2-27-12

   Hello everyone, tomorrow is my 5 month mark. Oh yeah. haha The last month has gone by fast. It is scarey, everything is starting to just go by faster and faster. I have been working super hard so I think that has to do with stuff seeming so fast. I know missionaries who have been out just as long as I have and they say it feels like forever. But to me everything is super fast. First few months did not go by as fast just because I was still adjusting to the missionary life. But I really do love this work. It brings me so much joy to me. This week has been awesome. Monday and Tuesday we went by so many peoples places so I can sign books and say goodbye to people. It did not even seem like I was saying goodbye to everyone. But people in East St. Louis seems to want to feed us when someone is leaving. I will miss that places. I have had so many great experiences there and sacred moments there. Tuesday night We went over to the Yursicins who are imports to the branch and we had navajo tacos for the first time. They were way awesome! So good. Yum. Wednesday morning we drove 30 mins. To transfer meeting. Sister Lehr, the old lady in the branch toke us to it. It was cool to have the only sister besides the mission presidents wife to drive us places. I am defianlty going to miss her a lot. She sacraficed so much for us in the branch and also for everyone else there. So I said goodbye to my old Companion and got my new one, Elder Hall. He is from Arizona. It was cool at transfer meeting because all the departing misisonaries bore there testimony. It was cool because my trainer was in that group. My trainer was amazing. He did so much for me. It was sad to see him to go home. From transfer meeting it took us about 15 mins to get to Fenton and be in our appartment. Very short drive. Fenton covers Valley park, Eureka (that is where six flags is) and much more almost all the way down to Hillsboro. It is a nice area because it is a ward and it is in the Suburbs of St. Louis. It is a very nice area for the most part. I really love it here and enjoy it! We are fed every night here. I hope I do not get fat here... haha. We have a treadmill in our appartment so I run on it every morning. We have had a few cold days but also a few warm days. The weather can not decide what it wants to do here. Elder Hall is a very hard working Missionary. We get along very well. He is a quiet person though. But I will crack him and get him talking. We talk a lot in the appartment it is just when we get to peoples places. But everything will be just great though. We teach well together. That is most important really.

        Here we only have like 8 investigators so we do a lot of tracting. I have never really been tracting before So I am definatly learning it here. But since I have been here we have had miracles happen. The first night I was here we gained a new investigator which was really cool. Then yesterday at church right before the third hour, a couple showed up. The man is from the Dominican Republic and the wife is from here. He has lived her for about a year now. His whole family back home are members and he has a brother preparing to go on a mission. So he decided to go to church. No one in the ward knew them. They have never met with missionaries before. They just randomly came to the church because they knew it was a Mormon Church. It was so awesome. The Lord has really placed them right into our hands. They are very solid. We will starti teaching them very soon. The guy speaks good english but of course better spanish. But we have many people in the ward who speak spanish because they served spanish speaking missions. We are set pretty well. It is a great blessing to us. We have gained 3 new investigators this week and I have not even been here for a week yet. Things are looking very great here in Fenton. It is nice being in a car area. It is so weird to drive though just because I have not driven in about 5 months. I am still meeting new people everyday. I am still meeting all the investigators we have here. Every Thursday we go to a nursing home here to do service. It is a lot of fun. It is a way nice nursing home compared to the ones we were going to in ESTL. It is fun to help the old people do there arts and crafts. I get a kick out of talking to them. But I really am so excited to be here. Today we went and did laundry at Webster Groves Appartment. And right now we are emailing at Webster University. Which I am pretty sure this is where Izzy Ezspinoza goes to school. I am glad I did not get sent to the sticks. That would of been cruddy. But I am sure That will be the next places I will go. haha Anways I love you all so much. Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Derek Turner

