September 28, 2015 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey Everybody!

I going to admit that this past week was kinda rough, but that's just because of the transfer. The first week in any new area is pretty difficult because it's a whole new area, new companion, new members, everything. So getting used to it is the hard part while at the same time trying to learn everything at once. Let me tell you it does not happen within a week. In fact, I had just barely started to be comfortable in my last area, Springlake, and that took the whole six weeks. So I don't know how long it will take before I am comfortable in this area. Hopefully not as long. In other news, this is a pretty difficult ward to work in, which is probably adding to the difficulty. There isn't a lot of leadership so in turn there isn't much communication between us and the ward. So yeah that makes things a lot harder, and I am currently working on trying to fix that. There's a lot that we need to work on and I'm not going to go into it all right now. Let's just say there's a lot of work to do...

However, there is a lot to work to do in the area so that's good news. Plenty of investigators to help try and progress and less actives that we need to go and find. So the work will progress here. Although we ran into a bit of a road bump. Our car had some body damage from an accident that some previous elders were in, so we are taking the car in today. We will be without a car for the next week so I'm not too sure how this is going to work.....

Anyways, talk to you guys next week!

Love Elder Biehn

September 21, 2015 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody,

Well, this past Thursday I was transferred. Surprise, surprise! I was definitely not expecting that, especially since I had only been there for a month and a half. Normally, missionaries stay in an area for three transfers, which is about 4 1/2 months. But I was only there for one. Honestly, I was kind of upset about that because I was just starting to get some good relationships with the members. The families that were there were so awesome and they all loved the missionaries. And me and Elder Mortimer were getting along great! Now I'm going to have to restart and get to know the whole ward and know the area, but that's a part of transfers. I do know that there is some reason I need to be here though, I just don't know what it is yet. So, hopefully I'll be able to figure that out soon enough.

So yet another interesting story. The day of transfers, one of the families wanted to take me and Elder Mortimer out to breakfast. As we are waiting some dude comes up and asks us if we talk about God. So I start talking to him and he seemed promising at first, but then an hour passes by and it is still dragging on. By that time everyone had finished eating and my food was just sitting there and was cold because I was the one talking to the guy. Elder Mortimer just sat behind me eating while I was talking! Anyways, by this time the family had to leave so they got up and left and we went with them, and TRIED to get rid of the guy because he wasn't going anywhere. Well we go outside and are talking to the family since we were interrupted before, and here comes that guy again! The family just bails and gets out of there. Apparently this guy wasn't done with us yet and wanted to keep going. And this guy was nuts! While we were inside, he was talking about how life isn't about the money and pulls out two $5000 stacks of $100 dollar bills. All of our mouths dropped because not only was he carrying $10,000 dollars in cash on him, he pulled it out in front of everybody! Then when we were outside, we were getting into it and starting to argue. Elder Mortimer hopped in the car and I was outside trying to back him up, but this guy wouldn't leave. He started calling us liars and he went and stood behind the car so we couldn't leave and go lie to more people. I was furious at this point! And Elder Mortimer told me afterward that he was sitting in the car just so he watch me tear this guy apart. But then he decided that it WOULDN'T be a good idea for me to kill someone (which I was very close too), so he gets out to help me. Turns out the guy only read the book of revelations and nothing else. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Once he said that, oh man he was done for. He says, "Oh maybe I've been lying to you. Maybe I'm the one who's confused." No kidding dude. Gosh Herndon is full of nut jobs, that's one thing I won't miss.

So now that I'm here in Springfield, my new companions name is Elder Bernay. He's been out for about a year and a half now and he is from San Diego, California. So we have the same state in common. Right now I'm just trying to get to know the guy, so hopefully everything goes well.

Love you guys and talk to you next week!

Elder Biehn

September 17, 2015 - Transfers

Hey surprise, surprise. I've been transferred to a new area. Here is my new address

8523 Burling Wood Dr Apt 14
Springfield, VA 22152-3917

September 14, 2015 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel like you didn't do anything, but you look back and you were actually pretty successful? Well, it was one of those weeks for me. I honestly feel like I didn't get much accomplished over this past week, but when we reported on the lessons that we had this week I saw that we did pretty good. We only got shut out on Saturday, only because all of our plans somehow fell through. I was kinda upset at that because we had Saturday scheduled to be a great day with a lot of lessons and staying busy. Obviously things don't ever go as planned and no one answered their door or phone. On the bright side, we had at least one lesson every day this past week which is good for this area. Over the past month it has been really scattered and we would go days without having a lesson. Thankfully things are turning around. Speaking of which, the end of the transfer is coming up and my district leader is going home. So I'm going to be getting a new district leader pretty soon and there will be a new face in our district. I don't expect anything to change for me and Elder Mortimer, but anything can happen.

