Pics from Lancaster

           The iconic giant Jesus mural in Elizabethtown.

           There are a lot of funny marquees here.

          CCM reunion at Zone Conference.

Ceiling Tiles Keep Fallin' on My Head...

Wisdom and Great Treasures of Knowledge (Even Hidden Treasures)

Sacrifice = Blessings. Do the Math.

Well, I have heard a lot about Oklahoma, sounds like it went pretty well! I am really proud of my brothers. What standouts they are, it's so cool. 

 Isn't it cool though how everything gets pulled together last minute? And that is so sweet of those kids. Wow, you had better save that card. That is cool. You make me miss home so much more; hearing about all of these things is just tough! But I'll have Performance Memories DVD to tide me over when I get back. Ha ha. 

Sounds like some cool lessons from Elder Garns. Something that I have noticed is that lessons go better by far when you get the audience participating more. That's what I’ve been trying to do with district meetings, getting people involved and engaged.  This week we did District Jeopardy, I had 5 categories. The “Challenging and Testifying Missionary” ( a talk I had them read beforehand), Working with members, Finding in faith, Ridiculous role-plays, and Quirky Quotes. All of them were missionary things except for the last, which was trying to guess where the character and movie the quote came from, like Star Wars or Napoleon Dynamite. It was fun.

That is interesting to hear about the Family Proclamation, first that it is that old but also that it really has been a clear definition of belief when everything else has changed. Wow, revelation! 

Can you believe that it is already halfway through March? Sorry but it just struck me that it has been a really long time since I've been home. Man.

I have to take off, but here’s some quick news. First, we picked up a new investigator last week! His whole family is members but Brother M isn't and it's been that way for like 20 years. So they invited us over for dinner a few days ago.  We were planning on inviting him to take the discussions but we just got super cold feet all of a sudden. We ate dinner and we shared a Mormon Message and were talking about the Book of Mormon, and I just got this feeling to be bold! I asked him if he'd read it, and if he'd felt the Spirit. He said he had. So we invited him to take the discussions and he accepted. Man, the devil was working on us, trying to make us chicken out but we just went through, and now we're teaching him! I am so excited. When we told the ward council they were just shocked. Apparently he's been asked to take the lessons before but he's always said no. Not this time! His daughter came up to us after the lesson. She was super grateful for us inviting him and told us that she felt like a big part of his change of heart was her making the sacrifice to go to seminary every day. So there you go! Sacrifice= blessings. Do the math. 

I'll send a letter with two comics this week and some more news plus explaining why I had so short time today to email!   Well, Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

Love Elder Wright

This Week on the District...

Daylight Savings Time is the most terrible thing ever!

Well, it's been a good week! You can get tunnel vision if you're not careful as a missionary, it's as you take a step back and review your efforts that you can notice a change. To start off, we have been setting up a lot of lessons and laying a lot of groundwork, prepping this area to have a great week this week. 

Something interesting was I went on exchange to Ephrata last Wednesday and we did a lot of tracting there. Man, what a work. It is cold and people get to be rude to you and in general it's just not a super good time. But we met some cool people too, and hopefully they will be able to teach them in the future. We are exchanging again tomorrow with the Zone Leaders, so I'll be going to Elizabethtown while Elder Durham, my old District Leader, comes here. I'm a little bummed because we have a bunch of awesome lessons set up for tomorrow that I'll miss. Oh well.

So last P-day we were at the church playing basketball and we had a couple of non-members there.  You can tell the Word of Wisdom is a true principle because one of the guys is a smoker and he looked about ready to pass out.  We also played ONKA, which is a kind of a dodgeball-kickball hybrid.  It’s super fun.  Elder H shows no mercy and will just peg you if he gets the opportunity.  However, something bad happened.  Someone pitched me the ball, I kicked it and it shot straight up.  It nailed one of the plaster ceiling tiles, which popped up and fell through, where it then hit the ground and cracked.  So that was bad.  It’s hard to build up a good impression with the ward when their first impression of you is that your “Elder Wrecking Ball Wright”.

Daylight Savings Time is the most terrible thing ever! I was so tired Sunday! We had to get up even earlier than we usually do because we had Ward Council before church. And I gave a talk! Sister Roberts was supposed to, while I was supposed to do it next week, but she was super sick so I did it. Wrote the thing that morning too and then gave it. I talked about missionary work and how we will have success and joy as we work together as members and missionaries. The other talks were about service too, so it all tied together as well. Also, I used the hymn #223, Have I Done Any Good, as a key point in my talk, and then it was the rest hymn right after. Cool or what?

