First Day in the Mission Field: Riverside, California

President and Sister Smart with arriving Elders in California

Elder Higgins and trainer/companion Elder Littlewood

Welcome Dinner at Mission President's home Riverside, CA

California Here I Come!! New Address

Elder Higgins called home from the Salt Lake airport Tuesday morning, November 27th!!  He was happy and excited to be on his way, good to hear his voice!

Today, November 28th, his mission president's wife Sister Smart called to report that he made it to Riverside safe and sound with a smile on his face :)

Elder Higgins writes in a email today:  "It was good to talk to you guys yesterday!  I had a safe flight into California and met my president and my new companion.  It's been really good so far.  My new companion is Elder Littlewood from Idaho.  He seems really nice!  Yesterday we had orientation from all the mission staff, they are wonderful.  I had to pass a driving test with the presidents assistants and we stopped at a gas station and they had me talk to some people there, it was pretty crazy.  No one really wanted anything to do with religion, well, not yet.  I'm gonna find some though, if anything those people at the gas station made me more excited to actually find some people.  We are going to do some tracting later and Elder Littlewood set up some appointments for tonight.  It's warm in California and I love all the palm trees and I see orange trees everywhere.  Riverside is absolutely beautiful!! I'm serving in Riverside."


New Address (letters): Elder Jordan Higgins
                                      2700 Iowa Ave. #57
                                      Riverside, CA 92507


Packages to Mission Office: Elder Jordan Dale Higgins
                                               California Riverside Mission
                                               5900 Grand Avenue
                                               Riverside, CA 92504

Final MTC pictures Elder Higgins provided the captions!!

Name Tag and Scriptures (A powerful duo)

 

M.U.G.S.H.O.T.*Check out the tie knot*



Listo (translation "ready")




The New "Hang out Place"
 

 

Symmetry (A pattern of Heaven & Earth)

The wind chill factor (I'm glad California is warm, I could jump for joy)

(This is) My Jump for Joy!

Prancing in the fields is way better....I can't "prance" like I used to

This was supposed to be a cool picture, but it's not

More MTC Highlights/Thanksgiving

Some MTC Highlights......general conference here was amazing, playing a game called "travel agent", P-Days at the temple, eating breakfast at the temple, seeing friends from Riverton here, being a district and zone leader, letters from friends and family back home, being a new missionary host, testimony building experiences......

Thanksgiving at the MTC

We had a pretty crazy "black friday moment" except it happened thanksgiving morning.   Rumors started flying around the MTC that Elder Holland was coming to speak to us on Thanksgiving morning.  I don't know how it all got started but it seemed pretty legit because everyone was talking about it.  Well anyway, we got in line outside two hours before the doors opened, and we were not the first people there either.  It was pretty cold waiting there without a proper coat, but everyone was singing Christmas hymns, and I was talking to someone going to Massachusetts speaking Mong or something like that, really weird...But anyway there was a huge rush when the doors opened.  It was pretty crazy!  And sure enough Elder Holland came. He was so great!  He and his family did a whole devotional.  They were all really sweet.  Two of his grandkids bore their testimonies, and a grand-daughter sang, then he and his wife spoke.  He said he was adopting all 2,000 of us for the day as part of his "family".  He has the best perspectives on everything, I loved hearing from him!

This will probably be one of my most memorable thanksgivings ever, I might even say it has been my favorite as well, because I really celebrated all that I was grateful for and I have so much to be grateful for.... family, this gospel and the opportunity to be a missionary, prophets and specifically Joseph Smith and the amazing things he did as the Lord's servant.  I am thankful most for Jesus Christ and His love and sacrifice.  I have come to know Him in the MTC so much better and I love Him.

Pictures November 20, 2012

This is Elder Higgins in the MTC laundry room writing and email home today (November 20, 2012)!!

Week 8 Thanksgiving and Travel Plans

My understanding and my appreciation for this gospel has improved so much during my time here. It has been so good! I can't believe my time here at the MTC is almost over, and speaking of that I got my travel plans this week!  My travel plans weren't anything crazy like some of the missionaries here. Some of them have 3 or 4 connecting flights and it takes a day or so to get where they are serving. Nope, not me. I just have a 1 and half hour flight to Ontario, CA, but hey it was enough to get me excited! I report to the travel office at 5 in the morning on Tuesday, November 27th, and my flight leaves at 8:45.  I only have a week left here. It's crazy! We only have 3 more normal days with classes, which is wild because i feel like there is still a lot to learn about everything. Thursday is Thanksgiving, and then we have In Field Orientation on Friday, which is an all day thing. That should be exciting. The Thanksgiving day schedule is really nice. We have a service project, and a devotional from a general authority (most likely an apostle from what we hear) and then some more program type things. It should be really nice. I hope you guys have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I will miss the fried turkey legs.  Yeah I'll miss that, and the mashed potatoes! Oh, it all sounds so good! Oh, and I'll miss you guys as well. I already do! So just know that as you are eating and know that I'm thankful for all of you guys as well, and that I'm happy here, and I'm in good company,  2,000 or so missionaries is pretty good company don't you think? I think so too! But yeah tell everyone I love them, and to have a happy Thanksgiving!

