More Memories from January 2021

 

Beginning of 2021 Transfers

 

So it snowed . . . Well kinda . . . But then it stopped and was sunny again

Is it weird to think it is already Monday? Must mean we are doing lots :) I was studying John 16:33 this week and I wanted to share it with you all: "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." There is no need to fear. God is in charge. 

Okay, so this week was sweet! Like this week was the most fun I have had as a missionary in a while :) Here is what happened:

• Tuesday we helped out at the food pantry again. It was so much fun! We met a guy who had been in jail for a few years and his probation officer is our current Elders quorum president, Brother Wagner. So that was very cool to make that connection. Tuesday was actually the most sunny it has been in quite a while too so that was nice :)
• Wednesday I got a text message from President Horgesheimer and he said we were having some problems with other missionaries down where I was, and so we had to get that figured out. Thankfully were able to and all is well now. That is something I have been trying to learn a lot about lately. Being able to handle these certain types of situations with love and care for the individual or group of people is how it has to be. Always, always (this is my invitation to you all this week - always be in tune with heaven in order to address a situation. When I got that message from President I knew that God needed me to be patient and love everyone. So grateful for that.
• On Saturday we went over to the Barr's house and they were cooking roast but it didn't cook in time so we had pizza instead and left them with D&C 4.
• We hit the lucky number 33 on lessons again this week, and were able to find 4 new people. One of the people we found actually texted me first on facebook messenger. We were at a member's house and so I messaged him back. He said he is really wanting to improve his life and wants his kids to grow up in a religious house. He said he has investigated many churches but keeps getting pointed back to our church. YESSS! I was so happy. I taught him the whole restoration over facebook messenger and he said he is going to come to church next Sunday with his wife and 3 kids. His name is Erick. Please keep him and his family in your prayers this week.
• We were so busy this week. I actually had a dream on Monday night that I was in one of my 400 meter races in track and I crossed the finish line and was so tired from racing. When I woke up and proceeded with my week, that feeling of exhaustion is kind of how I felt. I guess it was foreshadowing what I was to expect ;)
• Guess what? We talked with Jamie IN PERSON. We went into his house and he was sitting in his wheelchair. I don't know if I said this, but Jamie had a stroke 3 years ago and can not communicate well. We walked into his bedroom and his mom came in with us. We began talking, and immediately I knew I needed to say a prayer in my heart to be able to understand him. We then had an incredible lesson on Helaman 5:12 and how having Faith in Christ is what we need to have. We then asked if he would still love to be baptized. He says that he wants to be baptized on April 6!! He then asked us to give him a blessing. I was able to be the voice for it, and I know this was the climax of my ENTIRE WEEK. As soon as I placed my hands on Jamie's head, the Spirit entered the room and overcame all of us. I think I actually started crying in the middle of it, but in the end I am forever grateful that Heavenly Father is with us to fulfill the missions and tasks He gives to us.

Things happening this upcoming week:

• District Council on Wednesday
• Exchanges after DC with the Athens elders back here in Chilli
• Going to have a great week😉
• The Jackson sisters have a person on date to be baptized and so I'll be giving him the interview this week or next week.

I learned a lot this week. But above all else, I learned the importance of racing the race we are in. What I mean by that, is that when we line up at the starting line, we are totally zoned in for how we want to run. The gun goes off and we explode out of the blocks and go into the curve. By the end of the race you feel one of two things: Exhaustion, or feeling like you can go more. While that latter feeling is important because we do in fact need to keep going, I want all of us to make a mental note of how we are finishing each day. We need to be giving it all we can. I have recently restarted the Doctrine and Covenants (which is good since that is 2021 theme) and have a goal to finish it before I get home in July. This is something I am going to be working on to achieve. What is a goal you guys want to have for yourself? Time is speeding up more and more as the days and weeks pass. We are in the 4th quarter and our coach needs us to play our hearts out. Be the key player who knows the game plan, and executes it to the T. It is okay to feel tired at the end of the day (I think I fell asleep before 10 pm every night this week) but we need to keep going and trusting. I just have been thinking a lot about this and know that as we line up to the numbers each day we will have the strength needed to perform our best, and race our race in this life.

