September 19, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

Not much happened this week. It was kinda slow so I don't really have that much to talk about. However, we were able to find a new investigator and she seems pretty interested. Like we were out tracting and she was outside her house so of course we are going to go talk to her. We taught her about the restoration, nothing too different, just a usual restoration lesson and we left her a Book of Mormon to read and set up an appointment for the following Friday. (This happened on Tuesday). So Friday comes along and we head over to her house. Now, I've seen this 1000 times before where we have a really good first contact and we set up the return appointment then when we stop by we can never find the person ever again. But that didn't happen this time! Not only was she there, but she actually read in the Book of Mormon and remembered we were coming! Those are two huge things! So I'm pretty excited about this investigator, pretty sure she's going to get baptized 

So what else?  oh yeah we did this pretty gnarly service on Saturday. So we had a couple of Wards get together to try and clean up the area surrounding the church building. There is a little water ravine that has been completely overgrown due to neglect and being in Virginia where EVERYTHING grows anywhere. So we got together to do that and clean out all the underbrush and whatever dead trees there were. It was actually fun work because we had chainsaws and Machetes and it is so fun to watch a tree fall down and everyone shouts "timber!" We even had a wood chipper there and that thing was running nonstop to try and shred all the wood we were cutting down. I didn't take any pictures of it BUT we are going back Saturday to finish up so I can take some then and show you. It's a huge difference. Like we clear it out and I had no idea there was a huge field on the other side of the tress! 

Last but not least, our investigator had her baptismal interview this past Sunday, and she passed! So we are getting ready for another baptism coming up on the 25th. Her whole family is coming to see because a lot of her aunts and uncle are already Mormon, so they are super excited for her. But man, she is awesome!. Her and her family, they were honestly a miracle because Elder Ramos was teaching them before I came here, he told me that they just showed up one day in church because they felt like it was the right church to go to. Like, seriously?? It doesn't get better than that!

Well, that's it for this week guys! Love you and have a great week!

From 

Elder Biehn 

September 12, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

So I had a great week! First off, let me show you why...

WE HAD A BAPTISM! Man, it's been a while since I had one of those, haha. But seriously this guy here is awesome. His name is Pedro and he was SO excited to get baptized. Like, he would call us on the phone every day just to tell us how happy he was that he was getting baptized this week. Then he had the biggest grin on his face after he was baptized. He is just so excited to have found the true church because he was originally studying to become a Priest in the Catholic Church. So quite a miracle if you ask me.

Yesterday, I had another one of those "last door" experiences. So it was just after church and our correlation meeting with the Ward mission Leader, and we were out looking for people. We were going through our Area Book trying to figure out who some of the people were because there are just a lot of random names in there. Well, we were in Centreville and it was literally the last person on our list before we were going to call it and go have some dinner. We knock on this last door and of course the guy we were looking for doesn't live there. BUT the guy who did answer the door has seen the missionaries before back in his country of Colombia.  He's also seen the temple as he's been driving on the 495 freeway and was really curious. (That was excellent positioning by the Church to put the 3rd biggest temple in the world right next to the freeway! I've gotten so many questions about it throughout my entire mission because EVERYONE has seen it and it works out perfectly!) Anyways, he invited us right in without even waiting for us to give our typical door approach and an hour later this guy now has a brand new Book of Mormon and has promised to read it and come to church. I LOVE IT WHEN WE FIND THE PREPARED PEOPLE! It makes missionary life so much easier.

So I'm pretty excited to be in this area because we've got a lot going right now. People on date and lots of others that have potential to be put on date and be baptized. Then of course, going out and finding the prepared!

I'm loving my mission right now and being able to teach and testify of Jesus Christ on a daily basis. It really is the source of true happiness once you have a basic understanding of the Gospel. I don't know everything, but what I do know I'm sharing with everyone.

Spanish forum with all the Spanish missionaries in the mission

Love you all and have a great week!

Elder Biehn

Lunch at Cafe Rio after SED Spanish forum

September 5, 3016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey guys!

