Hi From Ohio

Dearest Friends and Family,

                                          I am so happy to write you all today! Congratulations to Justin and Missy on the arrival of there new son (give or take a couple of hours)! I am so excited to meet my new friend in the coming months! Mortality is just a miracle. God's love is behind every good thing. The Father would have us come to the realization that we are totally dependant on him for all of our needs; though we must work to provide lets not kid ourselves who the "Fount of Every Blessing'" is! King Benjamin says that he grants unto us our very breath; I can't begin to consider how many things he provides without our even asking. I am grateful that my brother knows how it feels to have a new born child who is totally dependant on him; and one who he is anxious to bless; your example means alot! Good luck!

 

                                         It has been another great week here in the Ohio. This week is our transfer and arrival week which means that my companion and I are going to be doing a lot of running around. It is a pretty fun week welcoming in all of the new Elders and Sisters. It is also good to say goodbye to our old mission friends. It is always fun to be with them on their last night and listen to them reminisce. I can't imagine leaving this place, it is going to be torture. It will come quickly however, I think this coming transfer may be my last as an assistant making 6 months in whole. I can't believe how fast these last 4 1/2 months have gone; it will be good to get a break from this assignment eventually, though I will miss it alot. I think President will have me train again in the coming months which has me giddy. Elder Crosland, the missionary that I trained almost a year ago is now training a missionary, so I have a "grandson" in the mission!; and they are baptizing and doing great! The friends you come to have a on a mission are second to none; they are one of the greatest blessings of serving. Speaking of blessings of serving a mission; Elder Metcalf and I reorganized our apartment to make more space fro our morning workout and we had a big patch of open space in our living room; as we finished moving this around I told him "now all we need is a bench press". So.. Later that day we were helping our former Ward Mission Leader move somethings out of his house and he offered us a brand new Golds Gym bench press and work out station. I couldn't believe it! The members of our ward are amazing! We are about half way through the 40 Day fast right now and things are going great! The members are really unified and experiences many great blessings.

 

                                      My goal has been to make our area a model for other missionaries and we have done so much to organize ourselves and be effective. We drew out districts in our ward on a map, found all of the people who live in them and then assigned our ward missionaries to all of the areas to begin visiting and fellowshipping less active members. The whole plan has been working great and they are becoming one of our greatest sources for seeking referrals and finding new people to teach. My companion and I have also simplified our reporting process a great deal; a process that used to take around 3 to 4 hours now takes around an hour. My hope is that we can simplify all of our administration work and future AP's can focus alot more on being examples in proselyting and tutoring missionaries on exchanges; both of which we will have more time to do. It is hard to do so much work and feel like you are giving your all and not baptizing. I have told Elder Metcalf that this has been one of the greatest 6 weeks of my life aside from the fact that  we didn't baptize. I think that this coming month is going to be one full of many more rich blessings and I hope that the members may see fruits of their 40 Day fast efforts. It is exciting to slowly light a fire in your area and to win the confidence of the members. So keep us in your prayers that we may find those whom the Lord has prepared!

 

                                     Well my friends, I love you all. Things here in the Ohio are going great! Life is a miracle; we can't control the length of it but we can control it's width and depth. Many miracles lay ahead of us if we will but be humble, have vision and trust in the Lord. Thank you for all you do!

Love, Elder Prince

Happy August

Dear Family and Friends,

                                       I am quite pressed for time this week but just wanted to let you all know that things are going great! Elder Metcalf and I are being richly blessed as of late. Our ward is now about 10 Days into our 40 Day fast. The response has been great. It has been so inspiring to see all of them excesses their faith unto works. I went on two exchanges this week with some of my Zone Leaders, first was in Toledo, Ohio with Elder Parkinson. The exchange was a great experience; he is one of my very favorite missionaries. A couple days later I had another exchange in Akron, Ohio with Elder Plitt; he and I came out of the MTC together, it was great to be with him; he is one of the very most Christ-like people I know. Developing my relationship with the leaders has been one of the best experiences of my mission. Our whole mission is really quiet faithful and very obedient, rarely do we run into problems. I traveled well over 600 miles this week and didn't get too much sleep so today is going to be a day of rest I am praying. We have also been fasting quite a bit which is not too bad as far as hunger goes but it wearies your body being out in the summer humidity. All in all though the Lord renews my body just about every day:) I apologize that I can't talk much today, but I will have you all know that things have never been better. We are working with a part member family named the Mullhollands right now who are amazing. This is yet another family I know that we have been lead to. We did service in their yard this week and got them acquainted with their visiting and home teachers so they should be progressing along nicely. I will let you all know how it goes. This family has stolen my heart; if you would, keep them in your prayers! I love you all so much and I thank you for wall of your prayers and thought sin my behalf. Ohio is my heart. The Lord is my light! Love, Elder Prince

Dear Family and Friends,

                                       It has been a great week and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to write you all. Things are busy as ever right now, this coming month we are hosting more meetings, trainings and tours than any other time I have served as an Assistant, I don't know whether to feel like a Public Relations Representative or a missionary. Things with Elder Metcalf and I are great. I learn alot about humility from him each week; he is such a good person. We have two General Authority's coming to visit the mission in the next two months that we need to make preparations for which should be really exciting. I can hardly believe how fast time goes out here. It seems like it is always the day time because I sleep like a stone and the night passes away.

 

                                      The Ward we have here in North Olmsted is incredible. I  have developed great relationships with many of them and they have really responded to our missionary efforts. In fact this week we kicked off a 40 Day fast as a ward for the missionary efforts in the area. Different families and individuals are will fast collectively and consecutively for 40 straight days. We go and eat diner with them, share a lesson and then they fast until the next evening when we will start the same process with another family the following night.We have been getting great contacts on the street every night since we started the fast, for which we feel very blessed. We have been sharing Matthew 4: 1-11 with them which accounts the 40 Day fast of Christ and His temptations in the wilderness. I have come to appreciate those passages of scriptures profoundly. They are rich with principles of power that can be applied to all of us. The lesson we share with people really gets them to ponder the ways in which Satan still speaks and tempts us to abandon what matters most to us in these days. He barbs Christ with temptations that start with the wording "If thou be the Son of God" after which he goes through an assortment of temptations that vary from physical appetites, to power and esteem of the world to  attempting to get Christ to question His own identity and the Father's love for him. Christ sets forth the perfect rebuttals by using scripture and in no way attempts to prove who He is; He knows who he is. I tell the members that Stan still poses those "if" questions here and now and it is what stops us all from doing missionary work or any other good thing. He says things like "If you share the gospel with that person, you will lose your friendship with them" or "If you try to share the gospel you will stumble over your words, and people don't want to hear it in the first place". It is a liberating choice to silence the "If" whispers of Satan. My hope is that we may always recognize the voice of God and that of the adversary. There is no such thing as "if we are children of God", we are His Children. He does love us. His voice can always be recognized by it's enabling message and encouragement. His voice sounds like hope, love and progression. I know my Shepard's voice and that is how I know these things are true. I pray that we may all continue to believe in God. Believe that He has something greater in store for us than all that the world can offer. More than any appetite may appeal. May we all align ourselves with him and accept his guidance by keeping the commandments and communing with him in simple, humble prayer. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

                                                                                                                                   

 Love always, Elder Prince