How is Salem doing? Any snow yet for you guys? Hopefully all staying warm and safe. Crazy this week marks the end of the first full month of 2021. I have a feeling this is going to be a very adventurous and fast year! 

I love you guys. I miss you, and pray for you everyday. I am continually in awe at all you have done while I have been gone, you are all moving mtns and I am so proud of you all and grateful for you all.

I Love You Always and Forever . . .

Elder D

Speaking with a Mask on . . . You Got It!

This week was such a fantastic week and honestly I am super excited for what we could do. I feel the Lord magnifying me more and more as the weeks go on. And a quote I have been thinking a lot about lately and thought I would start this week's email off with is from the movie Ephraim's Rescue, "You can't move mountains while you're sitting on your backside". :)

I am going to start doing these week emails differently because I realized that I write a ton, and I have to remind myself I am not in english class, so hopefully you all can make it through this week's.

The highlights of the week were:

• District Council on Wednesday. It went super good where we went over how we can be leaving everyday the best that we can. I used the EFY song No Regrets from 2011 for my training and had everyone share their testimony for why they came out on a mission. Super powerful.
• We taught 33 lessons this week. Most everyday we were either running from lesson to lesson, or dialing one phone number after another to teach a member or someone we are teaching to get baptized. It was so much fun to just be constantly engaged in the work.
• We also found 6 new people this week. A very cool family was a few of those new people and we had a 90 min lesson on Saturday night with them about God and how we know Joseph Smith is a true prophet. Super awesome lesson and I am so excited to keep meeting with them.
• We went to Waverly Food Pantry and were able to help bag food and move boxes and carry food in for a couple of hours. The housing specialists called us that day and said they were coming for a cleaning inspection, so we hurried home and made sure the house was clean . . . Which it was, and they passed it 100% McEwan clean! (of course they didn't put it that way, but I did so I knew we had a clean apartment.)
• We both spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday. I spoke on Member Missionary work and used Elder Smith's powerful testimony the night he passed away. I challenged everyone to pray for the person they need to find in this life to teach and serve. It was a good talk and I was so appreciative I could do it.

Something I learned this week is the importance of Christ centered love. In fact I found myself constantly on my knees asking Heavenly Father to be there to help me and strengthen me. In high school I always would tell myself that I knew what love was and how I could treat others with respect and the way Christ Himself would treat people. Jesus Christ is the center of all love and of all peace. He is also the author of all respect. He wants to help us strengthen our relationship with others, and ultimately I think deep down we want to strengthen those same relationships also. How do we do this? We turn our hearts to be in tune with God's and His basic teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We always have to remind ourselves on a daily basis that we are not perfect, if we were we would not be here on earth, because there would be no need for it. But as President Nelson says, "don't demand perfection on things in your life, only demand improvement."

I figured I would save the best for last this transfer. Just like that another 6 weeks has flown by, and . . .  I am staying here in Chillicothe! I will be serving as District Leader again, and will be with Elder Bennett which is super good. Super excited to be moving the work forward here in Chilli! :) 

How did things go for you guys this week? How are things going for school and work lately? I hope everything is going well at home too with all the projects, and hopefully the garage door is able to get installed by that company soon too! I miss you guys a lot, and hope you all know how super grateful and appreciative of you I am. Thank you for your examples to me, and for always striving to teach me and believe in me.

