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

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