Mukwona.....huh???

Jeff has been in the city of Mukwonago for most of the summer (I'm just a delinquent Mom and haven't kept up well).

He is companioned up with Elder Smith, and they seem to be doing well. Things are a little different in Mukwanago - lots of walking and lots of, what Jeff calls, seed planting and not a lot of return visits. He says they're doing a lot of service - which I think is as valuable as anything, but that is this Mom's personal opinion :)

Here are a couple of pictures - They helped move a fridge, yes, using a tractor. Jeff says it's the best way he's ever done it!

Drop him a line, I know he'd love to hear from you!!

District Leader and New Trainee

I have been pretty horrible about keeping any sort of consistent posting going on for Jeff - my apologies!

He has been made District Leader AND he has a new companion. Elder Kresge was transferred and Elder Hall, from Calgary, Alberta is Jeff's brand-spankin' new companion!

It looks like he got to see every one of his former companions at transfers (except E. Peterson) - what a fun day for all of these guys!




He and E. Kresge had a baptism on Easter weekend, where, as district leader, Jeff was the one doing the baptismal interview:

"My district leader responsibilities are going good. I was actually able to conduct my first baptismal interview this week and that was really really cool!"

I'll add a couple of other little notes he's sent me over the past few weeks - 

"We taught a family in a super 8 hotel room. Their are waiting to get into their new place and the plumber hit the water main and flooded the house so their landlord put them in the hotel for the time being. So we taught them in a hotel room!"

"On monday night we were with a family for dinner and FHE well for the closing song we sang, Smelly Cat. Yes the one from friends! It was freaking hilarious!!!"

"Oh it was another great bingo day. We had lunch with the little old ladies and they were all so excited to see both of us back there. After lunch and before bingo we met the coolest old lady. Her name is Millie, she is 102 years old and turns 103 in June. She was born the same the titanic sank. She was a burlesque dancer. She was awesome!! She gave us her address and told us that the coffee pot is always on and to come over anytime to talk and have some coffee. She had her license until she was 98 and she was TICKED when they took it away. She did say though that she didn't want to hurt people. Oh good old Millie!!"

"A 92 year old lady didn't believe me that I would do her dishes and when i started to stand up she pushed me back down and said well if you really want to do service you can wash my feet. So I said well if that is what you need done I'll do it - but she was just kidding. She is a less active only due to this darn cold weather. she is so so so freaking funny. She cracks some of the funniest jokes I have ever heard."

Jeff is doing a lot of good work in Wisconsin. I hear from members back there on a regular basis about how awesome he is and how much they appreciate him. He's been pretty much in the same area for a year, so the members in Madison/Mt. Horeb know him pretty well - well enough that they threw him a One-Year-hump-day ice cream "celebration" this past week - It all looks pretty yummy, doesn't it??

Thank you to everyone in Madison and Mt. Horeb for taking such good care of Jeffy...er...Elder Steiner this past year!!!

I'm sure Jeff would love to hear from you - snail mail or email, he loves it all! 

Little Changes in Wisconsin

 The week before Christmas  - TRANSFERS!! And for the first time since Jeff has been in Wisconsin he was transferred. However, he didn't move far - from Madison to Mt. Horeb, almost 20 miles west as the crow flies. He's even in the same stake! His new companion is Elder Kresge, from the Seattle area - he is completing E. Kresge's training.  I think they're getting along well from the pictures I'm seeing and what I've heard in the last email :) Here are some excerpts from the last letter - and his new local address will be posted on the blog.

We did a lot of service, I think my favorite though was eating lunch and calling bingo for the seniors for about 3 hours!! It was GREAT!!!!!!! E. Kresge did the roller thing and I called out the numbers, it was awesome how serious the old people took it! 





We were walking down the main street of Mt. Horeb here. Well we were walking down one side and there was this older man and woman walking towards us. They stopped at the light ahead of us and there was a guy just behind them in a big  black coat and what not, well when we passed them I looked over and the dude in the coat had an ear piece and was totally security for them. 

