Lookin up

Heeeeey!

I hope everyone is ready for Halloween! Out here, they have something called "Beggars Night" which is the day before Halloween. That is when the children do their trick or treating instead of on Halloween.

We had a really good week in terms of finding! We were able to find eight new investigators this week which was a huge improvement over last week! We are teaching a lady named Michelle and her sixteen year old daughter Victoria! We had an awesome lesson with them this last week on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and church attendance! They couldn't come yesterday, but they promised to this Sunday! We found a couple named Rodney and Tammy who are looking for a church to raise their family in! AND, none of them have been baptized before! So that's one less concern to overcome! Hopefully we can help them start progressing as well!

This week I got to go on exchanges with Elder MacCabe! It was awesome being able to be his companion for the day! It's been a long time since our MTC days!

You guys! It is getting cold here! Noooooooooooooooo! It snowed for the first time this week. Nothing stuck, but it was still scary! The cold weather and wind is back :(! Oh well, at lease I only have to endure a couple more months of it!

I hope you all have a rocking Halloween! I love you all!

ELDER ZINN

The Osceola District!

INDIANOLA

Heeeey everyone!

Transfer week brought a ton of changes for me! On Tuesday morning, I was informed that I would be getting transferred to Indianola Iowa! Indianola has a population of about 16 thousand people, so it isn't too small of a town! It is just south of Des Moines. I also found out that my new companion would be Elder Davidson! We have gotten along pretty well the past few days! Elder Davidson is probably the most positive and nicest human being I have ever met! He has been out for 14 months and is from a small town in Eastern Washington.

After I learned that I was leaving, I said bye to some of the members here and packed my bags! I have really enjoyed my time in Indianola so far! The work is really slow right now. We found two new investigators these past couple of days, so hopefully things will turn around! The branch here is awesome! The members seem pretty fired up to support us! 

Thats pretty much it! Love ya all!

Elder Zinn!

BRO ABBOTT!

The George Fam!

The Rounds!

The Lineage! From Left to Right! Elder Dotimas, Me, Schoenfeld (my son), Barney (my grandson), and Blanchard (my great grandson)!

The Leon District

Lesssss gooooooo!

Transfer Week #15

Heeeey Er'ryone

This last week flew by! We had a pretty good one. I am still sick. Can't seem to shake this one haha!

Tomorrow are transfer calls! We will see what happens, but I feel like I am getting transferred. After this week, I have two transfers left so wherever I go will probably be my last area!

We had a full week of finding and teaching investigators! We weren't able to teach Mohammed this week. We were able to find some fairly solid new people though! No one came to church this week, but we are very hopeful for getting people there next week!

We had Zone Conference this past Friday in Nauvoo! So that is where most of my pictures are from this week.

The weather is cooling down out here. It has been cold and rainy all week, so we are hoping for a bit more sun.

That is all I have time to write this week! I love you guys! <3 div="">

Squad up!

Helllo Erryone

I am reflecting on this past week, and nothing too crazy happened. It was a very average week. I am sick again ughhh. At least this time I only have a cold!

Both Donelle and Iseel have dropped off the map. We haven't been in contact with either of them since last week. We found a cool new investigator named Mohammed! He used to be a Muslim. But now he is agnostic because he believes that God has forsaken our world. Quite the religious background huh? We had a super good lesson with him where we explained the Restoration to him! He was really engaged in it. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he has been reading from it for a few days now! Hey promised to come to church next week so we are hopeful for that!

Sorry for the short email this week. This computer is glitching out like crazy! 

I love you guys! Have a great week!

-Elder Zinn!

17 TONS!

What's up Fam!?

I hope you all enjoyed General Conference this past weekend! It was a treat to be able to hear from our inspired leaders! It was sad news to hear that Elder Hales past away. We watched all of the sessions at the stake center, so we were completely surprised when Elder Eyring announced his passing at the beginning of the Sunday afternoon session.

