Hello Again!

Dear Friends and Family:

It is a beautiful spring day on this wonderful Monday afternoon in the 

great state of New Hampshire.  Lets hope it actually stays that way.

The most notable thing that happened this week was that Saturday we 

received our transfer calls!

The results are: Elder Palmer will be leaving tomorrow back to his old area

in Waterville Maine. After 9 months here in the Randolph area he is finally getting

transferred back to his first area. He seems really excited but also sad that he has to leave

all the people that he has come to know so well.

I, Elder Starr, will remain here in the Randolph area for the foreseeable future and I will be

receiving Elder D. Hansen, whom I have never met before.  No mom my address didn't change. 

Don't worry.

This has been a fairly interesting last few days. It is interesting and uplifting to see the 

workings and designs of the Lord within the lives of those that serve him. I hope that I 

will continue to have an uplifting and powerful experience here in the Randolph area 

and I know that the decisions that are made are done with the influence of the spirit

for the uplifting of the people that we work with and for ourselves.

On Thursday evening we have an appointment with a less active member who is a former 

Marine. The reason I bring this up is because as many of you know I need haircuts fairly 

frequently and he offered to cut my hair. I anticipate that I will end up looking like a jarhead 

but I figure that if it gets us in the house on good terms I can make the sacrifice.

One thing that I love about the people here is that they are always willing to help, even

if you are complete strangers and you are dressed funny. People will most often be happy 

to help you with almost anything! If only they were so enthusiastic about conversion the gospel!

I hope that all of you are doing well and that you have a great rest of your week.

know that I love you and I can't wait to tell you all about next week.

Until then, 

Elder Starr.

Here is the photo of Elder Palmer that he obliged to give me for all of you.

Attachments area

Spring 2017 General Conference

Hello friends and family:

It appears that is yet again a great Monday out here in the best mission in the world!  The last week has been fairly boring. Just up to business as usual. Seeing less-actives and trying very hard to get new people to teach. It is very rare to find people that are interested at all, let alone
willing to have you come back and continue teaching.
We got hit by yet another snowstorm on this weekend, it was about 7 inches here at the chapel which isn't too shabby, the nice thing is that since it is warming up it melts off the pavement and sidewalk fairly quickly, I am told that the snow will probably be here until about mid May, kinda disappointing.

Of course everyone is talking about our wonderful conference weekend!
Here at the branch Elder Palmer and I were able to watch the satellite broadcast at the church for all the sessions. it was just me and him all alone at the church for all of conference, with the exception of the priesthood session where a bunch of people came, that was nice.
I really loved the Saturday afternoon talk by Elder Hales. I can't really explain why, but developing trust in the Lord and His commandments is something that as a missionary I have been nurturing alot.
I also really like Elder Clayton's talk about doing small and simple acts of faith everyday to overcome the challenges that we face in our life. I don't recall if he made reference to this scripture in his talk but it reminded me of Alma's council to his son Helaman in Alma 37:6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say into you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and smalls means in many instances doth confound the wise."
I know that it is by doing the small and simple will of the Lord that great blessings come that we may not even recognize.

I just remembered a humbling experience that I had earlier this week. Elder Palmer and I were invited by one of our investigators to attend a discussion and gathering at his church. That would be all good and fine, but his church is actually a large house in Lancaster that has about 3 different families living there, needless to say it was a bit daunting to attend, but we did anyway, it ended up being a really cool experience and we were able to share a lot of our beliefs. The spirit was definitely there.
After this experience I apologized to the Lord for being too swift to judge his children. That is another thing that I felt a lot of people talked about in conference this weekend. Seeing people through the Savior's eyes and acting toward them in charity and brotherly kindness. I think that it is definitely something that I struggle with and I know that this was an excellent and humbling experience for me.

That is about all I have for this week, I hope that all of you are doing well
and that you know that I love you.
have a great rest of your week!

until next time!

End of March [and Bear Meat]

Hello Friends and Family!

I hope that you are all having a wonderful Monday!  They seem to come and go so quickly now.
This last week has been an interesting one to say the least.  Just last night we had our first missionary fireside. Basically we just assigned speakers to talk about the family proclamation, as this was the theme of the evening, and told all the members that would attend to invite as many people as they could. It went fairly successful, The spirit was very strong and the branch here has a lot of musical talent so the special musical numbers were awesome. Everything went really well accept that the nonmember turnout was pretty lackluster. We did however, get about 4 inactives and one nonmember there so that was awesome and I hope that they had a great experience.

I have to tell you about the dinner we had last night.
One of the families in our area are both very avid bear hunters. They raise several hounds and train them to hunt bears and mountain lions. Its really cool. anyways, a few months ago they gave Elder Palmer and his previous companion bear meat. They had never used it because they didn't know how to cook it. A few days ago Elder Palmer and I came up with the idea that we would just crock pot the bear meat with a bunch of BBQ sauce for a few hours because that was the only way we knew how to cook it. Needless to say last night we had bbq bear meat and it was surprisingly good.

The rest of the week prior was pretty dull, the weather is slowly getting better. Instead of snow it is now just raining. We have had a few days that were above 40 and it was really nice to say the least. I think that it has been winter for 6 months now. The people we are teaching are progressing in their faith and in the gospel, I think that
it is one of the most gratifying things about serving a mission so far. It is really just incredible to see personal testimonies increase in the ones that you work hard with and pray for.

