Elder Armatage had a great week - here is from his email today which he actually wrote more than a sentence or two. Thank you son!

"This week was sweet, we taught a ton of less active families this week and most of them came to church on Sunday! It was sweet I love seeing less active members come back to church almost or just as much as when investigators come to church! We have a lesson tonight with an investigator. He is gay and we are going to get him to baptism soon I pray! He is really smart and knows it's true, its just hard to have a life of celibacy I think is his hold up, but he will realize that all will work out, I don't know how but it will....some how!!

Last night I was able to give a blessing to a member that has struggled with a addiction to porn, sometime in the last week or so fell back into bad habits. I was able to give him a blessing, there was a strong spirit there and the blessing was powerful. I don't remember what I said, but I do remember the feeling of that room and it was powerful. 

Also I was able to go to the temple  Wednesday after that we went to see Brother Anderson who on Thursday had his leg amputated so he is now one legged brother Anderson. hahaha but he's in good spirits and is doing well. We are teaching two excommunicated  members that we hope will choose  to be re-baptized in the up coming weeks! but one of them doesn't really want to come back yet but I hope some day. well I'm tired of writing so....love you and miss you"

He also got to watch the Gilbert Temple Celebration and see the Gilbert Temple dedication. It is a beautiful temple.

Great week, he sounded so excited!

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY TO ELDER ARMATAGE!!



On February 22 Elder Armatage was excited about the baptism. Sister Jessica had been investigating for a couple months and her husband was able to baptize her.


I will post some pictures when the blogging site lets me upload them. Right now it does not seem to work no matter what I have tried, but we hope Elder Armatage has had a great birthday today and we imagine he was fed well because the members are so good to them.


In fact we just received a picture from the family who fed him for dinner and they said he has had a good day. They enjoy him so much in their Ward and will be very sad when he has to leave.


We love our son!

It has been since December that I have added to Elder Armatage's blog. We have had a hard month with his Grandma Racer (my Mom) passing away on January 8th unexpectedly. The awesome part is that she is with her husband and so many loved ones on the other side of the veil. The hard part is dealing with the loss on this side. She has left a hole that will take awhile to heal. Elder Kyle was able to call  us with his Mission President's  permission. It was a very sweet call and at the end my son gave a prayer for me and that was very special.


Elder Armatage has seen the member's hearts changing to be more accepting of the missionaries in the area in Snowflake and the work is starting to move. Not as fast as he would like it to however, but he does have a baptism coming up next Saturday and he is "stoked" about that!!


In one email lately he wrote "You wouldn't believe it, but I am loving doing family history". That is awesome he is getting into it, and hopefully he can come back and teach me how to use the website.


Elder Armatage's year mark was on January 16th, 2014. It seems like forever since he left, but we are so blessed to have a missionary in our family. We are so proud of him and all he is doing to serve the Lord.

Merry Christmas from Snowflake, Arizona

One P Day Elder Armatage sent us a very, very short email and that night a member that was feeding the missionaries sent this picture to us to make up for it! So sweet!

Above is at a home where Elder Armatage ate at and the dear people sent this picture.

And then our Christmas gift - the wonderful time being able to Skype with our missionary. It was so great. He enjoying serving in Snowflake. They were able to help put up Christmas lights along the road leading up to the Snowflake Temple. They were able to attend the Snowflake Temple together with 2 other Zones making it the largest group of missionaries ever to attend at once. They filled the room and the spirit was so strongly felt by all.

Elder Armatage is learning some great leadership skills and dealing with situations he would rather not have to do. It is so fun to see him so excited about the gospel and his ideas of reaching out to so many of the less actives there in Snowflake. They haven't been able to teach many lessons lately but hope to.  We enjoyed opening his special gift for us and he kept a few of his stocking gifts to open in front of us so we could share that together.

He had us make a challenge for when we get to talk at Mother's day. We will all read the Book of Mormon and going to highlight things about faith and pride as we do.

And then he asked if we could close with a prayer at the end of our time with him. Kevin gave the prayer and by the end of it we were in tears which were hard to stop.

Love him so much and so proud of all he is doing.  A wonderful Christmas!

Elder Armatage has been transferred to Snowflake! It is in the north part of his mission and the coldest. It can even snow there! Here is part of his email this week:

"Well I'm in Snowflake now and it's cold here. It's the same style of town of like Logan or Preston or Heber and even Montpelier. I feel like I'm in Idaho. There's only like 5000 persons up here and everyone knows everyone. But it will be fun I hope. It seems like there's a lot of work to do up here so I'm stoked about that. Thanksgiving I don't even know what going to happen but I know that we will get food! We are like in a house now with two other elder so it's kinda tight living, but all will be well. The house is nasty the elders have not cleaned it at all, and I will not stand for that so I'm going to clean a lot today and this week I'm starting to get sick.

     That's neat that Krista and David got a new family that moved in.  My new companion is a visa waiter, he is going to Brazil,  and he is from Calif,  18 years old.

      Yeah those two elders are not together anymore. The area got pinkwashed (whitewash is two new elder and pinkwashed is two new sisters) "

So Kevin predicted that Elder Kyle would be transferred to Snowflake in the winter. The highs this week are in the 50s and the lows at night are 30s. Sounds like our weather and it feels cold to him. It will be fun to hear how he grows to love the people there in this new town.

 

Snowflake Temple

Excerpts from Elder Armatages email since my last blog:

Oct 28, 2013
"We had a Halloween block party we did a rope-in both, it was really fun! No we don't have anyone to teach....its been a rough few weeks but we will press on.  I'm ready for a change though, I've been here for 5.5 months and I'm kinda burnt out of this area but it is in the Lord's time though."

 Pictures from the block party - our son the cowboy!

Enjoying it I would say!

Nov 4, 2013

"Things are good but I'm just soooo busy all the time I have no time for anything. Any spare moment I have I'm studying or reading something. I need to take a break for 2 days and just get my self together!!!!!!!!! But we had a good week taught some lessons and stuff and it was great. The work is picking up it's so great. Being a DL isn't bad but we have 2 elders that fight like 12 year olds so that's a struggle but we are working thru it though. But yeah we had a sweet Halloween loved it got candy. The mission is the greatest thing I've ever done and I love it!"

 

Nov 11, 2013

"Thanks for the e mail and letters! How are things going? Things are good here we have a tree-O haha - 3 missionaries together because one missionary got ET so we have 3 until the 25th. This will be interesting but it will be good! Thanks for the pictures, how are the kids? Yeah things are calming down so I should be able to write you a few letters. But life is good a lot. A lot of blessings are happening, I love it. That's sweet you went to the temple I love the temple!"

 

Now we are all caught up! It is so wonderful to see how happy our son is sharing the gospel! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Roosters

Elder Armatage is in the same Ward, but moved to a different members home.

"The new house is great, having tons of fun out here. Yeah, me and my companion are getting along well but you can tell he's 18. He doesnt really know how to cook, clean or shop. But he will learn real quick. Yeah I'm a DL now its going to be fun I hope? We had a great Sunday! I love Sunday. Ok, ok the roosters. Well some members had too many and wanted us to take care of them so we did. Ha ha it was fun. Sorry I don't have much time, I need to write you a letter"

Here is the picture he send: