November 28, 2016 🎄Christmas Season is upon us🎄

Hey Everbody,
So Thanksgiving is over and that means...Christmas is again upon us
with all its glorious lights and trees and food and family time! If
you haven't already, go check out the new Christmas initiative the LDS
church put out on Mormon.org its awesome! The theme to it is pretty
great, it's all about serving others around you and that's something I
love doing! Why think about yourself and eat potato chips when you
could go see someone, make their day, and maybe even give THEM your
potato chips?! Haha Christlike, sincere service is, in my opinion, one
of the few ways we can allow the love Christ has for others to enter
our hearts and help us love them even more than we do! Another opinion
I have is that the Bible doesn't capture all of Christ's love and
service, I think the disciples still experienced it all but they just
couldn't remember it all; I imagine Jesus as the kind of man who took
every opportunity to serve a fellow brother or sister, no matter how
small the service. It's not the size of the service that matters, but
the love that goes into it. The smallest opportunity to do something
for another should not be taken lightly, we never know how much it
will mean to them!

So we got transfer calls on Saturday and I'm staying in Lexington for
another transfer with Elder Conlin! We're pumped to see what's in
store for us in the next 6 weeks, time will only tell the many
adventures of Conlin&Crow! We had an awesome Thanksgiving, and for the
first time I can remember, I didn't have turkey! Instead, we had steak
and Alaskan crab! I let everyone else go to the crab and I pounded the
steak haha it was awesome! We also tried some cabbage rolls since a
lot of the people in the family we are with were Korean, all in all it
was a good time!

Go find someone to help out, no matter how small and insignificant it
seems, I promise it'll make a difference,
Elder Crow

November 21, 2016

Dear everyone,
I hate the cold haha I know the missionaries reading this who are in
actually cold places are laughing, but the humidity adds in a factor
that cuts through any human-created fabric. Let me describe the
bipolar weather attitude of Kentucky: on Friday it was 76 degrees
🙌🏻, on Saturday it was 45 degrees 😅, then yesterday it was 31
degrees 😱! The city of Lexington is DEAD when it gets cold, so
talking to people is a bit harder, but we did meet some really cool
people on Thursday! We kept talking to these groups of people with
blue name badges and we were really confused because we didn't know
why there were so many of them and why they were so nice to us! Then
one of them told us they were ALL from the Idaho bible college and we
were like "WOAH that's why they're all so nice: they're from the west
and they know we're the Mormons!!!" So that was pretty cool, I haven't
talked to almost anyone from the west while I've been on my mission!
But it's ok, I stopped telling people I'm from Washington when I hit
like 6 months haha you would be so surprised how nice people are to me
when I say Alabama instead! Us southern folk stick togetha!

I read something really awesome from the teachings of one of the
prophets of the church, Spencer W. Kimball, he said "No matter how
much we say of him, it is still too little." "Him" being Jesus Christ
of course. We cannot ever say enough about our Savior! We cannot
testify of His Atonement enough, we cannot live enough like He lived,
we cannot love enough like He loved, we can always do more for our
Redeemer because He did so much for us! I challenge all of you to look
for more opportunities to share your testimony of Christ, whether in
word or in your actions. It is much harder to say "I hate" if we are
too busy finding things that make us say "I love"!

Have an awesome week and Happy Thanksgiving,
Elder Crow

November 14, 2016 ☃️"Winter is Coming"❄️

Yes ladies and gents, it is upon us, the beauties and comfort of warm
weather has left us like Selena Gomez leaving Justin Bieber and we are
instead left with the shiverings and cold of the beginnings of winter.
It's really humid here in Kentucky so the cold cuts through whatever
you are wearing like a hot stick of butter through a knife (except the
butter is cold...doesn't make sense does it😆)! These city people,
especially the college kids, aren't as kind anymore so I just take
stacks of pass along cards and throw 'em in their faces!!! Just
kidding I can't do that. But I can't complain, I have gotten snowed on
yet so life is still good! Elder Conlin has been lightening the mood
by contacting people on the street in a British accent...and all of
them think he's from U.K.!!! So it's pretty funny to see a bunch of
college kids kinda look like "who the heck is this guy" when he does
that 😂

Well, this week has actually been a toughie, we haven't taught anyone
for a couple weeks and it's  pretty tough when you don't have anyone
to see. I read a talk by Elder Cook of the 12 apostles today and this
section stuck out to me "Adverse results in this mortal life are not
evidence of lack of faith or of an imperfection in our Father in
Heaven’s overall plan. The refiner’s fire is real, and qualities of
character and righteousness that are forged in the furnace of
affliction perfect and purify us and prepare us to meet God." There
are many days I have a hard time imagining why Heavenly Father would
allow life to be so hard, but this quote helped me out a lot. We may
not know everything, but we know enough to keep on persevering. I wish
I could help each one of you with whatever you might be going through,
but this is about all I can do. There is someone who loves y'all more
than me, and He gave His precious blood so He could help each one of
us, personally, through our trials. I know He loves you and wants to
help you, do what you can to each out to Him and He will help you!

