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. 

A Challenge from Elder Steiner

I thought I would post most of the letter I received from Jeffy this week, it sounds like he's growing a lot in the gospel and learning a ton.


This week has been a pretty good week here in Madison. The sun has been shinning and all is good. There is a huge park by our place and on the 2 they had a firework show. It really wasn't all that great but hey I'll never complain for a half hour of fireworks! It also started at 9:30 so we had to watch it from our apt. but it was still cool. We met our new mission president this last week. He is a super cool guy.

The fourth was an interesting day for us. We went around and tried to contact some referrals since holidays are known as "prime proselyting days." The one lady we stopped by got all ticked off and slammed the door in our face yelling about how it was a holiday and to leave people alone. So that is just what we did. We didn't feel all that comfortable knocking on people's doors so we just went to see if we could help out members. For dinner we were able to be at a members house with about 5 families from the ward. It was a lot of fun, they had super good food and lots of fun. Members are great lately because they have fruit like fresh fruit at all of our dinner appts. and whatever isn't eaten they send home with us. It's SWEET!!

oh there are also quite a few fireflies out at night. They are kinda fun oh also the mosquitoes are kinda crazy right now. All is going well though. With our one investigator this week we met with him and our ward mission leader and we watch a movie that a guy did that is all about 3 nephi. It was super spiritual. It is called, Another Testament, reflections of Christ. If you can find it I highly recommend it. 

Yesterday at church the young men's president came up to us before church and asked us if we would bless the sacrament because there wasn't going to be any priests there. Usually it is supposed to be members of the ward that do it but since he asked us we did it. It was cool to do that again. We had a super spiritual testimony meeting so that was sweet. For dinner we went over to the Mancera's. We had a super delicious Bolivian meal. Bro Mancera is a convert and has a super strong testimony. We shared a lesson with them, they have twin boys who just about 3 months ago became deacons. We gave them a challenge/invitation that I think is awesome and I am going to give you the same one. 

That challenge is to pick your favorite story out of the Book of Mormon and really study it. Don't just read it, pick it apart.

Oh I just had a pretty cool experience, some guy just came up to me as I was waiting for computer and said that he has been trying to find us and wants to know more. He isn't in our area but I got his info so that I could pass it along to the missionaries in his area. Members are stepping up here and it is awesome! I won't tell you the weather here because I am 99% sure you would be super super jealous!! haha 

These emails are good. I love ya and hope all is going well. Don't get to lonely without us. I love ya and God speed!!!

Love your son,

Elder Steiner

I thought it would be really cool if we could each take his challenge, to study your favorite Book of Mormon story - really pick it apart, even just for this week, and write to him about your experience. Is anyone else game to do that with me? You can post your experience here and I can cut and paste them into my weekly email, or you can email them to me, or you can send them to him yourself - what do you think? And really, what do you have to lose?? If you're not a member of the LDS faith, and would like to take this challenge, find your favorite bible story (or ask an LDS friend to recommend a Book of Mormon story for you to read if you are so inclined) and study it this week - I'm sure Jeff would love to hear your experience too!

Baptism!

Jeff had his first baptism this week! This baptism was a little different, the Elders had to get this good brother, who is wheelchair bound and cannot bear his own weight at all,  dressed, into and out of the font and dressed again. Jeff said:

 It was awesome though. We then went with bishop and ward mission leader to his confirmationday at the first ward. It was truely amazing to see the happiness it brought him and his wife. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget. 

It is interesting how the Lord balances all of the things in our lives. While Jeff had this great experience on Saturday, the rest of his week was "balanced" out with this....

 Most days we have walked this week and we have been out for upwards of 20 hrs walking around attempting to contact people with almost no success. This entire week we only contacted 2 people. It was kind of rough some days but very humbling.

Last, he left me with something to ponder; he said they are focusing a lot on the broadcast from last Sunday and he closed his email this week with this.

 The work is hastening for sure and I hope you are doing all you can to hasten it as well

Am I helping to hasten the work? What would your answer be if Elder Steiner asked you?

Quick note -

Jeffy's MISSION address changed - so if you're sending things to the mission home 

please take note of the new address in the sidebar! 