*Serving in Zion*

2-20-12

 Hello, hello! It was another exciting week here in the ESTL. We had transfer calls come Saturday night! But I will not spill the beans until the end of this email, or the middle, or I do now know. Because if I tell you where I put it, you will not read this whole thing ;) haha This week was awesome because we gained 3 new solid investigators. On Tuesday when we were headed to our appointment after emailing we got a call canceling it. We still went over to the area in which the appointment was in to check up on some potentials in the area. When we were walking back to the bus stop we decided to walk another way and walk by these projects. While walking by I had an impression to knock on a certain door. We went up knocked on it, and This lady invited us right in. Her husband was sitting right there on the couch and her daughter close by. She told us I am so glad you knocked on my door! I was going to yell at you guys to come in but you just came right up to my door. It was great that we both  had the impression. And we picked her up as a new investigator after teaching a lesson. It was a really cool experience. It has been so key to listen to the still small voice and follow impressions. The one door we knocked on in the whole project was the one that was ready for us. The next day on Wednesday before we had scripture study we went by a potentials home. Him and his daughter were both home. My companion and I taught the most solid lesson we have ever taught together. They committed do baptism but not a date yet. The past couple weeks we have been dropping a lot of people but every week we always gain more to replace the ones we have dropped. It has been a huge blessing because it keeps us busy and we teach 20 lessons or more a week. It is so awesome. Just people have not been so great with keeping commitments though. That has been the biggest problem here by far.

    We are still struggling with Moneesha. She is starting to digress. I knew this would happen if she was not baptized sooner. Because her testimony is starting to wither away because she is getting to much back into the worldy stuff. It is very sad to see. We are really trying with her but we do not get as many appointments as we did before with her now. We are supposed to have one with her Tuesday morning so hope she will be there. John the one who was baptized a month ago is still coming to church every sunday. It is an awesome sight to see. I am so happy he is staying active. It is better then our other two baptisms we had. Which Naniah and Angel only came a few times after being baptized. But they moved away from here so I do not know what is really up with them anymore these days.

    Saturday night we went and played basketball with other missionaries and our investigators. It was really cool because we got a ton of non-members to come play with us. We ended up teaching a lesson there after which was cool. We were expecting the Transfer calls to come someimte during basketball. But they did not. We got home around 9 and were waiting anxsiouly for the call which did not come until after 9:30. The zone leaders sent a voicemail to the whole zone. So I am leaving now! Guess where I am going?! Fenton Missouri. It is in the suburbs of St. Louis. Down in south county. Funny thing it takes about a half hour to get there from ESTl. So I will still be pretty close to here but in a way different area.  6 flags is near to where I will be at and is supposedly a pretty nice area. The work will be different and probably harder but I am ready for the challenge. Funny thing is that last pday we hung out with the missionaries who are serving in Fenton. So I already know my new companion. His name is Elder Hall. He has 4 transfers left on his mission. So he is widing up to the end. It will be weird because my new area is a car area. And since I am the Senior Companion I will be driving everywhere. Which is weird because I have not driven a car in over close to 5 months... It will be exciting! I just noticed I have another week until hit my 5 month mark. I can not believe that. I swear I just hit 4 months. Elder Smith who is spanish speaking will be replacing me here. Which is great because we have investigators who speak spanish and some potentials who speak spanish. So things are looking great. I am sad to leave here because this place is where I was born. This little branch is my baby. But now I am going to a big ward. My new comp is way awesome too. He is wicked smart. It will be different from hearing gunshot and seeing drunk people all over the place and much more then that also to being in a nice quiet area. East St. Louis has been so fun for me. We have been really protected here. I know everywhere we go that we have an army of Angels right there with us keep us safe. I have been here so long to where I have started to talk like the people here. My comp has noticed that I say a few phrases that people say here. He has started to say them also. haha We tease eachother a lot about it. I hope everything is going well for everyone! Thank you so much for all you do:)