And the last cool thing was that we picked up some new Spanish investigators! Y, J, and Y! They live at Brother G's house and they actually were learning about the church before and came a few times. Then a crazy member of the church who's actually less active scared them away by shouting at them or something. But now they want to learn again. It was a really cool lesson. I started teaching about the Restoration but we slowed it down, got them talking and sharing their thoughts and experiences, and then were bearing our testimonies about how we knew how they could find out for themselves. It was really cool, I was translating back and forth English to Spanish and vice-versa because Elder H doesn't speak Spanish, and was doing it faster than the native speakers were. That’s the help of the Spirit right there! It was legit. 

Well, I love you all! The church is true!

Elder Wright

Lock Your Heart, Elder.

I'm a big fan of this area already...

So here I am in Lancaster. I am loving it, this ward is super loving and they are pumped to do missionary work. I am a big fan of this area already. Things aren't super busy right now but we have been just getting out there more, talking to tons of people, and working hard, and I know things are going to turn around soon. I'm a walk elder again, which I love, but we do not have bikes, which means that we're way slower. I'm going to see what we can do to possibly acquire some. There are also sister missionaries in this ward, which is a bit of a change! But they are hard workers so it's awesome! 
My new companion is Elder H, he is pretty cool, his birthday was yesterday and he turned 20! So I got him a tie (the one he's wearing in the picture). He is black, Korean, Mexican and white, and awesome. Really friendly and a good teacher, and he reminds me a lot of Elder B. It stands to reason, because Elder B did train him. He has only been in this area for one transfer though, so he doesn’t know the area 100%.  We will be figuring this out.  But we are having a good time together, we've been trying to meet a bunch of less active members and get to working with them more! The gospel is true and it’s going to bless some people’s lives a ton!
In our area, we apparently teach a lot of classes.  We had a Book of Mormon one last night and an English one today.  (By the way, I am the only Spanish elder again, though Sister B is fluent in the language.) Apparently, there’s tons of Spanish folks here, so that is good, I can keep improving!  There is actually a once a month Spanish sacrament meeting (other times they just translate), and we are trying to create a branch. There are plenty of Amish folk, horse and buggies on the roads, etc. It’s cool.  
Please pray for me and the missionaries I am with that we will be able to find the people the Lord has prepared for us.  I know that He’s got big things planned for this area if we work our tails off and are diligent in His service.  
Love,
Eder Wright

New Companion - Elder H

No Regrets

This email might be a mix of news and family stuff! First, I'm getting transferred. You heard from Brother Von Kampen I guess, and from the Pennsylvania Wrights. Yup, and so I’ll be leaving Tuesday morning. 

It is a comfort to say that I am leaving Harrisburg with no regrets. IT is sad, and I've made a lot of close friends here who I will miss dearly, but I know I have put in my full effort and am thankful for that. This last week was a good one. We worked hard, we biked and bussed and walked, and we found people who were really ready to be taught.We’ve been working with A, a less active member, and her two children, A and D, who are Eli and Jace's age. They are very frank about their concerns, which gives us a chance to address them and work them out, and they are making steady progress. They are at church every Sunday, though they never are there for sacrament meeting! They need to get up earlier, dang it! I am very confident they will be baptized once they have found their connection with God. Another investigator family we say was J and his wife P; he came to church once but hasn't come back since. We had a powerhouse lesson and they finally opened up on some of their concerns, namely that they had had a terrible experience at a past church, that resulted in them losing custody of their kids for a full year. I suppose I'd be pretty bitter at institutionalized religion if that happened to me. But once you can see the problem, you can start making progress in working through it, and they made a very strong commitment to pray about how they needed to move forward and change. So I have good hopes for them as well. There are just so many people who I want to tell you about! J got baptized on Saturday, which was a wonderful experience. She was majorly bummed when she found out I was leaving the next day. 

I am a little uncertain about when I’ll be able to write a comic this week, there isn't any time today because I'm packing! I've got to say, it's bittersweet. A lot of good memories here and I will miss the people here with all my heart. I still don’t officially know where I’m going, (and won't until I arrive there).

Love
Elder Wright