JACE - Exchanges and Crazy Lessons

July 22, 2024

Hey Everyone!

I know this is a bit late for my email, but we just were having too much fun today dieing of heat in the south church building. Just had to make sure to send something for y'all so ya don't think I'm dead or something. I'll do just a quick recap!

Tuesday - We had exchanges with the ZLs! I got to hang out with Elder Marks and we had a really good time and it put some perspective on my reasons for being here. Been having that be a constant thought that I'm trying to push past, but we're here and still going. We had a lesson with a dude named Larry that they had put on date, but he lives in our area. So the exchange was also time for a pass off lesson. So we have somebody on date again. We lost our other one for special reasons, so I guess this works.

Wednesday - We had another exchange! This time, I got to be in Spanish land with Elder Norman. I read a part of the BoM intro in spanish and even helped set up a lesson with somebody by reading a script. It was fun, but Spanish land twice in a transfer is a lot.

Thursday - The biggest thing that happened today was a lesson with our friend Justin. When we first picked him up, we were warned he was a kind basher. But he genuinely just wants answers to some questions. He asked lots of questions about deep doctrine, so we brought along Brother Vogl, who is the high councilman from our ward, and they had an amazing, spirit filled conversation. It was weird that Justin brought up things like the King Follett Sermon and God having a body of flesh and bone, but we just hardcore redirected him to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon, so hopefully he can stick to that.

Friday - Today was a big service day. We went and did some service at 10am for our friend Vicki, who is also slowly progressing. The weeds we were pulling were as tall as I am or taller! But it was some good fun. We had a good lesson about centering on the Book of Mormon and the Holy Ghost with her as well. She's such a great person!

Saturday - Not really much happened Saturday. We found somebody named Jason who's had some kinda awful experiences with christianity as a kid. He's been around to a lot of different beliefs just to look for something good, but we taught him a restoration and testified of the goodness and healing Christ can bring. It'll be a slow burn, but hopefully something happens there.

Sunday - The Sabbath is always a good time. Being able to go to church and partake of the sacrament is always a highlight. There was an amazing rendition of "His Eye Is On The Sparrow" performed by a few of the members. It was soooo good! I was super impressed. And a missionary who just recently returned home. She gave a great talk about her experience in the Illinois Chicago Mission, and it did inspire me a bit to keep my eyes looking forward to how I can help others!

That's about it! For a quick spiritual thought, a lot of my studies this week have been on repentance and the power the Atonement plays in our lives. I've now read each account of the Atonement, and each one tugged so hard at my heartstrings. To remember that Christ did all that for me and all of us brings me both so low for the pain I added to it, but also some of the deepest joy to know that someone like Him exists. He lives! I truly do believe! And He knows what's best for me, that's why I'm here!

Don't forget to look for miracles. and be a miracle!

Love Y'all!

Sincerely,

Elder Buchanan

JACE - A Carnival of Lessons

July 15, 2024

Hey Everyone!

This week has been an interesting one. We had some great lessons, did a bunch of service, and had Zone Conference! Good stuff all around, lots of good times and not so good, but what can ya do. That's life!

Tuesday - Tuesday was a fun time. We had a lesson with our friend Ricky in the morning, which was an interesting lesson. He's been on the books for a long time, and even been on date before. But his major issue is his family really doesn't want him to get baptized and he doesn't want to lose his family over it. So, if y'all could pray for him to find the courage to follow Christ's example, that'd be awesome! We had dinner with the Cox family who just moved into the ward. And they're already shooting for favorite family in the ward. It's been kind of an ongoing battle between the Days and the Vogls. But the Cox family has got the nerdy end to it! When we helped move them in, the young men all got to hold swords of different franchises and even their salt and eer shakers are red and blue lightsabers! And to top it off, they said if we have an open spot on the calendar for dinner, shoot them a message and they'll try to make it work to come over! Hopefully we won't have to use that, but they had some good carne asada tacos, so I wonder what else they have up their sleeve! Then afterwards, we had a lesson with the Wei family. Well, it was actually with just Zhenyi. Max was feeling sick, so they missed church and Jiongjiong kept Max home from the lesson, so it was just Zhenyi and Madison. But it was such a good lesson. We were planning on a Plan of Salvation, but we read 2 Nephi 31 instead to rehash the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Zhenyi had some good questions about the Holy Ghost, so it was great to help him recognize that he's already had time where he's felt it. They're so awesome! Unfortunately, they're going on a trip for a month at the end of the month, but we showed them that there are congregations in China they can go to. It'll be an awesome experience to go to a church speaking their native language!

