Well That was Fast/Changes are Necessary

This week was FAST!! Wow, I blinked and it ended. Serious, if the mission is always like this, I will be home in less than 100 blinks (Let's not think of that, it scares me to think time is moving that fast).

So, we made pancakes today with vannila syrupe because the stores here don't sell maple, so it tasted pretty interesting. Not bad but different. I will definetly have to work on that recipe. Haha, I feel bad for my companion eating the food I am trying to cook. Haha!! I just thought of something else, after we ate, my comp said something that was weird at first. He said, "Your accent doesn't make sense. Your American but you don't sound like one." He explained how my accent wasn't American but also wasn't completely Brazilian and he was wondering why. Back story: Most of the people here think I am from Europe (Usually, Germany or Sweden), I thought they thought this because of my hair and eyes, but my comp said that my accent is because everyone thinks I must be from there. So, that was interesting.

Our investigator Vinicius is progressing but wasn't at church yesterday. We only had two investigators at church. We are hopeful this next week will be better attendance wise. 

We had an awesome experience with a brother of an investigator. His name is Rafael. He was interested in what we believe, so, logically, we taught the First Vision. When we got to the point of Joseph Seeing God and Jesus, the Spirit FILLED the room completely and it seemed like noise didn't exist. After I recounted Joseph's experience, I paused and let the spirit testify. This moment was more powerful than any other moment during the lesson. At the end, I said to him, "If this really happened, then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the very true Church of Christ, and we MUST be baptized into His church." He agreed and accepted the invitation to be baptized and pray to know if these things are true. Which they are.

I know, with every fiber in my body, without any shadow of a doubt, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His church. He lives. He atoned for us. He is the Christ and we must follow Him.

Love you all!

Elder Zinn.

___________________________________________________________________

Hello!! This week was filled with a LOT of normal activity and learning. Let's get this show on the road!!

So, first things first; we were working out the kinks in our new technique and we have refined to the point of finding more new investigators. So far, we haven't gained any investigators progressing, but we have some first lessons the week to come. So we are hopefull. To expand on what this technique means number wise, we made more than 50 lessons because of this, shutting down any commentary about us being new to the mission and thus showing our ability to work hard and get things done, and expanding our new investigators to more than 25 people. Statistically, this means more souls will be brought to Christ!!

The teaching pool is "smaller" but has more potencial as we have refined our technique. In my opinion, our teach pool has grown because of the potencial we have found but "numerically" it has shrunk (If that statement made any sense at all...).

We had Zone Conference on Thursday, so that was pretty awesome recieving counsel and training to apply in our areas. I am pretty ecstatic to bring more people to Christ!! At this Zone Conference, President Acosta banned the use of hangouts in the emails, so I am pretty bummed but I know the that he recieves inspiration from the Lord and I want to recieve all the blessings I can get to help my investigators better!! 

Vinicius didn't go to church yesterday, we are pretty worried because we know for sure that he REALLY wants to be baptized but he is starting to not progress... We will teach a lesson really firm this week with him in order to give him the strength necessary to brighten his fire. 

Love you guys! I attached a video of us singing our Mission Hymn!! See if you can find me.

Elder Zinn!!

(Found my look a-like on the mission, haha)

A Week of Retraining/Melted Ice Cream Surprise

So, this week my companion and I decided to "retrain" a little. Seeing how both of us have less than 6 months on our mission, our level of experience is really low. This week was filled with finding ways to find more people and have more lessons. So, it worked but had a different effect than I thought.

What did we do:

We decided to teach people RIGHT when we found them, without asking permission to see how it would work. The goal in mind is invite the spirit immediately. This worked surprisingly well. We had a record of 42 lessons in one week and diminished the number of false addresses by A LOT. This also means it diminished the number of new investigators. But now we are ONLY finding the people who will progress.

We are still working out the tweeks but we have flattened out most of the awkward parts to make it smoother.

The COOLEST PART!!

We have an investigator named Vinicius. He is SO excited to be baptized but has to wait a little because he is living with his girlfriend. So, they are seperating so that they can be baptized. We are very excited for them! He brought us milkshake today before we came o send emails. He is super awesome and excited to follow the will of the Lord.

BUT yeah, until nexy week!! TCHAU!!

Elder Zinn.

___________________________________________________________________

This last week was cool. Trying new techniques and finding new people. A cool experience happened yesterday. 

We were walking to Lunch and my companion pulled out a pamphlet of the Restoration. He then looked at me and said, "I have no idea why I pulled this out but... ok?" And we just laughed and continued walking. Right when he was about to put into back into his bag I saw a man sat on the bus stop and I felt the Spirit tell me to talk to him. So we went. We talked to him and when he saw the pamphlet of the restauration he got really excited and said, "Oh! I know your church! Missionaries already stopped by our house and left a message" With this, we have a new investigator!!

I taught my companion bread with cinamon and sugar. It is really good and be also ate some ice cream to close our Sunday. Video attached.

Tchau!

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!

A Runway Birthday

Thanks for always making us laugh, David (see video below). Happy birthday!

Biology Lab

Today is Kirsten's last Biology Lab. Honestly, I was dreading her taking this class because it is all the way in Morgan Hill. However, Daveo, Loni, and I have had fun exploring for the two hours she is at her class. We typically go to a grocery store first to get some snacks (usually Pepperidge Farm cookies) and then hang out at a park. Kirsten has loved the class. She has no problem dissecting squid, frogs, grasshoppers, a pig fetus, etc. I will miss our Wednesday routine.

The Long Goodbye

This was the longest morning ever! Waking up and knowing I only have a few more hours left to physically be near my son is heart wrenching. I'm excited for him and know that he is doing the right thing, but my heart doesn't agree. It is breaking at the knowledge that I will have to wait two whole years to hug my boy again. 

Steven's travel information told him to get to the airport at least three hours early. So, that's what we did thinking the process to fly internationally would be long. It wasn't. He was done in ten minutes. While he was checking in, an older gentleman who worked for Delta, asked me how long my missionary will be gone. I was surprised that he knew why we were there and thought he must be a Mormon. He explained that he is familiar with Mormon missionaries as he sees a lot of them go through the airport. He often helps the person assigned to pick them up from the airport and commented to me how they are always so kind and nice. As our conversation ended, he grabbed a handful of mints to give to the kids.This man;s kindness made the whole dreaded experience a bit more pleasant. At the end of the check in process, the lady helping Steven commented to him that he could pass as a missionary. HaHa!

With two hours until Steven needed to board, we hung out with him for about an hour before saying goodbye. This was torture as we watched the clock waiting for the inevitable. A grand piano sat nearby beckoning Steven to play it, which he did. Goodbyes were finally said, tears where shed, and we drove back home with one less person in our family. 

Daveo moped around all day. The rest of us tried to keep busy, but Daveo couldn't stop crying and talking bout how he wished that tomorrow were two years or that he wished yesterday James had come home from his mission. He's feeling abandoned by his three older brothers. Poor guy. 

For Family Home Evening, we decided to go out and do something fun as a distraction from the emptiness in our hearts and home. We ate at IHOP and played miniature golf at Golfland. The distraction worked as I saw Daveo smile and laugh for the first time since Steven leaving.

A super Exciting and Fast week!

Hello Everyone!!!!

This week was kind of long and boring for us. Not a whole lot happened.

We spent most of our time knocking on doors this week. That is always super fun. We did find a new investigator. His name is Philip and is the father of eleven kids! There might be some potential there. Hopefully we will be able to teach the entire family the next time we go over there. We once again were not able to meet with Matt. His busy work schedule is making it a pain to meet him. 

The weather was either rainy or super nice! We utilized the beautiful weather to do some proselyting on foot instead of using our car! We came across some unsavory people while doing so. We were bashed three times this week! It is pretty annoying when people weave their philosophies into the scriptures and then proceed to tell me that we are the corrupt ones. It just goes to show that there are still Pharisees and Sadducees in our days. 

This next week will be a busier one luckily! We have Interview with President Badger on Wednesday. Then on Saturday, Elder Stevenson is visiting our mission! We are all looking forward to hearing from him!

On Saturday we did a lot of service for members. It was kind of nice because we don't usually do much service. We helped a lady in our ward reinforce her fence so her dog couldn't escape anymore. That was surprisingly fun!

That is all for this week. Nothing else really happened. Keep on reading the Book of Mormon! I love you all!

Elder Zinn!

The Dawn of transfer #11!

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a killer week! We had a really good one here in Hamilton! 

Transfer week is over. Elder McCain got transferred to Cedar Rapids. My new companion is Elder Perez. I served around Elder Perez in Des Moines so we are already fairly familiar with each other. He is from Ely Nevada (I have no idea where that is). We get along really well so far! My never ending role as a District Leader continues.

We spent the early part of the week going to different members houses so Elder McCain could say bye to them. We got a coupon in the mail for a FREE Domino's Pizza (No purchase necessary)! Who says miracles are dead?! We taught Matt on Tuesday once again in the Stake President's home. We had a really good discussion on the Word of Wisdom. We were anticipating this lesson being a "do or die" one because we have heard from many different members that Matt had several Word of Wisdom issues. When we taught it to him, he said his only problem was with coffee. We were confused to hear that. Whatever the case is, we committed him to live the Word of Wisdom 100%! We are going to follow up with him on that this week.

On Wednesday, we did a session at the Nauvoo Temple! That was the first time I was able to do a session since the MTC! It was an awesome experience.

The weather had been cloudy and rainy all week with the exception of Saturday.

General Conference was once again phenomenal! I hope all of you were able to watch it. On Saturday we watched it all at the church! On Sunday, some of our favorite members, the Skog's, had us over all day. That was such a fun day! I really loved Robert D. Hales talk on being a Disciple of Jesus Christ! Being a disciple requires ACTION! Overall, lots of amazing counsel was given. I would be curious to see what stood out to any of you?

Last night, while some of you were probably peacefully sleeping, we were handling an epidemic! A wasp somehow sneaked into our apartment. It was the biggest nightmare disposing of it without getting stung!

I hope everyone had an amazing week! Let's all follow the counsel given to us by President Monson to study the Book of Mormon Daily! I love you all!

Elder Zinn!

Winter in Iowa

Hello everyone!

This week went by so fast for us!

Tomorrow are the infamous transfer calls! My guess is that I am getting transferred since I am now done training Elder Schoenfeld and I have been here for three transfers. The Zone Leaders have also told me that I am getting transferred, but I know that anything can happen. I am secretly hoping to get transferred to a bigger city, but everyone is teasing me that I will be sent to a tiny town. We will see. I am prepared to serve wherever I am needed.

Our missionary effort weren't very fruitful at all unfortunately. No one came to church which was a disappointment. We have been spoiled lately with having amazing success getting investigators to church. Mary and Dorothy are still the same. We visited them a couple of times this week, but nothing really came of it.  So we spent a lot of time this week rebuilding our teaching pool. We did have a bit of success doing that luckily. We found a cool new investigators named Brad. He is a part of Salvation Army, but was interested in hearing about what we had to say considering modern day prophets. 

The weather continues to be warm. People say spring is just around the corner.

Nothing else really happened the rest of the week. Sorry this is such a short email. There isn't a lot to see right now. Winter in Muscatine Iowa is kind of boring.

I love you all! Stay posted nest week for the changes that come with transfers!

Elder Zinn

 pic of our balling squad. Guess which one is me!

 Winter in Iowa

"What's that Stench, it's fantastic!"

What's up everyone!?

I hope everyone has had a great start to the new year! Things are going pretty good here in Iowa!

This week is transfer week! We already received notification that Elder Schoenfeld and I will be staying together for another transfer! This wasn't surprising since I haven't finished training him yet. I am excited to get to serve with him for another transfer!

This week went by sooo fast! We had exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Tuesday. They brought us with them to do service at a pig barn that a member owns! We were told to not eat any breakfast or we would lose it! I was very grateful that I followed that wise counsel because the smell  was HORRIBLE! It was literally the worst scent I have ever smelled! It was definitely a unique experience, but I hope I never have to do it again. After several showers, I am finally getting the scent off of me. The Zone Leader's heater broke, so they have been with us in Muscatine all week which has been a ton of fun.

We had another good week helping our investigators progress. We moved her baptismal date up to January 15th! She is so eager to learn, that she has wanted to meet with us everyday! She is very excited for her baptism! We are sooo grateful for the opportunity that we have to teach her. Dorothy and Mary are both doing good. Their baptismal dates are for this week. Do to the language barrier and other circumstances, we may have to push back their dates a couple weeks. They are both still very solid though!

New Year's Eve was another day we were asked to not proselyte. It was fun celebrating the occasion with various members. No one lights fire works here. Literally, I didn't hear a single firework... :(. 

Have the best year ever! Love you all!

Elder Zinn!

 The Fairield Zone!

Winter in Nauvoo

Hello Everyone!

I hope everyone had a great week! I'll be honest, the weather out here made our week pretty miserable!

It was so cold and snowy yesterday that church was cancelled and we were told to stay inside all day. We were soooo bummed out over this! All week we were hyping our investigators up for coming to church! I forgot from last winter how the cold literally freezes your nose hairs and makes your lungs ache. 

Despite the cold, we were able to get a surprising amount of missionary work done. As far as finding went, no one wanted to talk to us. But we have been having a lot of success from member referrals! We are teaching a RMs friend Jalay. When we asked her what she wanted out of taking the discussions she said, " To learn more about this church so I can be baptized"! We were obviously thrilled to hear that. If only she could have come to church this week... Jalay is going on vacation until next year, so we will have to wait until then to resume the discussions. Dorothy and Mary are doing well.

We had our Christmas Zone Conference on Friday! It was awesome because it was held in Nauvoo! In this Mission, every district creates a skit from the scriptures. The video of ours is too big to send home via email, but I'll get it to you guys eventually. 

 

I rolled my ankle last P-day which was disappointing. It isn't too bad. I will just have to sit out on basketball for awhile.

Adjacent to our apartment is a giant movie theater. It has been kind of depressing watching people line up for the new star wars movie! Oh well, another year or so and I'll be able to catch up on it all.

That is all for this week! Stay warm, have a Merry Christmas, and LIGHTTHEWORLD! Love you all!

Elder Zinn!

Winter in Nauvoo!

Lineage PIC!

Developing an Immunity

Hello All!

We had a very good week here in Iowa!

We were able to teach a good amount of our investigators this week! We are teaching a cool guy named Adam. He came to church again this week! We have a lesson set up to teach him in a members home on Tuesday, so hopefully that will help him progress. The two African lady's we are teaching, Mary and Dorothy, continue to do well. They once again fed us this week. This time it was a dish that they promised wouldn't be spicy at all. Well it was just as spicy as the first time they fed us! Sooner or later I will develop an immunity to their spices. Both of them want to be baptized on January 8th (the date we set with them, but they need approval from their spouses first... I am sooo tired of other people getting in the way of our investigators being baptized!

It is getting soooooo cold out here. There was also a ton of snowfall this week! I am learning that it is completely different driving on snow than in normal conditions. The cooler weather is making everyone slow down and become recluses. I forgot how hard it is to find people to teach when "it is too cold to open the door". 

We had our ward's Christmas party this last Saturday. It was pretty awesome! Since the road conditions are so terrible from all the snow and ice, the turn out was lower than expected. The bright side was that we were able to take home a ton of food!

I shoveled snow for probably the first time in my life this week. We shoveled the snow on the church walkways prior to the ward party. I decided that shoveling snow isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

That is all for this week! I love you all and remember to #LightTheWorld!

Elder Zinn!

SNOW...

Hello Everyone!

We had a really good week here in Muscatine! 