I actually have two funny stories for you this week. The first one is just ridiculous. So, me and Elder Mortimer walk into a CVS because it's the afternoon and we didn't have anything planned so we figured we would try and get some errands done. No big deal. Well, we walk in and are looking for the stuff we need when this guy walks up to and asks us how we are doing. Right when he started talking the spirit instantly left, and was left there thinking, 'Oh boy, here we go.' And I was exactly right. Instantly he tries to start bible bashing us, but it wasn't really bible bashing at all. He just pulled out some random scripture from Revelations and used that as his basis for everything! That was the only scripture that he used, the rest of it was all conspiracy theories. He used it as a basis to try and tell us that Obama was the antichrist, The devil mimics God (which is why we were being tricked by the devil), the government is going to kill all the Christians, they will hide all the bodies (he tried telling us that they are going to do a mass grave and puts all the bodies into containers. He pulls up a picture of these big containers and tells us that they will shove 4 bodies into each of them. I instantly shut him down there because I knew exactly what those containers were. I told him, "You're lying. I know exactly what those containers are used for. Those are industrial sized containers and they are used by basically every single warehouse and construction site in America." He changed the subject right after I said that.), then the government will put trackers in everybody, basically the holocaust for Christians. He then pulled up a dollar bill and started going into Illuminati, that where I called it and I was done with him.  The best part of the whole thing was at one point we were talking about the spirit and how we can talk with God. He says, "What does the spirit tell you about me? It probably says that I'm full of crap." Then Elder Mortimer spits back at him, "Well, I don't need the spirit to tell me that!" Funniest. Thing. Ever.

The next story is when me and Elder Mortimer finished dinner with a member and we head back to the car. We were talking for a little bit and for some reason I got in the car and forgot I needed to back him up. (It's a rule for us that while the driver is in reverse, the companion needs to be outside the car backing him up. Makes sense but it's just annoying.) So I get back out and start walking to the back of the car when I hear Elder Mortimer. I look through the the back window and he is screaming and flailing his arms around! I run up to the window and his eyes are huge and he nearly had a heart attack. He tells me, "You were sitting on a Yellow Jacket!" Apparently it somehow got underneath me when I was sitting down. When I got out, it was still there and Elder Mortimer heard some buzzing. He saw it on the seat and was watching it twitch. It suddenly starts flying around and heads straight for his face! Elder Mortimer was already strapped in by his seat belt, couldn't go anywhere, and he couldn't find anything to smack it with. That's why he started screaming and flailing his arms. Luckily he got the window down and swooshed it outside before it stung him, cause this guy was mad! I'm just glad that this thing didn't sting my butt while I was sitting on it!

Well, adding to the list of stories that has happened on my mission. I now have two more funny ones!

From
Elder Biehn

September 7, 2015 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everyone,

Well, this letter is going to be a bit short. Not because I don't want to write, but because absolutely nothing happened this week. Honestly there was nothing interesting and we were only able to have a few lessons. It was a really slow week for us, unfortunately. It seems like no one is ever home anymore, even at night after work hours. We haven't been able to find any of the new investigators that we found two weeks ago. Oh funny story... So we are searching for a lady that we found last week so we can teach her, and she lives in a town home. Well, we tried her multiple days and every single day someone different answered the door. I honestly think we've given the restoration lesson to every person in that house individually. One of these days we are going to go by and FINALLY be able to get inside and we will have every one of our new investigators there. I'm calling it.

The only other thing that happened was that we were able to re-find one of our investigators that hasn't been to church for 3 weeks and we haven't been able to have any lessons with. It was because summer is ending and everybody is trying to finish up summer projects for work so people are working overtime at this moment. Thankfully, with winter coming, it means there is less work and people have more manageable schedules. Haha, it's kinda sad though that these people will be out of work so we jump on the opportunity to teach them the gospel. But I'm not complaining, yet. Every keeps telling me winter here is terrible and I don't really know what winter is like yet. So it'll be interesting come that time of year.

Have a great day and love you all!

Elder Biehn