Dawsonville-Week 9

Here the weekly update from Justin....It has been a good week here.  I know that this is where I am supposed to be right now.  We had a Leadership Training this week, it was a two day training and I learned a lot from it.  Plus almost everyone who came out into the fiel with me is in Leadership now, it is so crazy! :) Then we came back to our area and worked our butts off to make up for the lost time.  So we got back Friday night and weren't sure what we should do so we went to visit some less actives, then we got a text from the Dahlonega Elder's they gave us a referral so we went to see him and he was taught in the past but he wants to be taught again and start attending church.  It was so crazy.  The 3 families are a slow process but we will start getting them goin.  So a tiny miracle for this week......we were tracting on Saturday and we were walking out of the neighborhood and there was this Hispanic man workin in his yard and I hesitated to talk with him because I was like well he probably speaks very little English if any...so I thought I'd just wave and keep  walking.  But then I had a thought come to my  mind that said, "The gospel i s for EVERYONE" so I was like alright I'll just talk to him and give him a card.  Alright so we got to him and started talking to him and he spoke like perfect English, plus his wife is American and he said to come back. :)  The weather is nice some days.  But that's all I got for this week.  I love y'all a ton!!
Elder Phillips

Dawsonville-Week 8

Here is the lastest update from Elder Phillips this week.  One thing that I am finding with Justin is that he answers all the questions you have for him at the beginning of his email. I just hope that I remember the questions that I have asked him and in what order. LOL!  Here is his email.....Well my week has been pretty good.  We had a whole week with many, many miracles and blessings.  The work is going forward, slowly but surely.  The weather is all kinds of crazy, it changes everyday.  We went hiking last week and I have some pictures for proof.  We have been seeing a lot of miracles lately because of our obedience it is amazing.  If I just give up something I like to do the Lord will bless me so much.  I am getting along with my companion pretty well.  I need to learn to be more patient, this is for sure a challenge for me. I am doing pretty well.  Well my small miracle for this week is..we were walking out of the apartment on Wednesday and this other guy happened to be walking past at the same time, so I said, "Hey, how's it goin?" He said fine.  And then I was like wow it is a beautiful day and he turned around and said yes, yes it is.  So he started talking to us about what the church believed so we ended up teaching him the first lesson.  He was in tears through the whole thing...he felt the spirit and it was what he needed to hear.  And when we were talking to him it was like I already knew him...it was kind of a weird, subtle feeling.  So no matter what comes out of it, I felt the spirit and I know he felt the spirit and he now has the Book of Mormon.  It was an amazing feeling...the Lord for sure placed him in our path and prepared him to hear our message.  Plus we went tracting this week, and the first 2 or 3 houses were not into it.  But as we went on and pressed forward the Lord provided us with 3 new families to start sharing the gospel with.  We will see how interested they are in a couple of weeks.  I know that this is the true church.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true.  I feel it every time I read it.  It contains the fullness of the gospel.  Cover to cover. True doctrine.  I love this gospel and I love y'all.

Elder Phillips

Here are some pictures that Elder Phillips sent home this week.

I'm not good with signs.

Elder Moore, Elder Childs, Elder Chambers and Me!!

It looks beautiful!!

Me in the wild.

Once again I'm not good with signs, y'all know that.

Dawsonville-Week 7

Here is the latest update from Elder Phillips in Georgia.....So I have been in Dawsonville for a month and a half now serving with Elder Childs.  He is a good guy, he has been out now for 8 months.  But great news Elder Chambers, he is one of the elders serving in Dahlonega is training a new missionary from Texas.  So I am serving with Elder Childs and Elder Chambers and Elder Moore are in my district.  He is missing his dad's burgers and can't wait to have them again.  So the week has been alright, kind of a slow one but it was good.  The weather is still pretty darn hot, I think it is goin to keep this up for a couple of more weeks.  The leaves are slowly changin here and I am excited for that.  I want it to cool down.  I shared a story with about his nephew, that he hasn't met yet, he was sitting with me in church and I gave him my cell phone to play with.  I always put it on vibrate but didn't realize that if he hit the music button it would still play so Sawyer Brown is blaring in the chapel.  He said that is why you don't let Oliver use the phone, he is smart for just over a year.  Only my parents...I love y'all.  So I have some good news, Brother Dunn is taking us to Amicalola Falls today so I'll try to get some pics of it.  So my miracle for this week, well, I have
a lot that happen everyday but one of them that really stuck out.  So we had an appointment fall through this week, and we decided to walk around, then Elder Childs said should we knock on a couple of doors?  I wasn't sure if I wanted to knock on some of these doors but we did it anyway.  So I was walking up to this door and I got hit by a spider web, because here the spiders build webs from tree to tree and I was covered in it.  We still knocked on the door, no one answered, so I was like great....no one answered and now I am covered in a web.  Good news, the spider didn't get on me.  But I wouldn't care anyway.  So then we start walking up the street and I am feelin a little like Nephi, we felt inspired to knock on that door but nothin happened...so we see this guy walking outside so we started to talk to him and he has actually been to the church before just in a different part of the state, he was super open to coming to visit the church.  That was kind of a long odd story but I know that because we acted on that prompting from the Lord he blessed us with that man to talk to.  Everything happens for a reason, the Lord is aware of us.  He wants to bless us, we just need to listen to him when he prompts us.  Well that is all for this week.  I love Y'ALL!!
Elder Phillips

Dawsonville-Week 6

Here is the latest from Elder Phillips.....It has been an awesome morning, we received transfer calls and Elder Childs and I will be staying together for another transfer.  The Lord has something in store for us, he has more work for us to do.  You will never guess what we had at a members home last night....he is from Utah actually.  He fed us navaho tacos.  It was so good.  Oh, he had lamb a couple of nights ago also.  We had told Justin that Michael met President Wolfert's parents.  He did service work for them.  It really is a small world.  The weather has been pretty good this week, the leaves are startin' to fall and it is supposed to be a nasty winter but we will wait and see what happens.  We have some new people and that is where my story for this week comes from.  So we went to see a potential investigator, right??  Typical day, so we parked on this road and apparently people go way too fast on this road.  So the potential investigator she wasn't home.  So we decided to work that neighborhood we we got stopped by a man who wanted us to move our car because he was worried about his kids, which I understood so I told him "yes, sir" we will move it right away.  So we di and he said we could park in his driveway but he said their a Baptist home so don't bother.  So we just kind of talked with him a little, just casual stuff and I think just the spirit that is with us, slowly workin' on him because by the end he said that we could come by and sit down and talk to them.  I love the spirit.  I love the miracles that we experience everyday.  So in closing this week I want to let y'all know that I know that God is a God of mircles and that if we just exercise a little bit of faith, he can open the windows of heaven and make anything happen.  This area has turned around in the six weeks that Elder Childs and I have been together.  God is aware of us and of our hard work, he is blessing us so much.  I love this work!!  Well that is all I have for this week, have a good one, I love y'all.

Elder Phillips

Elder Phillips and Elder Childs

                                                     Just some Utah boys goofing off (Navaho Taco dinner)