Love,

Elder Derek Turner

*Serving in Zion*

2-14-12

Hello,
      We did not get to email yesterday because the place we go to was closed because it was Lincolns Birthday and this is Illinois, which is where he was born and from so yeah. All the schools were out and everything. We are now in the last week of the transfer also! So Saturday night we will have transfer calls and then a week from tomorrow will be transfer meeting! I kinda hope I go to a new area because I have been here in East St. Louis for 4 months now. It would be nice for a change of scenery. I love it here but I like change though also. If I stay here for another transfer I will be here for a total of 6 months. That is a way long time in one area.
      We are teaching this new guy Chico. We have only been able to meet him at Mcdonalds. He does not really want us coming over to his place because he lives in a high rise project. I feel bad for those people living in those because they are literally living on top of each other and jammed packed in. Mcdonalds of course is not a great place to teach in so we will hopefully be changing the location soon. It was a weird lesson because he brought printed out pages of the Koran proving that it teaches some correct doctrine in it but the Muslims believe otherwise. I believe he used to be Islamic. So that got pointless to where we said ok there is a reason that we do not use that book as scripture. We only use the King James Version Bible and the Book of Mormon. Let's please talk about that. But then once we got to that point we had a great lesson for the most part. There are many people who act like they know they Bible so well out here, but they really do not. If they knew the Bible well enough then they would know that are Church is the true Church. Chico has really liked the Book of Mormon so far saying that is matches up pretty well with the Bible. And it does match up really well.
       Moneesha is still struggling. She did not get baptized Sunday. We need to find out what her concern is that she has not come out with yet. So far she says she is not ready yet because she is going through a whole lot of problems. We keep telling her that those problems are present because she is not baptized yet. And that she needs to very soon. The longer she waits the harder things will be. She has been so close but she is starting to reverse now. If she starts to reverse too much, then we will drop her for a little bit then maybe pick her back up again in a while. Missionary work is not easy. But it is definitively fun and worth it. Especially to see John who was baptized weeks ago to be active in the church having the priesthood now and getting along with everyone at church. On Sunday we had branch conference. We had more people from the stake there then the branch members itself. It was really sad actually. I think this was a key thing because the Stake might realize that they need to widen the boundaries back up again. It is not very appealing for our investigators who come to church who see that there is only 20 something people there. We shall see though what all happens with that. But it was a really good day at church though. One of my favorite church services since I have been here. The Stake President gave a great talk. On Saturday they had a branch Valentines day party a couple of hours before the World Wide Leadership Training Broadcast. That day we were on exchanges so Elder Ashley from Waterloo came up with me for the day and my Comp went down to Waterloo. I learned a lot from Elder Ashley. He is a very smart Missionary. He knows his stuff. When him and I arrived at the party thing a little early they asked if I could give a 10 min talk on love because the person who was supposed to do it did not show up. The first thing I said was," I am a missionary, we are not allowed to date and stuff while we are out here." They still wanted me to do it. So I split the 10 mins with Elder Ashley because I did not want to blab on for 10mins. So I just talked about Charity: the pure love of Christ. It worked well enough. 
    Yesterday we went across the river to a members house in the Crandolet ward. It was fun to hang out here with other missionaries and meet some that I have never met before. I really hope My comp or I get transfered because my trainer is going home this transfer and I want to be able to see him for the last time. And when missionaries depart they have them bear their testimony at the transfer meeting. Now that he is gone I realize how much he did for me and what a big of an impact he had on me help shaping me up to be the kind of missionary I am now. Anyways have a great week everyone. And choose the right:) It will bring you more happiness then you can imagine!
Love,
Elder Derek Turner
*Serving in Zion*

