Tornadoes, Christmas and Bathtubs

Hey Y'all,

Final Christmas in the FTM!  Crazy to think that this is the last few days of 2015.  Anyway this week was pretty good.  We started off on Monday with a visit to a less active and his non member brother the McGovern's.  Super legit guys.  They took us to a philly cheesesteak joint and bought us dinner.  Super great.  Best part is the non member brother is opening up to us and will stay around for the lessons now!  Just got to keep nudging him in the right direction.  Tuesday and Wednesday were a lot of finding times.  Highlight definitely had to be with Dorothy Lee though.  Got dinner from her and she fully committed to live the Word of Wisdom!  She dumped out all of her coffee and threw away her coffee pot and gave away all of her alcohol!  That's what I am talking about!  Thursday we did a ton of planning and then went to a family's house for Christmas eve festivities!  I think I am fully prepared for being the jungle gym part of fatherhood after that night.  hahaha  We got picked up by the Harris' after and went and stayed the night with the Perdido Elders, Elder Peel, and Hildebrandt. (For those of you keeping track at home that is not one but two Christmas' on the mission with Elder Hildebrant!)  Partied until 2 AM.  Regretted that decision for the next couple of days.

Christmas was pretty good.  Got some very thoughtful gifts and a breakfast with the senior couple and some military personnel. Super cool guys.  Came home and made some cookies to give to the Kanupke's for letting me skype at their house.  Then talked to my family.  Pretty great ending to Christmas.

Saturday was a lot more finding time as almost everything we had fell through.  That is not the most fun but hey it makes for some good stories.  Sunday was just about the same as most Sunday's.  Hahaha So this morning we had a tornado spotted in our area and a member told us to take shelter in our bathrooms for safety.  This is during personal study so naturally the right thing to do is grab food, water, pillow, blankets and the scriptures and have a nice bath tub personal study hahaha.  I will leave you with that picture.  Have a great week Y'all!  Talk to you next year!

-- 

Elder Funk

Remember who you are and what HE stands for!

Christmas Eve party!​  

Hunkering down during personal study

Christmas Parties in Coke Pajamas

December 21, 2015

Hey Y'all!

Good week this week.  Not a whole ton of missionary work happened this week but it was definitely a spiritual week.  Tuesday we were able to go bring some happiness and joy to people through the realm of music and caroling.  

Then we came home to house a couple of elders (Elder Ellsworth and Elder Renslow) for the Christmas Conference the next day.  Ellsworth brought me a present!  A pair of Coca Cola PJ pants.  hahaha people must think I am addicted to Coca cola or something.  Wednesday we had our 1/2 mission Christmas Conference.  It was great I got to hang out with my MTC companion, Elder Richardson, for 6 hours! 

Came home and went to dinner with a less active.  Thursday we went out with Brother Forster and ended up getting a turkey lunch and I was so tired after that.  Then just weekly planning for the evening.

Friday we did a lot of planning and work for the genealogy library.  On our walk home we ran into a man, Melvin, again.  We ran into him a couple of weeks ago and had a good visit and then invited us to his home for Christmas dinner cause we had no plans as of that point.  Super cool guy.  Saturday we visited with a couple of great less actives and then had our ward Christmas party.  It was a good time filled with much great food.  We had several less active members attend.  

Sunday was a good day at church and a very spiritual sacrament meeting.  It brought tears to my eyes.  If anyone didn't feel the spirit there then.....well we don't have to worry about that because the spirit was there.  Anyway I hope Y'all have a Merry Christmas and remember the true reason for the season!

"Men are that they might have joy" AKA Coca Cola

Hey Y'all,

How is everyone's holiday season starting out?  Great?  I hope so.  Well for us here in sunny Florida it is definitely warm.  It has been in the 70's or 80's all week.  I will start with Tuesday this week.  We had our zone training meeting and it went fairly well.  I was told that I was the weirdest missionary from our senior couple while we were taking our zone pictures....from my understanding weird means the star of the show.  haha So then we went out to try to contact a few referrals that we got to find that none of them were home or that they actually weren't interested.  Such is the life of a missionary.  Had a great dinner with a recently married couple who moved out here because of his military stationing.  They showed us a picture of when he proposed to her....yeah he tried to use fireworks and ended up setting a mountain on fire.  It was in Utah earlier this year.  hahaha made for a great story and picture.  

Wednesday we had a really productive day working with less active's.  We met with one woman, Sister Kupfer, who has been out of the church for a few years but is going to be coming back.  She always has a lot to say but has such a great spirit about her.  Thursday we went out biking to go try to contact some less active's and ended up on Joy street.  Guess where Joy street led to......The Coca Cola Factory!  So yeah Joy (street) comes from Coca Cola.  Other than that not a whole lot happened that day.  

Friday was just a day of trying people who weren't home and Saturday we had another super great spiritual lesson with brother Ramos.  Hopefully he will desire to come back to church this week with his family.  

