Monday Again

Hello again friends and family.

As of this Tuesday I will have made it through my first transfer in the mission. 

I will remain here in the Randolph area with Elder Palmer for at least another 6 weeks so I 

won't be going anywhere anytime soon. 

On saturday we had 64 degree weather and it felt like we were living in tropical paradise. We could actually leave the apartment in just our shirts without freezing to death. That was all good and fine until sunday when we got back to business as usual with sub 30 degree weather and with a forecast of snow this coming weekend. 

Other than the odd weather, this week has been pretty slow. We had exchanges with the colebrook area again and that is always fun. I always seem to forget that here I am basically in Canada and in some spots of Colebrook you can actually see the border.

One thing that I really like about the country up here is all of the water. There are rivers and streams just about everywhere and I think that its awesome. 

Another thing that I love is that all the members that I have met are very kind and very hospitable. There is a large difference between the members here in middleofnowhere New England and the ones in mormonville Utah. The members in this area especially are very committed to the gospel. They lack alot of the "casualness" that can happen when you attend a large ward. Here, in the Randolph branch, the whole branch is working very hard to grow their own testimonies of the Savior and his Gospel and to help the branch grow and to bring more people into that very Gospel. 

I know that as we exercise our faith that the Lord will bless us in all that we do.

As we deepen our conversion to the Lord we will be blessed and we will grow in our capacity 

to bless others.

Thats all that I have for this week. I hope that you all are doing well and I am sorry to those that didn't receive the previous emails. 

Hopefully I will have some photos for next week.

Until then..

-Elder Starr

Hello Again

Dear Friends and family:

I am doing well up here in the north-country. After significant storms on Monday and Tuesday, this week has stayed consistently about a balmy 45 degrees. The snow and ice is beginning to melt and sometimes its warm enough to just go out with a jacket. 

Other than that, this week has been fairly uneventful. We did, however,  get to teach a referral from one of the members within the branch, she seems like a really solid investigator and we are planning to teach her again soon at the end of the week. Its really cool what can happen when average members have the courage to preach the gospel to those around them.

On Friday, I had my first interview with President Blair. I am really grateful that I can serve with such an awesome mission President that is so faithful and understanding.

This morning I actually decided to make the muffins that were sent to me a few weeks ago. They turned out pretty good except I think they were undercooked or I used too much PAM because they were kinda sticky. 

Something that I feel is unique to our area is that alot of our investigators or inactive members have trouble with their faith in the prophet Joseph Smith. I find that interesting because we are basically standing on the same land that those faithful saints did all those years ago. The thing that we emphasize to them is that, like Joseph, they can come to the knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel, if they only have faith enough to ask of God with real intent. 

well sorry that this week was kinda dull

I love you all and hope that you all have a great week.

-Elder Starr

Snow and Snow

Hello friends and Family

Last week was a pretty good week, 

On Tuesday we had a New Missionary and Trainers Meeting in Sharon at the JSM building again. 

That was basically designated for all the new missionaries and their trainers. The mission presidency was there and it was a really fun and spiritual experience. I think there may be some photos of it on the mission's FB page but I am not allowed to look so idk.

Pres. Blair spoke to all of the new missionaries and told a story about the Cortes the conquistador.

Basically Cortes arrived in the Americas and his men were discouraged that when they arrived that the rivers weren't made of gold, it was really hot, and the insects were really annoying. After Cortes' discouraged crew complained  and indicated that they wanted to go home where they knew what they were doing. What did Cortes do? well he burned all the ships! He made it clear to his company that they weren't going anywhere until they had done what they set out to do.

Pres. Blair told us that in order to make it that we need to burn our metaphorical ships, because the work we have to do is far too important to have us turn back to where we were comfortable.

I just thought that it was a cool talk and wanted to share it with you.

Our district actually has our first mission president interviews on Friday, so that will be cool. President and Sister Blair are awesome.

Shortly after our meeting we were going to head home back to Randolph. That is when the assistants told us that instead of heading home that we were going to be staying the night in Ascutany. so we had to stay the night there in nothing accept the clothes that we were wearing and no bedding. That was certainly a long night but it worked out and it was nice to stay with some of the other elders.

On Wednesday I went on exchange with elder Cobb in the Colebrook area which is north of us. We were driving to go see some people when we ran into this cool sign that was on the side of the road.

it is cool to think that up here I am farther north than some places in Canada.

It has been snowing here for the last 2 days. In one night we got over 14 inches of snow. It took elder palmer and I about 2 hours just to shovel the stairs and walks of the church and we had a snowblower. The winter here just seems to last forever and we are expected to get another big one here soon.

I hope that everyone is doing well and I am happy to hear from you.

have a good Valentines day and know that I am doing well

thanks for your support, Love you guys!

let me know if the photos don't work

-Elder Starr

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District Meeting at the Joseph Smith Memorial near Sharon, Vermont

Looking to 2026 & the Patriots Won!

Dear Friends and Family

can you believe that it has been one week already? It seemed to just fly buy.

On Thursday I got to attend my first zone conference at the Joseph Smith memorial in Sharon Vermont. It was a great experience and we learned alot about how to go about achieving the goals that we have set as a mission. I don't remember if I have shared this already, but Pres Blair is convinced that we can have a temple within our mission buy 2026. To achieve this goal we need to have at least 200 baptisms for 2017 and we are already at about 20 just for January with about 8 dates set for February already. He says that if we trust in the Lord that we can all come back in 2026 for the dedication. While it will be difficult, I have faith that we can do it.

