May 3, 2011 - Been REAL busy this week

Its been a pretty good week. we had sharries baptism on saturday. it went really well. something funny that happened is after Elder Pickett baptized her she came out of the water and looked at him and said "what no kiss?" bishop harris and I started laughing our heads off. on sunday when we had her confirmation our Ward mission leader confirmed her afterwards i leaned over towards bishop who was in the circle behinde me "pucker up Elder Pickett." Bishop and I started to laugh a little bit. i really like bishop harris, he's the guy we work for on his cattle ranch alot. i know i promised billions of pictures of my companion and I branding but we got there about 6:30 in the morning and Bro Wright (Gil) said well elders we got about 80 babies to brand, castrate, and vacinate, and i think were going to rebrand, tag, and vacinate all the mama's. he then asked when do you boy's need to leave i told him that we have a baptism at 2 o'clock. he said well we better get started then so Gil and his son jake jumped on the japanese horses (4 wheelers) and went and pushed them all into the corral. then came the hard part seperating mama's from babies...... Gil handed a thick stick painted bright orange and said "didn't you grow up with cows?" i said my grandpa had some but ive never really "worked with them." he looked at me and with a smile said well you gotta put on your big boy pants sometimes. so we started seprating we pushed everything into a big pen and Gil said to push them to the gate while he had the hard job of letting mamas out and keeping babies in. but we got it done and then his son in-law backed up the trailor and we "gentlely" pursuaded them to get in. and then he pulled it around into the barn and he handed me a laso and asked do you know how to rope? i said nope he looked at me and laughed and said boy what are you good for? i grabbed the rope from him and said show me and ill teach myself. he said i have $20 in my pocket that says that my daughter jaenae can rope better than you. i looked and said so all i have to do is get the rope around there neck and pull them out right? he said yep thats it he said nothing about me actually roping them. so i ran in the trailor and just put it around there neck and pulled them out and then gil showed me how to throw them on the ground by myslef you take the slack of the rope thats around there neck and wrap it around there rear hooves and pull. then Elder Pickett got to hold them down while they got branded. it was alot of fun but we had no time to take pictures. after the calves were done we had to do the mama's so jake and I pushed them into a shoot and i had a tazer thing i got to shock them in the butt. and then this shoot would squeeze there head and sides so that they couldnt move. it was kinda cool. but missionary work is starting to pick up. alot of people are starting to invite there friends to meet with us. Elder Pickett and I submitted an article to the paper about us and they printed it. it was sweet ill have to find the article. i had a member send it to you mom. but i love you guys
-- Elder Tyler Herring4380 So. Orchard AveSouth Ogden, UT 84403

April 26 - Counting my Blessings

pretty good weeks this week, were still waiting on a letter from the first presidency that K-lou can be baptized should be here sometime this week. one investigator were teaching Alex has to get all of his community service in before he can be baptized to bishop harris's on Saturday and him and elder Pickett pitched off hay while bishop, mark (bishops brother) and I were separating cows that had had babies and ones that hadn't. not to terribly hard except for when a couple of them want to get out and Im standing in between them and freedom, bishop had given me this cattle broad that had a plastic flag on the end of it and told me if they get to close to snap it. hahahah i think it scared me more than it scared them, it made an awful cracking noise that made my ears ring for awhile. but it took us about two hours to separate all 900 of them. yesterday we were working for this less-active guy in Thatcher taking a bunch of metal to the scrap yard to get money for it. it was really fun, we got to knock a wall out of his "barn" to get this giant milk cooler out. but we had a chain hooked to the bottom of it on the legs and he was pulling in out with his tractor, i was behind it telling him which way to pull and it got hung up on a chain that was dangling from the ceiling. by the time i noticed and was about to turn and run away it snapped and smacked me across the face right under my eyes. IM OK!!!!!! but i have theses things that look like blood blisters under my eyes and across my nose and my face kinda still hurts. i don't know how it didn't kill me..... each link was about and inch long. but afterwards i was like
"holy crap...... that hurt..... am i bleeding? no...... is my face broke..... feels like it wants to be but i think im ok." so i went inside washed my face and the less-active guy asked what happened i said that chain on the ceiling snapped and smacked me across the face. on the ride home i was reflecting what happened and how the lord had protected me. im grateful that he is mindful of all us, expecially his missionaries. but i dont know if i said this in the last letter but i started reading the book of mormon in chronological order and i got through ether and read about if the people that posses this land dont serve heavenly father they will be swept off the face of it. this past week i got through the introduction and the book of Mormon institute manual that puts what Im reading in plane English, so i take a long time for me to get through some of the chapters because one chapter usually has 3-4 pages of other reading in the institute manual. put in the introduction of the book of Mormon the prophet Joseph Smith said theses words that i love it because it's so bold:
“I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”
but this week we have two branding jobs one friday and the other saturday. I'll be sure to take tons of pictures, thanks love you all

pictures1:burning hot lava in town

2:geyser in the middle of town

3: funny sign i took a picture with

- Elder Tyler Herring4380 So. Orchard AveSouth Ogden, UT 84403

April 19, 2011 - Time to Brand

today our district decided to go hiking, we went into "the niter ice cave." we started about 12 and finshed about 2. it was really cool, there was ice everywhere..... i felt like i was in a winter wonderland. we attempted to start a fire, but there wasnt enough dry wood in there to get one started. yesterday it snowed..... again..... one funny thing happed though while we were pitching out hay elder pickett fell off the trailer and slid down this hill side about 12ft. when he made it back up the hill, i laughed at him and called him slip n' slide the rest of the day. one of thoses calfs died earlier this week that we found last monday. we had to herd all theses cows to a different field and instead of using calm and sense and walk across a bridge they decided to go through a river. bishop had to rope a calf and pull it back over before it drowned and we had to take him back and put him the "hot box" to warm him back up. he should be ok. on sunday our mission president came to the soda springs stake conference and was one of the main speakers. him and his wife both gave really really good talks. afterwards we were invited to have lunch with the stake president, president olson, and sister olson. it was really nice to have some one on one time with president where i could ask him some questions and pick his brain. before that he had to interview two of our investigators, k-lou and alex, they both passed. alex will be getting baptised on the 23rd and k-lou has to wait for first presidency approval..... she's on parole and her husband is in jail and awaiting trial for drug trafficing. but he still wants to be baptized!!!!! president olson just wants to see atleast a month of going to church and taking the missionary lessons before he comes up and interviews him. so hopefully everything will work out. wednesday we taught the soda springs high school seminary classes from 9am-4pm for bishop hegeman. we taught d+c 113-119 and then asked the kids who they could invite to meet with the missionaries. tomorrow we have to follow-up on all thoses invites alot of them sounded really really promising. this morning elder pickett and I went to the "hooper springs" which in naturally carbonated water!!!! it tasted like crap but i did bring some drink mix and put in with it and had carbonated lemonade. it wasn't half bad. i actually enjoyed it. but everything is going good i really like it up here. we got to go branding this last week for this less-active guy in thatcher. he said right when we got there just cause your helping me out doesnt mean that im going to come back to church, we kinda just shrugged it off and went to work. his wife pulled us aside and thanked us for coming and he invited us over this week for dinner :) so we'll see how it goes. our high councilmen over missionary work wants us to come out and help brand all his cattle this friday..... all 400 of them......... ive come to the conlusion that we do alot of service up here cause everyone is a farmer. hahaha i love it though ill be sure to take pictures this timelove,
-- Elder Tyler Herring4380 So. Orchard AveSouth Ogden, UT 84403