The countdown is On.... (Well Mom is counting down)!!!!

Got asked today to give a 15 minute talk on the Savior tomorrow. Took me 1.5 hours to write it!!! wish me luck! (well that was a couple of weeks ago!)

So I emailed last Wednesday, so there is not to much to update you on. We had 4 investigators at sacrament meeting yesterday (An all-time high). So that was really cool to see. Steve passed his baptismal interview on Saturday so he is all set to go for his baptism on the 22nd which is awesome!!! Not to much else to talk about. Hope everything is going well. Thanks for everything you do!!   :)

So not to much to report on. Steve's baptism was on Saturday and confirmation yesterday.  It was cool to see and he and his mom are prepping to go do Temple baptisms on the 6th, so life is going great for that. Super spiritual and testimony strenghtening for all of us involved they will be so great and an asset to the ward.

These next two weeks are loaded with stuff. I got to see lots of people from Dana Point ward yesterday b/c companion sang in choir at a ward in the same building Dana Point meets at so that was fun. Set up a party thing with the Rubalcava's on the 8th so that should be great. (It is my birthday, if you remember!!!)  

I am thinking of sending my bike home next week so the 1st of December, just so you are aware. Well not home but to Austins.  I'll be off to Salt Lake for school and all in Jan - It's pretty unbelieveable!!!!

Hope all goes well, have  a great Thanksgiving!!! Can you believe that this is the last week of November already?? How crazy is that. Have a great week I love you both so much!!! :)

wrong date right Temple!

Well Now it's December We went today to the Temple with Steve and Angie - How awesome is that!!!??   I had my departing interview today.  President said Good job on taking 17 credits first semester back.  He said that in his first year of graduate school he had kids, a job, and was called as the EQ president, AND was taking 17 credits Plus he got all A's!!! He said that as long as I do the right things and DO the things necessary the Lord will bless me in my efforts and that he has full confidence in me successfully completing 17 credits.  

REMEMBER

Oh man it is November already!!! Where is the time going???

So this past week or so (I guess it's more than that) has been awesome!! 
We have been teaching our investigator (I will forward you a picture of us and him and his mom) and that has been going great!!! He is so ready for this message and is soaking everything up like a sponge. We have been meeting with them almost every day and he is getting ready for baptism.

He is wanting to go to the Temple as soon as possible and Bishop said that he could the Priesthood within in a week and so it is looking like I will be able to go with him to do baptisms in the Temple before I go home!! Which is super awesome. His mom is coming along great. We had lesson last night with the Relief Society President Sister Nielsen and it was great. She talked about Visiting Teaching and she accepted to be a visiting teacher and to be visit taught!! How cool is that!! This family is so ready and they want to be involved and stay involved...so cool to watch them grow and learn and have things brought to their remembrance...

Other than them there is not to much else to talk about. We had a mission conference on Monday with Elder Andersen from the 2nd quorum of 70 and his wife and that was so cool. Really long day but there was a lot talked about and a lot that was learned. I was going to bring my notebook to share some quotes from the meeting but alas, I forgot it, and I have a companion otherwise I would just go and grab it but oh well...I will just share it in 3 weeks or so haha :)

SO not to much going on. Studies are going great. I have started going through the Seminary Teachers Manual for The Book of Mormon with a clean copy of the Book of Momron and writing in all of the notes and descriptions from the manual into the book, which is helping a lot better understand what is going on and the meaning behind everything that is happening. 

Also!!! I am going to LDSBC - I start 14 Jan 2015!!!  Hello UTAH!!!

Thank you both for everything you do, I truly appreciate it. 
Hope the next couple of days go great and you see miracles!!!
Keep up the awesome work!!! Don't break any more 400 dollar phones ;)

Love you so much

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

Missionary Work - Preach My Gospel 101

Hello everyone out there!!! So we had an amazing week this week and the reason of the amazingness is outlined in the stories below.

So this week has been an amazing one!! 

• We are still teaching the same young man and we had a couple great lessons with him this week. The coolest one was the fact that we had a Temple tour and a baptism to attend planned out for him on Saturday and he came to both of them with his mom too - and they had a blast going! They loved the spirit they felt at the Temple and the same with the baptisms. He said that the baptism took a lot shorter than he thought and that he was looking forward to his on the 22nd of November. We mentioned that we needed to get a certain amount of lessons in before his interview and baptism and they said to have us come over everyday!! So we have a set lesson with them Tuesday-Friday until his baptism. His mom is so excited he is wanting to do this. She wants him to go on a mission (We will be discussing it after his baptism, and she wants him to get to the temple, get married in it and have a happy Mormon family)!!! It is so awesome to be apart of it all and to be able to close out my mission with such a solid person being taught, baptized with someone else coming back into the church. He is integrating perfectly with the Young Men and even helped set up and run games at the ward Halloween party!
• Last night we went over to a members house who said one of the kids living with them had a lot of questions about the church and was interested in talking with us. He is interested in anything about God.  We talked and taught him about the Plan of Salvation and he loved the sound of not just a Heaven and a Hell, but that there are "More options" to make sure everyone is happy and where they deserve. So the work is picking up and going great, it is an amazing opportunity to be a part of it all. 

