Monday, March 28, 2011

Elder Edgell's Mission Blog

Here's a link to the blog that Elder Edgell has recently set up as part of his mission service. His mission is one of 8 (I think it's 8) that is trying out a pilot program of Facebook and Blogs.
I will be posting last week and today's post soon.

http://eldertimedgell.blogspot.com/2011/03/we-believe.html

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Catching Up

Finally was able to get the past couple of months uploaded. So grab your favorite snack and read on...

January 24 - March 14, 2011


 January 24, 2011
“Hey!

Well...not sure what to say, since I pretty much said everything last week. And nothing much new is going on since I last emailed. Seems like just yesterday I emailed. Phew. Should be a pretty good week this week. We will be in the mission home tomorrow all day, and part of the day Wednesday, E.Waltman has an appointment on Wednesday again in Nashville, and has some "Cleaning out" to do, so that’s why we are going to the mission home tomorrow. Should be a fun day. But we will be back in the area Wednesday night. Dinner was good with the Mills. Went to Applebee’s. Had a good steak...yummy. Today should be fun to, I think we are going to go to the Jack Daniels Distillery here in town, free tour of the place, so I am pretty excited...I will be sure to take some pictures. Oh, speaking of pictures, my camera is kinda fixed...the zoom works better than it did...I accidently dropped it again, so I guess that’s all it needed :D, to put whatever back into place, but I will probably just see if I can’t get a nicer one when I get home. But other than that the weekend was good. Saturday we had LOTS of lessons. We got to go to one of our investigators daughter’s basketball games on Saturday, at a Baptist church, Got some weird looks, but I am used to that. No one came to church :(. Josh and his daughter were sick, so he was unable to come, so hopefully he will be able to come this next weekend that means his date has to be pushed back, only due to lack of church attendance. Well hope everyone is doing good....My email next week should hopefully be longer,  but nothing much has happened since last Thursday, so HOPE ALL IS WELL LOVE EACH ONE OF YOU!

Thank you all for your love and support :D

Love,

Elder Edgell”

January 30, 2011

“Hey everyone!!!!

Hope everyone’s week was as good as ours was this past week. Last week was really awesome!
Sadly we didn’t get a chance to go to the Jack Daniel Winery place, ran out of time, but we probably will do that next Monday. Today we will be going to the driving range, and  golfing...I haven't hit a golf ball in FOREVER so I will be rusty at first, but hopefully I will be pretty decent once I start hitting some balls. 
We actually got only about 1/2 inch on Wednesday morning. ThunderSnow? Dang, that would be cool to see/hear. I hear that is pretty rare.
Anyways, I ended up not going to the mission home. The Traveling Zone Leaders came on Monday night, to work with us, and then drove Elder Waltman to the Mission home on Tuesday..He had a colonoscopy on Wednesday, and had to "Clean" out his system. But I was with Elder Davis on Tuesday and we worked our area in Tullahoma, and then went to Shelbyville on Wednesday to work a little bit in his area.

Josh is doing good. He was unable to come to church yesterday, but felt really really bad, from what he told us, and he said that he had prayed and asked God for forgiveness, and he said that he WILL be there next week. We reset his baptismal date for February 19th. It was a really good lesson last night, we taught the 3rd (Gospel of Jesus Christ). All the basic principles, which are faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. He said that he feels that he could be baptized tomorrow if we wanted to; he is really excited about it. He just has a little bit of a word of wisdom issue...who doesn't in the south? That's the biggest problem that I have seen on my mission. And coming to church is a big one.
I think once Aunt Jane will go to church then she will be alright...but it’s the first step that is the hardest to make, at least from what I have seen in people that I have tried to get to church. 
Speaking of getting people to church, a less active family that we have been working with CAME TO CHURCH!!! I was so excited to see them there, even though they only stayed for Sacrament meeting, at least they are making that first step.

We taught a total of 26 lessons this past week!! Only found 2 new investigators, one of which already dropped us. Had the BofM on his door in a baggy with a little note :(, but it happens, can’t get discouraged :D..There are more people out there. 
We are really busy over here....we were especially busy yesterday....We had ALOT to do, which was good. 
We gave two blessings, taught a less active family, and taught Josh Reed (yes you got his name right :D) One of the blessings that I will remember is one that I had the opportunity to give to a little baby. Before hand she was very teary eyed, and didn't look good at all, but after I gave the blessing to her, she was smiling, and just staring at Elder Waltman and I, it was almost as if she knew who we were. I have had some experiences like that as well in the past. It was pretty cool..And it was cool to see how calm she was. 
But all in all it was a good...AWESOME week. Things are going very well, staying very busy. 

We might have dinner with the Mills again this week. It is week 6 and E.Waltman is most likely gone...about a 90% chance that he is gone. He has been here since October and President wants him closer to Nashville, so he can be closer to the medical stuff.....but we won't know until Saturday for sure. Hopefully he will be able to come back to Tullahoma for Josh's baptism...We are very excited for him :D

Ummmm, That’s it for this week. I am doing good...Oh, tell the ward thank you so much for all the support, and the letters...I have gotten a ton from the Springfield ward. I am really impressed with the ward there, looking forward to meeting everyone, especially the bishop, sounds like a great guy. I also have a lot of letter writing to do. :D

Oh, you can just send the stuff to the mission home, since transfers are coming up, not sure what will happen..... But since I only have 2 transfers left (12 Weeks) I am most likely going to finish my mission here...but you never know......LOVE YOU ALL!!

Elder Edgell”

February 7, 2011

“Howdy yal!

Hey Everyone! Transfer info! So Elder Waltman and I are both staying, but we are getting a 3rd companion! His name is Elder Dietz. Elder Waltman has served with him for two transfers before so he has been able to fill me in a little bit on what he’s like, but I guess I will find out more tomorrow when we go pick him up at transfer meeting. I am excited that we get to stay together another transfer. Looking forward to all the possibilities. And another good thing about having a 3rd companion is that we will be able to go into single ladies home. Ashleigh, someone who we have been trying to teach but can’t go in because it’s just us two, so we are looking to move her along quite a bit this transfer, so hopefully she will get baptized in March...that would be an awesome birthday gift :D.

Josh didn’t come to church again :(. But we are going to teach him tonight at our Ward Mission Leaders home. We are going to teach him the word of wisdom. Wish us luck :D. We are going to find out why he hasn’t been coming to church, because he keeps telling us that he will, but never does. He is all for getting baptized, but there is something deeper I think of why he won’t come, or why he isn’t doing things. He continues to read the BofM so I guess we will see how it goes tonight. But last week was good, we taught 23 lessons total! Had 1 person at church. So things continue to go well, so we are excited about the possibilities in the future. All the other investigators are doing well; we keep in contact with them when we aren’t teaching them. We had dinner at the Schilds last night. They are doing good, but if you could keep them in your prayers and pray that they will find an answer to their prayers that would be awesome. They were going to get baptized sometime last spring, but Brother Schilds, had to be interviewed by President Hutchings, and he feels the the doesn’t need to be, if he has already made peace with God of what he has done, we have fasted and prayed for them, and continue to pray for them daily, and nightly. I know prayers are answered, but it’s only in His time that he answers; hopefully somewhere down the road they will get baptized. The Schilds are awesome though, they are like our Grandma and Grandpa. I love them both A TON! They are way cool people.

MAY 3rd! Holy cow! Yup I recon I will be home in time for Mothers day again! :D. That’s crazy that I only have 2 full months left!! But really looking forward to seeing everyone again. Yeah, I guess we will just have to plan a trip to TN sometime, that’s fine. And saving money is a good thing to do. I have learned a ton, and look forward to seeing what else I can learn. Oh! Before I forget, I did get your package, and thanks! Haven’t had a chance to check the cable cord out yet. I will probably try and do that next week. To send a picture of me and my companions for yall. Ummm....I recon that’s it for this week. Hope yall have a FANTASTIC week. It’s really nice over here, it’s supposed to be in the 50s today, almost feels like spring :D. I’m excited! Well Till Next week!

LOVE YOU ALL!
-Elder Tim Edgell :D :D :D :p”




February 14, 2011

“ADVENTURE OF THE 3 AMIGOS pt1

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY :D
Hey yall!!
I really like that scripture that you gave me...I made a title of liberty for myself, with pictures and what not, and Be an Example of the believers is kind of the theme to it....pretty cool. I have actually read both books of Timothy while on my mission...I recon it’s because it’s my name :D but there are ALOT of good things in those books. I have actually seen that scripture on a couple church signs before...that’s one thing I love about the south all of the churches around here. Oh, speaking of churches I forgot to tell you last week that we went to a catholic mass :D it was very interesting. First time I have ever been to one. But like I’ve said before in previous emails I love church hopping it is SO MUCH fun. Especially since we meet different people of different faiths, we need to know a little bit about all of them. But it was fun. So we heard that there was ANOTHER fire here in Tullahoma. SO that makes 3 fires in the past 3 weeks! Scary. We joke around that God is trying to tell Tullahoma something.

