Who I am, Where I am, and what is this blog?

Hello, My Name is Elder Parker Bone. I am a Missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I am currently serving a LDS mission in the Ohio Cleveland Mission I will be serving for two years and will be returning home in Summer of 2017.
I will be emailing my adventure in Ohio to friends and family and this blog will contain those emails.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Sunny days ahead

GOOOOOOD MORNING all!!!

If there is one thing I've learned about myself this year is that weather REALLY affects my mood, not in a bad way but just dampens my usual upbeat-take-on-the-world-singing-and-smiling self

on the upside we've got 50's and 60's on their way.. and a few 5's but we will cross that bridge when we come to it...

our week went well quite like them all. we had some ups, and some downs as we transferred caloric energy from our "nutritious" food in to Physical exertion. as we did that we moved with swiftness from place to place many times turning our exertion in to potential energy which we spent much faster as gravity assisted us in that exchange. 
...
what it was a slow week :P and I am at the moment anything but.

Down to the Nitty-gritty 

Monday:
Spent a loooong time emailing and went thrift shopping and found 5 ties for $5 sweet deal for me XD

Tuesday:
Had disaster-I-mean District Meeting..and we had a FREAK snow storm that COATED every thing in snow. it actually looked really pretty. The rest of the day we spent finding but that evening we met with Tom again!
Tom is doing well and we got to teach him the Plan of salvation, turns out he lives way outside the ward boundaries but we are still going to teach him as its easiest for him this way. we invited him to baptism and he said he'll pray about it so keep him in your prayers!

Wednesday:
are we all just in a big huge game of hide and seek? like trying to find people is rough but we keep doing our best! 

Thursday:
More less-active hunting and finding, so very few people to teach makes it hard. on the upside the weather picked up  and the snow from Monday melted mostly by the evening which meant we could ride the sidewalks again which is a MILLION times safer than Ohio pot-holes. I mean roads..

Friday: 
EXCHANGES! always fun and this time I was rolling with Elder Bennett in our area which was nice. naturally almost everything fell though so we just did some tracting and we (thankfully) had a dinner that didn't drop us, Spent the evening laughing with the Gerstenslagers a really nice gamer family XD so you know we got along.

Saturday was BEAUTIFUL! sun and Blue skies with just the right amount of breeze, We met outside with Kyle and had a cool lesson on the need for the Book of Mormon (he was trying to explain it to his Jehovah witness uncle XD I love Kyle) the kinda sad thing was right as we left his mom showed up :P  we WILL teach her one of these days.. darn satan

Sunday:
Church was awesome cuz Kyle came ON TIME! actually got to have the sacrament and everything! One of the speakers gave a talk on Momotarō, a Japanese story of bravery and friendship.. half way though it Sister Gerstenslager leaned forward and whispered "sounds like a really boring quest line in WoW" I had to try really REALLY hard not to laugh XD (Mom ask Josh if you don't get it XD)

Well some Photos are in order and will be forthcoming 

Elder Bone
OCM

Second Corinthians 1:12
For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdombut by the grace of God, we have had our conversation ithe world, and more abundantly to you-ward.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Love is Riding a bike....

in the snow....

In -7° weather

I must love Ohio a lot... or just I love God... Lets go with God.

So that nice balmy 60° we hit two weeks ago was just a lie of spring... Exodus 20:16 earth for ril

we had a MASSIVE cold front roll in and its still coming down on us, we got hit with a good 3 inches (yes I know y'all got 50 feet this year but I'm on a bike so I can complain XD)
Lessons took a nosedive as sharp as the temperature did so I am working on figuring out how the two correlate so I need the data of Missionary work and weather in Ohio for the last five years as well as a control where it doesn't have a major change of weather so like Hawaii... some one get on that :P

I'm Just glad I still have my sense of humour even if I don't have toes anymore .. (only joking mom)

Week was pretty dull as you might of guessed, got flamed by EVERYONE which bites like the Frost. We did however find a good bunch of potentials that we hope will keep there next appointment so we can BRING THE W̶O̶R̶L̶D̶ OHIO HIS TRUTH 

We had Interviews this week which went well for once President Brown talked about where I see my self in a year... well I hope Ohio... XD just kidding, well not totally... anyway
this lead me to look back a year an..HOLY COW WHO AM I?!?! so yeah NO clue who will be sitting at this keyboard in a year...

We took Kyle to institute and he loves it, Kinda wish he could enroll in Pathway but all in the Lords time. 

Life moves on in Ohio and I love you all a lot sorry not much of a full report this week, a lot of tracting and even more slipping and sliding on slush with no traction on our dumb bicycles... so yeah

all of you wondering we didn't meet with Tom but we reset for tomorrow so Hopefully I can report positively then.

Love you all 
Elder Bone
OCM

PS some photos will be forth coming (even one with my ugly mug in it XD your welcome mom :P)

Isaiah 64:4 
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.



Monday, February 8, 2016

New Hobbies, Old friends, and something else that sounds spiritual :P

Some comedy for your morning or afternoon or evening depending on when and where you get this.

Honestly the last couple of weeks have been feeling rather Rote and not a whole lot has happened regarding the work, I still LOVE the work and.. (looks out window to see its snowing, guess the nice heatwave is gone :/ ) still easily distracted as always.

Back to the week I guess, 

Monday:
Elder Fifield and I went window shopping cuz neither of us wanted to play Basketball with the Zone so we had a pretty good time checking out some geeky stuff (Yes I can still be a geek as a missionary its not in the the hand book  :P)

Tuesday: 
Just a sluggish day as was most of the week after district meeting we had a Bible drop off and then did several stop-bys but nobody was home really. that night we took Brother Jones with us to see Aza and it was more just swapping theories of how the Government and the "elite" are going to kill us all than the actual gospel so yaaay

Wednesday:
Met with Kyle had a good lesson everyone else Flamed us that night... *sigh* Missionary work isn't easy, not supposed to be but sometimes you just hope people would hold to an appointment that you set up. 

Thursday:
No success Finding anybody really had some REALLY nice members feed us cafe Rio style sweet pork and it was a good taste of home really.

Friday: 
We had planned to go out and find pretty much the whole morning but as we were leaving the apartment A maintenance guy for our complex stopped us and asked us if we really believed we could become Gods. Normally this is the kinda question that proceeds a "bash" but at the same time it is one of my all time FAVORITE parts of the gospel. quick side note :
 Couple of weeks ago we walked into a referral that actually was bringing us to "be taught the lies of Joseph smith and know the Truth" so your usual basher but she said something that stuck out to me she said " My goal is to go up to heaven kneel before God and Jesus Christ (she ascribes to the Nicene creed)  Cast my crown at his feet and cry 'Holy holy holy' for the rest of forever." 
To be honest this sent me reeling, How could anyone believe that all God, a Perfect glorified and Eternal Being, really wants for you is to only praise him forever. It just seems odd to me.. anyway back to Tom

So Tom right asks us this question and I flat out say "Yes that is what God wants for You!" we then taught him why no one else teaches this truth and the Restoration of the Gospel. He left us asking no joke "Why am I hear and where am I going" we are teaching him again Tuesday and I can't wait to in the words of John Bytheway "Take off the Blinders" Keep Tom in your prayers I hope He knows this is where God wants him to be and who he wants him to Become.

Well I love you all. I know I missed Pictures last week (sorry Mom)  but I have them this time around (possibly a short vid if its not too long)

Spring is coming soon!
Elder Bone
OCM

Doctrine and Covenants 50:41-42     
 Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me;  And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost.





Monday, February 1, 2016

Well... what happened this week that is of note... ZTM?

Kinda your average week with a shocker of a Missionary meeting

I do find it funny how I go from deeply philosophical to joking around from week to week but hey that's me and that's just how I roll (on my 2 wheeled missionary vehicle.. if you can call it that..man what if missionaries had segways... )

ANYway

Monday:
didn't do a whole lot but did some shopping and the zone leaders were still recovering from there cold so just chilled out in the apartment and read the Ensign and listened to devotionals.

Tuesday:
met with Sister Stebel whose an interesting less active :P she's super nice and really good at cooking however we went by rather unprepared and we took Kyle with us cuz he wanted to come teaching with us. We were there for a LOOONG time though as Sister Stebel has many side splitting stories to tell and she hasn't been seen by missionaries in a while. 

Wednesday:
Met with Kyle and he was awesome as ever. seriously love the kid like an older brother that I never had XD (love you sis ;P) also met with Richard a former investigator that lives in a help home thing? he's a cool guy once you get him on topic and he felt the spirit and even said he knows its true but doesn't want to go to church for 3 hours *sigh* we are going to keep working with him as best we can though!

Thursday:
Weekly planing as always, mostly tried to find but not a whole lota dice
had dinner at Bishops for the Correlation meeting he does with us which is nice so we can ask him about the ward.

Friday:
Had our Zone Training meeting, and a whole lot has been changed. President Brown has decided to Raise the Bar yet again and this time with the Standards of Excellence. I know even though many may seem well unattainable if I keep working hard all will go well! 
he also has declared the February is going to be a month focused on Finding as most of the mission struggles with that. it was a really good meeting even if it did go over by about 2 hours.

Saturday:
Met with the Gerstenslagers (names German  they aren't though XD) they are hardcore WoW gamers and Brother G is also big in to table top games so you know he and I had a bit to talk about (elder Fifield just kinda zoned out once we started talking about Azorath)

Sunday:
Church and Dinner at the Stebels, almost home cooking from My mama XD

Love you all and have an awesome week! 
Elder Bone
OCM 

Isaiah 48:18
 that thou hadst hearkened tmy commandments!then had thy peace been as river, and thrighteousnessas the waves of the sea: