December 19, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everyone!

Fire alarm in the middle of studies!

This has been a very strange week for me, including this morning. We had the fire alarm go off right in the middle of studies. So we all had to go outside and it wasn't fun considering it was like 30 degrees. To say the least, we weren't too happy.

BUT it was a pretty fun week. We had our Ward Christmas party on Friday and then a Charla Fogonera (fireside) yesterday. I enjoyed the Ward party because of course they had good food there, but then also it was a good chance to talk with the members. We had a lot of the less actives that we are working with show up to it along with one of our investigators, so that was super awesome. We also had Santa there but I forgot to take a picture with him.  Sorry!

As for the Charla, it was ok. There weren't a ton of people there but what was good is that I got to go and we had our investigators go as well. What was also nice was that this is Elder Justesen's last Charla because he goes home in less than two weeks. So it was good to see him again before he heads out.

Last but certainly not least, I had the opportunity to interview one of the investigators of the Hermanas in my district for baptism. She passed and what's awesome is that she is going to be getting baptized on the 24th, Christmas Eve! And even more awesome is that she asked me to baptize her! So we are going to be having a white Christmas! (It doesn't look like it's going to snow before Christmas but that's ok, this is SOOO much better!)

Love you guys and I'll talk to you next week! And MERRY CHRISTMAS! I'm looking forward to being able to talk to my family this Sunday. It'll be the last time on my mission! Crazy how fast it's gone by.

From,

Elder Biehn

December 13, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

Crazy busy day yesterday. Elder Bennett from the seventy came to visit our mission and so we had a half mission conference yesterday. Man, this training lasted FOREVER. We got to the chapel at 9:30 and we didn't get back to our apartment until 6! It was so long and kinda rough because Elder Bennett is known for how much he chastises missions. Ours wasn't as bad because we've been doing good but he made sure to call us out on what we weren't doing right.

Running the camera at the Mt Vernon Christmas Festival

Anyways, in brighter news we also had interviews with president this week. Interviews are always nice because it gives you a chance just to talk to president so that way he sees how you are doing.

Then we also participated in a Christmas festival for the MT Vernon area. We all (as in the missionaries in the stake) sang Joy to the World. It was pretty fun considering we only had about 30 minutes to rehearse and we all know that my singing abilities are... well I just don't have any. But it was fun none the less! Then afterwards we got to control the camera for the rest of the show! That's what I enjoy doing for sure!

Yahhh! A Christmas tree!

Another good thing that happened. We got a little present from one of our less actives that we are working with. She was cleaning out her apartment and decided to give us this!

I was so happy!!! Like you have no idea. I didn't have a Christmas tree last year and being able to have one for this year made everything so much better and give me more of that Christmas season feeling.

A cool city scape

We were also doing some tracting and found a cool city scape. :)

Well, that's about it for this week. Just a little bit more before Christmas! I'm so excited and I hope everyone is remembering the true meaning of Christmas and doing the #LightTheWorld.

Love yah!

Elder Biehn

December 12, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update Postponed

Hey I have to change my P-Day to Tuesday because we are having a training. I'll be able to write then.

Elder Biehn

December 5, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

 Hey guys!

There's not too much to report on for this week. Nothing insanely crazy happened, it was just a normal week of working and finding and teaching. Something cool though was that my birthday was last Monday but Tuesday was awesome! We had a fun little district meeting and my companion made me a cake. It was pretty cool.

Celebrating my birthday with my district!

So that's my district. Oh I forgot to mention that I'm the district leader again.  That one kinda slipped my mind during the past couple of emails. But I am enjoying it! Old Town is a really good Ward and my district is awesome. It requires a decent amount of studying so that I can keep things interesting and my district up beat. So that means I've been having some really good studies lately. 21 months in and I'm still learning! Pretty cool how the mission works that way.

Dinner at Chipotle with recent converts from Bella Vista. 

Later on Tuesday I had a nice surprise as well. My recent converts from Bella Vista wanted to take me out to dinner. So we met up and it was great because it's been a while since I've been able to see them.

We went to Chipotle and it was super good! Definitely a fun night.

Like I said, other than that not too much really interesting happened. The weather has been kinda funky though. On Tuesday it was like 70 degrees. Yesterday was about in the mid 50s. Like it's December already, come on Virginia you're acting like California! Lol.

Hope you guys have an amazing week and remember, Christmas is coming! Be sure to be doing the activity the church is putting on #LightTheWorld

Elder Biehn

November 28, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey guys!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I know I did. It was awesome because we had a family prepare a completely traditional Thanksgiving dinner which is something that they've never done before. You see, in Hispanic culture everything has rice and some kind of spice to it, and this was how it was for me last year. The last Thanksgiving dinner I had was basically the Hispanic version of Thanksgiving. Now don't get me wrong, it is still really good food, but it just doesn't have that traditional feel to it. But this time, with this family (well, I should say two families because they were both there) they prepared an amazing traditional Thanksgiving dinner (when I say they, I mean the one person there who grew up in an American home so she had all the traditions already). And for the first time in 2 years, I was teaching OTHER people how to eat the food. It was so funny because besides me, Elder Thompson, and the hermana who prepared the food, the family had never seen stuffing or cranberry sauce in their lives. It was so funny teaching them how to eat it, let alone trying to say the name of the food! They couldn't pronounce the names so they kept referring to it as "la cosa rara," translated is the weird thing.  Good news is that they enjoyed it and I enjoyed having a little bit of American culture back into my life.

