A GOOD WEEK!!!

Hey everybody,

It has been a good week. We saw a lot of success. Tuesday I had an exchange with the Rockledge Elders, Elder Booth came down to Melbourne with me, it was my first exchange where I was in charge of what we do cause it's my area. So we started to try and meet less-actives and had some success. We had a really good lesson with Brother and Sister K.  Who had us over for dinner. We taught a lesson based on the #becausehelives video. And talked about having faith in our savior. She told us a story about how she was baptized at like 30, went inactive for like 35 years and had her records removed. And then started to go to church again. She was baptized again by the same missionary that baptized her 35 years ago and when she came up out of the water he said this one better stick haha. It was a very successful exchange.

Wednesday we went around trying to see some more less actives. And one of the active members in or ward told us to go to this restaurant where the owner is a less active, and he would love to pay for our meal so me and my companion went in there and ate and talked to him but he didn't pay for our food haha. Then we just tried to see some more less actives. For dinner one of our members took me and my companion to Olive Garden, the members here are just so awesome.

Thursday we had district meeting, and after that we went to our area beach side and tried to find more people to find and teach. We didn't see much happen on Thursday but Friday was a really good day.  Friday is our weekly planning and we were calling some of our potential investigators. There was this one that we called and she told us to come over as soon as possible so we went and talked to her. She is this really nice lady that Is searching for something In her life and she is very open to learn more about the gospel. We taught her the restoration and had a pretty good lesson. After that we were already in our area so we decided to go and see this other investigator Mrs R.  we met her like 3 weeks ago and have been trying to have a lesson with her. We dropped by and had a lesson with MRS. R and her husband and son. We got to know them and taught the restoration and had an awesome lesson we got the father to say the prayer at the end it was way cool.

The B's family, We finally were able to have another lesson with this family. After 2 weeks of them canceling on us we just dropped in and taught them the importance of the Book of Mormon in our life and the restoration. We read the introduction to the Book of Mormon with the whole family and sister B said she has never read that so she was happy and we are just seeing them progress each and every lesson that we have with them. They are such a cool family and are just fun to be around.

Saturday I went on an exchange with Elder Hansen. I went to Viera and had a really good time. When we got up we went over to this members house and helped him remodel his kitchen. So we got to demolish a lot of stuff it was pretty fun. It was nice to do some service and other work besides  just missionary work haha. Then we had another member that took us to Chili's and as always the members are really great. 

After that we went and saw Brother N. , he is the guy I met when I went to Viera the first time we had just a short lesson about our favorite scripture. And we just shared some scriptures one of my favorites is, 2 Nephi 32: 2-3   2. Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of angels save it were by the Holy Ghost?  3.  Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do. I really like this scripture as a missionary because If we study hard and learn we will be able speak the words of Christ. I really enjoyed this week and learning more and more everyday. 

 love you guys and miss you all.

ORLANDO FLORIDA 04/13/2015

Hey everybody, 

It's been a pretty good week.  It's been a little slow,
Tuesday we had interviews with the mission president so that's all we
did that day. Wednesday I went on an exchange with Elder Christensen.
He is a really cool guy. We went and saw this guy  who is having problems quitting smoking, he is a less active, but he has a drive to quit smoking and he really hates his bad habit. So as we taught the plan of salvation that day we also talk to him about how our heavenly father wants us to be healthy. He really enjoyed our lesson and he is going to try his best to quit smoking. It was a really good lesson. 

 Thursday we biked all day. We tried to go meet with a lot of people,
there wasn't much people available to meet with so we knocked a few
doors and try to contact a couple of people. We contacted this one
lady and she seemed pretty interested in the church but she was moving
away so hopefully that she will meet with missionaries wherever she
goes. Later that night we had book of Mormon class, it happens every
Thursday. One of our investigators always comes to this class. He is a
southern baptist. And he loves everything about our church. But
doesn't want to go against his baptist roots. Sister Q. a lady in
our ward comes to Book of Mormon class, and she knows the Book of
Mormon really well and it helped him understand a lot of what we
believe.

Friday was just another boring Friday where we always do our weekly
planning. But it really helps when we weekly plan so we know what
ahead of us the next coming week.

 Saturday was a really good day we
went to another baptism. He's a really good guy and he's
really happy and way excited, his parents are members but they were
only baptized about six months prior. That night we went to high
priest social it went really well. It was at brother P's house.
He is very wealthy and lives right next to the big River so it was
really nice. He has a dock in his backyard he has a huge house and
there was a lot of good food we had a really good time.

Sunday was a really good day, It was a good fast and testimony
meeting. After church there wasn't much we could go do because it was
raining and we have the bikes can't wait till we have the car this
coming week. 

Today we had district Beach P-Day, it was really fun
we got to go to the beach  We were there from 6AM to 9AM and played ultimate frisbee, and beach volleyball.  We were able to watch the sunrise and just have a really good time. after that we went to this place called Shep's Diner really good food so has 
been a really  good day P-Day today. I'm really looking forward to this next week
and hope we can meet with the family we have been teaching, who were busy and were unable to
meet with us last week. Love and miss you all.

Love, 

Elder Gentry

General Conference 04/06/2015

Hey everybody, 

It has been a good week,  it has also been pretty slow.

There isn't much to talk about but I will talk about a family that we
met with Tuesday. We met with this family. They are really cool

The father, is a member but he went less active at the age of 14. His wife is not 

a member and neither are their kids. They have three daughters they all have

 been meeting with missionaries since 2009. But I guess they just haven't been baptized.
So our goal has been just to get to know them better and hopefully set
that date that they can get baptized. We talk to the mom, and  had a really
good lesson Tuesday. I feel like she's really progressing. We asked her what her 

 big concern was and she said that she wants to be honest when answering the baptismal questions like was Joseph Smith a true Prophet of God. So we asked her

 if she's prayed to know whether it's true and whether know if what the missionaries 

have taught is true. She said that she has really never prayed about it. We will
meet with her tomorrow to see how it's going. We're really excited.

I also want to talk about how great the members are. One place we
always go to is the W's they are really cool they're really
strong in the church and they are always inviting us over.  They treat us like

we're there own kids. We didn't have a dinner scheduled  for Easter Sunday so
they invited us over to have it with them and then we had a little
campfire in the backyard and just talked, it was really fun. 

My other favorite members have been brother and sister V. They are
snowbirds they come out to Florida during the winter from Utah. They
always treat us so well and it's so nice to be around them because
they are so happy all the time and plus they take us to Texas
Roadhouse every single time and who doesn't like that?? Their son is
serving a mission in Albuquerque New Mexico. So she knows what it's
like to be a "missionary mom" so she takes pictures of us and text's them
to our Moms. All of the members in my ward are just so awesome.

One last thing I want to talk about is General Conference.  General
Conference was really good I really enjoyed all the talks my favorites
were by David A. Bednar, Who talked about hushing out your fears by
having faith in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.  That's one thing
I've had to deal with in my short time out here is just have faith
that everything will be fine because it is so hard to talk to someone
and it can be so awkward sometimes.  Another one of my favorite talks
was by Jeffrey R. Holland he is so powerful when he talks and he just
talked about how we all need the Savior in our life to help us when we
are falling. It was so nice to hear from the prophets and 12 apostles
and I really enjoyed our "missionary vacation" haha. 

Love you guys and
miss you all.

Love, 

Elder Gentry

Birthday Week 03/30/2015

Hey guys... 

This week went pretty good. On Tuesday I went on an exchange
with one of the zone leaders elder Tucker, he is a way cool guy. We
went and saw this less active his name is Brother N. He is a really
funny guy he is from Boston so I just talked to him about the patriots
winning the Super Bowl and how happy I was to see them win. We read a
chapter from the Book of Mormon and he loved it. He is really enjoying
the Book of Mormon and slowly seeing how it can help him in his life.
Later that day we went and gave a lesson to a guy named Mr. M on
the priesthood. He was baptized on Saturday. When we were there we
could tell he was very excited to be baptized. I had a lot of fun
working with Elder Tucker and learned a lot from him.

Wednesday was the first day that I biked and It sucked but it wasn't
as bad as people made it sound. We probably biked 20 miles.  The worst
part was going over the Cosway, the bridge between mainland and
beach side. When we got to the area we knocked some doors but didn't
have much success. We went and saw this less active member, brother
H.  he is a really cool guy and loves us. We talked to him about
prophets and showed him a talk from Pres Monson last year on how
important the savior is in our lives. He loved the talk and is excited
for General Conference. And we are excited for General Conference too,
they keep telling me it's the "Super Bowl of missions". Haha :) 

Thursday was my Birthday and it was a pretty good day. We went to
district meeting and I had to share a spiritual thought on how
important it is to have a positive attitude on your mission. The
sister missionary's in my district also made me a cake which was way
good. Me and Elder Weiss made the cake that mom sent me in my birthday
package. Packages are the best thing to get in the mission!!  Later
that day we went to Sis. E's  house who is a nice lady she is a
recent convert and loves the gospel. She made me chicken Alfredo (my favorite meal) and a
cake for my birthday.   Over dinner,  I talked with her husband about
football and I guess he is a huge Redskins fan.   They are one of the
Eagles rivals so he was telling me about the Eagles and how it sounds
like Chip Kelly made a dumb decision by trading Lesean McCoy and Nick
Foles!!  Good thing I'm not home or I would be mad!!  haha!  Later we had a
good lesson on the video "Because he lives".