I love y'all God Bless,

Elder Crow

October 31, 2016 Happy Halloween

Yes ladies and gents, today it is almost 70 degrees outside and it is
Halloween!!!! Glory hallelujah there is a God boys and girls, there is
a God! I have never worn a short sleeve short so late in the year and
I am loving it! This week has been peanut nutter and crazy! I got to
try something I never thought I would try, I got a massage from a
$8,000 massage chair. I strongly considered it that is what a chair
feels like in heaven, we've got some awesome members here in Beaumont
haha! We also got to help out a lady from Peru here in Lexington, she
was really funny and she put us to work. She's going to be meeting
with the Spanish elders soon so it was pretty cool to me seeing small
acts of kindness touch someone's heart.

Ok so I found this awesome scripture in a little quote book my dad got
for me before I left on my mission, it's D&C 24:8- "8 Be patient in
afflictions, for thou shalt have many". This made me think of
something I realized in my studies a little while back, there is
nowhere that we are promised we won't have trials because we are
obedient and life will be easy because we believe in Jesus Christ;
this modern revelation literally promises us that we will have them.
I'm thankful that we've got so many things today to help us through
those hard times: scriptures, words of modern-day prophets, prayer,
family members, etc. . The world may be attacking us but we've got the
best defense there is, so we don't need to worry about anything they
can do to us 😇

God Bless,
Elder Crow

October 10, 2016 Weddings and Baptisms

Dear Everyone,

I don't have much to talk about today, this week flew by and this is the last week of the transfer!! This Saturday is gonna be great, we are having a mission-wide conference with Elder Stevenson (one of the 12 modern-day apostles) and Elder Uceda from the Quorum of Seventy! I haven't seen some of my old companions in a while so I'm excited to see them there, but hearing from an apostle is super exciting and I'll let y'all know more about it next week!! So this week was really exciting because, as you saw, Kelsey was married and baptized this past week (but she didn't make it to church so she's getting confirmed next week haha)!! Her husband, Matt, has always been gone whenever we would teach her so it was my first time meeting him and he was one of the nicest guys I've talked to in Lexington! And Kelsey showed me and Elder Clark how to make Oreo balls when we helped her make them for her wedding, and they are deserts fallen from Heaven!!! 

So this week didn't go how we thought it would haha, we met a woman named Kibbibi yesterday and she's really nice! She talked to a member at the place she works and she said she wanted to talk to missionaries, so we stopped by yesterday and talked to her. She wanted to meet with us, her kids want to meet with us, but her husband does NOT like Mormons so he said we couldn't come back. As my old buddy Elder Haws put it, Africans are super stubborn. Very stubborn. But with God's help, things will work out in the end, it's just a trial of our faith like Moroni talks about in Ether 12:6. We may not understand why things happen the way they do, but they do. So we should just get over it, suck it up, and look for a chance to learn from our trials like it was brought up in General Conference. 

Well I'm out of time, Love y'all,

Elder Crow

October 3, 2016 General Conference Weekend

Hello everybody,

Sorry for the late start, I got a nudge from somebody to get goin' on my group email so here it is! So I realized I went on a bit of a complain train last week, so I apologize; no one reads these to hear we cry over some hard times, so I will be discontinuing that habit :) So I got a chance to wash down 'ol Titanic this week before we got another week of work in. For those confused souls reading this, and that is all of you, I named my bike Titanic. Reasoning: She's crazy reliable and a darn good bike, but when I hit the slightest bit of gravel or lose a bit of control...you would thought I hit an iceberg! Haha but this week was good, wasn't perfect, but nothing is when you're a missionary so it's all part of the dream!

The highlight of my week was most definitely General Conference! Just the fact that we have men and women literally called of God is so reassuring, let alone that we get to hear them speak to us twice a year!!! It was so wonderful to feel the Holy Ghost the whole time, it wasn't like I lit myself on fire or anything, it was very subtle and almost unnoticeable, but the Lord has been helping me to learn how to recognize the Spirit and I am so grateful for it.