We were able to teach Josh last night. He hasn’t come to church, but he told us it’s just laziness. So this Sunday we are going to go get him, and have him follow us to the church building. But he knows it’s true! And he told us that he could get baptized tomorrow...which I wish we could but he has to come to church 3 times. And we told him that, so he is ready I think this time. He said he just needs a motivation kick to the butt to do it, because he hasn’t been to church in 10 years..So it WILL be a big step for him coming to church so if you could say an extra prayer for him this week that he will be able to go that would be greatly appreciated. :D  All of our other investigators are doing well. Haven’t been in touch with Ashleigh for a while. We are kind of worried that she might be in the hospital or something, but prayers work, and I have seen prayers answered...it’s awesome.

This past week was FULL of traveling and Adventures. Saturday we went to Murfreesboro, because Elder Dietz had a District Leader/Zone Leader meeting in Nashville. It was good to be back in the Boro. Got to see some old friends and new people to. Also on Saturday we went to contact a referral...boy was that an adventure. The  GPS took us through these little towns, that we had no idea that existed, through little windy roads, across fields..Just kidding about the fields...but down one lane tiny bridges. Over rivers...so it was quit the night on Saturday, but very entertaining. The referral wasn’t home, but we are probably going to try tonight sometime. But it was a very adventurous week and full of traveling, it’s kinda nice being busy all the time. So we aren’t figuring out what to do most of the time. I like weeks were we are constantly doing something. It sure did fly by VERY FAST.. I guess that’s what happens when you are having fun doing the Lords work :D.


Hope yall have a great VALENTINES DAY and an AWESOME week!!!
I LOVE YOU EACH OF YOU AND SO DOES THE LORD!!!
Love
Elder Edgell” 

February 23, 2011

“Hey everyone!

Hope everybody had a great week! :D We sure did. And this week has been a good week as well. We had a lot of exchanges last week. The ward here is really picking up, and really helping us out. I think they want to keep us here :D which is good, and refreshing. P-Day was good. We attempted to go "Spelunking" but we couldn’t find the cave, we did find the entrance to one though, but only made it about 5 feet in and then realized that there were dead birds in front of us, so that made us not want to go any further, but I really want to go see if I can make it further, I want to know if there is a cave back there, we know there is one over there we just can’t find it...We looked for about 3 hours and no luck...but had ATON of fun hiking. Lots of scratches from thorns...looks like I got attacked by a raccoon or something :) haha.

Man...I don’t remember much about last week. We found 7 new people to teach, and lots of them are way awesome. One of them Jeremy Mitchell, he’s cool. We taught him last Friday and Monday evening. We taught him a first lesson. He is "Golden" as some say. I am really excited about him. And it’s a family too, his wife hasn’t sat in yet, but his 4 year old daughter is always there. He asks really good questions. All the others we found were due to Part Member families that we are starting to work with and some former investigators that we found.

Yesterday we went to Murfreesboro for Zone Conference...I didn't realize it till on the way home but that was my last one  :/. It was a really good one to. We had a fun relay. We had to practice our Contacting skills, and we had to recite a Scripture mastery to one of the assistants, and had to choose a healthy cereal and eat it...that one was sister hutchings station (of course :D) But it was really good. We learned a lot about how to retain our baptism dates, and how to successfully bring them to baptism. Which was cool to see. Our zone leaders are amazing. But all in all it was a very spiritual day yesterday.

Things are going well, the work is moving forward, and fast :D. Our companionship is going well, we get along for the most part, of course we have our differences, but we are working them out. We are starting to play basketball every morning now, for our morning exercises...I feel so much better when I do. It’s nice. I have lost 3lbs since starting last week...I’m hoping to be down some weight before I go home. Oh, they announced our new mission president....Mckee...I can’t remember the first name. Our mission is becoming very successful. Our mission is on Facebook. At least half the mission will be and soon the whole mission will be in about a month. That’s the way the church is going to do it now, at least a couple hours a day we talk to people on Facebook...we actually have two baptism dates so far from it. President is going to start calling more missionaries to do it Friday. I’m hoping I will be one of those. So if you see me on facebook in a month or two that’s why :D. Just giving everyone a heads up on that....so no one has any questions about why I am on :D....it will be approved. Well that’s all I can think of for now....