I love you all always and forever❤

Elder Dylan McEwan

January 2021 Memories

 

Moving . . . Possibly

I just wanted to start by saying that: Yes, the sunshine in Ohio does still exist. Sometimes it just likes to not shine for 11+ days😂 But Saturday it started peaking through, so that brought happiness and so much D3 right along with it. It was a wonderful week, and I even learned how to go house shopping so now in the future when I get my future house I know how to do it! Basically, myself and Elder Bennett have been talking lately and we feel that it is best to move down south to be in Waverly City. It is about 30 min away from Chillicothe, and more central in the area so we could do a lot more with members and people we are teaching. There is a member down there that has an apartment under his house that he has let missionaries use in the past, so we talked with him yesterday and he gave us a tour of it. It was kind of fun to be honest to feel like I was actually shopping for a house! I texted President about it and he said he would run it by Elder Weidner who is over housing in the mission and get back to us this week. I am hoping he can do it soon since transfers are next week it would be nice to get things in place so we could move next week to that place. Keep the situation in your prayers. It is such a better environment down there too, not as much smoking by our current neighbors and we don't smell factory paper which stinks by the way. Positive in many ways!

To be honest, I woke up 2 days ago and realized what day it was and kind of chuckled to myself and said, "Yep. The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days". It was such a productive week! We drove up and down southern Ohio for 3 out of the 7 days. Tuesday we had interviews with Horgesheimers and district council up in Reynoldsburg. That was super fun and interviews went super well. President Horgesheimer was able to give me a priesthood blessing and so that was wonderful. He is a very good person, very much called to be here in Ohio with the rest of us. Then we drove back to Chillicothe in a rainstorm. Overall it was a super good day.

Wednesday we got up and left for Jackson at 8 am, to go on exchanges with Elders Hammond and Brown. They went super good, and we had so much fun. We had 7 lessons that day with them, all over the phone which was a blessing that everyone picked up when we called. We went out to lunch at this place called Arch and Eddies. It is this really good burger joint on main street in Jackson. Super super good, highly recommend when we all come back to visit Ohio. I had a super bad headache that night while we were still there, not completely sure why but made it so I could barely open my eyes, so good thing the lessons were phone lessons and not in person. We got back to Chillicothe at around 9 pm. I crashed as soon as we got back, I don't really remember anything after that to be honest, besides waking up the next morning in my missionary clothes still . . .

Thursday we had the Athens elders who are Elders Hutchason and Blaker, come to Chillicothe for an exchange. Hutchason is going to Ghana for his original assignment next Friday on the 22nd, so we worked on his paperwork for that and then went to CVS pharmacy to get his tetanus shot. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch (thanks Virginia Losee family, and Brinkerhoff family). It was at this point in the day that Elder Bennett realized he didn't have his MSF card, he had Elder Hammonds and Hammond had Bennetts card. So we drove 40 minutes down to Jackson to swap cards. Everyone fell asleep on the way down there and so I obviously had to stay awake since I was the one driving. We switched the cards and drove the 40 minutes back to Chillicothe. We had had a few phone lessons down in Jackson while we were down there, just to make some good use of our time. Me and Elder Hutchason then went to 2 families for lessons. First was the Barr family (who we did the nativity for) and GUESS WHAT??? They had it on their centerpiece on the table when we walked in! They fed us Tamales and we shared Matthew 25:40 with them and had a good hour long visit with them. Afterwards we went to Sister Rothes house and had a visit with her, she had been sick lately and so it was nice to talk and see how she has been. Then we went up to her son's house (Kris who we have on date for April 1). He was sweeping in his garage and then he told us we should go down to his moms house and we could have a lesson. So we went back down to her house and taught Kris about repentance and using the gift we have been given to make changes in our life. It was super powerful and at one point Kris even broke down into tears. Super excited for April 1 for him. Pray that he can get married to his girlfriend before then. Me and Hutchason left their house around 8:30 pm and jumped on a zoom call with the other district leaders and social media specialists for a mtg. So we did that while we drove home. I was actually really surprised it was already 9:30 that night, I felt that I could have gone another 2 or 3 hours.

