Mormon Mom Van

Yesterday Pvt Spoerke was baptized and confirmed! It was a great day,  it was a little on the rainy side when the baptism took place, but all
went well!

Last week when President came to my DDM he had a lot of great things to share with us. He taught  us how Faith is a Principle of Power and
how we can apply that into our missionary efforts.

Afterwards we talked for a bit and he has asked me to play a musical
piece during the Mission Leadership council tomorrow. He also has
invited me to come with him to a ward (idk where yet) somewhere in
South Carolina to play a Piano solo after he speaks. He said, "We will
teach the people here in South Carolina why music is important, so
you're coming with me to this ward."

The piece he gave me is an improvisation of "Come, Come, Ye Saints".
It is really simple yet can be played with a lot of emotion, so I am
excited to play it.

I can't believe that September is tomorrow! CRAZY! Amazing how time moves!

This week should be fun, I am excited for whatever comes.

I got a new van last week! It only had 7 miles on it when I picked it
up! Brand new!  It's funny because we call it, "The Mormon Mom van".

Anyways, Life is good!

I hope ya'll have a great week!

Elder Dearden

I Few Quotes I Really Like....

 Family and friends

I had a great week. I hope ya'll don't get tired of me saying we
baptized again at Fort Jackson! It has became a weekly highlight to go
teach and baptize at fort Jackson every week!
Yesterday pvt Swartz was baptized and confirmed.

I also have pics of the baptisms from the past two weeks. I sent them
to my mom so I assume she will post them on the blog.

I'm a little anxious because just a few minutes ago President Turner
called me and told me that he will be attending my District meeting
tomorrow! Lots of pressure!
But I am also excited, I love President Turner, he always has amazing
direction and counsel to give.

I have been reading a book called, "The essential Nibley". It is like
a mini summary of Hugh Nibley's writings. He has some quotes that I
really like.

The first one:
"The test of this life is not for knowledge; it is not for
intelligence, or for courage, or for anything like that. That would be
a huge joke...we would all flunk those tests terribly."

My mind has really been dwelling on this next one:
"Who is righteous? Anyone who is repenting. No matter how bad he has
been, if he is repenting, he is a righteous man."

I really like that last quote, it puts life into perspective. That is
why we have the sacrament each week, we should constantly be
repenting. Our standing before Heavenly Father will always be that we
are a "fallen angel". However, it is only through Christ that we can
be redeemed from the fall, so that we can return the our Heavenly
Father and be found spotless before Him. We can only know Christ if we
repent. If we don't repent, he will say, "Depart, I never knew you".

So if we want to feel good about ourselves, we cannot take in any
amount of success because of our knowledge, intelligence, or courage
or anything like that. Because if we are not repenting all of those
things are nothing, they will do us no good. The only good we can do for
ourselves in this life is to repent and repent some more. Everything
else is dependent on our repentance.

I have a renewed effort to make sure that I am always repenting, and
the meaning and purpose of my calling as a missionary has expanded as
I realized I am "called to preach repentance to this people".

Anyways, I am excited for this week, it will be interesting and fun I'm sure!

Elder Dearden

This is from Yesterdays baptism of PVT Swartz

Last Week

Last Week

Also, here are some pictures of the neighborhoods I am serving in.

Miracles in Fort Jackson

Hey Family and Friends, and people!

I had a really great week! Yesterday we had 4 more baptisms at Fort
Jackson. Elder Nolan hasn't given me the pictures yet from the
baptisms. So hopefully by next week I will have a bunch of the pics.

Anyways, I got pictures with my Fort Jackson District and my Dutch
Fork District.

I'm really enjoying my experiences here, my regular area can be really
difficult at times, but going to Fort Jackson each sunday cheers me
up!

Pvt Alexander, the Soldier I taught last week has agreed to be baptized
in two weeks! We are so excited for her! She actually wrote her mother
last week and was super surprised when she found out her mother was
actually baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
when she was young, but had never told her children! So Pvt Alexander
is really excited to be baptized and her Family is supportive!