One of my favorite talks was by Henry B. Eyring when he spoke about gratitude. He quoted a church hymn called "Count Your Blessings"; "When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings; name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done." That's just the first verse, but it really amazes me how fast human beings can forget their blessings. I did this during one of my studies this past week and I challenge all of you to do the same, sit down for 10 minutes and make as large a list as possible of the blessings you have in your life and the sacrifices that have been made for you. It truly will "surprise you what the Lord has done" for you.

God Bless y'all,

Elder Crow

September 26, 2016 Bed Bugs and the Flu

Heller everybody,

This week has been a bit rough as you can tell from the title. Yes, I had my first run-in with bed bugs, and I hate them...so much!!! Words do not describe my burning hatred for bed bugs, they are NOT just something to go along with a song!!! All of you who haven't had bed bugs, stop whatever you are doing, I don't care if you're driving a car or skydiving, stop whatever you're doing then get on your knees and pray for the next 3 hours that you will never have bed bugs!! They suck!! I didn't take pictures of my bites, but they're pretty knarly. That wasn't even the worst part, it was all the dang cleaning we had to do! We had to wash and dry (multiple times) all of our clothes, pull everything away from the walls, and we can't sleep in our apartment. So we've been camping out with the Downtown elders this week. And then I got sick and it made it hard to go to sleep. So that's my sob story haha but I'm not dead and I'm not in Hell so I can't complain. 

I re-read a talk called "What Lack I Yet?" this week and got a lot out of it. It's such a blessing to have living prophets and apostles here on the earth today, it would be so confusing without modern-day revelation and guidance from these men of God! So anyways, in this talk Elder Lawrence recounts the story of the Savior and the rich young merchant. In this story, a wealthy young man approaches Jesus and asks what he needs to do to inherit the kingdom of God; Christ, in response, tells him to keep the commandments of God, to which the young man replies that he's been living the commandments his whole life so "what lack I yet?" Jesus tells him that he still lacks one thing, to give all he has to the poor and to follow Him. But the young man couldn't do it, he loved his worldly things too much. So what do you personally lack? The simple answer to this question is to pray and ask Heavenly Father "What Lack I Yet?" and I know He will tell you what you need to do to improve. We all have room to improve, which implies that we need to fill that empty space with something. It is our choice to fill it with good or bad, but true happiness never lied in wickedness. I'm so grateful to have endless opportunities to become more like the Savior and to have so many restored truths to bring me closer to Him like the Book of Mormon!

Love y'all go watch General Conference this weekend,

Elder Crow

September 19, 2016 biking

Heller everyone,
This week has been awesome, I put 7 🚲s for every day we biked this
week. We are a bike area...we bike every day...it is great. Haha I
honestly love biking, I can't stand counting miles and hoping we'll be
OK for the month, it's so much easier not to even worry about it! And
we get to talk to a ton more people which is awesome, we talked to 175
people this week )(a mission high for me). Almost everyone we are
teaching has come from our efforts to talk with everyone. I also
learned I am a terrible bowler because I almost lost 2 games in a row
haha!

Not a whole lot happened this week honestly, I've been trying to get
used to my new area as best I can. It's pretty big, and it's Lexington
so there's a ton of streets and neighborhoods, so it's taking me a
while haha! We don't have any excuses not to work and that's the way I
like it! We got soaked on Saturday biking around and I got the good
'ol soggy shoes, they dried for 2 days and we're still damp when I put
them on! I like biking in the rain, but the after effects aren't too
pleasant...oh well. I've come to learn that smiles and laughs make it
all worth it!

It's crazy how fast the time is going on the mission, the former Elder
Davis Johnson told me before he went home that the last year of your
mission goes by so quick and I didn't believe him! But he was soooo
right and I hate it haha! Time is a precious gift that we take granted
all too easily, we would do well to cherish it. I can't say for
myself, but everyone who has the chance to spend time with a loved one
or an old friend should take the opportunity to do so. Remember, you
will never live today again, so live it well!

I love all y'all,

Elder Crow

September 12, 2016 First week in Beaumont!!!

