Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires

Hello everybody!

This week was awesome! 

We started off strong on Monday by setting a baptismal date with Mwandja and his family. Right now the goal is to have the 4 that are old enough be baptised on the 29th of September. We assured them that they would be prepared by that day if they would read from the Book of Mormon everyday and come to church as often as they could. They are awesome and amazing people.

The rest of the week was fairly normal. It has been raining quite a bit lately.

On Friday I was on exchange with Elder Randall in Lowell and on our way to an appointment in Chelmsford we ran into literally the heaviest rain and lightning storm that I have ever been in. It was raining so hard that we could barely see with the wipers on their highest setting. Pretty cool stuff.

Saturday morning we walked down to the Eastern Asian water festival that the city of Lowell puts on every year. From across the country people flock to this event and there were over 60,000 people there! Hardly any of them even spoke English and it was super loud and crowded so we figured that we move on to go finding elsewhere.

Just when so thought that In was in an urbanized area, Elder Harrison and I caught a glimpse of a bear in westford in a members back yard. The funny part was when he ran outside armed with a pitch fork to warn the neighbors.

I love you and hope that you all have a fantastic week. Good luck to those starting school!

Until next time.

Elder Connor Starr

Waiting for the sisters to pick you up at the bus stop

The bear, *better photos to follow if we get them.

8/13/2018

Hello Again,

This week was pretty awesome. We had zone conference up in Nashua NH. We were trained and talked about a lot of things, mostly about how important it is to set meaningful and powerful goals that will help us stretch and hasten the work of the Lord. How personal inspiration and revelation help us and are a very necessary part of that process. 

We met with some of our investigators this week as we do. Their progress in the gospel is slow but steady and sure. I am so grateful that we have the opportunity to help people. To give them the opportunity to exercise their agency to choose God.

This Sunday, Mwandja came to church, so did a couple of less actives. We are meeting with Mwandja again tonight, it is always an awesome experience. 

That's about all that I have for this week.

I hope that you all have a great week. I know that Heavenly Father helps us in our trials and in our times of prosperity. I know that God lives and so does his Son and our Savior Jesus Christ.  I love you and hope that you have a great week! 

Elder Connor Starr

Exeter Zone Conference in Nashua, August 8, 2018

We are worried he might have cut his own hair - <sigh>

In the Cold January Rain

We had a pretty awesome week this week. On Monday we were able to teach Mwandja and his wife Hause. They want to be baptised and they really enjoy coming to church. They have somewhat of a date that they know they want to be baptised on, but it is a little distant. They want to be baptised on January 1st. of 2019. If I stay in Lowell for a few more transfers I can see that not being too much of a problem but we were think they should do a bit sooner than that.

Hopefully we can help them to understand what it means for them and help them be more excited about it. Then they will see that, although it is not convenient, they will want to make that covenant sooner.

The rest of the week we spent chasing down many referrals that we have received over the past few days. We got a lot from other missionaries, but also from internet self referrals and from members. It has been awesome but also a little hectic and stressful making sure that we contact these people as fast as possible. It is a real blessing to see that people in this area are willing to share the gospel with their friends and family.

I often find that when I feel stressed out I need to remember that amazing things have happened to me and those that I have served here in New England. For some reason those spiritual experiences can be very easy to forget or to take for granted.

Being joyful is about having that perspective and a "perfect brightness of hope" that we are taught in the scriptures. It means that we do everything we can with the best attitude that we can and with exact obedience to the commandments. That is when we are given power to accomplish the will of god.

I hope that you all have a fantastic week!

love you!

Until next time!

Elder Connor Starr

Here is a picture of a large bug

Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah that I recreated using Lego mini figures

7/30/2018

Hello everybody!

This week was pretty cool and some awesome things happened.

The Congolese family that we have been teaching is doing really well! We gave their children a Book of Mormon stories book and hey have been loving it!  We weren't able to meet with them last week unfortunately but we are seeing them again tonight. There is little doubt in my mind that they will be baptised.

This week was the annual Lowell Folk Festival! It was alot of fun and there were tons of people everywhere. It was really difficult trying to talk to people but we did meet some really amazing and awesome individuals.  The following night we were talking to a bunch of people on the river walk by our apartment and right as we were about to pack up for the night we were stopped by this young Chinese guy.  He told us that he was having a hard time because he had just broken up with his girlfriend. He saw us and knew who we were because he attended the church in Hong Kong. It was a really cool miracle. I am surprised, and humbled, that somebody who was distressed and seeking peace would know that he could find it through the church and the missionaries. This truly is an amazing mantle!