I met another awesome soldier yesterday, Pvt Andrejic, he came in and
expressed that he wasn't very religious but had some questions. His
first question was, "The bible has prophets, why don't we have
prophets today?".....I was like, "That is a PERFECT question!".
Anyways I taught him the restoration and he was super excited towards
the end and agreed to be baptized in 2 weeks! I am so excited!
Miracles happen every week at Fort Jackson! I am so spoiled to be able
to participate in the amazing work that happens there!

I hope Ya'll have a fantastic week!

Elder Dearden

Serving in Irmo

So this past week felt a little slow and I am assuming this next week
will feel the same because everyone is gone on last minute vacation
before school starts! Or they are to busy getting ready for school!

But Fort Jackson was great yesterday, we had another baptism! Pvt
Mimms was baptized and Confirmed! I'll have pics next week.

So, yesterday I taught a solider, Pvt Alexander, she is new at Fort
Jackson. She walked in with her friend....who was recently baptized in
Florida. She comes up to us and says, "So I'm not a member of your
church, YET."....and then goes on to say that she plans to come to
church all through august and September to find out if it is the true
church. She says she grew up catholic but thinks that almost all
christian religions are confused. So she was really excited to have
the first lesson, the Restoration. As I was teaching her she just had
this bright countenance and kept saying, "Wow, this makes a lot of
sense!" Before I introduced her to the Book of Mormon she says, "So I
have heard that the Native Americans believe that Jesus Christ visited
them...is that ture?" haha, My response was, "YES! And we have their
record!". She was so excited to read the Book of Mormon and to
continue to learn. She is golden and I expect to see her baptized! I
had to hold back and not firehose her with information that I have
about what the "Native Americans" know about Jesus...

Our are in Irmo is doing better, we have a lot of potential
investigators. The problem is that everyone is so busy getting ready
for school. So hopefully in the next 2 weeks we will see that calm
down.

I was so thrilled that the Church released photos of Josephs Stone! 

Here is the link https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/10/jos
eph-the-seer?lang=eng

It is beautiful! I am so happy that the Church is being open about the
remarkable and mysterious aspects of revelation that occurred in the
early Church! We know God is the same yesterday today and forever,
Moroni says that spiritual gifts are still here, according to faith!


Anyways, I hope ya'll have a fantastic week!

Elder Dearden

Bringing Light To Others

Family and people!

Haha, one of the missionaries in my district drew this for me haha.
Describes my personality.

Life is going really well right now! We had a great week! Yesterday at
Ft Jackson we had another baptism, it amazes me how much work takes
place at Fort Jackson, truly the Lords hand is involved!
This time I got in the picture of the individual being baptized, so
now you can see the Fort Jackson missionary team!

Last week I went on exchanges with the Elders in NewBerry, I have
pics. It was really fun.


Our teaching pool has grown in the Dutch Fork Ward, and yesterday the
Ward council approved our member missionary plan. We will be visiting
all 60 active households over the coming month and helping each
household prepare a plan to present to the Lord of how they will do
missionary work.

Elder Bednar taught in the Mtc that the stones the
brother of Jared presented to the Lord can represent individuals. So
we can like the Brother of Jared, come up with our own "plan".  We can
be led to individuals who need the gospel, but then we must present
them to the Lord and ask that he "touch" them so they can "be filled
with light". It is amazing the connections we can draw from Ether 3 in
understanding how our Faith can impact the lives of others. The lord
expects each of us to learn how to do things on our own, like the
Brother of Jared, if we prepare a plan for individuals, and then
present it in prayer, we will be privileged to witness the hand of the
Lord extend and bring light to others!

I am excited to see the work progress! Truly the Lords hand is moving!

Love ya'll!

Elder Dearden

Exchange with Elder Swingler

Exchange with Elder Bateman....and Swingler bombing.

Last week Pvt Reeves, Smith, Stow, and Grant were baptized and confirmed!

Pvt Clark was baptized and confirmed yesterday!
In the picture, Fort Jackson district
Sis Bennett, Sis Ward, Sis Gleason, Sis Webb
Elder Droge, Elder Daynes, Elder Scarff, me

This is a Great Day!

Hey people!

This past week was great! As usual....

We had 4 more baptisms at Fort Jackson! It was great! 