The rest of the week was good  I  went to another baptism on Saturday.  Sis.  S.  she was really excited to get baptized is  a really nice lady.  On Sunday we had a little fire in the W's backyard it was really fun. It made me feel like I was back on the mountains camping. 

So yeah I had a pretty good week and I miss all of you guys!

Love, 
Elder Gentry

Hey from Florida 03/23/2015

Hey guys.. 

This week was pretty cool. We had a zone conference which was
pretty long and boring but we learned a lot about the importance of
having relationships with members because they can help us with
referrals. After sitting from 9 till 3 we got a reward. I finally got
an iPad and I get to keep it at the end of my mission. :)  It makes
everything so much easier and everything is organized. After zone
conference I started my first exchange with Elder Bateman.

An Exchange is when you trade companions for 24 hours. They are pretty
fun it is to learn from other missionary's and there different
approach on things. So I went to the Viera area while Elder Hansen
(Elder Batemans comp) went to my area Melbourne East. Some things I
learned from Elder Bateman who is 25 years old haha. Is that you need
to be powerful with your invitation like inviting someone to be
baptized.

Later on our exchange we went and got all you can eat ribs from
Sonneys. And the reason I'm telling you this is because it's amazing
how wonderful and awesome the members are. They saw us two In our

white shirts and ties and came up to us and offered to pay for our
meal. There are really nice people in Florida. Later we went and met
with a less active. Sister G. she is a 65-70 year old lady who
was baptized when she was young but never cared to live the gospel.
She said she is starting to realize how important it is to live this
way and my companion made me teach the lesson all by myself. So I
taught her the plan of salvation and how it has been Important to me.

The next day, after the exchange and I'm back with my normal
companion. We were able to go to the rodeo which was awesome even though it was a service project and we were working concessions.  It took me back to working concessions at the
high school so that was nice.  We got to sneak away for a little bit and watch the rodeo. We watched this guy get bucked off a horse and it fell on him and rolled all over
him it was crazy. Other than that we really had a good time at the rodeo.

Sat morning we went and attended a baptism which was really cool it
was the third baptism that I've been to since being in the field. It's
not me and my companions investigator but they are in our ward so we
help set up and get ready for it. Hopefully soon we will have one of
our investigators ready to be baptized. The lady that got baptized is
M. P.  she is awesome lady and has a strong testimony of the
gospel. Later we went and had dinner with bishop Toland and his
family. They are way cool.

Sunday was a good day and went to to the brother C's house and
gave him a lesson he is this ornery guy who does a lot of family
history stuff. But we had a good lesson and they also fed us a great
dinner.. Their spaghetti isn't as good as moms haha :)  We went to Brother
G's house for ice cream. He is the ward mission leader. He is a
way chill guy. He's like 27, He served his mission in Las Vegas. And
lives right next to the beach so we walked Down there and took
pictures.

After that Elder Weiss, Cortez,  took me and Elder Izatt  down
underneath the cosway which is the bridge that separates the mainland
from the beach side it was pretty cool we watched this a guy who was
fishing for shrimp and these guys came up to us that were fishing and
they caught a hammerhead shark.  We went over there and Elder Izatt
picked it up with a rag so I picked it up with my bare hands and It
was awesome. I had a pretty good week and am enjoying my mission so
far.

Elder Gentry

First Week in the Field 03/16/2015

Hey Everyone,

 My first week has been a little crazy.  We got here in Florida at 5:00 in the evening and had a little dinner and met President and Sister Berry who are really cool and way nice. We had a good night at the mission home and had a little devotional which was really good.  

The next day we went to the church and was assigned to our companions and my companion is Elder Weiss (Wice) He is really cool and we get along great.  After we left the church, we went and got my bike from the local bike shop.  On our way home the bike fell off the rack and I lost the seat and messed up the grip on the handle bar but other than that everything works fine.  Its been hard for transportation last week because it was bike week for us and obviously I couldn't ride mine..  haha.  Next week it will be a car week and I've already got my bike fixed. so that's good.  