Sunday was a wonderful day.  We had church and then after were able to take the sacrament to a couple in the hospital, give a blessing to one of the sisters investigators, and give another blessing to a woman in a different hospital.  It is days like that where our numbers don't show that we did anything but for those people we made all of the difference in the world.  I live for days like that.  It is one of the greatest parts about being a missionary.  So ya I hope y'all have a great week this week and if you haven't watched "Why we need a Savior" on Christmas.mormon.org.  I highly recommend that you do that this week.  Such a powerful video the church has put out.  BYE!

Preparing for Jesus' Birthday

Hey Y'all,

So nothing to exciting right off the top of the head so I will just go ahead and share my week.  Tuesday we went and tried to teach this one guy who just turned everything we said into a reason that we are wrong.  Yeah so I didn't care much for that lesson.  Wednesday we had everything fall through but we were able to go take a picture of a "Happy Birthday Jesus" scene in someone's yard and then talk with them for an hour so I loved that.  Then we went caroling with the youth.  Fun stuff.  Thursday was pretty uneventful.  Things falling through again and ended the night doing more caroling with a couple in our ward and then heading to Pace on a tradeopoff

Friday in Pace we got to see a lot of people but then got held up by a Indian guy cause we knocked on his neighbor's door (not his door but his neighbor's) at 6:40.  That is too late to be working....so we had to call President Smith to get this guy off of our backs.  People these days....can't trust anyone.  Saturday we helped a member drop off some mattresses at Sleep Number that they would never pick up from his house.  Then went to the church and had a lesson with a couple that went well.

Sunday....Sunday fun day!  Went to church and after we got a message from the Stake Executive Secretary asking us to help out a counselor in the Stake Presidency so we did and ended up driving all around Pensacola only to be locked out of the Stake Building trying to help him.  It's was for a good cause though so it worth it.  Then had a super spiritual lesson with a less active, Harold Ramos.  Got a call from the sisters wanting us to give one of the people they were working with a blessing and when we got there they only wanted a prayer.....awkward.  Watched the Christmas devotional to end the night.  Wonderful devotional!  So spiritual and I learned so much!!!!  I would encourage all who missed it to go watch it!  I hope y'all have a great week!

Deep Friend Golden Brown Greenie

Hey y'all,

Hope y'all had a happy thanksgiving full of wonderful food.  This week for me was a wonderful week.  Monday we helped a less active put up Christmas lights and he gave us money to go out and get a super delicious pizza.  Tuesday, we packed and road tripped to Tallahassee.  On our way there we had to go to the bathroom so we pulled off to do so.  It just so happened that the exit we took was the exit it Bonifay!  hahaha I wonder how that happened ;)  Took a little detour and got to see Father (LD) Henderson!  We knocked on the front door and Tanya answered and said, "Elder Funk!  You are not the missionaries we were expecting"  hahaha Come to find out that they were feeding the sister missionaries that night....awkward....So we stayed and chatted for a few minutes and got to meet the sisters in Bonifay and talk with them.  Great time.  So glad that I got to see LD again.  I miss him like crazy!  Anyway, we continued on to Tally and slept over with some other missionaries.  

Wednesday, it was a long morning.  After much agonizing pain and "labor" I am now the proud father of Elder Magnusson.  haha He is from just outside of Sacramento, California.  Funny part is he served a mini-mission in Santa Rosa, California and then got reassigned to here so he came pre-trained!  hahaha I knew there was a catch behind me training ;)  He is a great guy and all ready to dive into the work.  We road tripped back and did some teaching and ended the night going to a member's to see if they would come to a lesson with us and we ended up getting voluntold that we are going to be playing the ukulele in accompanying the youth in Christmas caroling on Wednesday this week.  So they gave us a ukulele to practice.  I have been jamming on that thing all week.

Thursday, We started the day helping Brother Kanupke deep fry a turkey for thanksgiving!  Those things are the best!  Not the healthiest but definitely the best turkey I have ever had.  We had a good lunch with them and a few others and then Brother McGovern, a less active, came and took us to his house to eat with his brothers.  Funniest dinner appointment ever.  Five guys in one room.  Conversations get interesting hahaha.  

Friday, we went out and worked.  Nothing too special.  We did the same thing Saturday.  Yesterday we had a good time at church.  I had the privilege of teaching Sunday School about the Second Coming.  So I just turned to the book of Revelations and read a few things and  just talked a lot about that.  Priesthood got interesting with a couple of the brothers getting a little political and then getting called out by a member.  hahaha good times.  After church we didn't get too much done but it was a fun day.  So yeah  great week.  Hope y'all have a great week this week and are grateful for all that we have been given.  I know I am definitely more grateful after this week and every week on my mission.  I love y'all and pray for ya daily.

Love,

Elder Funk

Remember who you are and what HE stands for!  

(gobble Gobble) Lol