2-6-12

Dear everyone,
This week was good. We had interviews with the President on Tuesday. We went out to eat lunch with him and his wife. It was really nice. Our Mission President is awesome and also his wife. There are never dull moments with them because they are hilarious. Later that day after the interviews things were crazy in East St. Louis. Everyone was outside. It was awesome because we contacted so many people that day with everyone outside. It was a real nice day. It was up in the 70's. But that helped to our success this week. The next day was awesome at scripture study we teach the next night. It is really a great finding idea. We have been instructed by our President Clark to use Preach My Gospel in all our dinner thoughts with members. So we take them around and do an activity in there with the members. Since we never get fed except by Sister Lehr we do not get the opportunity to do that as much. So we decided to use PMG for all our scripture studies we have on Wednesday night and using sections in there to teach out of. It is cool though because every member should have PMG and using it to. Because every member is a missionary. And the best way to gain more investigators is through the Members.
  Thursday while at an investigators place we gained a new investigator from the guys cousin who was there. We went to go teach the new guy the next day and he was not home. But the guys brother was home and we ended up teaching him. He really liked what he heard so now we have two new investigators. We dropped a couple of people so now we are down to 16 investigators. But we have been starting to sift through everyone we teach to tell who is serious about all of this and who is not. I hate dropping people but if they will not keep commitments then what can we do? Saturday night we went to teach Bro. Falk, the Jewish guy who has M.S. It was awesome because he said the opening prayer and closed in the Name of Jesus Christ. That meant a lot on the fact that Jews do not believe that Jesus was the messiah. I was super happy at that point but then at the end when we gave him the challenge to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a Prophet and if what we are teaching is true. He then said I am satisfied in being Jewish and following what his heritage is. So it was real sad because I know that he believes in what we are teaching because I can tell when he his feeling the spirit and even said that he felt the spirit with what we taught. But he denied it. He still wants us to come over and teach him. His wife loves having us over too because she is not to knowledgeable of the Gospel and loves to hear it and learn from us. So we will see what happens with that. We went to the temple Saturday morning. It is so nice to go the Temple and feel the spirit so strongly and feel that great peace there. Every time I am there the worries of the world are gone and everything else. I always feel at home when I am there. It is a great Blessing to have the Temple so close to us here and being able to go to it once a transfer.
     We are now in our 5th week of the transfer. It is going by so quick! I am really curious to see if I will stay here for another transfer or now. If I am here from another transfer that will be a quarter of my mission spent here in East St. Louis. So we will see what happens though. Still another week and a half till we get transfer calls. It is a ton of fun here though and very exciting. Plus we teach a ton which is the best part of being here. We are always busy. I Convinced the Mission Presidents wife, Sister Clark to work on getting us a car for our area. She was surprised that we did not have one. Even President Clark was surprised we did not have one. I told him that this area use to have a car back when it was a ward. But since the area was condensed it lost the car. So now I have them both convinced to get us a car in this area. The reason we need a car is because busing around everywhere makes it hard to see everyone every week. I said if they can not get us a car then another good thing would to get another set of Missionaries in the branch. We have enough work for it compared to other wards who have two sets. Hopefully something happens with either a car or another set in the next transfer. It would be cool. 
   Yesterday was awesome because John Johnson who was Baptized a couple weeks ago and confirmed last week was had the aaronic priesthood conferred upon him and was ordained to the office of a Priest yesterday. It was so awesome to see this all happen. He has really changed his life around. This Sunday Moneesha should be finally Baptized. She has been keeping the W.O.W. for a couple of weeks now. It will be really cool because This Sunday is also Branch Conference so the Whole Stake Presidency will be there for it. I really hope she goes through with it this week. She really needs this now.
   Today on the Way here on the Metro Link a Jehova's witness lady who was riding the Metro link to just hand out people the Watch Tower Magazine and and preach offered me one. I denied her the offer. She then went on preaching to me. Some of the things she said was good stuff. They do not believe in the trinity and I shared with her a couple of scriptures in the Bible that I really like after she showed me something. I then started to teach her and state our beliefs in this church. She kept refering to God the Father as Jehovah. So when I started to state our beliefs I told her that Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, is Jesus Christ before he was born on this Earth. And that Heavenly Father is Elohim. I then taught most of the Restoration to her and testified to her that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true church with the fulness of the Gospel. That no other Church has the Priesthood authority of God. It was so nice because we were not bashing at all with eachother. She listened to me very sincerely. She then asked me if I was raised in the Church. I told her yes, but it is my choice to me a member of this church and to be a missionary. That I had to gain my own testimony that this is the true church. I told her my parents had to do the same thing. It does not matter if you were brought up in this church. You still have to know for yourself if this church is true. And that is the great thing about Personal Revelation. That we all can recieve answers from God to any question we have. She was not like any other Jehovah witness I have talked to. I know the spirit touched her. Hopefully I see her again on the Metro and am able to share more with her. Anyways I hope you all have a great week!!!
Love,
Elder Derek Turner
*Serving in Zion*