This is a picture from last weeks Baptisms

Elder Mcarthur

This week at Fort Jackson Elder Mcarthur, our area seventy came for a surprise visit. He seemed to really enjoy his visit. He was really excited and impressed with the the baptisms. He came outside with us and actually was a witness for all 4 baptisms. It was just an awesome sight, a Seventy, 8 missionaries, 4 senior missionaries, and about 20 soldiers standing outside by the portable baptismal font to watch the baptisms and confirmations, the spirit was strong and I heard Elder Mcarthur say behind me, " this is a great day".

I agree with him! Yesterday was a great day!

Our area in Irmo, the Dutch fork Ward is doing great. We have a new plan for member referrals and the Ward council and the bishop so far are standing with us in our plan.

We have one referral from a member that we will be teaching this Thursday, we are excited for that.

So I met an awesome person last week! Mr. Clapp, to summarize, he is fascinated with the Native American migrations and has an interesting collection of stuff. He actually gave me some arrowheads last week, and we plan to get back together again soon. He has had lots of Mormon friends and is interested in our faith. We have made plans that when the weather cools down In the fall we will go the the lake Murray shore and do some arrowhead hunting, he says there are lots by the lake. So that will be a fun future play! 

This week should be awesome!

Love y'all! 

Elder Dearden

Fort Jackson

Hello people!


This is a picture of the soldiers who were baptized last week, Pvt
Blanco is on the left, Pvt Doone on the right. The middle guy is a
soldier who was baptized the week prior and had the privilege of
baptizing Doone and Blanco.

I don't get to take pictures of the baptisms, I'll explain why latter
on, but Elder Nolan, a senior missionary takes the pics for us and
then gives us a hard copy the next week, so my photos of the baptisms
will be delayed a week. Having said that, I'll talk about the 2
baptisms we had yesterday on next weeks letter.

The way Ft Jackson works is that we get to go teach on base on
Sunday's. There is a chapel building used by multiple denominations
and we get the morning hours, so from 8 to noon we are on base for the
Ft Jackson Branch sacrament meeting, we get there an hour early and
talk to the soldiers in the chapel that come early, surprisingly about
50-65%  of those in attendance are non members who just wanted to take
a break and visit a church, or they are battle buddies of members who
wanted to go to church but as a rule they must always have someone
with them, kinda like our missionary rules. ( FYI background, these
soldiers are in a 12 week basic training program) But anyways we just
start talking to them and most of the time they are willing to be
taught, so we teach them abbreviated restoration lessons and commit
them to keep coming to church and to be baptized 2 weeks later. It is
amazing how well the soldiers keep their commitments, over the coming
week they actually do read the Book of Mormon and pray and almost
always come back with a witness from the Holy Ghost.

Rather than Sunday school they just have hours for the missionaries to
teach, because we are limited on # of missionaries we teach alone
without our companion. There are 2 sets of Elders (the APs and Us .)
and 2 sets of sisters. Each missionary usually teaches about 3 lessons
each Sunday.

Immediately after sacrament meeting we have a baptism service for
those who are being baptized. Sometimes we get to witness them, but we
are usually caught up busy with other teaching appointments, in order
to maintain effectiveness and productivity we only get to teach a
soldier 1 lesson and then we pass them off to another missionary to do
another lesson. So we don't get to know them on a super personal
basis. But it also guarantees that when someone is baptized, all the
missionaries had a part played in their conversion. But that's why I
don't get to take pics of the baptisms because I'm usually busy
interviewing someone for baptism ( like yesterday) or I'm teaching
someone new. We pick up like 7 new investigators each week and about
half of them stick.

We have a goal to baptize 4 per week, right now we average 2 a week.
What is amazing is that the retention rate of Ft Jackson is higher
than the world convert retention rate. So we are assured that the work
we do is effective. More than half of the converts remain active after
basic training.

Anyways, last week I went on an exchange with Elder Briggs, the ZL for
west Columbia. It was really fun and we got along great.

Ben Stocker was Baptized yesterday too! He is the young man I taught
for 6 months in Summerville! I'm sure Elder Parker had a great day
seeing Ben Baptized! Some members from Summerville are going to send
me pics from that special day. I'll post them next week.

I don't have much else to say other than, LIFE IS GOOD!

I hope life goes great for y'all this week!

ELDER DEARDEN