Senator Hatch

March 16, 2015

This past week has been alright. We met a few more people (investigators and member wise) and also took care of washing and dry cleaning almost every particle of clothing... There was one bed bug and so the guy came and sprayed just in case there was more. We met with an eternigator (eternally investigating) named Mary, but she goes by Nann to all the missionaries. She is in love with all the missionaries! She's a hard core catholic and her husband is a baptist. Russell the husband, he works for the church and does all of the heating and air conditioning for all the church buildings in the area! We haven't met him yet, but hopefully we will!

Member wise we went over to the 1st councilor in the bishoprics house to meet his family. Sad thing was that they put their kids to bed.. We shared a video with them that we didn't download before hand so they had to find it.. Very awkward moment lol. But he has a cool family though! 

Saturday the ward had scheduled to view meet the Mormons (if you haven't seen it, you need to see it!) but no one in the ward showed up to the visitors center... Except us and the bishop.. 

Last night, there was a why I believe and Sen. Hatch came and shared his testimony! I wanted to get a picture but he left pretty quick...

And that was basically our week! I hope y'all are enjoying the warm weather... We keep getting blasted with storm after storm with high winds and such..low temperatures some days then it will jump up to warmer. Maryland is so weird...

Love you all-

Elder JT Ekberg


Dinner with a great member!!  Martineu's

Transfers- Saying Goodbye to Olney...Hello Carollton MD

March 9, 2015

This last week was really hard. A little back ground first: elder
fisher and I have known that the mission president was going to closedown our area and make it a sisters only area, so we have to prep theward for just the sisters. We also had to ask our investigators andless actives about being comfortable with the sisters and to tell themthat we were leaving...

Our main less active/ investigator (Endres) was the hardest... Shegave both of us gifts our last day there which was extremelydifficult:/

Then we get to transfer meeting, and they announce that elder fisherand I will remain comps and open a new area that is a very slow areafor missionary work. We are hoping to get things started and rollingagain here in the Carrollton ward. We were both shocked that we stayedcompanions but very happy as well. So yesterday we met the ward andthey were very very happy to have elders back. Now there are 9missionaries in the ward: 2 English sisters, 3 French sisters, 2elders and a senior couple!


Really quick update bout my physical well-being, my ankle isn't doingwell at all. I've noticed that it's becoming difficult to stand for ashort period of time as well as walking. I am doing my best to keepfocused on missionary work but the past couple of days, I could notfocus because of the pain I'm in. Please keep me in your prayers..
Thank for all you have done for me especially the support. I love youall, and have a fantastic week!

Love you all-
Elder JT Ekberg

Olney Closing & Spanish Splits

March 2, 2015

So for the past 2- 2 1/2 weeks elder fisher and I kind of had an idea that our area would soon be closing. And Saturday, it was official. In a call out our zone leaders made, they announced that me, elders fisher, swensen, and la rotta will be closing our areas... Swensen and
La Rotta are our roommates in the Spanish program. Both of our wards will now just have sisters in our areas. My guess is that President Cooke wants the mission to be 50% elders and 50% sisters. I don't know why, but he is following the promptings he gets, and that is good. But now I can start talking about my week!

Last Tuesday we had 2 general authorities come and speak to our mission: Elder Schwitzer and Elder Gonzales (I am not sure on spelling so please don't hate me lol). The reason why they came, is because the church is now rolling out the new and very much improved iPads and training that comes with it. The 
church is giving all the missions in the US brand new iPads with the new software, security and other features. As policy, we will not be able to use Facebook for at least 2 months, essentially a "Facebook fast" as we train with the actual

Elder Minion

iPads and stuff. The training in total takes about 6 weeks to complete.

Wednesday was our temple trip for dying missionaries. Once a transfer the missionaries gather and go to the temple. One of the blessings of having a temple in the mission :)

Thursday we went on exchanges with our roommates swensen and la rotta. Swensen took my place in the English area and I replaced him in the Spanish. Let's just say that I wasn't blessed with the spirit of discernment haha. The Spanish program is kinda cool, they get fed A
LOT.  That's a blessing and a curse because I like food, but I want to maintain a healthy weight. So far I have lost 8 pounds! And I'm not even in a bike area! ;)

Friday we didn't do much really... I had therapy in the morning, which went good but then I go back to having the regular pain in my ankle. I would be just sitting down and then will come and my ankle will make my whole leg twitch. It's weird haha. then we did normal studies after that. We went to the church after to just update our area real good for the sisters who will be taking over.

Saturday, we had dinner at the Velasquez's home. They have a son on a
mission In twin falls, Idaho Spanish speaking! And they are such a
great family! After dinner, they gave us a bag of food from the dinner
and some cereal because #whynot? Hhaha no they really love
missionaries.

Then Sunday, we had are ward council meeting in the morning, and when
we were done, it was snowing.... We went home, did some studying, then
went back to the church for ward correlation meeting and it was
raining, but it was freezing rain... About halfway through our second
meeting, and we get a voicemail. We didn't listen to it till after
sacrament because due to the weather, that's all they were planning to
have. So we listened to the message and we were back inside for the
rest of the evening. We had a member drop off some food that we were
supposed to go over to that night, but because of the weather we
couldn't.

And that was our week! Just to remind you again, there will now be 2
ways of contacting me: by letters, and by my email. Not facebook.
Also, I have deactivated my personal facebook account and will be
using my mission one. That will become my regular Facebook after the
mission is done.

Love you all. Have a great week!

Elder JT Ekberg

Super Short Letter: MORE SNOW!!

February 23, 2015
This week was very dull and nothing got done due because of the freaking
weather... We were shut in for 4 days in total. The two days that we
could do things, our appointments cancelled on us so we were in those
days too. The first snow storm, we had the derwood elders spend the
night and played so many board games.. We played  bang, settlers of
catan, dominion, hearts, monopoly, and risk. Oh and church was
cancelled as well so that makes 2 weeks with no church and no
sacrament.
That was basically my week.
Hope y'all have a good week this week and I'll talk to you all again! :)

Elder JT Ekberg