Wednesday - Today was a pretty ok day. There wasn't much that went on. We had a lesson with a lady named Regina that we met walking away from the JW convention. We shared the restoration with her and I think she liked it. We need to get better at having more in person lessons on the first go around. Then, in the evening we headed out to Plainview to have an in person lesson with our friend Devan. We read 2 Nephi 31 to go over the Plan of Salvation with him. At the end of the lesson, I just couldn't shake the feeling that we needed to ask if he wanted to be baptized. He said yes, and we proceeded to put him on date for August 16th. His biggest problem though is he's not super great at getting to church. So if y'all could pray for him to get that motivation, that would be amazing!

Thursday - Today was Zone Conference! It was a very interesting one, too. We left Rochester to go to Bloomington in P-Day clothes! They had a little carnival of lessons set up for us. We did things like an obstacle course, three-legged kickball, and, my favorite, we have bottle rockets! They all did have lessons behind them, too. The obstacle course had the idea of spiritual maturity and being able to pass that to the next person. Three-legged kickball was learning more about working in tandem with our companion. and the bottle rocket had the idea of, as we help people find Christ in their lives and face their challenges head on, we can help them soar higher than they could on their own. It was a fun day, and I was glad I got to see some of my Duluth Zone friends, too!

Friday- Thursday was fun. We went out and did some service for a couple hours for one of our people named Vicki. She recommended we wear long-sleeve shirts to avoid stinging nettles while weeding, so I was sweating up a storm out there. We then used Acts 1 to teach her about how the church is organized and put the question forth about why don't other churches have the same organization as Christ charged them to have in the New Testament. She liked what we said because she said no one had explained it that way before. She's progressing slowly, but I think she'll make it someday! We then had lunch with the Roch 4 Elders at one of our recent convert's house. Brother Lao made some Lasagna and a killer pecan pie! It was so good. He's a great guy.

Saturday - Today was just full service day. We started at 8am by helping load up the Harmer's moving truck. They're moving to Indianapolis, so it's sad to see them go. Their kids are some of the funny ones in the ward. After a couple hours of that, we went home and did our P-Study in our service clothes because we weren't gonna have time to do anything else before we headed out to Audrey's house to help mow her yard. I don't think I've experienced the full effect of hot and humid until mowing on Saturday. I was just sweating the whole time and was just so tired afterwards. It just means I got a really good workout in that day.

Sunday - And we make it to the Sabbath! The Sabbath is always an amazing day. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to go and renew my covenants and worship Heavenly Father and My Savior. Elder Timothy got to speak in sacrament meeting on the Come, Follow Me for the week. He did a great job! We later had dinner with the Ketchum family. And we learned that Brother Ketchum DMs DND games! So we might be able to get a one shot in before the transfer is over, or if I'm here next transfer, a small campaign. It was just so cool because he's made all his own equipment, table and everything. And we only figured out this because he wore a DND themed shirt! Wished he would've worn it last time we were over!

So that's the week! Just a lot of fun times to be had. If y'all could pray for our people and our missionary efforts, that'd be awesome! Someday it's a bit discouraging here, but the ward is awesome and we have some friends that are progressing really well, so I can't complain too hard! This week I read in Luke 19, about Zacchaeus. He's a great example of what we should do when we can't really see the Savior in our lives. Since he was shorter and couldn't see through the crowd of people, he made a way so he could see the Savior by climbing a tree. My challenge to you this week is to find a way to figuratively climb the tree to see the Savior more clearly in your lives!

Love y'all! Keep looking for miracles!

Sincerely,

Elder Buchanan

Keep Looking for Miracles and Ways to Be Miracles for Others!

 July 14, 2024

Mom's Sacrament Meeting talk

Keep looking for miracles and ways to be miracles for others!

 This is my current favorite sign off on a letter from Jace. He always gives some kind of challenge or a request for prayers for his new friends. I love reading his letters! Through them I see so much growth in him.  Weekly video calls are great to chat and see his face, but the letters really show the change in him.

From his First letter:

I would like y'all to ponder something. When was the last time you felt the Spirit? I pray that we can all find the places we need to be to feel Christ's love for us. I say these things in His name, Heavenly Father's Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

From this weeks letter, 7 months later:

On our way back from the library we got to talk to a lady named Regina. We asked her how she was doing, and she gave the answer of "that's a hard question." So we talked a little bit about life and taught her about the Book of Mormon. … we were able to get her number and set up another time to meet with her. She seems super cool, so I'd like y'all to have prayers for her in the back of your mind. 

He and his companions have had many gifts of being in the right place at the right time.

 

Jace is serving in the Minnesota Minneapolis mission with President & Sister Gochnour. They call it the 1M mission, One in purpose, One in mission.