We had another decent week! We had a really good lesson with our new investigator Iseel! I taught her while on exchanges with Elder Brown! We taught her about the Restoration! She was really engaged in the lesson and had a lot of questions. We were expecting Iseel to come to watch general conference with us, but she never came :(. We do have a lesson scheduled for Tuesday where we will probably teach the Plan of Salvation! We had an investigator call us and say that he was on his way to the church building to watch conference.... but he never showed up. That was weird because he hasn't returned any of our calls since then.

We did THE MOST EXHAUSTING service project ever this past week! A member had us move 400 stones that weighed 90 pounds each around in his backyard! Luckily my companion is a college linebacker, so he did a lot of the lifting haha! We were both SOAKED in sweat afterwards though!

Here is a quote from my favorite talk given by Elder Hallstrom:

"Today I testify of miracles. Being a child of God is a miracle. Receiving a body in His image and likeness is a miracle. The gift of a Savior is a miracle. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is a miracle. The potential for eternal life is a miracle."..."Our supreme focus should be on the spiritual miracles that are available to all of God’s children. No matter our ethnicity, no matter our nationality, no matter what we have done if we repent, no matter what may have been done to us—all of us have equal access to these miracles."

Look for those Spiritual Miracles everyone! I love you all!   -Elder ZINN!

"You Door Knockers!"

Good morning everyone!

We had a decent week! We had some very hot weather this past week, but everything still went by quickly!

We had a kind of disappointing week as far as missionary work goes. Our appointment with the Kurosawa family fell through :(. They cancelled on us saying that they want to continue meeting with us after they get settled in more. It is sad, but they haven't prioritized the gospel. This happens with a lot of people we meet with. They are willing to meet with us until it starts becoming a sacrifice. Most of the people we come in contact with prioritize Walmart more than meeting with us haha! Oh well, that is the struggle! We were able to find five new investigators this week! We found a guy named Hanyu from China! He had no concept of God at all before we met him. At the end of the lesson we had with him, he prayed for the first time! It isn't often when we come across people out here who don't even know who Jesus Christ is, so this is a new experience for me! 

We ran into a lady on the streets the other day and right when we started talking to her she said, "Oooooh no! Not you door knockers"! Then she turned around and walked away! I don't think I have ever been called a "door knocker" before! Haha, I'm not even sure if it is an insult!

Saturday was really crazy because of the football game here! It was Iowa vs Penn State. Apparently we almost pulled off an upset! There was tailgating allllll day! It made doing missionary work very difficult. But it was a fun day!

I can't think of anything else. Enjoy your week! General Conference is going to be AWESOME! Soak up as much of it as you can! I love you ALLLLL!

Elder ZINNNNNNNNNNNNN!

A Rash of Good Luck

Wooooooow what a week!

This week went by super fast! We had a very interesting week...haha

I don't have very much time to email today because we have a lot of stuff to do today! So sorry if I am brief.

On Tuesday we had a meeting that lasted allll day!

We had mixed success this week as far as missionary work goes! We found three new investigators this week! They are all YSA age though, so we wont be able to teach any of them. With school starting up again, we are always running into college students! It has been fun to talk to people my own age though! I think generally, they have been a lot more open than the mid-aged people we usually teach! We are still teaching Antonio and his family. They weren't able to come to church this week. Hopefully we will be able to get them there next week! Elder Milligan and I are focusing this week on FINDING! I am honestly really excited for this week to be able to go on the hunt for some of God's prepared children. This week is pretty open for once, so hopefully we will be able to do that!

Something funny that happened this week is that I got rash and hives all over my legs and torso. I went to the doctors and they think it might be poison ivy. I don't know how I could have gotten Poison ivy on my legs and chest when I wear slacks and a shirt and tie all day. The medicine I have been taking for it is clearing everything up nicely though!

I hope all of you are doing well! It is awesome to hear about all of you who are preparing and leaving on missions! My mission has been the time of my life so far! It hasn't been super easy, but it has been soooo rewarding! I love you all! Have a killer week!