Not much happened on Friday. We had our weekly mission wide zoom meeting which was super good. We talked about driving in safety. Super sad to hear about Elder Smith from the Arkansas mission who passed away this week. Then we made rounds and drove to some members in the northern part of the area. We did weekly planning, went on I think 1 walk, maybe it was 2, I can't remember though . . . :) It was your regular type of Friday, a very good one too.

Saturday was SUNSHINE day. I am being honest though, it was a vampire's cave here before Saturday came. Just very gloomy and overcast. It rained almost everyday last week. Me and Bennett were both feeling the seasonal "dreariness" and so we both were so pumped when the sun rose bright. We went over to Martin Suber's house and helped him with service. We moved shelves into his truck and then helped with his tv and bed frame as well. He asked us to give both him and his ex-wife a priesthood blessing. He and his ex-wife are going to be remarried here in the next couple months. So we gave them both blessings and finished sharing a message and visiting. We then went to the church building and called a few people to have lessons with. A total of 8 lessons today, a beautiful day. We then had our district devotional that night that me and Elder Bennett were in charge of. We played "Who said that" where we would share a scripture and everyone had to guess who said that. All of the scriptures were from the Book of Mormon. It was so much fun!

Sunday was such a great day! We went to church and it was so good. We learned from the speakers about learning by the language of the Spirit and how we can be focusing on having the Spirit at the very center of our lives, to let lead and guide us. Then we went over to the McMahans where they gave us some amazing cornbread and chicken noodle soup to eat for dinner. We went straight to Waverly, and parked at their high school football field and walked to Jamie Krueger's house AND . . . His mom ANSWERED THE DOOR!! I was so happy I could barely maintain it. She said Jamie had gotten so so sick and had to be admitted to Columbus hospital for a few days. He is home now and she said to come back a little later to talk to him. But before we left, I shared Luke 1:37 with Viola (his mom) and got her number so now we don't just have to text Jamie over facebook messenger. MIRACLE! We then walked back to the car hopped on a zoom call with the ward council, where we discussed the ward mission plan for 2021. We are focusing on Family History and ministering in the ward, and making sure everyone is accounted for. Kind of like the "no man left behind" thing. We then went to Brother and Sister Theberg's house. Theberg's are the ones who have the missionary apartment in their basement. I gave Brother Theberg the run down of what we had thought about and he gave us a tour of their basement where we would live if we ended up moving there. Let's just say, if I had to choose between there or where we are at currently at this apartment, I would choose Theberg's living space in a heart beat. Such a nice place, and so open inside with a great neighborhood to live in. I truly hope we can land this soon so we can move down there. Me and Bennett talked the whole way home about how excited we had been just even being there at their house because of the feeling we got. Cool thing too that really made me so grateful for revelation from God. Saturday afternoon I texted President Horgesheimer and asked if it were even possible for us to move to Waverly. That night Brother Theberg had a dream about having missionaries live with them again, and then mentioned how cool it would be to have the elders or sisters there again when he and his wife were watching sacrament mtg yesterday. Then we dropped by later that day. The Lord has His hand in all things. Me and Elder Bennett watched the YSA devotional with Elder and Sister Gong that night. We watched it at the church bldg. It was so so good and I am so grateful for technology that allows us to be "there" when we are many states away. Very wonderful way to end the week!

