Marietta-Week 2

Well, here is the weekly update from Elder Phillips....My week has been sweet!!  I love doing missionary work.  Marietta is awesome!  I love this area!  The zone is doing well, I have been learning communication skills, it is funny how the Lord puts us in certain callings or areas that are specifically for us to learn and grow.  My companion is awesome, he does stuff differently but he is great. Y'all are puttin the boat away soon?  Bummer.....well the weather is getting colder...well colder for Georgia, warmer for Utah.  The fall colors are amazing here, I love it so much.  I'm gonna miss it when I am gone.  I went on exchanges with Elder McGary this week, he is a District leader in our zone.  He is such a beast missionary now.  I'm sitting next to Elder Vernon right now and he is an awesome guy.  Well, we had a miracle this week, we were seeing potentials this week and usually they have moved or something.  But we went to see one and she had moved but the man who lived there, met Elder Richardson before and gave him a hard time but this time he let us in and we taught him the first lesson and he said we could come back.  The spirit really works on people, it's sweet.  Well that's all I got.  I love y'all and miss ya a ton.

Love Elder Phillips

Marietta-Week 1

Here is the latest from Justin.  As you can see, he has been transferred to Marietta, Georgia and has been called as the zone leader in that area.  Here is his latest email.....Howdy Family, things are great here, the ward is very supportive!  It is the Sandy Plains Ward.  My companion's name is Elder Richardson and he is from Saratoga Springs, Utah.  He has been out a little less than me.  My zone is pretty big, we have about 19 missionaries. It's no big deal, it is just more stuff for me to do.  I am pretty stoked to be here.  The ward is amazing.  It is closer to the city.  I miss Elder Childs but this is where I need to be.  Elder Richardson is very bold, he is alot like Elder Atkinson in some ways.  We are now driving a Chevy Cruze!  It is like brand new.  We have been working pretty hard, we went to the gas station at like 8:50 (They are suppose to be in by 9:00 pm at night) and we needed to get more contacts but when we pulled up  to the gas station there was one pump working and there was no one...it was not promising but then as we started to fill up the car, all these people just started to come out of no where!?  It was awesome, one of them we had an awesome contact with and he said we could come by and share more with him sometime.  It was an amazing tiny miracle.  But I am doin' well.  I'm still alive and I'm preachin' the word.  Love y'all
Love Elder Phillips

Dawsonville-Week 12

Here is the weekly update from Justin.....Howdy Family!!  Well I got some news for you....I was shocked to receive a call this morning (Monday, October 8) from President Wolfert.  He informed me that the Lord wants me somewhere else.  As of Wednesday (October 10) I will be serving as a Zone leader in the Marietta Zone...scared but confident that the Lord will give me strength in all things.  I accepted this amazing opportunity to serve my fellow missionaries.  Elder Childs will be staying here in the Dawsonville Ward.  I did not expect this..but the Lord's ways are higher than our ways.  It is exciting about the changes to the missionary program.  Young men can now serve  missions at 18 and young women can serve at 19 now.  The church is true!!  We have a prophet today who leads and guides us.  So I think I need to buy a few more long sleeve white shirts.  I am also going to send a package home with some of my mission stuff that I can't keep taking with me.  Don't worry I'm tossing out all the random junk!!  No more pack rat. :)  So for conference weekend we had an investigator show up for the last session, he showed up out of the blue.  White shirt, dress shoes, black slacks, the black tie (he hates ties) Book of Mormon, Bible and notepad in hand.  I could actually see him as a member of the church and at that point I think I realized the weight of how real this work we are doing is.  This is life eternal for our Brothers and Sisters in Georgia.  I know that the Lord can change hearts, be we have to invite those hearts to come unto Christ.  This is my miracle for this week, it was amazing.  My week has been amazing.  Our investigators are all doing great.  I hope they continue to search the gospel as I move on to my next assignment.  I love y'all so much.

Elder Phillips

Dawsonville-Week 11

Here is the latest update from Elder Phillips this week.....To start with mom, I am never going to complain about yardwork again, we raked 2 acres of grass on Friday.  Just Elder Childs and I.  Our yard work is nothin' for me now.  The work is going pretty well.  My week has been pretty good.  The work is moving forward.  We have picked up a new investigator this week which was awesome.  The weather is rainy and rainy....that's about it.  I love the fall colors!!  I will probably stay :)  I responsed to Elder Phillips this week in my email telling him that he could stay in Georgia but he needed to know that as of June 22, 2013 his financing would be discontinued and he might want to think about getting a job there!!  LOL!!   I am pretty excited for conference this weekend.  I can't wait to hear from our Prophet.  Well tiny miracle for this week??  Hmmm...I gotta dig deep this week for it.  We had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators this week, he doesn't have a lot of questions about anything, it all makes sense to him and seems familiar.  Which showed me personally that we were all taught this before we came to this earth and when we hear the gospel it is like a bell going off, it sounds familiar to us.  I know we lived with our Heavenly Father before we came to this earth and I know that the gospel is true and that Christ is my Savior!!  That knowledge makes me happy.  Love y'all.

Elder Phillips

Dawsonville-Week 10

Here is the weekly update from Justin......We shared with Justin this week that his grandpa had remarried and he told us that he was going to call her Carole.  He didn't think that he could ever just call her grandma.  He knows that she is going to have a huge impact on his grandpa's life and so that makes him happy.  We are letting him believe that Boise State lost to BYU but I am sure that eventually it will come up and I will tell him the truth.  LOL!!  We were also able to share with him some awesome news that one of his friends from high school had joined the church recently.  He was pretty excited about that.  So this is what he had to share.....My week has been fantastic!  We had some rough patches but it seems to be goin' alright.  The weather is cold in the mornings...not fun for working out at 6am.....we are just working on finding people, it is hard to week through those who are really ready and those who are not ready.  The Lord has really knocked me down in this area...but he will build me up eventually.  It is funny how we can either choose to be humble or the Lord will humble us.  In this area, I chose the second...ha ha rough road.  Elder Childs is a stud, he is such a good missionary.  Tyler and Monica are reading the Book of Mormon...Sweet!!  Every member needs to be fed from the word of God.  They will see a difference in their lives.  I know that for a fact.  Well, let me share with y'all one of my tiny miracles for this week.  This happened on Saturday and honestly this experience means more to me than any football game.  We were walking through a neighborhood contacting everyone we saw and as we went through we saw this little old lady on her porch.  So of course, we started walking up her driveway and she invited us on the porch and we sat down and started teaching the first lesson  to her.  Sh was super interested but the spirit was telling us that she needed to hear something else.  So we started to teach her about life after death out of Alma 40, she liked that because her husband died months ago.  At that moment she really opened up and she said, "Yes, I believe that I will be with him again, but not in this body, in spirit."  And then I read to her Alma 40:23 the we testified of the Ressurection and of Eternal families, the spirit was super strong and I knew that she needed to hear that.  She automatically accepted the Book of Mormon we offered her and invited her back.  I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  I know that the resurrection is possible because of Jesus Christ.  I KNOW that we can be together for Eternity.  I love y'all!!

Elder Phillips