So as you can see great things are continuing to happen here in the Lake Forest Ward!!! I am excited to say I will be staying here for my final 6 weeks of my mission which will be so awesome!! I will have the blessing to continue to work with people that I have mentioned and other people that the Lord has in store for us to find. It is always a long road on a mission, but it is people like these that make all of the tough times worth it. 

In my talk yesterday, I must say, as far as Church sacrament meeting talks go, It was pretty much awesome (Said with much Humility)!!!!  I went a little over my time (20 Minutes, not 20 over, total of 20 assigned 15) so yikes! Lots of people came up and said how good it was and how much they enjoyed it. I had 2 people ask for copies of it!!!   One girl came up after 2nd hour and started talking about how the week was. How she found some stuff out that kind of just make it tougher to go through each day. She mentioned she did not want to come to church today. She then said how glad she was that she came because of the fact that she "felt" my talk was given directly to her. She said she could truly feel that Christ was capable of being in her life and that He knew exactly how she was feeling and was there for her. It was one of the most powerful moments since being out, actually have someone tell you that you answered a concern they had because you had the ability to follow the spirit and be guided and directed to put the things in and talk about and elaborate on the things the spirit guided you to. So that was just a really awesome moment and one that I for sure will not forget...

#challenge completed! #StartingStrong #CaliforniaIrivineMission #FinishStrong

Anyways there is not to much to report on. I hope all is going well for all of you and hope miracles happen for you this week. I started this thing to help keep me focused this last transfer called the 42 day countdown.  I had missionaries write down a challenge for me to complete everyday (Missionary related or not) and today was the first day. The first challenge (Actually applies to every monday of the transfer) is to get up and study from 5:00 am to 6:30 work out from 6:30 to 7:00 get ready from 7:00 to 8:00 then normal studies from 8:00 to 10:00. I did it this morning and I actually really liked it. I am so awake right now and I got awake super quick. I am going to try and do it every Monday Wednesday and Friday, and hopefully by the time I come home I am doing it everyday. My goal with it is 5:00 am to 6:00 am work out 6:15 to 6:45 Shower get ready 6:45 to 7:00 make breakfast and 7:00 to 8:00 eat and have studies. So we shall see what happens and hopefully I am in the habit when I come home. 

Anyways thank you for all you do and hope all is well. Thank you for everything !!!! :)

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

The Gospel is True!

June 16th ...

Well it has been a good week out here in Newport Beach California! The only real thing to report on from the week is the investigator that we found named Kelsi Wilson. The experience was so cool and provided an awesome opportunity for us all to see when people are prepared and ready to hear the gospel they hear and listen. So we met her Monday and we met as a result of a member being a good friend and getting to know her. Sister sessions told us that Kelsi might be at our lesson Monday night but then called and said she wouldn't be there. Well after the prayer to open she came in. 

So we of course decided to share the first lesson with her the message of the Restoration. So we start sharing and she is just in love with it all and is so excited to learn. 

We get to the apostasy and describe what happened and she is like "wait you are telling me the true church was here, Jesus gave his authority, and then it was just gone?" Yes that is what we are saying. And she just goes off about how terrible that is and why that would happen if god loves us. So obviously she loved the Joseph smith story and the restoration of the priesthood and things like that. 

We talked about the Book of Mormon and she was so interested to hear Christ came to the Americas and taught the people. She asked us at the end to mark in the Book of Mormon where his teachings were so we did. 

At the very end we invited her to be baptized and she said she would once she knew a little more which is perfectly fine we set up a lesson for next week.

 Well on Wednesday we get a call from sister sessions saying kelsi had a revelation that she needed to do what? Move to Bakersfield and quit her job and go live with her mother. Oh man I was so bummed, just found a golden person so excited to hear the gospel and now she is moving. So we go and help her move on Thursday  and it was bitter sweet. Bitter for the obvious reasons and sweet for the fact that we got her address, phone number which allowed us to find the ward she is in. I called the bishop of that ward Thursday night got the number for sisters in the ward and then called them and talked to them about the situation and what had happened. Well they got in contact with Kelsi and have since met her, she came to church, and as you can tell by the email I sent you is quite happy with the church and having Christ in her life.

 I am excited to see where this goes, getting to stay in contact with her, we have each other's emails and I have her number so we are going to stay in touch which is exciting to see and be a part of. All in all that experience taught me one thing, that we all have our role in this life, and at different times that role may be different. My obvious role in this was to meet her, see the miracle of a prepared person, teach a good first discussion to bring Christ into her life and testify of the truthfulness of this gospel. As well as build a friendship and get her set up in Bakersfield. It is now the other missionaries role to teach and then baptize. I didn't need to see that, I already know it will happen. My faith was built in teaching and finding her, someone else's faith will be built by seeing her baptized and being confirmed. So it is all going great and that was such a wonderful experience she sent a text Thursday night where she said that without us bringing Christ into her life she would have been in a worse situation and that she feels angry and alone but happy because of having Christ and being a Christian. Again a powerful experience for me. 

this is my sandwich I made - peanut butter and hot fudge!!!

All in all that was the week, not t much else to report on. Transfer are coming up in a week and so we will find out on Saturday night what the fate of the companionship is. Hope all else is going well, great to hear from the two of you and excited to see what the world has in store for all of us. I love you so much and I know the atonement is real and can truly help change peoples lives if we allow it to. I love you and look forward to hearing from you shortly :) 

June 23rd...

Oh my gosh okay so not getting transferred. I am staying here in Newport Beach for another transfer which will make this area 6 months. So I am super excited about that. not to much else write about. Sister Murphy and Sister Anderson say hello. They are sisters in my district who are getting moved.

Sorry family, I am really boring this week. I do apologize for that. All my talking was in the letters. Hope all is well. 

SIsters; Nambukara, Anderson and Murphy

Love you bye​!!!!

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

The Life of a Missionary

So family this week ended up being a pretty good one. My coolest story of the week was we started teaching those people we talked about when I called home. We met with them on Wednesday and they came to church on Sunday for all 3 hours. Really cool but the bummer about all of it is that they are YSA age and so this week we will be handing them off to the elders in the YSA ward. It's all good I guess. Same work no matter who teaches them, as long as they get taught and baptized that is all I care about. But they seem really interested and have a lot of questions that I hope will be answered as they take the discussions and continue to learn more about the church. 

My new companions name is Jakobi Byrd from Atlanta Georgia. It is sweet, he has been out for about 15 months, came out a month after me so it is nice again to work with someone who is about my same mission age. Elder Tietjen goes home next Tuesday so this week will be exciting I am sure. The work is picking up here, starting to be happier even when times seem to suck. Basically I have realized that no matter what, I can always use my agency to be happy, you choose to be sad or happy angry or patient etc. So I just have to continually choose to be happy and joyful and looking for the little tiny blessings I have even when times aren't to good, because let's face it there are lots and lots of blessings out there that we can all be thankful for, we may just have to look really hard to find them. 

Dad that is a crazy story about your thumb hahaha! bet that sucked. My knee picture I have attached isn't that bad but wanted you to see. I skinned it playing indoor volleyball, I went for a dive, messed up and ended up sliding on my knee about 3 feet on the gym floor, that's never to much fun to do that. It is all better now though, perfect timing to get it skinned again today in Zone Activity haha! 

   

Get to have a baptismal interview with someone again tonight, I am as always nervous and excited at the same time. It is always cool to meet with people and see their growth, progression, and understanding they gain as they take the discussions and the lessons. 

Anyways not to much else to report on. I have not gotten the packages but I will be getting mail today so i should be getting them. Thanks for that, I should be getting my clothes I sent to the tailors today or tomorrow as well, so I should for sure be set for clothes by the end of the week, thanks for sending the stuff out I really do appreciate it. 

Anyways, keep up the awesome work, something cool I read this week in The Book of Mormon is found in Mosiah chapter 24. Really, just the whole chapter is cool but the very end is what I want to leave you all with today. We have all been lifted through trials and through struggles, the one thing we always need to remember is that it is only because of Christ and our Heavenly Father we made it through them. Nothing we can do will ever measure up to what they do for us. Always turn to them and give thanks just as the followers of Alma did. We must follow our leaders just as these people followed Alma, he was their prophet and they knew he was led by God who led them to safety. Our church leaders do the same thing, we must follow them, even if it is across the uncharted plains, into the desert, or across oceans, they are men led of God who will lead us into the promised land. We must thank our Heavenly Father for this great blessing and all others.