Humility is something I learned this week. Thursday night I kind of forgot that principle and deterred the lesson with Kris and then the video call with social media, and Elder Hutchason talked with me about it afterwards. I was beating myself up pretty hard after that and went to sleep super stressed for the way the lesson had gone, and felt pretty bad inside. I then got up on Friday morning, and said a prayer that that day would be a refocus for me. I am so grateful for 2nd chances. 2nd chances are something that have given me hope. Even when all hope seems lost, we feel that we ourselves have lost the game or race, I promise that we have not. Friday was such a great day for me. As was the rest of the weekend. It isn't about our perfection, it is only about our daily improvement. Don't let the adversary tell you otherwise. There is a reason we are here on earth, to learn and grow and improve. Keep learning everyday, grow your ability to hear Christ in your life, and improve to become like our loving Heavenly Father. I am so grateful for this Gospel of Jesus Christ. From the bottom of my heart, I know this Gospel is true and that every person belongs in the loving arms of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Transfers are next week on January 21, and so pday is going to be on the 20. Also, I will hit my 17 month mark this week on Thursday. So grateful for what these last 17 months have taught me and been for me. I hope I am becoming who Heavenly Father needs me to be out here and for the remainder of my life. 

I love YOU Always and Forever . . .

Elder Dylan McEwan

A Powerful Week with Christ at the Center

Okay so I think this week was the best week ever, and I know I said that last Monday but I truly think this one was the best. I am so truly happy and it makes me so happy knowing that I am happy. This Gospel of Jesus Christ is so true, and I love knowing that everything I am doing is bringing other people happiness. 

Cool thing of the week also -- This is from the Columbus South Zone's social media specialists (so our zone): Hey all! We just got mission wide Facebook stats and wow!! The whole mission reached 500k people this past week alone! What blows me away is that 25% of those people came from our page (and there are 8 pages, so it would be reasonable for us to only be 12%). AWESOME right??

But anyway onto the week now, which was brought with much learning and growing and love for others. That is something that I feel I have truly learned this transfer of the mission, is the principle of High Love, High Expectations for myself and for others around me. Our district is on fire right now with teaching people, and finding new people. Our district found 4 new people this week, and taught close to 50 people which is super good. I am so grateful to know that what we are doing is furthering the work of the Lord not just in Ohio, but everywhere. Who woulda thought that 17 months after I got set apart as a full time missionary, I would not only be in Ohio but would be finding new and creative ways to share the Gospel with people. So cool to think that the Lord is at the center of this work and all we need to do is simply allow Him to prevail in our lives, and we will see the guidance to move forward in life. 

Cool news of the week:

- Me and Elder Bennett challenged Kris Rothe to be baptized and he said YES! He wants to be baptized somewhere towards end of March and beginning of April. Right now he currently needs to get married to his girlfriend before baptism, but we are so optimistic that that will be made possible before March maybe even February. So cool!

• Me and Elder Bennett found 2 new people, invited 1 of them to church, and started doing bible studies with the other one yesterday. Kinda cool right? I would say so :)
• We have 42 total people on date in the entire mission for the month of January and so we are all so excited for what this month is going to bring. 
• We were able to do service at a local food pantry on Tuesday morning for about 3 hours and that was so much fun.
• We took the Christmas tree down on Tuesday ;)

Wednesday we had district council down in Jackson and it went super well. I think what district councils this transfer have taught me is the aspect of letting the spirit guide me as I learn and teach. I leave each district council now so profoundly inspired to do the work that I sometimes have to sit in the car for a minute before I put it in drive so that I can focus on the road. Elder Bennett also misplaced his wallet so we searched for that for a little bit, but thankfully found it down the side of the seat in the car haha. 

Thursday was New Year's Eve and we had such a great day! We visited with a member named Tyler Terry at his house. He is a convert of about 2 years now, and we talked with him on his front porch for about 40 minutes about religion and how he has felt strengthened since he was baptized, which was so cool to hear his conversion story. Elder Bennett made brownies and we celebrated at midnight and it was so much fun! So cool that it is now 2021, what cool things can we do this year? But yeah Thursday was great! We woke up on Friday morning and had a mission wide training at 9 am, and then went over to the Anderson family house and visited with them for a little bit. Overall super great days!

