Elder Skaggs vs crazy people - from 10/19/2019

DISCLAIMER FROM ELDER SKAGGS' MOM:
I usually try and "clean up" Elder Skaggs' e-mails but this week he confused me a little bit. And about the pictures....I just post what he sends. Haha! Enjoy the letter AND the pictures. He has my sense of humor, too! Poor boy!
Now, on to his e-mail:

Wow, I can't believe it's been another week. It's been a pretty good week. It's been a little interesting. Not like super insane, but still it's been great. I also don't have any pictures. 

Last week, we never got to go golfing. We showed up and the driving range was closed, however, our mission president is allowing us to go again tonight at Golf the Round, so it'll be fun. We also got permission to go to In-N-Out and we're excited for that. When we got back to the apartments, a couple of us got permission to go to West Valley and go to Tie One On. It's a tie shop and it has a ton of super cool ties. However, I ended up not buying one because I don't have money. 

Crazy people: Ok. I'm not going into too much detail on this one, but it ends with a funny comment. Well... I think it's funny because I think I'm funny. Long story short, Elder Jensen and I talked to a guy and he ended up asking questions that ended up making us really concerned for the security of those around us and the safety of Temple Square, so we decided to call security, after our interaction was done, and they came and talked to us. LITERALLY, two of temple square security had the notebook and everything. Anyway, so we told them everything and then one of the security guards at the front desk of the CHL was on the computer looking at video and she was like, "Hey elders, is this him?" And we were like, "yeah." Then out of my mouth, in a joking tone comes, "Look mom, I'm on TV!" The angle we were at, you could see our faces real clear. It was really funny because I just blurted it out and it was so random.  It's funnier if you were there. 

My therapist from Family Services paid for my meal at the COB cafeteria and then had my meeting with him right smack dab in the middle of the cafeteria. It was great. Mainly because I'm doing better and I'm not a huge concern right now, so he felt like he could have scheduled appointment for 3 at noon instead during lunch. It was great.  

The Great Famine: For those who don't know, missionaries are not paid. Most missionaries pay $400 a month and then it is dispersed to all the missions plus using tithing funds to pay for housing, insurance, etc. We get a debit card to use for haircuts, food, dry cleaning, and other stuff. If we buy misc stuff or souvenirs, then we use personal funds that we got before the mission. Anyway, we were supposed to get paid on the 16th, but we never did. At this point, most of the elders on this mission are at $0. They changed our mission to where we get paid $105 at the beginning of the month and then another $105 in the middle. They are starting to do this for a lot of missions. So with everyone at zero dollars, we were thinning out on food. We can only shop one day a week on our assigned p-day, for me that is Saturday. Instead of some elders using their money poorly and being at zero after one week, or what not. We were all literally at zero dollars because we had gone almost three weeks without money. This is what we called the great October Famine or the Headquarters mission depression. We started preparing plans to storm the mission department. We thought someone in the mission refilled our cards, but it is the mission department. Fun fact for all you missionaries. For us, it would have been easy because we work right next to them. We had a whole thing planned out (jokingly, of course... or were we.....) In the end, we called to check our balance and as we all sat there patiently, yesterday morning, as soon as we heard $105, all six of us elders in the area we work, were like, "Yes!!!" 

So, I can assure you all that we are now fed and paid. We are no longer starving and we are happy to be well and alive.  

That made for a great few weeks. Nothing much has happened other than those few things. I'm loving my work. If you haven't watched conference yet, then you need to go watch it.

  

I love the quote Hans T. Boom made. It was in reference to charity and how we need it. He says, "It is that love, that light that needs to shine and brighten our surroundings as we go about our daily lives." 

We need to show love and charity to brighten up the lives of others and to live a better life. We need to show the love of Christ and have it radiate from us. As we do so, then we can become better people and help other people become better.  

I love being here and I love the support from everyone.  

Have a blessed week and I hope you can all find joy in your daily lives! 

