Such Wonderful News!!

This week was hard for me. But I pulled through. I went to the doctors today to go over the CT with the doc.. The pictures (he let me look at them) showed that there is no bone growth that is causing the pain. He said that it is a sprain and I should be good to go in 1-2 months. I was really really happy :)

Tuesday, we picked up two new investigators! They are catholic but they haven't been for a long time hahaha. When we first talked to them, we gave them a brief intro to the church and how it was restored through Joseph Smith. The wife asked some good questions and agreed for us to come by later in the week. We went by to their house on Saturday to see if they still wanted to learn more. When we went by, she was working on her midterm that was due at the end of the night and she said that her husband was asleep. So we gave her the movie of the Restoration and invited her to read it by the time we come back. She committed and we will follow up! :)

We are teaching Brother Topper the new member lessons and we just finished the Plan of Salvation

with him! He is still SUPER strong in the gospel. Literally, he wants to do everything right now haha. He has found a family name to do Baptisms for the Dead for, has blessed the Sacrament a couple times now, AND he spoke in church yesterday! His talk was about how inviting someone to do something impacted his life. When he talked about his conversion, he said that it started a long time ago when he married his wife. A seed was planted from her. Then he got invited to work on the remodeling of the Visitors Center up at the temple. And then, when he got invited to be baptized was the biggest and boldest invitation he has received. He mentioned how bold I was when I invited him and told that story. (To be honest, I teared up a little bit...) He is so AWESOME! He comes and plays ball with us on saturdays too! 

Spiritual Exp. for the week: If you have time, I STRONGLY encourage you to read "Be Ye Converted" by Bonnie L. Oscarson. 

I'd like to give a shout out to all those who have written me the past couple of months, and I just wanted to thank you for all you do. Thank you and I love you!

I am looking forward to hearing back from you guys soon, whether it be email or a letter! Thank you for all your prayers and supporting me and I hope you will have a FANTASTIC WEEK!!! I Love You All!!!! :)

--

~Elder Ekberg~

A Short Weekly Update

One of these days, I will do my best to write longer! 

A few updates from my injury: Today, I had scheduled the doctors appointment for this morning and last night, well it snowed... So we got told not to use our cars till about 4 this afternoon and I got really mad. The roads were FINE. haha but i know that president wanted us all to be safe so I had to be obedient. I will be going to the docs tomorrow. I will be honest, I have never been so stressed about this injury. The devil is doing his best by trying every possible thing to delay me but I know that I am MUCH stronger than him. He can bruise my heel (which he did...) but I can crush his head. Nuff said there. Haha. 

I went on exchange with one of our Zone Leaders and that was pretty cool. The one I went with I really like because he is tall and lanky just like me! Only thing wrong is that he played tennis :P We picked up a potential investigator but I wasn't sure if she was being serious because she just had a tooth pulled so we will see how that turns out. We went down to the river and took some pictures on the dock there and some of them turned out pretty neat!

We had stake conference this weekend and the missionaries in the stake sang our mission song called: "Testify of Me" I dont like singing infront of a very VERY large crowd... but did it anyways haha  

 

Answer to a couple of Questions:

1) When will the famous blossoms come out? - whenever mother nature decides to stop the snow from coming! Snow is a pain! even on the crutches.

2) Where did I get the crutches? - A member of the bishopric gave them to me. They are still small for me but I enjoy them. Better than nothin'!

3) Scripture for the week? -Ether 12:6

~Elder Ekberg~

PB is a MESS!!

March 10, 2014

Tuesday after our lame snow storm, we were able to go out and use
our cars. We had dinner with a recently reactivated Less active who is
really cool. We learned that he was in the army and that he likes to
blow things up :) He said that the next time we are over, we might do
something like that... ;) His family is super cool!!
   We also did a Peanut Butter challenge... I don't recommend doing
that at all.... You get so sick of PB :/ I couldn't get past the half
way mark in the jar. For how much I eat, thats pretty sad haha.
   If you don't know already, I have had some issues with my ankle the
past couple weeks. So at first, I thought that the pain I was getting
was from some exercises I was doing for basketball... But that is not
the case. Today I went in to the doctors and had some xrays and
examinations done. The doc said that I have a bone that grew from the
previous fracture and previous rolls to that ankle. The bone is coming
from the leg bone (don't know what it is called) and is pinching and
irritating nerves and tendons. I will be getting a CT scan for the
doctors to make sure it is that, and then go about fixing the problem.
I don't know what he will say after, but I am hoping that we can get
this taken care of. I appreciate you all thinking and praying for me
during this discouraging time.  Right now I am on crutches to
alleviate the pain in the ankle. They are a pain! But they are good
too.
   Friday we had the first New Member Lesson with Brian Topper. He is
doing so well already. He is working towards getting a recommend for
Baptisms for the Dead and will be doing some family history work so he
can take some names to the temple! SO NEAT!  Yesterday he blessed the
sacrament for the first time, and he sounded like a natural! He
didn't seem nervous whatsoever. It was super cool!
   Saturday, I was asked to do a little basketball skills camp for the
11 yr old scouts. That was a fun time even though I couldn't
participate with them. At church, I had a couple of parents come up to
me and say like "you must've inspired so and so because when he got
home, he went straight to the basketball hoop and started practicing
the things he learned!" or "my son said that you are a great coach and
just talked about you until we got home" things like that. I think the
next one we do, will be with non member neighborhood kids that LOVE
basketball. I need to come up with some more drills!! :D Well that was
my week, and please, pretty please, keep me in your prayers!