My companion and I  are pretty lucky cause we get a house to ourselves while everyone else is in an apartment. I am in the Melbourne area and its way nice.  I already really  like the people. It has been really  awesome  meeting some of the members.   My first night I met the Wilson's and they are awesome they are really friendly and they took care of us and we had pizza.  Another family i got to know were the V.'s they are awesome and very wealthy  haha...  They took my companion and I  to Texas roadhouse and let us get whatever we wanted,  so of course I got a 25 dollar steak it was the highlight of my week haha.   Mr V. also bought me a new seat for my bike.   So,  ya they are pretty great people.  One guy we have been teaching is Mr. L.,  he is an older guy prob in his 70's who is a southern Baptist but likes everything we believe in but doesn't want to go against his baptist roots so we have been really working with him. 

 This next week we are going to have a "member present"  lesson with a guy who once was a baptist and we really think that it will help him change. i was able to attend 2 baptisms they weren't my investigators but they were the investigators of people in my district.  It was really cool. 

 One thing about being the new guy is you are the one that gets to pray a lot!!!  I have prayed at someones house every night  this week and I said the opening prayer in sacrament meeting!!  But that  just means more blessings haha.  

Overall i have had a pretty great first week and cant wait to here from you guys and i love you all

Love Elder Gentry

Last Week in the MTC 03/07/2015

Hey Guys!!

This has been a good week. It all goes by so fast.  It is crazy that I will be in Orlando Florida in 2 days. I leave at 10 a.m. Monday morning and i will  get there around 4 p.m. I'm getting pretty excited. 

I have had the opportunity all week to do more role plays and they can get pretty tough. my first role play was with this guy named Dan he was in a wheelchair and couldn't really use his arms. Getting to know him at first was pretty awkward he has no christian background.  He believed that god doesn't exist and it was really hard to get him to believe, but i think because we have been teaching him more and more about it every day he is starting to believe its awesome to see him go through that kind of change. 
We also have been role playing with my teacher Sister Rasmussen and her character is Carissa so it like i was saying she like has a different personality it is a little weird but it make role playing with her so real. She believes in God so it is a little easier. We have been teaching her how she can have a relationship with him and after our last lesson she called me and my companion Elder Thornock and told us how well we did with our testimony's and targeting her needs.  So that has been going really awesome.

 My classes have been teaching me a lot of stuff that I can apply to the mission field and the key is to teach stuff as simple as possible and it really helps.  The food here at the MTC has been getting better. Pizza Fridays are awesome me and my companion eat like 5 slices. It's from Papa Johns and it really good. 

Yesterday (Friday) we had infield orientation and it was really long but it taught how useful members can be in the mission field. Me and my companion really get along well we like a lot of the same stuff.  He loves rap music and raps all the time so that's how i get my music fix in and we talk a lot.  I saw that Grandma sent me a bunch of good stuff and its been great but a lot of people give us stuff all the time so we have tons of food and candy. In the book store they have Caffeine free Mountain Dew in cans but it tastes the same that's how I've been getting Mtn dews.  In our room one of the guys has to take medicine so we have a mini fridge in our room for his medicine and  that's how we keep our dews cold Haha. part of our district left on their missions last week, we have kinda missed them they were fun to hang out with. Elder Baughn (Bon) from North Carolina and Elder Baldry from Australia has a really cool accent. They are serving in the Salt lake City East mission. Glad i'm not going there haha. I saw that Craig and Sharla emailed me and it surprised me but i loved it, so i want his email so i can write him back i want grandmas email too.  I have been checking emails all week whenever I see a computer but I cant write back at all.  I  have to wait till P-Days.

 I love you Guys and Miss you all.

Love Elder Gentry

MTC 02/28/2015

Hey guys!!

My first couple of days in the MTC are going great I'm learning a lot about the gospel, I'm also figuring out I already knew a lot.  How are all of you guys doing? My companions name is Elder Thornock he is  a really cool and we get along great.  The two other Elders I'm staying with is Elder Lieshmen and Elder Wiessman they are all  pretty cool to we all get along great.

The food here isn't the best but it's alright and there is lot of it.  I feel like the days are long but at the same time it seems like time is going fast. But i would say over all it is going great and my testimony is all ready being strengthened in the first couple of days! 

Our teacher is Sister Rasmussen and she is really nice. One thing I don't like all to much is role playing but at the same time it really helps.  The way we do it is so real.  Our teacher, who my companion and I role play with,  is almost like she is a whole new person.  She will leave the room and we have to go and knock on the door and treat her as if  we are just meeting her as  a new person for the first time.  We go in there and we have to have lessons prepared and ready to know what to say.  There is no timeout in the time we are with her if we  we mess up and want to start over and try to do a time out,  she would look at us weird! Haha.   Overall  i would say i'm really having a great time and that I got all worried about this for nothing they work with you and make you feel very welcome.

Cant wait to here back from you guys and love you all..

Love Elder Jordan Gentry