LOVE YOU ALL :D

Elder Edgell”

Feb. 28, 2011

“HEY!!! EVERYONE

FIRST OF ALL CONGRATUALTIONS ANDREW!!!! I’m so excited for you....hopefully I will be able to get to see you play some soccer this year...how long does the season last? And good luck against Hylton...That’s awesome that you get to play your old school. Should be fun. I’ll be thinking of ya that day, and praying for you guys to have success. :D Well, we are under a tornado watch right now, and we have some pretty bad storms about to hit us. So I’m excited...maybe I will be able to get to see a tornado today :D. Or at least a good thunderstorm. We have had some crazy weather here lately. There was another batch of bad weather last Thursday that came through, but we just got LOTS of WIND and lots of rain....I think it came through late Thursday night, so I just slept through it all I guess. Nothing new really since Wednesday. Things are still going well. Learning a lot!

Speaking of Learning, I want to share some words of wisdom this morning that I learned during my personal study this morning. I was reading a talk by Ezra Taft Benson about the Book of Mormon, and how we need to take the Book of Mormon seriously, instead of lightly. Something that I learned from the talk is that Testament means Covenant. Covenant means promise. So I thought of the Old and New Testament...Testament is Greek, and means Covenant. So in the Old and New Testament is that they are the Old and New Covenants....and the Book of Mormon is Another "Covenant"(or Testament) of Jesus Christ. I thought it was interesting. and thought I would share what I learned. We need not to look at the BofM lightly but take it seriously. I looked back at my mission and thought of the times where I shared the BofM with Literally every person I saw and talked to....
One week we handed out a whole box of BofMs which approx has about 45 or 50....and it was awesome to be able to see the joy it brought those 50 people. Another thing I learned a couple days ago in my personal study was when I was reading a talk in the February Ensign, and it was a quote about Fear and how we need to not run away from our fears but go towards them. It’s by Elder Holland...and I remember the page number so you can look it up...on page 35 the quote by Holland...it’s just stuck out to me when I read it.

I love being able to study every single morning. I have noticed that when I study in the mornings it makes my days so much better. I love the scriptures and the teachings of the Prophets and apostles that is something that I have learned to love and appreciate more often in my life, and apply what they teach more in my life. It’s cool.

But things are going well, and we are working hard. We are still working with the same people we have been working with. Lots of learning yet to be done. Excited to see what this week has in store for us. Hope everyone has a good.....GREAT WEEK.

LOVE YOU ALL

-Elder Edgell”

March 7, 2011

“HEY!!

What a gooood week! We had a really good week this past week! JOSH FINALLY came to CHURCH! Yay! it’s about time :D. and we set a baptism date for the 20th of march, so please keep him in your prayers for us :D. Things are continuing to go very well. This area is about to blossom. I can tell the members here are getting excited about missionary work. I don’t know what did it, but I know that prayers are answered, and it is amazing to see how God works. It seems like people are just falling into our laps, which isn’t a bad thing. But it’s cool and amazing to see how God is blessing us with so much success! Josh came to church yesterday and said he LOVED it. and accepted another baptism date for March 20th. He is so ready. He is teaching other people about the word of wisdom and reads the Book of Mormon during his breaks at work! I am so glad we are teaching him, and that he has been able to feel the joy of the gospel in his life, and in his family’s life, its only him and his daughter Ariel. But yeah things are going well.

This past weekend we went to one of our investigators church basketball banquet. They had one of the old globe trotters there, and he did some cool stuff. It reminded me of when we went there for my 12th birthday...at least I’m pretty sure it was for my 12th birthday, but it brought back good memories, and it was SO MUCH fun. It was cool to hear him and how he changed his life for Christ. We went to another Baptist church last night. That was pretty interesting. It was a little different because they were "voting" in a youth pastor. It actually was a really good sermon. He read off of Romans Ch. 8. Which actually is pretty good, if you get a chance to read it, talks about being guided by the spirit, of course the Bible they used was differently worded, but I knew what it was talking about, and overall a good message that he had shared with everybody. Of course he got voted in, he got a standing ovation from the congregation. The youth band also played some good Christian music...it was weird seeing that, but I have been to other churches that do the same thing so I also actually enjoyed it.

The ward here continues to help us in our efforts. President is very impressed with how the ward is doing. He wanted us to call him last Thursday to give him an update on the area. We told him things are looking very good. We taught a total of 26 lessons I think. So everything is going well. We lost a few of our investigators last week, but it happens. They just aren’t ready yet...it’s hard when people drop us, but eventually they will come and join His true and only church.