Saturday the Zone Leaders came down for exchanges. We had such a great time with them. I was with Elder Hinton for the day, and we went walking around to members houses in the morning and in the process we were able to stop by a nonmembers house and share a scripture with her and invited her to church. Then we met up with the Elder Bennett and Elder Dansie and went to Olive Garden for lunch (thanks guys for the gift cards 😉). Then we went over to Brother Suber's house and helped him set up a little bit of his tv stand on the wall as well as move some desks and shelves for him, and left him with a scripture of Ether 12:4 which talks about having hope and happiness in the Lord. We then met with Brother Cain for ward coordination and we talked about the new 2021 ward mission plan and how we can be providing for the ward members and helping them to make it to church and to stay strong. Brother Cain then provided us with a stop at Wendy's for burgers and fries (great day of food). Me and Elder Bennett then hopped on our district devotional at 8:45 and had a great training by the Athens elders on scripture chase and finding objects in our apartments that reminded us of Gospel objects, kinda intriguing to see what everyone came up with!

Sunday was a great day! Shared my testimony in sacrament meeting, said the opening prayer in sacrament mtg, and said the opening prayer in zoom sunday school also, basically a day of blessings which made me really appreciate the power of prayer and communication with our Heavenly Father. We then had a great mission devotional with Sister Troyer. Sister Troyer is the mom of one of the amish families out here who converted and was baptized members of the church here a few years ago. Her son has since served a mission in Salt Lake City, and so it was super cool to hear from her and her experiences of being a member of the church. ALSO, amish people are just cool from being with them for the first 5 months I was in Ohio and now seeeing Menanite and Amish people here in Chillicothe. So COOL!

Things to look for this week:

• Tuesday we have interviews with Horgesheimers and district council up in Reynoldsburg
• Wednesday we have training visits down in Jackson with Elder Brown and Hammond
• Thursday we have training visits here in Chillicothe with Elder Hutchason and Blaker (they serve over in Athens)
• Social media/district leader call will be on Thursday on facebook messenger at 8 pm

Organization is so keen and so important. I forget what scripture it is, but there is a scripture that says we must prepare every needful thing, and to keep a house of order and cleanliness. I in turn relate that to we must be keeping our lives in order to do everything we need to. That goes from planning things we gotta do that day, setting goals for how we want to do them, etc etc. With being district leader this transfer, they put me in 4 or 5 different messenger chats that are going off on a daily basis and most of the time hourly basis. And with many other things going on, we need to be taking time to ask the Lord what He wants us to be doing so that we can be doing it the best way, which is also the way of the Spirit which is God's way. I learned this week the cool thing of letting the spirit guide me in my daily efforts as I lead and serve. I love the aspect of when we allow our thoughts and feeling to be turned to what God wants for us, EVERYTIME it turns out the way it needs to. How cool is that! That we get to have the ability to be guided by a Father and His Son who truly want what is best for us here on earth. I am also so grateful for the blessing and knowledge of priesthood keys and the gift of using those keys to bless the lives of others. I am forever grateful for the experiences I have had on the mission that have shown me and taught me of staying worthy to always use the power and authority of my calling to be who the Lord needs me to always be, and show those around me by my influence and hopefully good example. Because the priesthood keys and authority have been restored to the earth fully, we all can have that priviledge of using what God has given to us and using it for the blessing of others. We should all strive everyday to "Let God prevail" because the rewards of putting our effort with the Lord's is the eternal perspective of great blessings waiting for all of us. This is the true church of Christ, and I am just grateful for the chance I have been given and are continued to be given to represent His name on my chest everyday. And when we don't have a metal nametag on our chest, we need to paint one on our hearts as Elder Bednar invites us to do. 

How are all of you guys doing? How was New Year's, and did everyone make it to midnight hopefully? :) I hope so! Mom, G, and Parker good luck this week with starting school for the new semester and continuing on with medical assisting for you Parker. You all are going to do so so well! I will be praying it all goes well :) Continue to get that good education, it will take everyone far in this life!

I love you all and am so grateful and excited to talk to you guys today!

Love you always and forever . . .

Elder Dylan McEwan