I love you all! Have a marvelous week!!

Elder JT Ekberg

Sent from my iPad

Snow Days Stink!!

March 4, 2014

Another day snowed in... These snow days are not fun. With no wifi at
the apartment, we can't really do any updates with our iPads. Haha I
am very sick of these snow days here. They call for like a couple of
inches of snow and the people freak out and prepare for a blizzard.
But the MD people don't know how to drive in the snow so it is a good
thing that we are staying inside.
 This past week was cool. We had a neat experience with finding some
new investigators. So Elder Treasure and I decided to visit some
"cool" members in our ward because when you visit every person in your
ward more than once, you lose track of who you have seen, visited,
etc, there is like nothing to do ahah. We payed a visit to a family
named the Jenkins. A little background info on them: Sister Jenkins is
a widow and takes care of her handicapped son, Chris who is SUPER
COOL! Sis. Jenkins also takes care of 2 grandsons who are pretty cool
but energetic. Anywho, we went over to her house and she invited us in
and asked what we were up to and we told her we were just making
visits to ward members and seeing how they are doing, and if they know
 of anyone we can teach. Turns out the Jenkins' godfather was there.
And sister Jenkins said: "oh I have someone to teach for you guys!"
(pointing to Eric the godfather) So we taught him how we can over come
the trials in our life with faith in Jesus Christ, we watched the
mormon message "Mountains to Climb" and both Sis Jenkins and Eric
loved how that applied to them. At the end, we asked him if he would
like to learn more about the Gospel and he said yes, but it wouldn't
be at his house... So we get to teach him at The Jenkins house!! :)
 Yesterday, Brian Topper, the most recent convert, was ordained a
priest in the Aaronic Priesthood! That was awesome to be apart of. He
was super happy and excited to receive this. Now the next step is to
prepare him for the Melchizedek priesthood and then go to the temple
to get sealed :) I am so proud for Brian and the decision he made just
a few weeks ago.
   While we were visiting members, we dropped by Sister Margolis in
Swan Point. She is so cool! She taught us how to make sourdough bread
and cinnamon rolls too. The sourdough bread was
reeeeeaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyyyy yummy!! I wish we had time to make more
of that stuff.
 Sunday was neat. I had a cool experience with comparing blessings to a faucet.
When you turn on the faucet, immediately the water rushes out and
empties into the glass cup. And sometimes, if the water pressure is
low, the water will come out super slow and we get impatient. Often
when searching for blessings, some may come just like the faucet:
instantly filling you with joy, peace and comfort. Some other
blessings come slowly. Blessings come after the trials of our faith.
That is why they may take some time to come to you. I know that Utah
is going through a scary time now because of the water supply in the
mountains is low. As you and I keep our faith strong in Heavenly
Father, he will bless us after the trial of our faith.

This past week, my ankle has been giving me trouble again and it would
mean a lot if you could keep me in your prayers.

I think that is all for this week! I love you all so very much. I think and pray for you everyday. And I hope you have a fantastic week this week!!

Transfers!!

February 24, 2014

So this past week was transfers! My trainer, Elder Gardner, went up to the most northern part of Maryland in Gaithersburg :( But now I have a pretty awesome companion right now. His name is Elder Treasure! He has been out on his mission for almost a year now and is very obedient. He is pretty cool! Treasure is from Morgan, UT. He loves to play soccer and will play basketball! Very spiritual person.

 This week, we saw one of our investigators: Sister Nesmith and Jorden Brown. We talked about how she thinks the church will bless her life and she truly understands that it will but, she said she needs more time to "fully" understand... :( bummer huh?? It's all good though. We saw another investigator and he has a court date coming up pretty soon and if nothing bad happens, he will come to church with one of the members! His name is john! please keep both of these investigators in your prayers..

Other than those 2 things, it pretty much sums up our week. We didn't have very many funny experiences knocking on doors sadly. I am still waiting for that one! haha 

Cool spiritual experience: yesterday in Gospel principles, we talked about prayer and how to properly say our prayers. I had a super warm feeling come over me about half way through the lesson. I know that our prayers can and will be answered. No matter how silly you think your prayers are, they Will be answered! 

Today at the gym, Elder Bledsoe and I (he is our new Zone Leader's Roommate), we did vertical jump exercises. I already saw results! Thank you Dad for sending those to me! :) before we started emailing, we played a game to 15 and honestly, I felt like I could've jumped THROUGH THE ROOF even though I am super sore! I am in love with basketball incase you all haven't noticed... ;) 

I love you all and I hope you have a FANTASTIC week!!! :)

--

~Elder Ekberg~