Too Funny Not to Share!! MTC Stories....

November 6th Letter mailed home...

Elder Harris and I got locked out of our room this week right after we showered.  Neither of us took our keys into the showers with us and Elder Carpenter, a Elder in our district, shut our door.  It was pretty terrible!  It was in the middle of the day right after gym and we had to get ready for class, but we were stuck in the hallway with only our towels and couldn't get in.  So we had to call the front desk and they told us to come to the main office and get a spare key and we told them, "that's a problem!" and why it was a problem.  We ended up sending one of the kids from our district to go get the key for us, luckily they were still around.  We were late for class and it was pretty embarrassing!!
Anyway I thought it was kind of a funny story....

Another funny story....  One of the Elders received this Darth Vader bobble head that speaks when his head is tilted one way or the other.  Someone gave it to him in a box, but anyway Elder Harris taped it on the door frame in our classroom and when the door would close the Darth Vader toy would speak.  He thought it would be funny to see when the other Elders walked in after us.  Well, we forgot it was taped up there and later our teacher walked in and Darth Vader spoke.  That was all good, he kind of laughed but didn't take it down.  He started his lesson and then another teacher came in to observe, there goes Darth Vader again.  Every time the door would open we would all cringe, and we had so many visitors come to our class that day.  We all felt pretty immature, but it was funny afterwards.  At the time it was really terrible!!  Our teacher would be saying something spiritual, the door would open, then we'd hear "JOIN ME AND TOGETHER WE CAN RULE THE GALAXY!"  Just imagine that!! Finally one of our visitors took it down for us...oh it was crazy!  Usually we don't have that many people come and go.  I love it here!!

Week 7 MTC

Hey Everybody!

 

I'm doing awesome at the MTC still! It's getting pretty cold, which makes me want to leave for California even sooner. I'm doing the same old stuff. Learning about the Gospel, and how to teach it, and trying to speak Spanish. I feel like I understand most everything that is said in spanish now. Elder Harris and I had to teach our 1st 40 minute TRC last week. TRC is where we go and teach members a lesson. They have volunteers come and we teach them. (In Spanish of Course) This week we taught a Hermana from Ecuador, and her daughter. They moved here from Ecuador 5 years ago. So believe me when i say they spoke spanish pretty quickly, but we were able to understand her and teach her effectively for 40 minutes. She said we could understand her really well, and said that it was a miracle. That kind of hit me when she said that, because it really is! 6 weeks ago when i stepped foot into the MTC for the 1st time I knew nothing about this language, and I never thought I would be able to teach, and just have a conversation for 40 minutes, and do it in a manner where both parties understood one another. It is so cool! She was really funny. She talked about her garden for a while, and I thought about Jeremy and his garden. I even shared with her how our countertop would be overfilled with tomatoes from his garden. It was funny! We usually figure out how to say things using our Gospel vocabulary. So i think i ended up saying something about having a "mesa con la plentitud de tomatoes" which is like saying, "A table with the fulness of tomatoes" I only knew how to say that because our church contains the fulness of the Gospel. So thank goodness for that! Hope everyone is doing well!

 

Thanks for everything! Love, Elder Higgins

Missionary Bear......

This bear will represent Elder Higgins while he is gone.  He will attend all family functions, holidays...Thanksgiving, Christmas who knows he may even get a Valentine!  I am sure he will find his way into many family photos....

More MTC pictures!

"We got haircuts. We told them as short as they'll let us. Crazy!"

MTC Week 6 Letter

Well we had to say goodbye to one of the districts in our zone last night. It was really cool to get to know them, and see them off. It got me excited to go and start my real mission in California. They are going to Mexico. Our district is the oldest now, and I'm a Zone leader now. It will be fun! We get to give all the new districts in our zone a tour and teach them about companionships and train them on the computers and everything. We get a new district of 12 elders this week, and we'll see how it goes. Our district gets to be hosts (welcome new Elders as they get dropped off) this week as well since we are the oldest in our zone. I'm really excited! It will be something new for us to do.

I'm still learning a lot! We focus on conversion of course, and how to get people to experience it. It's really cool. Most of the conversion will come from the commitments we will extend, because that is how they exercise faith. It's our job to get them interested, and spark their desire to do the commitments, and to recognize the Holy Ghost, and the blessings that will come from it. I'm excited to teach real investigators and see how it all works out.

Well nothing too new here besides what I've already shared. I just got back from the temple. I love it there. It's one of the things I look forward to most each week. We get to hear another general authority tonight, and as always, I'm excited. I wonder who it will be?  This is the Lords mission, not mine. The more I accept that, the greater I feel as a missionary. On Sunday one of the mission leaders talked to us about our name tag, and the power it brings. I feel bold every time I put it on!

Love, Elder Higgins