 

His first area was in Ashland, Wisconsin in a branch of 30 really committed members about 4 hours north of the mission home. He felt really comfortable there because it felt like home, having grown up in little town Pinedale, WY. The area is right on the borders of Minnesota, Wisconsin & Michigan and includes the Bad River Chippewa Native American reservation. While in Ashland, Jace and his companion were driving down a snow covered road at night and hit a deer. No one was hurt and the car had only cosmetic damage. Jace explained in his letter, “We made a joke out of it, because our zone is trying to focus on "inspired knocking." We inspired knocked him into the next life.” They had some amazing highs while in Ashland as well. A single mom and 2 of her 3 children chose to be baptized and the next week another friend was baptized as well! Such an exciting time!

 

Jace is now serving in Rochester, MN, home of the Mayo Clinic, with his MTC companion! Jace wrote, “Rochester is such a party! It's so weird being sent from a huge, spread out branch to a super close city where you see at least one other set of missionaries every day.”

 

Having a missionary serving from our family is a blessing.

With Jace, we have had 4 of our children choose to serve missions.

Brielle served in the Dominican Republic, Baylee in Peru, Jaxon started in Uganda then finished at Church Headquarters and now Jace in Minnesota. Each had their Highs and Lows.

Bri left for the MTC in the Dominican Republic in July of 2014 and spent the first 6 months of her mission the way most missionaries do – getting used to the area, learning the language, finding friends to teach. February of 2015 Baylee received her mission call.  March 15, 2015 we received a call that Bri had been injured in an accident. She spent a week in the hospital in The Dominican Republic then Sister Douglas, the mission presidents wife flew home with her, where she spent a couple of weeks in the UofU burn unit. She recovered well enough to return to her mission July 15, 2015. Baylee left for her mission in Peru on July 1, 2015. She also had the usual highs and lows. She even experienced Dengue fever but failed to mention that to us until she returned home. So, we had 2 sister missionaries serving from July 2015 to June 2016. Almost a whole year! In the middle of that year in February of 2016, we had a fire in our home and moved a few times before our new home was completed in December of 2016, days before Baylee returned home.

Jaxon left for the South Africa MTC in January of 2019. Things had started changing in the way missionaries communicate with families, so we were able to call and message him through WhatsApp. It was quite a challenge to send an 18 year old all the way across the world! He loved the MTC but struggled with the crazy life in Uganda. He returned home then began his service in the Church Headquarters mission in the Global Services Department working on the Gospel Library app and the Area Book app in Mission Support. We were still living in Pinedale at the time, so Jaxon lived with family here in SLC and commuted to church headquarters M-F. Until COVID.. and Jaxon went home to Pinedale. Because his work was already on the computer, he was able to log in from home and continue his mission through May 2020. Highs and Lows for each.

 

Having a missionary serving from your family is a blessing, but it isn’t always easy. We all have grown from the experiences we have had along with our missionaries.

March 10, 2019 - Master the tempest is raging

On March 10, 2019, I wrote the following letter to Jaxon while he was in Uganda struggling with the decision to return home:

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This past week in the Come Follow Me study we read Mark 4:35-41. You may have read it too. This is the story of Jesus and his disciples crossing the sea in a ship and a great storm arises. Being afraid, the disciples rush to find Jesus and He is asleep on a pillow in the back part of the ship. Of course, they woke Him and asked, "Carest thou not that we perish?". The disciples were so afraid. So Jesus arose and used his priesthood power to calm the storm by saying, "Peace. Be still." Immediately there was a great calm. 

 

We can incorporate this story into our lives by remembering when life gets like a crazy storm or it seems like everything around us is against us, (Or when we are asking, “Carest thou not that my child is hurt or sick and I can’t get to her?” or “Carest thou not that my child is struggling on the other side of the world?” or “Carest thou not that my child has stepped away?”) we only need to turn to the Savior and He will calm our storms. Things might not be completely reversed or stopped but He will help US to be calm amid the chaos. 

 

I have always loved the hymn Master the Tempest is Raging. Not your average hymn. 

You’re singing it now aren’t you? “The winds and the waves will obey His will. Peace, Be still.”

 

There is one thing I learned this time I studied this story that I hadn't thought about before. Throughout the journey on the ship, Jesus was there. He was there through it all experiencing it with them. Even before the disciples turned to Him for help. 

So I need to remember He is there with me, and you, in all that we are experiencing, waiting for us to ask for His intervention. Just like the picture where Jesus is standing at the door without a handle. He is there knocking, waiting for us to let Him in. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I asked my children here at home how Jace serving a mission has blessed their lives. Baylee, who is now married with 3 adorable little boys (I swear Im not biased!) shared some thoughts:

It has been super helpful and super cute to have the boys praying for him, having that specific something to pray for. They each do it on their own, it’s often Eli’s (the 3year old) first thing when he starts his prayer. He says, “Dear Heavenly Father, bless Jace in his mission” and then he will sit quietly and kind of roll his eyes up in his head until we prompt him with something else to say.” She continues, “ I feel like we have more opportunities to discuss missionary work since we can follow it up with “just like Jace on his mission, right boys?”

