Obama!

So this week was crazy with finding new investigators!! We have been
diligently working on finding people to teach and it has payed off! We
have found so many people to start teaching!

So highlights of this week we got my first member referral from our
stake patriarch! So we started teaching them and they are starting to
seem promising! Their names are Matt and Beth. We also have been
visiting a less-active and her husband needs medical assistance so we
started teaching his nurse and she loves it when we come by. And she
was so happy to accept a Book of Mormon.

Went on exchanges and me and Elder Herzog were walking around Pitt
campus and the whole main road was shut down. We heard from one of the
security officers that president Obama was in town to give a talk a
Pitt college!! And that he was about to drive by!! We got an awesome
video down at the bottom! Haha

We also had a Ward fiesta and tons of people came and it was so much
fun! We invited our investigator Martez, who is preparing for baptism,
to it and for a church tour before hand and the church tour went great
and then the fiesta made it so he met lots of members and so he is
getting work off sundays so he can start coming to church!!! He has
been making a good effort to make sure he is ready for baptism! He is
awesome!

Right now we have like fifty missionaries down at the church playing a
tournament of basketball!! Haha but thank you for all you do hope you
had a great week!!

Service, Gospel and Bananas!

So this week was pretty good.
To sum it up service, gospel, bananas.

So this week we got a phone call from some lady asking for service. So
before I get to far into some background. So me and Elder Holley felt
prompted one night to walk down a certain street so we were walking
down and no one was interested that we tried and so we started walking
back home because it was getting late and we saw this old guy on his
porch and we realized we had talked to him earlier that day. So we
went up to him and gave him a card with our phone number on it and
told him we love to give service. He didn't seem very interested in
anything we had to say but then a random lady calls us on the phone
and said that the old man is her neighbor and he gave the card to her
and her all about us. So we went over to her house to help her with
her yard. And seem didn't want anything to do with the message we
share at first but then after we were done with the service and we got
to know her the entire time she asked us a little bit about what we
teach so we taught her the restoration without even realizing it and
she was so accepting and willing to read the BOM it was the coolest
experience I have ever had. Non-members can make the best
missionaries! Haha

We also visited Sister Davis again. She came to church last week and
loved it she said "I can't remember why I ever stopped coming." She
has been growing so much since we have started visiting with her and
again we were able to get close to her and start sharing the gospel
with her through service! Sister Davis is making arrangements so she
can attend our ward every morning now. It is a great feeling to see
someone be engaged in coming closer to Christ.

We also visited the Khalils again. I love their family so much but
this time they had a present for us. They gave us this huge box of
bananas! And I usually don't eat bananas but being a missionary and
being hungry all the time I ate about 15 bananas in about 3 days!! I
think I'm tired of bananas now!

So those were the highlights of my week! Hope you all and a great
week. I love and miss all of you!
Pictures:
1. P-Day basketball
2. Cleaning a church with Brother Belliston

Conference Weekend!

So this week was pretty slow especial having conference take up a lot
of proselyting time.

But conference was amazing! I enjoyed every session and every talk
given. There is just something about being on a mission that makes
general conference like the super bowl! It is just so exciting for
missionaries. And then of course you have all of us dorky missionaries
cheering when our favorite apostle gets up there. I watched so many
missionaries freak out when Jeffery R. Holland got up to speak. Hahaha
no better experience like being surrounded by missionaries on
conference weekend.

For conference we went to the church building for every session there
were some sessions where we had the chapel just full of missionaries.
It was a fun time my mom sent me a big package full of food and so
that was my conference snack. My favorite talk was by Dallin H. Oaks
in the Saturday 2nd session. He just threw done on how we need to be
doing missionary work. We can't just somewhat try every now and then
like most of us do. We need to constantly be doing missionary work. He
said that our testimony and conversion to this gospel is based off of
how much we try to share it. So if you are constantly trying to share
this amazing gospel then your testimony will not faultier it will be
strong, stronger then ever before. As you continually testify your
testimony will grow every time. The other thing that I heard in almost
every talk given was to not be afraid to share you testimony. Don't be
afraid to testify!

Well no that I finished my rant about missionary work. Haha this week
was great. We got a Book of Mormon referral for a guy named Robert. We
stopped by and started sharing the restoration with him. And even
before we said anything to him he looked at us and said "guys I can't
wait to read the Book of Mormon!" We haven't even told him what is was
about or anything we just handed it to him and he was already excited!
The lesson went great and hopefully we will be able to continue to see
Robert and he will continue to have that excitement.

We also OYMed this old guy on his porch one night and he didn't seem
very interested but we gave him a card with our number on it and told
him we would love to give service. He ended up giving the card to his
neighbor and she called us and asked for service and a lesson. So we
are going to go see her on Thursday! And I'm excited to meet her face
to face.

Well that was pretty much my week. Thank you for all your love and
support. Hope you all have a great week.
Elder Swisher

The Pennsylvania Ramble!

So this week was an interesting week!

We got lots of phone calls asking for some last minute service. One
phone call was from a member that is in another ward she was living
with a less-active in our ward and the less-active moved out a while
ago but said that if she was given the money she would still pay the
rent for the member. Well long story short rent was never paid. Our
less-active can't be found and this member called us and asked if we
could come and help her get the essentials out of the house before
they come and lock the door. She we ran over and had to hurry up and
get essentials out to her car. So that was a very interesting
experience. She was heated! Haha she was greatful we were able to come
help.

So a PA Ramble is famous in this mission. It is when a Pennsylvanian
goes off topic on some rant for hours in a lesson. Because the people
here in PA love to talk whenever they get the chance. So we visited a
guy named Joseph he is an investigator and dang! I'm pretty sure me
and elder Holley got 3 words in at the beginning and then he went
off!! We sat there for an hour and a half listening to him talk about
politics and video games and all kinds of crap! You might think I'm
exaggerating but no! Literally we sat down with him at 7:30pm and I
finally stopped him at 9:00pm because we needed to catch a bus to get
home on time! We had 3 different appointments this week where the PA
Ramble was at its worst! If it wasn't for Elder Holley I would have
fallen asleep because I was nodding a couple of times and Elder Holley
had to keep hitting me to stay awake! The PA Ramble... Enough said

So we had a great lesson with a family named the Khalils. They like to
feed us and we give service to them often. Missionaries in the past
have been visiting them and not teaching them because someone just
assumed they were eternal investigators. So when taught them a lesson
and they thanked us for the lesson they said for some reason
missionaries just came over to hangout and never talked to us and
Jesus. The said that they have missed it and appreciate us bringing it
back! They are such a great family and how such an outstanding faith
in Jesus Christ. They might take a while to work with but they are
closer to baptism then they realize.
Elder Swisher