I want to start off by saying that I'm loving it out here in Manassas. The Sudley Ward is awesome!  There are lots of great members that are really involved in the work and trying to help the missionaries.  Speaking of which, I had forgotten how hard it is to try and get to know a brand new Ward, since I've only had to do it 3 times in my ENTIRE mission. Yeah, after 18 months this is only my 4th Ward. Two weeks ago I was telling Elder Walker how hard it was to pack because I've only been transferred out of an area like 3 times, so I've almost NEVER have had to pack.  But it's a fun experience trying to learn a whole new area. After just a week and a half I'm already starting to figure out where everything is at. And I'm already starting to get some good relationships with the members. That part is key!
So here's an update on how thing are going for my area. The thing that probably surprised me the most is how humble the people are out here. It might be because of their condition or it might just be because the Lord has softened the hearts of this people, I don't know. But what I do know is that we are having a lot more success here than I ever did in the city. And I say in the city because it is so country out here like you wouldn't believe! Half our area we can't even go to because it's just all farms. Like look at this!  

Suddenly Elder Biehn finds himself tracting through the Bamboo forest of China.  This is actually the backyard of a member, but still, you get the idea.  

Then there's also these awesome horizons

But the reason I say these people are humble is because a lot of them are willing to listen. Now of course there are a few exceptions and I'll get into that later. But! Good news is that we have a total 3 people on date right now for the 10 of September. Yep, this coming Saturday. So me and Elder Ramos are running around scrambling to make sure everything is prepared for the baptisms. It's gonna be an awesome weekend, I can tell you that much!

Now as to those exceptions I was telling you about. This week seemed to be full of Bible Bashers. Like unusually full. Almost every other person that we talked to was a devoted Catholic that just started throwing out bible references left and right. Now, we aren't supposed to bible bash but sometimes it's just fun because some of the things these people say crack me up. And me and Elder Ramos both have been out on our missions for a year and a half so we've had plenty of experience with bible bashers. Me, personally, I've spent quite a bit of time studying the bible because I wanted to know exactly what these people were talking about and how to respond to these assaults, but it has ended up helping me get a better understanding of the Savior and how the church was anciently. So now, I don't think there is a single lesson where I don't use a scripture from the bible, which really helps because the bible is what these people actually believe in!  However sometimes, no matter what you do people just want to argue. For example this one guy Elder Ramos had talked to before. He wanted to go back and apologize to him if he offended him in any way because it ended up being a bible bash for more than an hour. You know what he did? He took his apology and threw right back in our faces! He said, and I quote, "Bring out your bible. Let's read a little bit." At this point I was thinking, oh boy here we go. And after 20 minutes of nonstop bible bashing where we were proving him wrong point to point, we tried to leave because we knew he wouldn't listen. So we tried to politely excuse ourselves and he denied us leaving. Like, legit he said "No you can leave yet until we've figured this out" which actually means 'until I've proven you wrong.' We didn't leave and so we tried again this time a bit more forceful. Still the same result. I wasn't in the best of moods by this point so I got up grabbed my bag, said have a nice day, and left. That was it. It's sad to think that people just use the Gospel as another topic for argument rather than actually paying attention to what the scriptures say and applying it to their lives. But, if it wasn't so then Joseph Smith never would have had the impression to go pray in the garden about which church he should join. The most important thing to remember is that we have the restored gospel on the earth today with all of the priesthood and ordinances that were in Christ's original church. It is even the same exact organization and everything can be proven by scriptures. But it's not the proof that's important, it's the impressions of the Holy Ghost telling someone that this is true. That's the key to conversion, a witness from the Holy Ghost.

Love you guys and I'll talk to you next week! Look forward to a weekend in white!

Elder Biehn

August 29, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

First things first, we had transfers this past Thursday and I ended up getting transferred out of Bella Vista. I'll admit I'm pretty sad to be leaving Bella Vista, it is definitely one of my favorite wards. I've gotten to know a lot of good people there and Wednesday was especially tough because that's when I had to go around and say bye to everyone. One of my favorite families that we would always visit was the Aguilars. They are a part member family that we've been working with for so long and they are honestly some of my favorite people. So it was really tough to have to say bye to them.

So yeah, they are awesome and I look forward to being able to see them at Charlas and stuff like that.

But now I'm serving in the Sudley Ward in the Centreville Stake. I'm not even going to name the cities that we cover because this is literally the biggest area in the mission. It's quite a change for me because I've served in the city for pretty much my whole mission. Manassas is about as rural as it gets. Things are so spread out and there are way more actual forests now. It's SOOO different because we actually have to drive a decent amount to get to the other side of our area. Thankfully, a lot of our places to work are around us but it's still not what I'm used to. There are no tall building anywhere and the further away we get from the east coast, the more ghetto it is. It's awesome!