That is really all that I have for this week,
I hope that everyone is doing fantastic and that you all know that I love you.
Have a great rest of your week and trust in the Lord 

Until Next Time

-Elder Starr

March 2017 Zone Conference

Hello Again!

Dear Friends and Family:

Monday has come again and it is the first day of Spring!

For the first time it actually feels like the temperature that it

should be. It is about 43 degrees outside and the sun is shining. It makes a big difference to earlier this week when we got about 18-20 inches of snow. I certainly hope that it stays this way for a while.

Last thursday we had zone conference and on Friday we had our per-transfer interviews with President Blair. Zone Conference was really awesome and we got to see the new initiative that the Church is doing for Easter. Basically the Church will make a video for every day of the holy week leading to Easter with an emphasis on a principle of peace on each day. It seems really cool and it will lead to some nice new finding opportunities. 

As is appropriate, the mission has been focusing very hard on the Savior for the past few weeks. Our entire zone conference was basically about Him and it was a really uplifting and powerful experience. 

Before the conference was over, President blair talked about Matthew 16 when Jesus asked his disciples who they thought that he was. All of them blurted odd and misinformed answers accept for Peter. He said to Jesus: "Thou Art The Christ, the Son of the Living God."

Jesus praised peter and said "for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven." 

President Blair then went on to say that we must do as Peter did, get people to gain a testimony that Jesus IS the Christ, the Son of the Living God through the confirmation and power of the spirit that they are promised. It is only then that true conversion and a testimony of him are given to us.

As I serve and invite others to come to Christ, I have come to understand the similitude of what we celebrate during this season and our purpose as missionaries.

I hope that you all are doing well and that you know that I love you all!

Until next week!

-Elder Starr

                                          To give you an idea of what we are dealing with

                                                           It's not as fun as it looks

Monday in Narnia

Hello friends and family!

It is another Monday and it looks like a really nice day outside.

Unfortunately for me it isn't a nice day outside. In fact its about 9 degrees and windy,

but at least the sun is shining?

It appears that it is yet another new week in the Randolph area of New Hampshire!

The last few days have been fairly dull. We have been trying to get appointments with people we don't see often or contact them at all. The issue is that our area is rural (or "Boony" as they call it) enough that it takes a lot of miles on the vehicles to get to all the people that it is necessary to see throughout the week. We can 

only drive so far every month and it is kinda difficult to preserve those precious miles. That means

that we will be walking alot! for what we have planned tomorrow I wouldn't be surprised if we walked about 10-12 miles. I guess a little walking never hurt anyone. Although given the weather we might be in for a very long and cold day.

When we do teach people it can be very interesting. Teaching as a missionary is all about compression. I have to take my fairly broad knowledge and understanding of the Gospel (if I do say so myself) and compress it to small bite sized chunks that anybody can understand. These people have less understanding than your average primary child and you have to teach them the significance of the restoration of the Gospel on the earth. It has been somewhat challenging and sometimes downright frustrating but I have seen my improvement over the past few months.

We have interviews and Zone conference at the end of this week. I enjoyed the last Zone conference so I have no reason to believe that this one will be any different, and I enjoy talking to president Blair so it should turn out to be a good couple of days. 

I don't know how many of you know this, but my hair grows quite rapidly. I got a  haircut about 2 weeks ago and it already looks like it did beforehand. Large and unruly. I am not sure why I felt the need to include this but "the more you know" I guess

At this point I am convinced that this area is similar to Narnia. Everything has strange names and winter lasts forever. We are supposed to get about 6-8 more inches of snow tomorrow and I think that I am kinda over it at this point. I keep getting told that it will get warmer but at this point I am doubtful.

I hope that you all are having a  wonderful day and 

that the rest of your week be likewise

I also promised more pictures so here is one of half of my face and the back of Elder Palmer's Head. ​

know that I love you all!

until next week

-Elder Starr 

Cold

Dear friends and Family.

Another week has gone by here in the lovely state of New Hampshire.

The temperature for the last two days has not exceeded 5 degrees and 

I think the lowest it got was -15 after wind chill.

It seemed a bit unfruitful to do street contacts and door knocking in such weather 

but basically all of our appointments canceled or were no-shows so that's what we 

ended up doing. I am told that it's suppose to warm up but I think if I recall correctly 

that that is what I was told 2 weeks ago.

The work here in this area is moving slowly but surely. Over the past few weeks

we have accumulated some more growth in our teaching pool which is always good 

and our primary investigators seem to be moving forward nicely.

It is really great to see the faith of others increasing around you and I hope that they 

can soon move to larger commitments within the gospel.

Other than that it has been fairly slow for the past couple of weeks. I checked this morning

and I found that I have actually lost 1 pound! I find this miraculous considering what some

of these people have been feeding us. On saturday, one of the couples in lancaster had us 

over for dinner. They fed us "mac and Cheese" which I later discovered had large golf-ball 

sized chunks of ham,with over 5 different cheeses and 3 different kinds of macaroni. 

needless to say I only had one serving but it did taste really good and it was better than anything

I could make so I certainly wasn't complaining. 

Over the past few days I have been pondering and studying about humility

I have found that humility is knowing that you have limitations, but understanding that with the Lords help that he can take what we have and make it enough. When we are humble, we understand that 

there is much more to the world than what we think and sometimes, somethings are simply out of our control or have no bearing on the grand scheme of things that we know as our plan of salvation.

I hope that you all know that I love you and I hope that you have a fantastic week.

until next time-

Elder Starr