Elder Zinn

 The Most Lit companionship in the mission!

 A cicada killer. Literally the most terrifying thing in the world!

The Dream Happened!

Greetings Everyone!

The Dawn of a new transfer has begun! On Thursday, I said bye to my bro and homie Elder Cook :(. He flew back home on Friday. I was STOKED to find out that my new companion would be Elder Milligan! We served around each other in my last area and we kept joking around that we would eventually be companions! Well it happened! I am super excited for this transfer to serve around him! Elder Milligan is from Eagle Idaho and came out into the mission the same time as me! 

We had a really busy week for us again! On Tuesday, we made a two hour drive to Des Moines to pick up our new car! We traded in our Nissian Frontier for a 2017 Toyota Corolla!

As far as missionary work, this week was kind of disappointing. We lost contact with Rita for most of the week. We spent a lot of time finding this week and found four new investigators! That was nice. It just seems like everyone we find goes into hiding whenever we try to contact them again haha!

The weather has been soooo nice lately! It has cooled off a ton! The humidity has completely disappeared! In general, this summer has seemed very mild. Maybe it's because we have had a car this whole summer.

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Zinn!

 BYE ELDER COOK! <3 span="">

 The LINEAGE! From Right to Left in Mission Lingo! Elder Leavy (my dad), ME (awesome), Elder Schoenfeld (my son), Elder Barney... I think (my grandson), Elder McCain (my brother), and Elder Householder... I think (I don't know what he would be).

Death Weeeeek!

Greetings Everyone!

We had a really productive week! We were able to do quite a bit of work in our area this week!

This week is transfer week! My companion goes home this week! It will be strange to see him go home. I wonder who my next companion will be...

We were able to find four new investigators this week which was awesome! We found a family from the Dominican Republic that were super interested in learning more! The family consists of a single mom and four kids! They showed up to church yesterday and loved it! They are working towards a baptismal date of August 26th! Unfortunately, we had to pass them of to the Spanish sisters. Every person we find who speaks Spanish as their first language we hand off to the Spanish sisters. Oh well, hopefully they continue to progress. We also found a teenage girl named Levila! She really enjoyed the message of the Restoration. We are meeting with her tonight so hopefully it goes well!

The weather has been super nice all week! We walked around a lot this week to take advantage of it!

That's all for this week! Luv ya all!

Elder JAMES Zinn

 The Zone

Pageant 2.0

Hello everyone!

We had an insanely fast week!

A good part of our investigators dropped us this week :(. That's OK though, because we have been making a large emphasis in our area of working with and finding the elect! We are still working with Rita! She came to church again this week which was awesome! We moved her date back until August 26th to give her a bit more time. We taught Rita the Plan of Salvation which she really enjoyed.

While we were finding this week, we ran into a guy named Boni who just pulling into his driveway! When we sat down to teach him, he told us that he felt prompted by the Spirit to leave his soccer practice early which was when we ran into him! He said in his African accent, " You might not believe it, but that was a sign from God that I need to meet with you"! We were like, " WE BELIEVE THAT ALSO"!!! He then pulled out a Book of Mormon from his bookshelf and told us how he knew it was a true book! He had been given a Book of Mormon by a friend years ago and has been reading it ever since! The only lame thing about this whole situation is that we had to hand him off to the YSA elders because Boni is 19. Every investigator we find between the ages of 18-30 we have to hand over to the YSA elders. Hopefully we will be able to see Boni progress!

On Saturday, we had the opportunity to go to the Nauvoo Pageant! I went last year, but this was my companions first time. The Pageant was soooo awesome though! We had a really good time even though we were basically swimming with how humid it was!

That's pretty much this week! LLLLOOOOVVVVEEE YOU ALLLL!

ELDER ZINN!

 Elder Peden and I together have gotten food poisoning more than the rest of the mission combined!