So my new companion is Elder Ramos. He's from Mexico and he's been in this area for a while now. But one of the main places we go is Manassas. It has a nickname that is "Ma-nasty" because, well I'm pretty sure you can figure that out. It reminds me a lot of the suburbs surrounding LA. Well, see for yourself

This is just one of the trailer parks we go to.

The ward here is AWESOME! So much member involvement and the Bishop is super cool! This Ward is super successful and it honestly surprised me because I'm not used to coming into a ward that is super effective. Now I just need to focus on keeping the fire going instead of trying to kindle it, which is really nice. Basically, missionary work is going good and we already have a couple of baptisms schedule for the next couple of weeks.

Odds are that this is going to be my last area and I'm sure glad that it is Sudley. So I'm looking forward to giving it my all for these last few months that I have and working like crazy!

Oh! I forgot to mention that I hit my 18 month mark this past Thursday. I still haven't burned a pair of pants yet but that will be coming soon! I just gotta find a good place to do it.

Love you all and I'll talk to you next week!

Elder Biehn

August 26, 2016 - Transfers

Hey everybody,

So I got transferred on Thursday from falls church. I'm now in Manassas Park serving in the Sudley Ward. Here is my new address:

9415 Elm Ct Apt 713 
Manassas Park, VA 20111

August 22, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

Not a bad week in my opinion, I admit it was kinda slow because our investigators that we are visiting are kinda stuck right now with different problems so they can't progress. So things aren't going exactly how I planned with them, like teach, testify, baptize and all but when does it ever go according to plans?? That's why I'm not too worried about it right now. I just need to make sure that they understand the importance of the gospel in their lives. That actually brings up an interesting point. One of the things that we tell people when we actually start to teach them is that if they start to follow God’s commandments then they will experience hardships, which is pretty weird thing to say right? But then we promise them the blessings that come from sticking to the gospel and overcoming the temptations of Satan. That's all those hardships are, is Satan trying to deter them from recognizing the truth by making it appear unattainable. But we know that's not true! That's what we have to help them understand, but it's difficult because at times they don't understand or see the light at the end of the tunnel. Which makes it even more sad when they drop us because of difficulty or distractions.

So we had a couple of cool things happen this week. One of them was Return and Report. That's just a meeting that all the trainers and trainees have about half way through the training process. It was a good meeting and I actually learned a lot of things on how I can be a better trainer because we had all the trainers in one room and all the trainees in another room. From there it really helped to be able to discuss issues that some people were having or success stories to give motivation which was really helpful. Afterwards we met back up and went on our way.

So last night one of the youth had his Eagle Court of Honor. And it was so cool to be able to be there for it because I haven't gone to one in more than 2 years! Like, we stood up to do the pledge of allegiance and I swear I had almost forgotten it, it was that bad! But I loved it, good ol memories from my boy scouting days.

So yep that about sums up my week. OH! One more thing is that transfers are this week. I'm not sure what going to happen for transfers because my mission president has dropped a couple of hints here and there but has never been super clear. So there could be a chance I get transferred. I wouldn't mind since I've already been in this area for a while, and it's looking like I'm only going to have one area left. Speaking of which this Thursday is my 18 month mark! I'm gonna have to do something pretty cool to celebrate.

Love you all and talk to you next week!

Elder Biehn

August 15, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

So I won't be able to do too long of a letter today. We went to Great Falls today and my gosh it was a long hike. Like we wanted free parking but it required us parking way up the trail. So we just started walking and it seriously took us like an hour and a half just to get there, spend 15 minutes at the falls, then spend another hour and a half walking back. So there's where most of my P-Day went and a lot of writing time too. But I do have a pic!

We were with Kwinn, a returned missionary that does a lot of work with us since he served Spanish speaking. But he goes back to school in a week so he wanted to do something with us before he left. Well, this was it. He's a really cool dude and man we had some fun conversations while we were hiking. We actually got a little lost but not by much which was interesting. The funniest part was that we kept getting assaulted by tons of spider webs. By the end of it we were all carrying sticks in front of us to catch the webs before they landed all over our faces.

Next week will be a better email because we've got a lot of potential for this upcoming week! Our investigator came to church for the first time and I really hope she liked it. I think that was pretty key to getting her baptized.

Love you all and talk to you next week!

Elder Biehn