Elder Michael Skaggs  

15 E South Temple  

JSMB 3 East 

SLC, Utah 84150 

Since I don't have any photos, I hope these photos of different types of puppies (and one of my senior pictures from 2015), makes up for the lack of content. I hope to have plenty to send out next week since we are golfing tonight

Elder Skaggs vs quite a few things - from 10/12/2019

Pre conference selfie

Well, yesterday, I didn't have time to type up my draft for today's email. I will make up for the lack of preparation with a super awesome email. Well, I can't promise it will be amazing. But, I will try. I am somewhat short on time. We are leaving in 2 hours. President Fenn gave us permission to go to the driving range today. We are showing up to his house to pick up some golf clubs. Two things I thought I would never do on the mission. #1 Walk my mission president's dog through his neighborhood. #2 borrow golf clubs from my mission president to go to the driving range. But, here we are and after today, I will have done both of those. Except, the first one was almost a year ago. Let's start!

Well, I don't always share how rough my weeks or days are going, but last week was really rough. I will probably share a ton more at my homecoming in March, so you all better be there. Anyway, this week was a nice relief from last week. I think conference helped a ton. I was spiritually fed and had a great time. Conference was amazing. I loved Elder Johnson's and Elder Stevenson's talk. Both of them talked about Moses and how we NEED to understand our identity and that we are children of Heavenly Father. I don't have my notes on me, but that was a huge thing I got out of conference. I hope you all got something amazing out of it. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2019/10/54johnson?lang=eng

Power to Overcome the Adversary - churchofjesuschrist.org Sustaining of General Authorities, Area Seventies, and General Officers of the Church. Henry B. Eyring www.churchofjesuschrist.org

 Here is Elder Johnson's talk. He's amazing!!

This was us waiting in stand by at
 5 in the morning. Also, Susan, the
11 year old girl who roasted me
the past two times, wasn't there
to roast me this time.

The cold: One thing I challenged was the cold. It has gotten super cold here and it's been fun and miserable. I love the cold, but I feel like it's going to be a long and cold winter. It's only the beginning of October and it's already gotten down to 30 degrees. I know Rexburg has already gotten snow. I'm excited for this winter season.

Rubik's cube: I learned how to solve a Rubik's cube this week. Well, I know how to get the first few steps and then I'm working on memorizing the algorithms for the other steps. I never knew that there were patterns and stuff. When I was  younger, I just always tried to randomly solve a Rubik's cube. Now I know that there is a pattern and a set of steps to use. Hopefully, I will get it down. 

Do we look like a boy band?

Piano: I'm doing better with my piano skills. I can do "I Stand All Amazed" fairly well and "All Creatures of Our God and King" decently. I'm working on "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" right now. It's going great.

Sickness: Elder Jensen and I are both sick and that kind of sucks. I'm hoping to get over it soon because I don't want to stay sick. But, I've been battling a cold and it's kind of annoying, but I will get through it. I am taking medication and also taking vitamins, so that will help me a tad bit.

Selfie in the conference
center while it is all empty

Elder Funk: We had Elder Funk of the Seventy come visit the mission. It was amazing. He spoke to us for quite a while and then had a question and answer for us. He also toured the mission. He came down to our zone and asked what we did. It was fun to talk to him about my work. I mentioned how I'm writing a narrative biography about President Paramore (the mission president here back in 2002) and he mentioned how he knows him. I'm kind of sad because I need more information, but it would have been inappropriate to ask him about stuff. 

Anyway, here are some pictures at the bottom. I hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for the love and support! It means a lot!

Elder Michael Skaggs

15 East South Temple

JSMB 3 East

SLC, UT  84150

   

Pre conference photo

Don't ask questions

 Me, Elder Jensen, Elder
Buckley, and Elder Wintersteen

 District selfie. The Mickey Mouse
stuffed animal is Elder Martin's,
I was just cuddling it at the time.

This is today on our
way to shopping

Elder Skaggs vs the fridge door - from 10/05/2019

Birthday hat

Well, as you can see from my title, this was a VERY interesting week. But, I'll keep you in suspense for a couple more minutes. I hope you all watched conference today and you plan on watching it tomorrow. Conference is amazing and everyone should enjoy it. I will discuss my conference thoughts (from today), later on in this. Then next week, I will share my insights from tomorrow's session. But, let's get started. 

Last conference's email was really entertaining. I can't promise that this one will be as entertaining, but I hope you all still enjoy it because it was filled with humor, rough days, cheesecake, and tender mercies from kind people who follow the promptings of the Lord. Oh and the title of this won't come until later. Sorry, but I'm going in order of time this week. 

 

The assistants and our district
at Cheesecake Factory.