21 Yea, and in the valley of Alma they poured out their thanks to God because he had been merciful unto them, and eased their burdens, and had delivered them out of bondage; for they were in bondage, and none could deliver them except it were the Lord their God.

22 And they gave thanks to God, yea, all their men and all their women and all their children that could speak lifted their voices in the praises of their God.

With much love and Appreciation;

Elder Amric Sobczak

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

Whoa....... March 24th

Woah, it is the last week of March, a quarter of the way through the year what the heck is going on with time!?!!?!?!

So this week, have a couple funny stories, the main one is last Thursday I auditioned for choir, mainly because I am pretty confident I am going to be a "tech" person, so I figured what the heck! why not? get involved see both sides of the audition... it would save travel stuff. 

Anyways in the audition and the guy running the whole mission choir thing is some actor who has been in the Bible videos. He has us all warming up and after about 10 minutes he looks at me asks me what my name is I tell him and he has me start the song, I didn't do to hot because the bass part was high, anyways after like 10 seconds, he asks; "Is your name really Elder Slapcheck!?" Everyone of course starts laughing and I am like "No it is Sobczak" and he says; "You see elders and sisters - singers must be able to sing as well as properly pronounce things (Making a crack at himself) then says; "Elder Sobczak we are going to invite you not to audition for choir"! 

Oh man it was hilarious! ;) 

Then for the rest of the time I just got to sit in there and listen to everyone else auditioning and some good, some terrible and listen to the guy just beat up on the people singing.  It was not to good of an environment for a missionary to be in, you spend all day getting yelled at then you get picked on at choir by a church member so it was for sure a laughable, awkward non productive experience. 

Another funnny story was on Saturday night we went to a social gathering for old singles that were on the ward and in the stake. You see us as missionaries will go to any activity on the grounds there will be people there that will be nice and food to eat, maybe even people to connect with to eventually teach!  So we go, it is at someones house, actually the home of an ex-communicated member, who loves the church. The food is eaten and then all of a sudden a Karaoke thing is turned on and everyone is singing oldies from like the 60's and 70's. It was so weird ... weird I tell you, seeing 45-60 year olds singing and dancing in someone's living room singing to old songs with Karaoke machine!!!!

Those are my funny stories, the work is going good. This is the last week of the transfer so on Saturday we will all be finding out who is staying and going. Should be fun and exciting to see what will happen. 

Yesterday had the opportunity to interview a lady for baptism that is always a fun experience. Her husband has been a member for about 3 years and she is now making the decision to enter into the waters of baptism so it is always awesome to hear people's stories on how they got to where they are, experiences they have gone through, and lessons learned. 

Glad to be out here on the mission. Life is good and miracles really do happen every single day. Keep your eye focused on the little tiny blessings and IT WILL never seem like life is difficult hard or tuff!   Those things do happen, but it is dwelling on them that makes it all worse.

Keep up the good awesome work and do all you can to be guided by the spirit. 

Love you all so much and again thank you for all you do for me. 

Have a great week :) 

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

BAPTISMS and SEAHAWKS!

SubChecking in on Jan 27!!!! (get it?)

Hey hey family what is up!!! Oh man has this week been an interesting one. It's really just been an exciting one! The really Big thing to update you on is the baptism of the Gonzales family which was so cool!

The baptism was on the 25th of January so last Saturday and guess what...?
We filled the chapel with people. You would think it was a Sunday service of a small ward or branch it was so cool to see how many people showed up, just great awesome support from the ward.
Jesse the dad baptized all of them and then on Sunday I got to stand in the circle as they got confirmed, one of the Elders Confirmed Skylynn and the Home teachers Ken Bailey and Don Sand confirmed Christian and Carrie.  It was cool for Brother Bailey as he converted 4 years ago so he didn't get to confirm either of his kids as they were 14 and 10 when he got baptized and so that was his first confirmation, and guess what his oldest daughter Katherine was giving her mission farewell yesterday as well, so she got to see her dad confirm someone before she left. So all in all a very spiritual experience Saturday and Sunday. It was very cool to be a paret of all of it and see it go from start to finish.

working for a livin'!

In other news, well there is not to much in other news. The mission is going good. Work is back to the ground level and it is time to pick it up.

They be about served up!

Cool to see all of the stuff about the Gilbert Temple. They are telling people here to go to that, seeing as how it is about 5 hours away from Mission Viejo ... haha you could have come to see me haha! or not!