More from Madison

Jeff is still in Madison with Elder Kimsey, and he FINALLY got some pictures sent to me! It looks like he's having a great time and working hard. He says they are incredibly busy and it looks like they may have a baptism on the 29th!

They had a huge mission meeting last week and Elder Oaks was there, along with a number of others from the Seventy and such - he said it was awesome.

The all mission meeting
(Jeff, front right, with his feet out in front of  him)

The big storms that rolled through his area last week were, and I quote, "super super super super cool, with super loud thunder!"

I'll put a couple of other pictures up for your viewing enjoyment, as well as a "very" brief video clip with a view of Madison!

If you have time, drop him a note in the mail, I'm sure he'd love to hear from you!!

Serving at the brat fest!

Tallest field goal :)
 (I had to supersize this one so you could see it at the top of the tower - heh)

Madison....

We received word that Jeff has been assigned to Madison with companion/trainer Elder Kimsey (who is a tad bit shorter than Jeff).

He says there are lakes and parks everywhere and they are biking/walking up to 20 miles a day. He says that the members are great and he already is beginning to understand the importance of the member missionary - they don't tract, it is totally ineffective in their area, they are dependent on the members - and the members come through!! They have an average of FOUR appointments a day!

I'll put his mission home address and current address on the side of the Blog somewhere so you have them - sorry I didn't think of that before - I'm sure he'd love some mail :)

He's alive!

Just a few quick notes from an email I received this morning. Sounds like he's doing well!


We are so crazy busy it is nuts!! we seriously do not stop going from 6:30 am until bed time at 10:30. We wake up and have personal study time for an hour and then we have our first three hour class period. Following that we have lunch and then another three hour class period. Following that we have usually an hour of teaching either zone or district. It is pretty fun! We then have more and more personal study time it is kind of crazy how much study time we have! 

When they said we would be in class 15 min after being dropped of they weren't kidding! We really were, my teachers are brother batillion or something close to that and sister paravado. We have the teachers with the hardest names to say. They are awesome though! the second day we were here we began teaching an investigator. It so awesome! The spirit is seriously so strong all of the time here and we are praying more than I have ever prayed in my life! We sing and pray before everything it is awesome!! 

oh I was made district leader for our district. There are only us three elders and six sisters in our district. but this place is awesome I am not really home sick at all. oh this is the only p day that I will get here in the mtc. the food is okay really really heavy and thick but i'm surviving! 

Sorry about the my incorrectness of writing but i am so flipping tired and so is everyone else!

....aaaaaand he's off!!

Whew! Elder Steiner is at the MTC!

I'd like to thank everyone who came and supported Jeff at his farewell. It was great to see many faces I haven't seen in quite some time - Thank you for being there for him.

Jeff was set apart Tuesday night by President McCleary. Shawn, Mel, Me and Gary were all present, as was Bishop Mack. Each of the stake presidency took a minute to give Jeff some advice, among these bits of wisdom were:

1. Be Obedient
2. Work Hard
3. Write home often

Jeff and Kristen headed to the MTC to drop Jeff off

4. Don't write about EVERYTHING that happens, your family doesn't need that stress.
5. Love the people

He spent Wednesday morning putting finishing touches on things and just relaxing with the family. The drop off at the MTC was one of the most wonderful things I've experienced.

I had heard how it was just amazingly fast and furious and heart-wrenching, but truly, I've never felt so much love and excitement in a "good-bye."

The line of missionaries stretched completely around the MTC, with brethren in yellow vests directing the unending flow of traffic. Melanie commented "They're so cute I just want to cry!" She was right, the spirit of giving and love emanating from those sweet young missionaries was enough to make you want to cry tears of joy! They were so excited to welcome every new missionary they could hardly stand still on the sidewalk and wait for you to put the car in park!

As we pulled up to our directed curbside spot little cheers went up 

"Hey look, its another one!"

"Here we go!" 

"Elder, are you excited?" 

"Elder, where are you going?" 

None of us could stop smiling.

Add caption

Within minutes the bags were out of the car, pictures were snapped, hugs were given and away went Jeffy! It was awesome!

I will do my best to put various letters and pictures here on the blog for everyone to share in his experience.

Thank you, long in advance, for your prayers, words of encouragement, love and support on Jeffy's behalf - you all are great!

Here's to a great two years!!