Now, it's a tradition as missionaries (at least for me anyways) to go to as many member homes as you can on Thanksgiving and eat as much as possible. This year I managed to down 5 meals! Granted they weren't all the same serving size (one of them was literally a spoon full of mashed potatoes, broccoli, and some other stuff) but still it was a TON of food. My poor companion is definitely not as big as I am and has a small stomach so he was struggling by the 2nd meal, but he powered through it! I didn't have to eat breakfast or lunch the following day. We were able to visit lots of members and enjoy our time together, especially because they enjoy the company of missionaries. The family I was talking about earlier, the one that made the fully traditional dinner, was so sweet because they referred to us as part of their family since we weren't able to be with ours on that day. Truly an awesome last Thanksgiving in the mission and something I will remember for the rest of my life.

Exchanges with Elder Everett

Now, that's just what happened on Thanksgiving. This has been a really eventful week for me. For starters I had the chance to go on exchanges with Elder Everett, my first companion back from the good ol CCM days. On the exchange was really an awesome experience to be able to look back and realize just how far we've come since stepping foot in Mexico. It was really an eye opener for me to help me recognize all the progress I've been able to make and our skills as teachers and Disciples of Christ have increased dramatically.

I know the picture isn't the best quality but it was the best my poor little iPad could do with what little light there was.

Service at the Christmas Tree Farm. 

We also had a chance to do some really cool service work the morning of Thanksgiving. We helped this guy named David, who really loves missionaries but is a part of the church that is right next door to ours. David is a roadside salesman and that's his business. Last month he had a full on pumpkin patch for Halloween, this month he is setting up a Tree farm for Christmas trees. He does this every year and it was super fun to be able to help him set up and to work with these beautiful trees. Did I mention I love real Christmas trees? It was us and the Hermanas in our Ward helping him so it was a good fun way to spend the morning.

I got to drive the tractor!

David also had a tractor and I got the chance to drive it!

So overall this was a REALLY fun week. The holiday season is the best and now I'm looking forward to Christmas! Helping everyone to understand the true meaning of Christmas which is Jesus' birth.

Birthday package from my family!

I also got a birthday package from my family since it is my birthday today too. Great way to top of the week! But I still don't know what I'm going to be doing today to celebrate my birthday. Probably just hanging out as usual, haha.

Love you guys and I hope you have an enjoyable holiday season!

Elder Biehn

November 21, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

Another long and hard week, but it was hard in a good way. I got my new companion and am back in my area which is great. We've been doing a TON of finding.

Eating at Olive Garden

At the beginning of the week we decided to go out to eat as a district (just the elders) because Elder Rascon was going home. He wanted to have a fun last meal together and just so happened to have some gift cards to Olive Garden.

Elder Hernandez, my first companion

Then at transfers, practically everyone was there. It was a blast to get to see old companions and even say goodbye to some of the missionaries going home. One of them is Elder Hernandez, who was my companion all the way at the beginning of my mission.

We also took a Spanish program picture. This is most of the Spanish missionaries in the mission.

Spanish program missionaries

So next up, my new companion is Elder Thompson. I was super excited to see that in transfers because I've already served with him once and I know we get along. Remember back to when I was with Elder Cottle in Bella Vista and he had to go home early? Yeah, so I've technically already been his companion before, but only for 2 weeks.  Our first day together went really good. After transfers we took his stuff back to the apartment and then went out again. We had a good night where we taught one of our progressing investigator families and then also found another less active family. They hadn't been to church in a little over a year! It's just too bad they live in the area that we are losing.

Ward Thanksgiving Dinner - Traditional American Food!

Our second day together was great and probably my favorite day out of this whole week. That's because we had our Ward Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. But the Ward changed things up a bit and decided to go classic American Thanksgiving! No more chicken and rice! There was turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn bread, pumpkin pie, you name it! It was awesome and SOOO good. Like I never thought I would miss American food this much! I was in heaven because I haven't eaten any of these things for almost 2 years! I was sitting with some investigators and they were making fun of me because of how happy I was.

That was all the fun moments of the week. The reason it was sorta difficult was because since transfers, me and Elder Thompson have been doing none stop finding, which basically means knocking doors all day. It's pretty draining and discouraging to be doing that all the time. At the beginning of the week I was super excited to start working in my area again but now I'm kinda ready for a break from finding.  Thankfully we were able to find some cool people and got some return appointments for this upcoming week! So it won't be knocking doors 24/7 anymore.

Well, I believe that's it for this week. Hope you guys have an amazing week!

From

Elder Biehn

P.S. It's starting to get really cold now. Winter is coming!

November 14, 2016 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey guys,

It's been a rough week and I really don't feel like writing everything about it, so I'm just going to summarize. We had 2 missionaries from my district go home this week on 2 separate occasions, one of them being my companion Elder Artinger. Both of them went home for health reasons. It's not easy watching missionaries go home early, especially when those missionaries are your friends. And I was really good friends with both of them. So yeah....

My district before it got wiped out

Right now I'm in a trio with the other elders in my district. They are basically babysitting me right now since I can't be in my area alone, so it's just sitting there with no one to take care of it. Speaking of my area, due to a recent 70 visit, the boundaries of the stake are changing. Which means my area is getting cut in half, and I'm losing the half with all my investigators.

Pretty crazy week

Elder Biehn

They say a picture is worth 1000 words right?

Me and Elder Artinger enjoying his last day at a Peruvian chicken place

I got to go to the temple with Elder Everett, my MTC companion