Dear everyone reading this email,
A big 'ol hello to y'all, I hope everything has been well for each one
of you, things have been great in Beaumont! There is actually no city
called Beaumont, we bike around Lexington every day. It's been pretty
toasty out, but we got cooled down on Saturday when we got caught in a
nasty rain storm. Livin the bike missionary dream boys and girls,
ain't nobody got it as good as the Beaumont boys! It's really
different serving in a big city, I miss the country already haha!
People here are very different and it's taking some getting used to on
my part, but it'll all work out in the end! We stopped to talk to a
couple this last week and we couldn't understand them because they
only speak whatever language they speak, they're from Africa (Elder
Haws I needed you man)! So yeah, Lexington is pretty diverse. It's
awesome being a bike missionary again, not worrying about miles or a
clean car, I just have to worry about getting hit by one! The drivers
here are terrible! There is also a very sweet old lady named
Pocahontas in the ward, we visit her in her nursing home and she calls
us "her boys" and we call her "mama" and that's how everyone knows us,
so it's pretty awesome!

So yesterday in church I heard something said that I had never thought
of before and I want to share it with y'all. So most everyone knows
this scripture, if you don't here it is, in Matthew 17:20 it says: "20
And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say
unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say
unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove;
and nothing shall be impossible unto you." Now I always thought that
meant to literally remove mountains, and it can apply to that if you
have that kind of faith, but in Sunday school someone said, "if we
have faith, we can remove the mountains in our own lives." And that
blew my little mind!

So yes, you can move mountains! Heavenly Father doesn't give us trials
for no reason, He doesn't do ANYTHING without a reason behind it. If
we humble ourselves and look for God's reasoning in our hard times, we
won't question what He does and we will find peace and happiness in
our lives. I remembers as a Senior in high reflecting back on the
years my dad was deployed and wondering why Heavenly Father had taken
me away from my dad for those precious years. I somewhat understood it
in my first few weeks as a missionary. The Lord knew I needed to grow
on my own while my dad was gone, He knew I couldn't have anyone to
rely on but Him if I was gonna make it through those difficult times
and in future times of trial. God needed me to be alone so I could
realize I am never alone. Just a simple example. Try reflecting on
some past trials and try to think of the Lord's purpose in putting you
through it, it will help open your eyes to the amazing plan He has for
you.

God bless, enjoy some sunshine and some lemonade (unless you're in
school then get to work!),

Elder Crow

August 22, 2016 Rain, Rain go away...

Dear Everyone,

I hope your week has been gloriously awesome!! This week had been pretty good, but the rainstorm have been brutal. And when I say rainstorms, I mean torrential downpours like almost none of you have ever seen! And I am almost always caught biking in 'em! Haha but it's ok, soggy shoes and soaked clothes never hurt no one. Well, it's official, Kentucky is getting to me. I talked to a couple on the street from Michigan and they said, "Where is your accent from? It's not Kentucky but it's somewhere southern." So apparently my drawl will kick in when I talk to people on the street now haha! We got to go to Lexington last night for a fireside (basically a testimony meeting) and Gabby was asked to share her conversion story, she did an awesome job! I'm a bawl baby on steroids to quote President Danielson :) so when she talked about the blessings she's seen in her life from joining the LDS church, I couldn't help but shed a few tears. It is so wonderful to see the gospel change people, and to see God's love and Christ's Atonement change them.

I heard a quote from a speech while we were driving to the library that stuck out to me. Mark Twain said, "The 2 most important days of your life are the day you where born, and the day you figure out why." It's pretty difficult to just stop and say, "You know, God sent me here to do..." something. I'm not sure of God's whole plan for me being here on this earth at this time, but I know nonetheless that there is a purpose. It gives me so much joy to know that Heavenly Father loves me, and each one of you, so much that He literally made a plan for us all to come back to live with Him again someday! I know that each and every one of us are "a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny." (The Family: A Proclamation to the World) This document I just quoted is so powerful ,and if you want to understand more how to be happy as a family and understand who you really are, go check it out: https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng . I have found so much comfort in being reminded- by my awesome parents, by other missionaries, and by my patriarchal blessing- that I am a son of God. That makes me feel so special, probably because I am. And all of you are too.

