Elder Skaggs vs My Twin and 21 - from 09/28/2019

Elder Jensen and I at the temple

Hey everyone!!! How are you all doing? I hope everyone is doing great. You should hopefully all be happy because you should have all paid it forward yesterday and done something nice for someone to celebrate my birthday. If not, then you are still an amazing person and I challenge you to try and pay it forward today or tomorrow or every day of your life. Quite honestly, just go out and serve someone every day.  

Anyway, I have officially circled the sun a total of 21 times. I think it's quite an accomplishment. I guess there's a few accomplishments of turning 21. Not too many of them are exciting for a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Shults and I. He's a great dude too

Elder Howes and I.
I'm going to miss him

Transfers: We had transfers. I'm still with Elder Jensen. We knew we would stay together. We have gotten along really well and president likes us being companions. It was sad though because I said goodbye to Elder Howes and Elder Shults. Two elders that I have grown to love. I also said bye to Sister Davis. She's a senior sister who has been really fun to be around and she's great. I miss you already Sister Davis!! Shout out to her and everyone. 

  

Sister Davis and I at the devotional
and then I put bunny ears on her.

The restoration devotional: On Monday, President and Sister Fenn had a devotional to commemorate the 192nd anniversary of Joseph Smith obtaining the golden plates. It was a fantastic devotional. They discussed the events leading up to getting the plates and how Joseph Smith translated the plates into the Book of Mormon. Then he talked about how we can come to a knowledge of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the doctrines contained in it. I absolutely loved it. Amazing devotional! 

The bunny ears

I feel like the rest of the week was slow. Nothing too big happened. It was a great week though. Probably one of the better weeks I have had. But, as I said, nothing too entertaining happened.  

Now for yesterday. Well, my twin and I had a birthday. No, I don't have a secret human twin that no one knows about, instead, this is an Internet twin. Google and I shared our birthday yesterday. We both turned 21. Wahoo!! That means Google can now legally drink in the US. I don't know how an Internet search engine can drink, but I bet if you asked Siri if she could drink, she would say something funny. I can now legally drink too, but as I said above, not much for a member of our church. Ask her what zero divided zero equals.

Costa Vida for birthday lunch

Birthday fun: So, let's talk about my birthday. I have received a ton of letters and stuff from friends and family. I am super grateful for that. I will not be thanking everyone by email. Instead, I will be sending everyone who has sent me something a thank you card. Unless, you have sent me a post card or a letter without a return address then I will email you. That is one thing I'm grateful for from everyone. We started off by doing a mission temple trip. That was fun and I could feel the spirit so strong. The temple is and will continue to be an amazing place to be. 

We went to Costa Vida for lunch because I really wanted enchiladas. It was a great birthday lunch and super fun. We went with Elder Shaw and Elder Rangus.  

After lunch, we headed back to the apartments to pick something up. As we crossed the street from City Creek to the JSMB, we look up and saw Elder Soares walking with his wife on the sidewalk. He waved to us and we said hi and continued on our way. It was super cool and a fun birthday present to see an apostle walk by. I've met him before, but still super fun. Tonight, we are going to Cheesecake Factory with a few other elders, so that will be fun. 

Taking a break from our
computers. Therapist commands.

Other than that, not much more has happened. My birthday was great, but not super exciting. It's the mission, so there's not much for me to expect. Besides, I'm at that point where people tend to forget about your existence. 😉 But, in all honesty, I know I have tons of love and support out there and probably way more than I think. I'm thankful for all of you and your support. Thank you for everything. You are all the best!! Hope everyone has a great week and that you all paid it forward yesterday. 

Random picture of us a few nights ago.

I will still be emailing next week even with General Conference. I'll probably email after conference in the evening. This way I will be able to share some of my insights from the Saturday sessions. I'm extremely excited about conference!! Please watch conference!! Watching prophets, seers, and revelators, speak to the whole world on how we can follow our Savior and draw closer to our Heavenly Father. Watch conference with an open heart and with any questions you may have. I know if you watch with a sincere heart, then you will get the answers you have from watching conference.  

