2 Nov 2026, Monday

2 Nov 2026, Monday

Prioritized Daily Task

Movie - Everest: The Other Side

Up at 6:30 AM, prayer, and when Debbie woke, we had prayer together at about 7:00 AM.  We had apples and peanut butter for breakfast and filled the car with gas at the Costco Warehouse in Twin Falls.  We drove to Logan and picked up lunch for Sister Abbey Hobbs, who is in Home MTC.  We ate with her and visited.  Next, she will go to the Provo Mission Training Center on her way to the Frankfurt, Germany mission.  I talked to Beth.  Paul who was there with Beth.  They are engaged to be married. Sister Hobbs' friend, Elder Branson Brown, is serving his mission in Costa Rica.  Paul's parents served as President and Matron of the Costa Rica Temple.  On the way home, Debbie and I listened to the audiobook, Huckberry Finn by Mark Twain.  We got home and unpacked the car.  Debbie worked in the house, and I started blowing and raking leaves in the front yard.  All the leaves are off the trees.  Last week, I raked and filled a large plastic bag.  Today, there were two large plastic bags we filled with leaves.  The pest control company owner, Camdon, came out with a helper, Branson (I think that was his name).  They finished treating the outside of the house, and then they finished helping me fill the 2 bags with leaves and put them in the gargabe container the city will pick up next Monday.  Camdon went back and treated the yard for pests after the leaves were gathered up.  The bags were so large; even with packing them down, the lid would not close.  I studied by listening to Scripture Central earlier today.  Debbie and I went to the MEGA theater in the Vineyard about 9 miles from our home to see, Everest: The Other Side.  When we got home, we had prayer together before going to bed.    

I received this email from Elder James Tucker Davis today: This is my 1st week in the mission field and it has been amazing. This email is definitely a lot longer because a lot happened. On my second day we were able to invite someone who has been taught for a while named Matilde to be baptized and she said yes, so she will be baptized on the 21st if everything goes to plan. My companion is a great trainer and has taught me a lot of things so far and this district is full of friendly people. MY VISA came on Thursday so most likely   once the transfer ends and apparently someone in my same district also got his visa for Tacna as well so we will most likely head out together. Mission work in Utah is much more different and maybe easier than anywhere else because we schedule lessons with members half the time and the other half we get referrals from members to talk to people instead of knocking on random doors. Most people that live here are already LDS or have strong feelings against the church. But there's a few people in the middle and those are who we go visit. Also we only teach for Spanish speakers and they are much more humble than most people when talking to us, so that's another plus. There are quite a few members here in Davis County which doesn't surprise me, so we are always getting honks of encouragement and also seeing the F-35 and F-22 jet fly overs from the nearby Hill Air Force Base which is nice to see. On the other hand, we are one of the only companionships on bikes heading into the winter which isn't very nice at all. The weather is really the only hard part of this mission for me, however, on Wednesday my companion Elder Moss did most of the planning because he is the senior companion and he didn't do the best planning, so that day we did somewhere between 15-18 miles of biking and 3/4ths of the time it was raining pretty hard. Getting into the more spiritual aspect: On that same day it was raining, I met an old man that told us a story for 30ish minutes about his conversion and how when he was 18 years old he joined the military and went to Camp Pendleton and would surf down in San Diego all the time. While surfing, he said there was a voice that told him to look behind him and he saw an 18 foot shark coming right towards him. He prepared to jab his surf board into the shark but then the shark went right under him. Skipping forward a bit, he was at a fast food place when he saw the missionaries and sat down and talked to them. He was kind of bored of their lesson that they were giving, however, at the end they bore their testimony of Jesus Christ and he remembered the exact words they told him because those words sounded exactly like the voice that told him where to look when there was a shark coming for him. He was still 18 at this time and said the Vietnam war just started, and since he joined the military instead of getting drafted, he managed to be in a reserve unit and didn't go to Vietnam somehow. After a while, he moved to Utah because of the impact these missionaries had on him and went to see Joseph Fielding Smith speak. I'm not sure if it was a General Conference but he spoke outside and a bunch of people were gathered around to hear him speak and wanted to know if this prophet was called of God. As soon as JFS started talking he felt the same feeling as when he was in the ocean and when the missionaries bore their testimony of Christ and he saw the clouds open up and the prophets voice echoed through the Utah canyon. He joined the church and has been a member ever since. He ended our conversion by baring his testimony of the power of sharing testimonies and said, “sharing scriptures come and go but sharing your testimony of Christ can stay with someone forever,” which is exactly what happened to him. That definitely gave me a lot more motivation on a rainy day to keep going, however it's only going to get colder here....... President Lake, my mission president, 3rd or 4th great-grandfather, was Karl Maeser, the first German convert that was called by Brigham Young to run Brigham Young University.  I am not picking up on the language just yet but my vocabulary is definitely improving which is good.                                                                                Love yall guys this mission is the best