We were lucky to accomplish quite a bit of missionary work! We are teaching two African lady's named Dorothy and Mary. They are really enjoying the discussions so far. Dorothy even came to church on Sunday again! The last time we went over to teach them they insisted on feeding us. I have had experiences in the past eating African food and wasn't too excited to eat more. But we didn't want to be rude and I wanted to see Elder Schoenfeld's reaction to their food, so we accepted their offer. They fed us what they call "pepper soup". As the name implies, it is insanely spicy. Elder Schoenfeld scoops a MASSIVE serving of this soup on his rice quickly realized his mistake. It was worth it though, because we were able to have a great lesson with them on the Plan of Salvation! We are working with a couple other investigators who also show pretty good promise.

It was soooo cold this week! Yesterday, we got dumped on with about seven inches of snow! It was fun for the first ten minutes until I remembered how miserable it is to proselyte in the snow. We have even colder weather to look forward to this week...

We had exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Friday which was a ton of fun! There is a delicacy here in Iowa called "Pizza Ranch". It is an all you can eat pizza buffet that I have come to love. We have a tradition of going there after every exchange!

We got bashed with a couple of times this week. It had been awhile since we got bashed with and I forgot how annoying they are. One of them was a "Hebrew Israelite" who insisted that he was a direct descendant of Abraham and that Christ's ethnicity is black. Our standpoint was that it matters more of what Christ did for us rather than what he looks like, but this guy was having none of it. It is pretty funny how ridiculously stubborn people are on when it comes to the smallest issues!

That is it for this week! I love you all and have a merry Christmas season!

Elder Zinn

 Missionary Haircuts are not a good idea!

Cowgirl

The dry, cold Montana weather is going to take some getting used to, but the beauty and family-togetherness will trump it all. (I just need to make sure there is plenty of lotion at my fingertips. 

This may be Steven's last trip to the ranch for a couple of years, as he is getting ready to put his mission papers in. This time here with his cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles is a treasure for him (and us). 

Today, we all just explored and hung out. Loni and I went on lots of walks and helped Grandma feed the horses. Loni wasn't even afraid of them. It was so fun to watch her. I didn't see much of Dave-o, Steven, Kirsten, and David as they were off on their own adventures. 

The ponds are beginning to freeze over.

Flying to Montana

 Packing winter clothing and accessories is hard. I ran around the house frantically getting everyone ready for our Thanksgiving trip to the Zinn Ranch. Time management is usually a strength of mine; but not today, I underestimated everything that needed to get done before leaving. When it came time to drive to the airport, we were ready, but we left the house a mess (which I hate doing because that means we will return to a mess). Mom and Dad Zinn invited us to ride in an 8-seater plane with them. I am so thankful for their generosity. This was a fun experience for us all. After getting past the little roller coaster dips as the plane reached it's altitude, it was smooth flying. We are all so excited to be here in Montana and spend time with family for a week. There is no snow yet, but we are hopeful for some before having to come home.

A Three Year Old Who Thinks She's Six

Lonetta helped me pick out her balloon bouquet. Not only do they mimic her "flower skirt" that she wore, but they also describe her personality. She's as girlie as any girl can be and loves pink. She also has a unique style of her own and is persistent when it comes to what she wears and creates, hence the teal color. And lastly, she has a wild side, which the zebra stripes represent perfectly. This girl has spunk, boldness, and is always searching for that next adventure, which almost ALWAYS results in her getting dirty. You combine all of these traits and you get LOVE. Don't you love the combination of colors and patterns? Don't you love the many facets that make Lonetta who she is? Take one of them away and she wouldn't be as grand. I just love this little three year old! (However, Loni is insistent that she is 6.)

We decided to celebrate her birthday today because David had been out of town on business. This worked out perfectly because it made it possible for Grandma and Grandpa Zinn to come over as well.

We got to have Justin with us for a few days. Hooray!. He made Loni's birthday extra special.

Loni got lots of dolls for her presents. She is more than happy to spread her love to them all, but Elsa seems to be getting the most attention.