It got better when we looked across the street to see the big blacked out yukon driving slowly and following them. Well then it got even better. We were walking home and had to stop at kwik trip (gas station) and we walk in Kresge goes in and in comes another dude with a security guy. 

The security guy was a lot more obvious though. He was wearing a Wisconsin shirt thing that was way to big!!! He was obviously wearing his vest and packing heat! It was legit. 

Well then we walked out at the same time and Kresge tried to hold the door for him. Yeah he wanted nothing to do with that! It was kinda exciting because there is nothing here for some big wigs to have reason..... we don't know who they were and what not...


Last but not least, Elder Kresge was able to extend his first baptismal invitation yesterday and man was he excited!! In fact, when we got back in the car this is what he said to me,"HOLY FROSTED FLAKES BATMAN, I'M A MISSIONARY!!!!!!!!

This is why I am serving a mission......to see that happiness and joy the gospel truly brings!

From 11/18/13
The baptism went great!! 

She asked that I baptize her so I did, of course. And then Elder Peterson confirmed her.

 It was great!! 

Everything went really good and man that is why I am serving a mission to see that happiness and joy that the gospel truly brings. 

I don't think I have ever seen that before, but man, now I know what people mean when they say it brings happiness and joy into lives because -  holy cow -  she was SOOOOOO happy and excited. I loved being a part of that!! 

After she was baptized she just held her face and cried because she was so happy it was an incredible experience!!!! 


Update 11/25/13

The new member is doing great. We saw her on Wednesday and we were all, how are you doing?? And she then responded "shining!!" and she seriously is.

I never have really seen what people mean when they say people get a new light about them but she seriously has it. It is incredible. There is just an extremely strong spirit in the room wherever she is. So she is doing great!!


Just a quick note for anyone sending anything to Jeff for Christmas - please send it to the MISSION OFFICE. He his scheduled to transfer the week before Christmas and is 98% sure he will be leaving Madison - so don't send anything to the Madison address.

Still in Madison!

I'm sorry I haven't been the best Mom at keeping this up to date, but things have been pretty status quo for Jeffy the last couple of months. He did get a new companion - Elder Peterson from California - who he is training. Here are a couple of pictures and some excerpts from his last few emails.

From 10/14

The week started pretty slow but picked up near the end. We did commit one of our new gators from last week to baptism so that is sweet. I think we'll set a date with her on Wednesday. She is amazing. The Spirit was super strong while we taught her a lesson about the Priesthood and why we don't baptize infants and it all made sense to her so that was great. Then near the end the Spirit was just screaming at me to invite her to be baptized, I really hadn't planned on it but when the Spirit was prompting that strong I had to do it. Well I invited her and man SUPER spiritual and right after she said yes she just burst into tears and the spirit was super strong. It was awesome! 

Oh so there is this family, the Lee's, they are amazing!! well on Tuesday we were stuck in Verona about 6 miles away from our place at 7:30 at night well there was no way we were going to make it home walking on time. Well as we started to walk and call people seeing if they could pick us up, sis lee and her daughter Adaline drove past. Well then on Sunday Sis lee came up to me and said that after they drove past us, Adaline said, "mom i think that is the first time I haven't seen Elder Steiner smiling" well she is like 10 or something like that I felt way bad! The first thing I thought of was all the people telling me right before I left to just smile and they would let me in the door. Well now I have to make sure I am always smiling when I see the Lee's.

After reading this experience I remember people telling Jeff this very thing about his smile, it is amazing how the Lord can recall the smallest details of our lives.

The Zoo in Madison

From October 7

Well we were walking to an appt this week and there was a lady trying to cross the street with a stroller with a suit case in there, then she was trying to carry her baby and pull another suit case behind her. So we helped he I pulled the suit case and E Peterson pushed the stroller with the suit case in it up around the corner to the laundry mat. So that was a fun random act of service that we did. Then while we were walking out of the laundry mat this lady looks at us and says, "you must be mormon" we say we are, then she says I could tell by the way you were dressed and how you were helping people out and just how you carry yourselves. So that was really cool to see that people do notice us and that we do stand out. 