 

She is right. I find I am always looking for things to share with Jace, either from the Come Follow Me podcasts I listen to, or from the scripture of the day that the bookshelf app sends to me, even from Facebook or Instagram posts! Looking for these things adds light and joy to my life everyday.

 

Elder Kearon gave a talk to missionaries at the MTC in Provo on June 22, 2024. He quoted from page 3 of Preach My Gospel and Doctrine and Covenants 79:1, “You are called and set apart to ‘proclaim’ glad tidings of great joy, even the everlasting gospel.” He wanted to emphasize the importance of Joy in sharing the gospel. He said, “you are led by optimists…stop worrying so much—just work hard and be happy.” My favorite quote from his talk was when he quoted Acting President Jeffery R. Holland who shared the following poem from Robert Louis Stevenson:

Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all.

Joy. I guess you can say that is the blessing from having a missionary serving from our family. Through the Highs and Lows we can still find the Joy because we know who Jace is serving. Who we all can choose to serve. Our wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ. I love Him.

 

In, His name, Jesus Christ, amen.

 

JACE - Such A Quick Turn Around

July 8, 2024

Hey Everyone!

Well, three days later, and here I am again. Nothing super notable happened in the last little bit. We had testimony meeting yesterday, and there were some beautiful ones given. We also had a fun time walking through a bunch of JWs on Saturday. Apparently they have a yearly convention here in Rochester, so it was interesting walking into the park and not being the only ones in dress clothes. We didn't get a chance to talk to any of them the first time we walked through, but on our way back from the library we got to talk to a lady named Regina. We asked her how she was doing, and she gave the answer of "that's a hard question." So we talked a little bit about life and taught her about the Book of Mormon. She said she has even come to some of our services before, and she liked what she saw. So we were able to get her number and set up another time to meet with her. She seems super cool, so I'd like y'all to have prayers for her in the back of your mind. 

I'd also like to give some more info on the miracle that is the Wei family. Apparently, the way that we got into contact was also a miracle! They got a little introduction to the church through an Activity Days activity, which is awesome for Max being 8. But that day, they were teaching Max how to ride his bike in the church parking lot, because it's a big open area. But at the same day and time they were doing that, Activity Days was having their own bike riding activity! It's so crazy how much of a miracle they are, and they have such a hunger for knowledge! Definitely pray for them, too!

That's about it for today. The next email will be a normal time frame, so it will be a bit longer. We have Zone Conference this week, too! Ok, I gotta go!

Love Y'all, Look For Miracles!

Sincerely,

Elder Buchanan

JACE - July 4, 2024 - Happy Independence Day!

 July 4, 2024

Hey everyone!

They switched our P-Day to coincide with the 4th, so happy 4th! We started out the day with a ward pancake breakfast, which was so good! And because they moved P-Day around, there's too much to write about from the last week and a half. So I'll just talk about some of the bigger things.

We've been able to have some awesome lessons with the Wei family! They have such a great thirst for knowledge, and they're trying to implement prayer into their lives too! We extended a baptismal invite to them, but they don't believe they're ready yet. But it's no problem! We're here to help them, and that's the big thing I'll ask of y'all this week. Keep them in your prayers! They've come to love church, the ward is super inviting, and they're just awesome!

We got to help the JustServe lady in our ward with a booth at Rochester Fest! Really, they just left us to run the booth for an hour a half, but it was fun. We were just trying to introduce the JustServe app to as many people as we could, so it was too bad. The worst art was that the wind was so bad that it broke the gazebo we were supposed to have over us, so we were just in the sun. Luckily, I've noticed that I don't burn too bad here because of the lower elevation, so that was nice. We also got to meet a member from Austin named Rolando. He gave us a training on streeting and talking to people last transfer, so it was cool to see him there. He even bought us lemonade!

Here's an awesome spiritual experience! Last Monday, we were kinda lagging along towards the end of P-Day hours, so when we finally left the church, someone else pulled into the parking lot. They came up to us wondering if we were members, but then saw the tags and they were so happy! Ths family, the Site's, were in town for getting testing done for the husband at Mayo Clinic. They came to the church looking for someone to give a blessing, and luckily 3 sets of missionaries were heading out at that time. So we pulled in the Roch 4 Elders, and we were able to give the blessing. I definitely know that the family was led to the church because we were there. It was a very special moment. Something I don't try to take for granted is being a part of those moments for people. I've been so very blessed to be an instrument in the Lord's hands for people for almost 7 months now. And I can't wait to do more of it!

That's all I really got for y'all. The next email probably won't be very long either since it's only 3 days from now. But, just keep looking for miracles and ways to be miracles for others!

Love Y'all!

Sincerely,

Elder Buchanan