Well this week was pretty fun. I want to first start off by saying my 6 month mark is on April 8th, and I cant believe I have been gone 6 months already! It's crazy. And it seems like a lot of crazy stuff has been happening down in AZ. And I thought it was crazy in Quincy. I saw in the paper that one of our investigators got arrested twice in the same week. He is a crazy weed freak, and he is not really an investigator. He just likes missionaries. Me and elder smith went to his house once and he was still high from smoking weed. Me and elder tanner have been trying to get in with him lately but we cant. So thats fun. One really cool experience yesterday, is that we had fast and testimony meeting and one of our spanish investigators got up and bore her testimony! It was so powerful, and she talked about how she felt a peace in the church. Her testimony sealed the deal that she will be baptized. I have no doubt about it. So the only problem is marriage. They arent married yet. So I am super excited for that! And we have been going to George, Washington alot, and we have been finding investigators out there, and have been doing service at a library. So it has been super fun. 

Me and Elder Tanner will hopefully go to Uncle Jeffs again, they are super fun. I love them a lot, and it feels like I have known them for a long time. I do have to say, my basketball skills have improved greatly since being out here on the mission. 

I am trying not to be a stick in the mud, and I dont want to be that boring missionary, so dont worry mom, I am with you.

Last week I read a talk by Tad R. Callister called A Consecrated Missionary and it is really good, and is probably one of the best tool of becoming the bestest missionary ever.  So that is awesome. 

I also just want to say thank goodness for the Plan of Happiness. Without it, life on earth would be pointless. And the fact that we can go to heaven with our families brings happiness to me and a surety that God love me and everyone of us.

And real quick before I go, I got bit by a chihuahua this week and it hurt. There are so many of those little buggers around here and all they do is yap yap yap. 

But anyways, the mission is awesome, we are teaching a lot more people and we are hoping to find those who are already ready to be baptized! And also, it is a commandment to share the gospel with everyone, so dont fear to share the gospel! Fear and doubt are the opposite of faith!

Love Elder Caskey

I am staying 6 more weeks in Quincy. This will be my 4th transfer, and then I will be officially in quincy for 1/4 of my mission. Tomorrow night we are going to have dinner with uncle jeff and aunt maureen. So that will be cool. I didn't know that you were a Ward mission leader dad. Thats pretty cool. I heard from someone that the first people you call when making a new ward is the Bishop, the Ward mission leader and the Relief Society President. The Ward mission leader is one the most important callings in the church.

Well, there is not much to say for this week. Here are some pictures, I went on
exchanges with the Ephrata elders, and this is me in Soap Lake And here is a tunnel we found.
 

 

From Last Week:

Hey, hows it going? I actually just got sick last week, but it only lasted for a day cause I went to Joey Hodges to get some essential oils and they destroyed the sickness, so I finally found a way to not be sick anymore, so dad, I suggest you get some essential oils cause they work! Anyways it has been pretty awesome up. Me and Elder Tanner are having a tough time since being together. It is just hard to have investigators keep commitments. We have one spanish family that is just so awesome, I love them so much! They came to Stake conference yesterday. Their names are Maria and Arturo Fernandez and there 4 kids. The second week I was here in Quincy the English Elders referred them to us, and so we went by and they said to come back another time, and we started to walk away and then they opened the door and said, "Wait, come back" so we taught them a lesson and now they are progressing. We have only one problem though, they have to get married. Ugh. Haha but that shouldnt be too hard, because they want to get married. And we just found a new investigator who is awesome, straight up from Tijuana. And he said he is going to investigate the church so he seems promising! Last saturday we had a zone meeting, and Bishop Webleys son breck is our new High Councilman over missionary work. And he gave a good training on becoming Evenly Yoked in the work. And he talked about the progress record that we present to the Ward Council and how it needs to be detailed. And by doing that we show how much we love and care about the investigators and how we want to have the Ward Actually help us out. Another thing I learned is to have the conversations at members home during dinner be spiritual throughout the whole time, so it brings the spirit and help get referals from the members. So mom and dad, when you have the missionaries over again, try not talk about worldly things but keep it spiritual. And I am almost done with the 4th missionary, so you can stop bugging me about it haha. But this week is going to be awesome! Me and elder tanner are going to work even harder than last week, and we are hoping for a baptism this weekend! Thanks so much! 

From This Week:

Well this week was ok. Nothing too exciting. We had a really awesome lesson with a few of our investigators. Me and Elder Tanner bore our testimonies too our investigators and it was really awesome! The spirit was super strong. Me and Elder Tanner planned out an awesome week this week. This is the last full week of the transfer. Transfers are on the 25th of this month. We are gonna try to visit Jeff and Maureen before the end of the transfer, cause I might be transferred but I dont know. 

So dad, youre a high priest? In the mission when someone wears different colored slacks than their suit jacket we call it "High Priesting it". Just thought I would let you know. And I guess I never really understood The Atonement before I came out here. I always thought it was only so we can be saved or something like that. But it is more. It can comfort us. It can lift us up. And it literally covers everything. But some people out here think all we have to do is say "I believe in Christ" and they are saved. But faith without works is dead. We have to do our part. Same applies with grace. We have to put forth our best effort and he will make up the rest. Thanks dad, your awesome!

So here is a quote that we got from Zone Conference last week, I really like it a lot.

"Every idea, the exercising of faith, anything that has any value that I know of, is created first of all spiritually in the mind of man and then later, because of his exceeding great faith, he brings it about temporally -- he literally causes it to happen." -Gene R. Cook

I think that we can literally apply this to anything. And this really applies to us as missionaries, as we plan out our week each week. We have to have great faith and hope, that those lessons will happen. One quick experience, we knocked on a door, and a little boy opened it and he was completely naked. And he didnt try to hide or anything. He didnt give a crap who saw him naked. So that was funny. Thanks for everything you do! I love you guys!

Elder Caskey

Well this week was ok. Nothing too exciting. We have some people to teach, but we get a lot of cancellations and one person dropped us, and she said she didn't want to meet with missionaries for a while. So that was kind of sad. We have only met her once, she was the English missionaries investigator so we really didn't get to know her. We have this one Spanish family that is the best! They want to be baptized, but the parents have to get married, so we will be working with them. We had a good lesson on the Word of Wisdom, and the dad had some problems with it. He said he is not addicted to drinking coffee or beer, but he has to have coffee every morning :) . We just said that the lord does not want us to partake of those things, and we bore testimony. We have another family who we are trying to figure out what is holding them back. They have been taught for a year, and know that baptism is the answer but they still wont get baptized. And so we had a lesson on what the holy ghost feels like. It was really good. We also have a girl that the English missionaries have been teaching who is on date for baptism but we haven't been able to contact her for a few days, so that has been sad. It is pretty fun out here, talking to people, crazy people. We went out to George, Washington and tracted and there are some weirdys out there. I'm not going to say its easy out here, cause its not. Its really hard. And it is really discouraging sometimes. But I know that the Lord is on our side. I love you guys, and keep being obedient to the Lord! 

 

Love Elder Caskey

Me and elder Tanner at the Temple