Hanging with Tim on his birthday

From Sept 30

We got railed on a little by Elder Perkins (zone conference), He took a few shots at us but the biggest one was probably when he said to the two zones that," YOU AREN'T PREPARED." He said he doesn't know what it is but the Spirit had been telling him to say that for 3 hours so he did." so we took that to heart, well elder Peterson and I did and the work has really picked up as you can tell. We just said alright time to be EXACTLY obedient and it is not that we were being disobedient but we just said okay everything is going to be exactly as it is supposed to. It has definitely strengthened my testimony because after we did that bamski!! 3 new investigators, so we are going to keep that up for sure. 




That's about it for now. I did receive a letter from Jeff's mission president with his "call" as a trainer, that was pretty cool. It's amazing how fast they learn and move in the work. I guess it all comes with the territory, they were born into and live in a fast moving world and they know how to deal with that. Be sure to drop Jeff an email or a letter, he's still in Madison for now, I'm sure he'd enjoy hearing from you! 

Knock on the door to....where????

I'm sorry I haven't posted the last couple of weeks, Jeffy hasn't given me much to go on - just the "going good here" type of thing. I'll put some excerpts up and a few pictures of this fun place that a bunch of people in his ward work at called "Epic." They develop and implement software for hospitals and things (Jeffy's words), he says the whole place is themed and just a blast! Enjoy the latest from Elder Jeff!

Investigator??

What happens when the bikes bite the dust!

This week has been a great week. We have had a couple of new invest. and two of those accepted a baptismal invitation and date. Another one accepted a baptismal invitation so it has been awesome!! We ran into a long lost member of the church. He was baptized when he was 12 and now is in his 30's he lives in the same apartment complex as us. Really nice guy. We have stayed super busy which is awesome.

 On wednesday

 on our way to service E. kimzey's bike broke. A spoke came of but we continued on. When we came out from doing service his front tire was flat. We were about a 2 and a half hour walk home and I was not about to do that so we put a piece of tape over the hole pumped it up and off we went. We made it home with no problems. 

At Epic since all the buildings are themed there is one called heaven and one is called hell well heaven is the floor above hell and no joke there is a slide, yes a legit slide that takes you from heaven to hell!! This is the door to hell.......these are some mighty serious go-get-em Elders!!

Oh transfers are Wednesday. Elder Kimzey is leaving me. I am getting a new companion whose name is Elder Shipp. Ironically his dad and Elder Kimzey's dad actually served together. I am pretty excited for a new companion but nervous at the same time. It will be good though

Inspired Bus Missing

Here is a short excerpt from Jeff's letter this week. It sounds like he had a full week, a little disappointing, with many appointments that fell through, but one sweet highlight that let's you know that perhaps the Lord made you miss the bus for a reason.


For dinner we went over to a less active member's house. He is a super cool guy he is trying to work towards the temple and priesthood right now. He made us some ribs, they were alright. Oh and then we left. As we were walking towards the bus it freaking drove past, 10 minutes early!!! Luckily we weren't that far from home so we just walked. 

On our way home, actually almost home, we took a right turn and then someone started yelling at us, Amigos, Amigos!! so we turned around, it was two Hispanic men, one spoke no english and the other spoke a little. We slowly figured out what they were saying. They were asking where the church was. So we told them, but then they started asking more questions, we had no idea what they were saying so we just called up the Spanish elders in our zone. 

Well as E. Kimzey was calling them, the guy that spoke absolutely no english freaking pulled out his temple recommend!!!!!!!!! Yeah we were so freaking blown away with that one. So once we had the Spanish elders on the phone we gave these two guys the phone and they talked for a little. They said goodbye, and we then asked the elders what the heck just happened. They told us that the member is from mexico and was just looking for a place to go to church on . bottom line was that it was inspired bus missing. Pretty cool experience.