Ou te alofa ia te outou uma

Elder Michael Skaggs 

15 East South Temple 

JSMB 3 East 

SLC, Utah 84150 

Me in the background of a photo where
I have no idea what the heck is going on

Elder Skaggs vs Bowling again - from 09/23/2019

Our district at Music and
The Spoken Word

Sorry, I'm losing my creativity for these things. I only have another like 22 or so weeks left of this. I definitely did not count just right now. I probably shouldn't be counting down. Anyway, I'll share my somewhat exciting week filled with crazy people and homeless people snorting cocaine.  

 Sushi

Sushi: We went to a sushi restaurant last Saturday. On the way there, some crazy woman, asked us to give her a blessing. She is ALWAYS asking for blessings. I haven't seen her in 9 months and then all of a sudden we saw her. Then we saw a homeless woman that we always see and she was snorting cocaine with her friends. So, that was a fun evening. On the bright side, the sushi was amazing and it's half off for missionaries. Afterwards, we went to the planetarium and we enjoyed that.  

BOWLING: Monday, we went bowling as a district. I ended up coming in second with a score of 150 or something after 2 games. WAY BETTER than I did last time. Still horrible, but better than last time. After that, we spent the whole evening as a district because my companion made a super good meal that his dad came up with.  

Rain: We had more rain. Once again, that was fun. Not much more to go off of with that. 

So, horses apparently have
itchy butts, too...

Just a pic at the service project

Service project: Saturday was amazing. I had a blast. We went to This Is The Place Park for a service project. Last year, we went and cleared out a ton of brush and cleaned out a path for a new monument they were putting in. Well, the new monument was completed a few months ago and we got to see it. It looks amazing and we were happy to see the outcome of our amazing work. It's the new Pioneer children monument. If you are ever there, then go look at it and remember that I contributed to the project. This year we helped trim back a huge blackberry bush and cleaned out a ton. We had a blast. We got to explore the park when we were finished and I spent like 15 minutes at the petting zoo. I just love petting animals. Also, we saw a horse scratching it's butt on the fence. It was actually quite funny. I will add photos.  

Yesterday was great. We took ANOTHER tour of the conference center and had a blast again. Oh, and Friday the first episode of the new Book of Mormon series came out. It was amazing. If you haven't seen it then you need to watch it. I'm excited for my birthday because the episode where Nephi slays Laban is coming out.  

I swear I did real work. I just didn't have
any pictures of me doing the real work,
so I had one of the assistants take a
picture of me pretending to do work,
but I can promise that I did work.

Elder Martin and I

Also, I thought I would share some stuff about the projects I'm doing in zone. For those who have Family Search accounts, you may have recently gotten an email about your ancestors serving missions and everything. Well, in one day, the Church History page got around 200 problems submitted to them about corrections needing to be made on the Missionary Database page. Due to the huge amount of problems, I was added to the thing to fix it. Now, I am able to go on and see a problem submission and then check the sources and fix it. Then, I reply back to them and thank them for letting us know and that the problem is fixed. For example, last week I had a problem where everything on Family Search was fine, however, his missionary database page said he was born in October of 1904 and he died in March of 1904. Obviously, that is not even close to being possible, so I went through and checked out my sources and fixed it. I really enjoy it because I'm doing more and I'm given more access to things. It's fun though and I enjoy being able to contribute more to my zone work. Just thought I would update you all on what I'm doing in my mission. I'll talk to you all on Saturday. 

The temple yesterday evening

I know the Book of Mormon is true and I know Joseph Smith translated by the power of God. I know this Church and gospel is true and I know President Nelson is a prophet today. 

Thanks for all of your love and support. I will be emailing all day because we have the time. Also, I'm excited because I only have 4 days until I turn 21. I hope you all remember my challenge. PAY IT FORWARD!! Do that and then send me a letter or email on what you did to pay it forward.  

मैं आप सभी से प्यार करता हूं 

Elder Michael Skaggs 

15 East South Temple  

JSMB 3 East 

SLC, UT 84150