God Bless and have a hip-happy awesome week,

Elder Crow  

July 18, 2016 Nerf Shenanigans and Chick-Fil-A

Hello everyone,

Or sayonara as they say in Canada. Haha man I have so much to talk about it's been a crazy week! We had to go to Lexington twice this week for meetings and we had planning sessions/meetings every other morning! The Lord has been blessing us as long as we've been obedient to Him and to the mission rules, He can't bless us if we don't do anything! On Wednesday we went to Lexington fro a new missionary training, but I think it was really an Elder Crow training haha I learned so much! A sister from our ward, Sister Harper, she's a sweet 'ol Southern lady and she told us to call her Mama Harper, I love the South! Then we went to Lexington for another meeting on Friday, and afterwards we went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch; it was the first time in 6 months I'd had some Chick-Fil-A and I was so happy! Haha and as for the "Nerf Shenanigans" you see in the title: we had some elders stay at our apartment before we went to Lexington on Friday because it's a really long drive for them. One of them brought a couple Nerf guns and he had modified some darts to put thumb tacks in them! And all night long he would randomly shoot us and it didn't feel too good! So we quickly put a stop to that!

Anyways, I was reading a talk this week by Dieter F. Uchtdorf called "Forget Me Not"; now he addresses the women of the church in this talk but forget that detail because it was a good talk ok! This week was kinda tough and I was trying to find how to better be patient with myself and my personal growth as a missionary; because missionary work isn't all rainbows and baptisms. I would highly encourage any ladies who are too hard on themselves (and you insecure men as well) to look through this talk. The first point I noticed was this: "God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect...God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not." I have a terrible habit of comparing myself to other missionaries, and often times many of us will compare our strengths and weaknesses to the strengths and weaknesses of others. This needs to stop. Now. Heavenly Father does not want you to be your own critic, leave that to Satan. When we focus on our weaknesses and our mistakes we often quickly forget our strengths and our successes; more importantly, we often remember our trials before we remember our blessings.

Many of us are "endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself." Don't set your standards to reach the world's 1st place podium, reach for the love and support of a loving Heavenly Father, who is always beyond happy and proud when He sees us try. Would you rather find 100 compliments and successes in today's world or would you rather have 1 prayer answered and know that you are loved? Heavenly Father doesn't become our eternal judge until judgment day, right now He is our #1 supporter and He loves us so much. Don't ever forget it. You'll always be special in someone's eyes. Because you're unique, no 2 of you have the same eyelids as the other (terrible example but go with it).

I love all y'all so much,

Elder Crow

Late Happy Independence Day July 5

Good afternoon everyone,

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, we had to stop working at 6 yesterday and right as we did it started pouring rain, no one invited us over, so we just hung out in our apartment for 3 hours. Wasn't the most fun I've had haha. But this week has been awesome! I realized early on that something was missing from our work and I came to figure out the problem was ME! Yes you are all allowed to gasp at the prospect of Elder Crow being imperfect, I myself let out a little squeal when I realized it. But that little joking prideful comment kinda ties in to my problem. I was having a bit of a rough time early last week and I couldn't figure out why. Then I came across a statement in Preach My Gospel that took me by surpise, it said, "Pride is competitive; those who are prideful seek to have more and presume they are better than other people. Pride usuallyresults in feelings of anger and hatred, and it is a great stumbling block." And that perfectly described my problem, so I quickly prayed and asked Heavenly Father for forgiveness and the rest of the week went so well! It's amazing how easy it is to change and improve and grow when we ask for the Lord's help in doing it. What a koinkie dink.

Also, I came across something that I wanted to share with y'all. In a talk titled "Winning the War against Evil", Elder James J. Hamula said, "Reserved to come forth in these last days and labor for our Father and His Son are some of the most valiant and noble of our Father's sons and daughters." So if you think you aren't special, BOOM! You just got proved wrong by a member of the First Quorum Seventy, so there! You are so special. You are so wonderful. You are one of God's most choice children that He specifically sent to the earth right now for a specific purpose in His plan. We are all fighting a battle every day to win a war that has been waged since the beginning of time, a war against evil. And at this point in time, victory means everything and the Lord's people will not lose. It its up to us to join in such a noble cause.

I am beyond grateful to be fighting on the front lines for Heavenly Father, but so are each of you! Didn't think about that before did ya? Each one of us are soldiers in the mightiest force ever created, the family of God. We stand for what it right and we stand for what is true, and we don't back down. Every day we are under constant attack from Satan and his followers, but we have the Holy Spirit of God along with our brothers and sisters to support us in this dangerous and dark world. This last week we had a zone conference in Lexington. Sister Brough got up, after the missionaries who are going home soon bore their testimonies, and said, "You know, President Brough and I have decided that we don't want to send any more missionaries home, it's too hard to watch all of you leave!" I am so grateful that I still have so long to serve, these past 10 months or so have flown by but I've still got time to "fight the good fight" and serve my Father in Heaven. And all of y'all, wherever you are, have the same responsibility.

Go shake Hell,

Elder Crow