But things are going well...I haven’t gotten your envelope package thingy yet, I need to pick it up from the post office today after we email, and I need a haircut...too long for a missionary. But getting it cut today. Hasn’t been this long in a while. Hmm...We should have dinner with the Mills again here soon, they have been in Alabama the past couple weeks, so we are going to call them today and set something up. Oh! we had an F2 tornado come through last Monday...BUT WE are okay. It was about 5 miles south of us. We got to see the damage on Tuesday afternoon, and it was pretty bad. We heard it made national TV. Not sure if you heard about it. We also got LOTS of rain Saturday, and Sunday it was in the upper 30s. BRRR....I miss the warm 60s and 70s that we have been having, but it will be here soon enough (hopefully anyways). 

Things are going well. We find out about transfers in two Saturdays! That will determine if this is my last area or not. LOOKING forward to this week, and the miracles God has in store for us. 

Hope ya'll are doing well!!

LOVE YALL!!!!!

-Elder Edgell”  

March 14, 2011


“Hey everyone!

"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good,
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
                                    -Romans 12:2

Hope everyone has had a GREAT week! The scripture above is a new one I have found, and come to love, and I am trying to apply it in my own life. It’s a good scripture :D.

We had a pretty good week...And boy did it go by fast! But we did have a pretty good week, minus the fact that Josh dropped us and wants nothing to do with us anymore. :/. Not sure why, but we are slowly trying to piece together the broken puzzle. We visited with him on Saturday night, and everything seemed like it was going good... but he was not able to come to church yesterday, because his daughter and someone else that he was babysitting got sick, and apparently didn’t get that much sleep, so he wasn’t able to come. We tried calling him right after sacrament meeting to see how he was...but he didn’t answer. So we sent him a text message. In our mission you have to come to church 3 times before you can get baptized...so we told him that we had to post pone his baptism another week, but tried to be as encouraging as possible, and trying not to get him down. But later on he sent us a reply message back, telling us that he doesn’t want to be baptized or anything, so we are trying to figure out what went wrong, and what we can do to help him.....Hopefully we will be able to figure it out...Please keep Josh in your prayers. :D.

On a happier note, church was really good yesterday! the talks in sacrament meeting were about temple work and genealogy, and that the stake here and the church is making a real push to get it done. The stake here is putting together a Public relations committee, so that the public can know more about what the church is doing, instead of being behind closed doors like everything used to be according to the sister that spoke. But I think it’s a really good idea that they are trying. It's cool to see everyone trying to get involved with missionary work. The ward is really trying hard to pick up the slack.   I had a lot of good experiences this week, a lot of testimony building days. Which is always good...My Birthday was a good day, we did some service for an investigator. Filling in a ditch with dirt...and about 15 minutes into our service it started pouring! It was a ton of fun though :D...couldn’t of asked for a better day. :D.

This week should be a good one. We have what the zone leaders are calling a "Spirit Boot Camp" They went through it last week and said it was awesome. Apparently we are going to be role playing ALOT and teaching by the spirit as much as possible...so I am excited to see what is going to happen. Should be a spirit fun filled day. We have apartment inspections on Friday, so we are going to get our apartment in tip top shape for President and Sister Hutchings. So we can get a hundred on our apartment.

Churches here surprisingly welcome us very warmly. Especially Baptists. They are probably the most friendly out of them all, at least all that I have been to, but people usually welcome us in, and are more than happy to have us there. The Catholics (no offense to them) but were not so friendly to us when we went to mass one night. Our next destination for churches is Pentecostal =] ...that should be fun. I have had some opportunities to share our message at other churches in the past, but not recently...I would of loved to talk to the Globe Trotter, but he kind of disappeared quickly.....so I didn’t see him after words, but I would of if I had the opportunity. It is neat to see and go to other churches and see how there services differ and are similar to ours...But I am glad to be a member of this church, Christ's true and only church :D...I'll step off my soap box now :D. 
But yup everything is going well. We find out about transfers this week (AGAIN!) Elder Waltman has been here for 6 months so he is most likely getting the boot...hopefully we will find out on Friday during interviews. And we should be on Facebook within a couple weeks :D.(Doing missionary work).

But things are going well, and hope everyone will have a FANTASTIC week.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

-Elder Tim Edgell”

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Technical Problems

I have been trying to update Tim's blog for a week now. Having problems with blog site. Hope I can solve the problem soon and catch you all up on Tim's mission adventures. Stay tuned...