism yet, but she came to church again for the 4th week.

So the Woodstock Elders called us over to do service with them. We helped them move some stuff for a hoarder. The house was disgusting and it was hard to move stuff since you had to walk on trash and junk. It was worth the pictures of the inside of the house. She was talking about how animals had got in the house as well. She has been living on her porch for the last 7 months. She called again for help a couple days later.  I am all for helping my fellow man, but there comes a point where you just can't help them anymore. As we were walking back from service a member called us over and fed us lunch.

The Bishop fed us Breakfast on Saturday and is wanting to go out every Thursday with us and to feed us every couple weeks for Breakfast. 

Transferred to Shallowford, got to shake Elder Oaks' hand

So my new companion is Elder Thorn, is a one eyed wonder that everybody loves. He had cancer and lost one of his eyes at one point so he has a fake glass eye in his left eye. He is cool and from Utah. 

My new area is Shallowford it is in the Marietta Stake which I served in when I was in Hickory Flat. It is crazy when I left this zone there was 19 missionaries and no sisters. Now there is around 40 missionaries in this zone. I am on bike here or foot whichever we feel like doing

A guy died in the ward and the Provo MTC president must have known him because the Prove MTC president was here in my ward in Georgia and I got to shake his hand. President McNally I think was his name. So if Cory shakes the MTC presidents hand then it is like he will have shaken my hand through him. 

My first day in Shallowford we walked a bunch because Elder Thorns knees have been hurting when he bikes. We visited a former who was working on his car. I am pretty sure after one conversation that he might be a former because he has slight memory problems. Then we visited Bill another Former who said we could come back in a week. 

Visited a less active family the Gutheries with a team up and the Mom was super nice and the son was there and asked questions about the plan of salvation. The son raises snakes and sells them which is cool. T

Elder Thorn hit his 18 month mark so we went over to a members home the Coopers and he burned some slacks there.

 

We had our ward Halloween party and I basically just wore Elder Thorns eye patch as my costume. It is a lot harder to grab things with only one eye. My depth perception was off.

 

Well I got to shake an apostles hand this week. Elder Oaks came and visited our mission and the Atlanta Mission and shook all 500 missionaries hands. He said his hand was numb afterwords. It was cool and he jumped around in what he taught us. He taught about the sacrament and its importance. He also said that its not as important as what he said as what you feel from the meeting by the spirit. What made this even more cool is I got to see some of my friends who got switched to the other mission like Elder Free and Elder Moore. A

 

Elder Thorn crashed on his bike and then right after that we were knocking a door and he twisted his ankle or hit it on the step or something. He is okay just a little sore and his knees hurt at the end of each day.

 

We also taught a family that is pretty cool the Conells. They were LA but are coming back. They are just working on Word of Wisdom. There son was funny pretending to be a horse as we were there. Which reminded me of myself when I would pretend to be animals.

The Sugar Hill's Zone before the transfer.

We were protected!

So this week was good because of General Conference. I liked all the talks as always. Elder Thomas had his Dad show up to General Conference. His Dad lives in this mission and was less active. Elder Thomas was living with his Mom in Utah since it was a divorce situation. So he hadn't talked to his Dad for like a couple of yrs and then he came on his mission to where his Dad lives and actually served in his ward and would have Dinner with his Dad every week. 

We took a member to go visit Brother Carty and they enjoyed each other and talked for like an hour and a 1/2 non stop which is good since hopefully they are good friends now. We visited some churches this week. The church that spoke Spanish was actually the nicest church. They gave us their info and seemed excited about coming, even though they couldn't understand us well when we were trying to tell them about the disaster preparedness summit. Our Team up who was driving us around that night for talking to churches actually turned into the wrong lane on a busy road. No one was coming; we were protected that no one was coming, the lord watches out for his missionaries. The guy behind us started honking like crazy to let him know and of course Elder Yellowplume and my companion were like ehhh wrong lane. 

So this week was good because of General Conference. I liked all the talks as always. Elder Thomas had his Dad show up to General Conference. His Dad lives in this mission and was less active. Elder Thomas was living with his Mom in Utah since it was a divorce situation. So he hadn't talked to his Dad for like a couple of yrs and then he came on his mission to where his Dad lives and actually served in his ward and would have Dinner with his Dad every week. 

We took a member to go visit Brother Carty and they enjoyed each other and talked for like an hour and a 1/2 non stop which is good since hopefully they are good friends now. We visited some churches this week. The church that spoke spanish was actually the nicest church. They gave us their info and seemed excited about coming to the Disaster Preparedness Summit, even though they couldn't understand us well. Our Team up who was driving us around that night for talking to churches actually turned into the wrong lane on a busy road. No one was coming; we were protected that no one was coming, the lord watches out for his missionaries. The guy behind us started honking like crazy to let him know and of course Elder Yellowplume and me were like ehhh wrong lane. 

So Brother Chastain up in Dahlonega one of my old areas has still not actually got baptized but he met with the Stake President this last week and some other missionaries told me that word of Wisdom in no longer an issue with him, and that after meeting with the Stake President he wanted to get baptized as soon as possible so hopefully this Wednesday. 

So that Black family the Perrys who have 8 kids and the husband is always away driving a truck. Well we went with the Home Teacher Brother coleman to go visit there family since his companion doesn't go with him. Sister Perry is expecting again. She will have 9 kids and is only in her early 30s. The home teacher  tried to act happy when she told him but you could tell he was like another kid in his mind.

Had Lunch with the Hindu family and the Husband was able to be there since he works for the government. We handed them over to the Suwanee missionaries since they live in their area. The Hindu food is always really good but really spicy. 

Also we were having dinner at a members house and a hot air balloon landing in the street a couple streets down and was having problems getting back in the air which was interesting. 

We also visited with Brother Hyers and talked about the priesthood with them. He is a member who has parkinson's that lives right behind our apartment. 

Played B-ball and poison and bump and around the world this last P-day. So just a lot of B-ball which is always fun. 

Hope you have a wonderful week. Elder Chad Vernon