Anyways familia I hope all is well and that everything is going strong. Sorry for the short update as there really is not to much to update you on. Miss all of you. You ALL should WRITE ME! whats a missionary to do without letters!!!!?????? In case you've forgotten... Elder Amric Sobczak
23 Lake Rd.
Irvine, Ca 92604
(Ok so this is Mom reminding family to WRITE him)!

Also it hasn't slipped by me that it's Superbowl Week! I will be standing by my ward family for updates on the SUPER BOWL!  Go Seahawks!!!

I love you all thank you for the prayers and thoughts, they mean a lot. 

Keep up all the good work and miracles will happen. Love you!:)

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

Jan 20 ...

Hey hey there Family!!! How is everything going for you?? Today should be a better email than what I have done as It is MLK Day so no one else is really in the Library so here we go...

When we are baptized we make covenants

The Gonzalez Family had there baptism interview on Saturday which went really well. Carrie showed up and as soon as she came in she was like - oh man "I need to pay my tithing!" and went and grabbed a slip and was like I will just give this to bishop the next time I see him.

Tithe is 10% of your increase

Super awesome how she and Jesse are already committing to that and doing it...SO AWESOME they are so ready for all of this. They are in the final week now before the baptism which is making me stress out a little bit, but I know the whole ward is praying for them and they are committed which makes my worries go away.

Elder Madsen and I will have the opportunity to confirm them members of the church...yeah it should be really exciting. I have truly come to love this family and to see the change they have made these past three months, it has been amazing. It has been an honor to work with and teach them and to have them teach me as well. Saturday Starts the time line and then in one year they will be able to go to the temple to be sealed as a family for time and all eternity which they are super excited for. Hopefully I get back here...{Actually if I extend past Christmas I would still be on my mission when they hit their year mark...Actually...it would be the last week of my mission...hmm sorry that thought just hit me}. Anyways so they are doing great and are getting ready to make this step and covenant with the Lord.

 

This last week we also had the opportunity to stop by our friends the Pipitone's Sal and Joe...such and awesome couple. They are in their 80's and are kind of like my mission grandparents. Not members, we got their name off of a referral and we stopped by and they said we were an answer to their prayers and we were angels. They love us and we love them. She (Joe) wants to write us a check because of all we have done for them in this time of need for them. They are just awesome and are an old Catholic Italian couple. So that is them, keep them in your prayers, Sal is battling Leukemia is doing good, but can always use the prayers and thoughts. I mentioned to her that Elder Madsen and I could get moved away and she almost starting crying and said she was going to call President Orgill and tell him he had to keep me here hahaha! so we should see how that goes.

I guess I wore them out!

This past weekend was Stake Conference which was very missionary minded..very missionary minded. They showed tons of clips from the Hastening the Work of Salvation tab on Mormon.org which made it a little more interactive. The Stake President, said the members need to have the missionaries over weekly to have the discussions taught in their home. So that is awesome, and we already have members who are taking that challenge up.

 

The Dunhams have become in the top 3 of favorite families I have met on my mission. Die hard Seahawks fans and love the missionaries. Their son and I have become good friends, and they invited us to come to the baptism of their youngest daughter Paisley on the 1st February. I have gotten pretty close with them and love them dearly...and they give me all the sporting updates and we already have plans Parker and I to watch the superbowl next year when I am not a missionary hahaha!

The work out here is going awesome!!! I love being a missionary and everything is starting to come together. It has been a blast learning all that is out there. Friday we had a 6 hour training from brethren from the Proselyting Division of the missionary department in SLC. Quick notes from that ... Ipads should be coming within next 3-5 months... hopefully he said, anyways he was going to recommend our mission to get them. 90 million people in the US want to meet with missionaries of that 9 million said they would get baptized this week. They just Don't know where to find us or are confused by the craftiness of men. We learned a new way to teach the first couple of lessons which should greatly increase our effectivity as we teach. 

All is all awesome things are happening. My favorite scriptures as of right now are in 

1.   NT 2nd Cor. 9:6

 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall ^areap also sparingly; and he which ^bsoweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

 and 

2.   2nd Nephi 9:50-52 

50 Come, my brethren, every one that ^athirsteth, come ye to the^bwaters; and he that hath no ^cmoney, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.51 Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your ^alabor for that which cannot ^bsatisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and ^cfeast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness. 52 Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God; pray unto him continually by day, and give ^athanks unto his holy name by night. Let your hearts ^brejoice.

So...study those and let me know what you think. I love you all and you all mean the world to me. Keep up the awesome work and stay safe in everything you do. Keep awesome and stay classy!!:) 

Love you all Church and Gospel are true and Remember - the Gospel is Perfect!! 

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014