Other than that great experience this week was fairly average, we still get on and off storms with about an inch or two of snow but on tuesday we are supposed to have a big storm which is the day that we are supposed to drive up to Colebrook for district meeting. I am pretty sure it will be fine though because we are leaving pretty early that day and we have a decent car for the weather.

The interesting thing about this area is that there are actually a good amount of members here but the large majority are inactive due to health or because they simply don't want to come to church.

They have lost sight of those blessings and as a missionary its hard to just kick in somebody's door and ask them why they aren't coming to church. 

While me and Elder Palmer were knocking doors the other night, One guy actually let us inside! it became apparent after about 10 minutes he wasn't terribly interested in what we have to say, but he was intrigued by the lifestyle and the other aspects about being a missionary. After we told him what our average meals were like he gave us a small lecture about how if we don't eat strictly organic food with little to no salt or sugar that we will be dooming ourselves to a life of unhealthyness, when we inquired about how much his food bill was he indicated to us that it was only for a reasonable price of about 600 dollars a month for just himself and his son. We then explained that such a price was a bit unreasonable given the 170 we get a month for food. Needless to say it was nice to know that somebody will still let you in out of the cold once and a while.

I hope that you all are doing well and that you have a great week. One miracle about today is that New England won. Since there isn't much to do for fun up here, there are some very passionate football fans and New Hampshire doesn't really have their own team so they all just congregate toward the Patriots. so people should be in a generally good mood for a while. 

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

have a great week.

-Elder Starr

Mud Season

Hello friends and family:
It has been sort of a long week but it has been ok. 

This week me and Elder Palmer were able to get a member or investigator dinner meeting scheduled

for every day so the week was happily devoid of micro-wave noodles and pasta. All the members and our investigators are very welcoming and they are all very talented with food so needless to say that the work has been going well. Hopefully within the next few weeks I'll be able to send pics if a potential baptism we have but you never really know

It seems like that weather is warming up which is nice because I am getting tired of wearing a heavy coat all day just to have to take it off when I get to hot due to the many hills that we have to climb here in the valley.

Yesterday I received the large package form the family and I can truthfully say that I am very pleased with its contents. although I do regret that it cost so much to get up here. I guess at least we are still technically within the same country. I love the quilt and all those that put so much time and effort into it. I can say that I do sleep very warm. I am very excited to make some muffins although I don't think that we have any pans within the apartment for them. Maybe pancakes instead.

I have heard that Utah has gotten alot of snow later in the winter? how much is alot? we have snow but its not super high and most of it that falls usually melts around noon. I have been informed that here in the northeast there is an addition season commonly known as mud season. It lasts about 6 weeks in the transition between winter and spring. I can say that I haven't minded the snow and wet that much because it means that I get to wear my boots and I don't have to shine my shoes all the time.

This last Friday and Saturday I went on exchanges with the Zone leaders in Laconia, They have a really nice area but with its different challenges. I got to work with 3 other elders and they were all super cool. Its nice to get to know the mission a bit better when we are sort of out here in the middle of nowhere.

Tell Cabe and Corrine and whomever mom will allow to go to the YoungTheGiant concert. I want to hear how it is. Cabe's excuses are lame so you should probably just make him go and take people with him. They don't come that way of the country that often and I know that It would be tons of fun.

I hope that all is going well with all of you and I apologize to the people that I missed last week. They don't give us a ton of time to email and its hard when I have to write a whole bunch of people.\

I would like to request a larger list of emails from family members and maybe friends that would like to get this very long winded email that is meant for everyone. That way my mom doesn't have to forward it to everyone that wants it. Although I can't imagine that its that many so maybe not. its up to you really.

Good Luck and know that I love you all

until next week

-Elder Starr

First Week

It has felt like forever since I was last able to send mail. It was only about 10 days but that seems like weeks ago.

I arrived at the New Hampshire/ Boston airport on monday afternoon, after we got all of our bags loaded, we immediately went to the mission office which is a Church building about 30 min away. Once we got there, we met a bunch of other missionaries and we all introduced ourselves. After that, one of the other new missionaries and I went with an experienced elder to go and to teach a lesson. The lesson went fine and after that we just did street contacts for a few minutes until we headed back to the mission office for dinner.

That night we slept at president and sister Blair's house and the following morning we got up and met our new trainers, My trainer's name is Elder Palmer from Ogden Utah. he has been here about 14 months now.

 Elder Palmer and I were assigned to serve in the Randolf New Hampshire area. there are about 4 small cities within our area and a small branch with about 45 active members here. Due to the distance between places, our companionship was given a car to use which is nice.

Since our primary investigators were either busy or out of town, they couldn't meet with us. That means that we got to do alot of "Finding" which is basically a fancy word for walking all over the place and talking to strangers. We did that primarily this week and logged about 25 miles by Sunday.

The members here are super kind and we have lots of dinner appointments with them next week which is nice because all the food that I have has to be prepared in under 30 min due to the scheduling and that means most of it is microwavable and less than great.

So far I have worn my boots more than I have my shoes. It hasn't been warmer that 40 degrees all week and NH uses sand instead of salt so there is wet sand and dirty snow everywhere you go.

I hope that you all are doing well and I am sorry that I didn't get the photos right the first time, I will try again with a few more.

As for mail, the address is 13 Exchange St, Apt 2 Gorham NH 03581
and I am pretty sure that you have to use USPS for one reason or another.​

Here are those photos that I missed, try to respond within an hour if they still don't work.
They are both with the two teachers that we had within the MTC.

Well anyways, I love you guys and can't wait to hear from you. sorry that I haven't set up a mailing list but I haven't had time to figure out how to do it.

Love you guys

-Elder Starr