Sunday was really awesome because there was a member from Provo that visited our ward. His name was Brother Pike. It turned out that he had served here over 10 years ago Cambodian speaking in the Boston Mission.

Basically our whole afternoon was spent driving around with brother Pike telling us about less-active or former investigators that he had taught previously.

To give a little background to why this is so cool; about 2 weeks ago, the Elders quorum had a fast that somebody would be put within reach that could minister to the Cambodian sisters that are still active in the ward.

The vast majority of the southeast Asian membership in this area is completely less-active. Leaving no priesthood holders to minister to the active Cambodians in the ward in their language, as basically none of them speak English.

We think after Brother Pike' s visit that we have some awesome leads on people that we can reach out to once again to strengthen the members of God's kingdom, here in this area.

I know that miracles happen according to our faith, I also know that Heavenly Father knows all of his children. They are all numbered and His work is hastening.

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

-Elder Connor Starr

7/23/2018

Hello everybody!


This week we had some awesome things happen! The whole of the week was pretty normal to be honest. Not too many strange or abnormal things to report.

As it is summer vacation, a lot of people have left to go be with family so we didn't have a fantastic amount of investigators there. However we did have one person show up a few minutes late named Sing. He is from Laos originally and he just got out of prison about 3 months ago. He is really cool and really funny. He was surprised at how long our church meetings were but we assured him that he would get used to it as he kept coming.

This week we also saw 2 less-active members come to sacrament meeting that we were not expecting at all, and the members also brought some people! It was awesome.

I love how, despite nothing too exciting happening throughout the whole week, we were able to see some incredible miracles. The Lord was willing to show his hand on behalf of the effort that we gave to be diligent and noble throughout the many days of work that we had. Our Heavenly Father is merciful and generous beyond our understanding. All, it takes is for us to show a little bit of gratitude towards him and the things he gives us. Somebody said once: "humans have an infinite capacity to take for granted the wonders that surround them every day."  Or something to that effect.

I know that God loves us and that to him every sacrifice on his behalf is precious.
I hope you all have a great week.
Love you!

-Elder Connor Starr

Hello.

This week we had a lot of interesting things happen.

On Thursday we had an appointment later in the evening on the far edge of our area. We were able to take the bus there but the buses don't run past about 6:30 so we asked the sisters if they could give us a ride back.  The lesson went great. It was with the Phanor family. They are a part member less-active family from Haiti that we have teaching lately. They are awesome!

The appointment was through and there were no sister missionaries in sight. It was about 8:30pm, the sisters weren't answering their phone, and we had to be in my 9:00. we started walking back and we asked a guy on the street directions to our house. He asked if we were walking and when we told him we were he used several expletives to describe the distance at which we had to walk to reach our destination. It was about 7 miles.

Well this guy was really nice! his name was Jake and he insisted that he call an Uber for us. So we talked to Jake for a bit while waiting for this Uber and we got his phone number to hit him up later!
When we were in the car with Omar, the driver, he was really cool too and we got his facebook information! The moral of the story being that sometimes it pays to trust that everything will work out and that we will be blessed for our patience.

The next day after district meeting we went on exchange with the Littleton Elders, Elder Randall and Elder Lavanger.   I was with Elder Randall in Littleton which is mostly a biking area. We were biking most of the day in the super hot weather on the long and windy roads and that is when we saw this lowered, purple Lamborghini sitting in this driveway. We needed a good excuse to stop so we pulled over and knocked on the door. We had to knock 3 times for anybody to answer and we figured out why when the woman that lived there answered the door in a towel as she had just gotten out of shower. I have to give her props because she had a much more pleasant conversation with us than you would expect from a towel-bound woman talking to a couple of missionaries in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. She was really nice and she had had a few encounters with missionaries before when she was in Arizona. She said we could find her on facebook but that she wasn't interested in converting. I'm sure she'll come around.

Our investigator Christina went to the temple this morning for the first time! she is doing awesome!
and she has brought her friend Shantel to church every week for the past month. She also installed the LDS tools app and sent a referral to the missionaries in Virginia for her daughter. She is a great lady.
We have been taught that it is impossible to fail if we do our absolute best while we are on the Lord's errand. I know that to be true and I know that the gospel makes our lives better!

P-day is changed because transfers were this week. Elder Harrison and I are staying another transfer! it is going to be awesome! Elder O'Rourke in Acton was transferred up to Plymouth to be with Elder Morris my other companion. Sorry to see him leave.
So nothing has changed and nobody need worry.


I hope that you all have a great rest of your wonderful summer week!
love you!