Let's begin with last Saturday.  After emails, we headed to Cheesecake Factory with Elder Martin, Gatlin, Lane, Whiffen, and of course my companion. I got tons of gift cards for my birthday, so I figured we could go and we were just going to use my gift cards and add in a few extra dollars. Well, when we get there, the wait was 65-80 minutes. We hesitated and considered not waiting. However, a nice gentleman said he would buy us some cheesecake since we might leave. While he was about to buy us some, our buzzer went off (ended up being a "test"), and we thought we would be going to be seated. He said he would buy us a gift card instead to pay for dinner. Keep in mind that a slice of cheesecake for each of us 6 people would cost a max amount of $60. We figured he would give us a gift card to equal how much the cheesecake would cost. Instead, he gives us a $150 gift card. After that, we stayed because we felt that since he was so kind to do that, we should wait and eat that night. We were so grateful for that. It was a fun evening filled with food, cheesecake, laughter, and friends. 

 

I thought I looked cool.
 Hahahahaha

Sunday, I don't believe we did much. Oh, we have been assigned for this month to go to St. Joseph's Villa. It's a senior center and we go there to give the sacrament to the people there. I've been to 3 of them now on the mission and this one is my favorite. The residents are kind (they're kind at the other places too), the place seems professional and better than some of the other places, and the overall atmosphere is nice. We also had to have our sacrament meeting in a Catholic chapel because the place is a Catholic founded center, hence the name "St. Joseph's". Awesome place, nonetheless.  

 

Sunday evening, Elder Jensen and I went on a short walk and then we went to talk with the assistants because we were bored. They're both great elders and I love them. 

 

Monday was great. We spoke at a Monday morning devotional about our zone work. It was for the whole mission. I enjoy talking about our zone work, so it was good. We then played dodge ball with some other elders Monday evening.  

 

Tuesday, we went to Cheesecake Factory again. This time, we used my gift cards and had a good time. Cheesecake Factory is great. As for the rest of the week, not much happened, until yesterday. 

 

Fridge door

Yesterday morning, we were getting ready and just talking to the other elders who live on our floor. Elder Jensen opened the fridge door, but then ran to answer his phone, so I decided to close it. As I went to close the door, it was giving me a hard time. I thought it was weird, but checked to see if something was sticking out that I needed to push into the fridge. After a few more attempts of closing the door, it just fell off. I have pictures. Thankfully, the phone call was from Elder Parks, who just so happens to be the housing coordinator on the mission, so he came over and helped us fix it. We definitely did not want our stuff to go bad. There's the story of how Elder Skaggs magically broke his fridge door. The rest of the day went well. 

 

New announcement: I love the new change with women being able to witness for baptisms and sealings. I think it's a great way to allow women to be more involved. I found the part in the Doctrine and Covenants where it talks about needing two or three witnesses for baptisms, and it never once uses gender pronouns, which is interesting. I was like, "Wow, Heavenly Father knew what He was doing when He gave that revelation." Everything else uses gender pronouns, but it doesn't do it for that. I think it's a great policy change that allows women to continue to participate in the church and contribute by using their testimonies of the restored church.  

Rockhard Waters...
 my Vegas "dad"

My trainer: Yesterday, I saw my trainer from the Vegas mission, Elder Waters. He was in town for a mission reunion. So, that was great and I loved seeing him.

 

Picture of our district
in the JSMB lobby

Conference: Oh my goodness!!!!! Conference was amazing. I don't even know how to sum it all up. I loved every part of it. Elder Holland was hilarious. But, the messages of finding joy in the gospel and staying on the covenant path. I don't have my notebook on me, so I can't exactly think of what was said, but it was amazing. 

I'll be on until 8:30 or so. I hope you all enjoy conference and all of you watch it. It's amazing. 

Love you all,

Elder Michael Skaggs

15 E South Temple

JSMB 3 East

Salt Lake City, Utah 84150

P.S. I know this week wasn't extremely spiritual in terms of relating to conference and I didn't summarize too much, but I'm going to think about it and pray about my favorite talks from today and my favorite ones from tomorrow and I will email you all some summaries of my favorites. Also, I watched the new announcement about Young Women's and I think it's amazing what they are doing. Anyway, I hope all you wonderful people have a great week.

      

  Two of these are the male
   and one is the female, they
 were fighting each other.
 This was at a senior center
where I am volunteering
   each Sunday for this month.

Two beautiful blue birds