Week 32

Transfers took place Wednesday and my new companion is Elder Foster. He is only six weeks ahead of me in his mission. He is from Tri-City, Washington. This is his fourth area, so he has been spending on average only three months in each area. Elder Allred got transferred to Bay View so he is still in my zone.

We had 17 new missionaries this time around (or something like that, I can't remember the exact number). We are going to receive 33 new missionaries at the end of July. I heard that about half of the current missionaries in the PPM (Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission) have only been out for six months or less.

Things are slowly moving along in Wilmington. We are in finding a mode right now because our teaching pool is pretty low. We are trying to build that back up. We are trying a little bit of everything to find people who want to hear about the restored gospel.

I miss my dry heat!

Elder Bjerregaard

Week 31

This is the last week of the transfer, and Elder Allred is leaving. It was surprising to find out because he has only been here for three months, and the average is six. It is sad for him to leave because we got along really well, and we are going to miss each other. We thought for sure that we would have at least another one transfer together if not two.

We had a great lesson last week with Clay. We focused on faith and could really feel the spirit. He still doesn't feel like he is ready to be baptized, but he is getting closer to feeling ready and even gave the closing payer.

The District

Elder Bjerregaard and Elder Allred saw this picture at a church in Wilmington and had a good laugh.

Elder Bjerregaard

Week 30

Stake conference was this week and we got a new stake presidency. In one of the talks on Saturday, the speaker said that what we do on the Sabbath day should reflect what kind of sign that we want to send to Heavenly Father and The Lord.

I went on two exchanges this week. The first one was the normal district leader exchange which was fun. For some reason, the mission president wanted the district leaders at mission leadership council, so I was with Elder Jones, the companion for the other district leader in the zone.

The mission has been really been pushing for us to be more careful with our cars as of late. They already had to pull ten cars for one reason or the other. For most areas that have a car, the amount they can drive has been reduced. With the reduced driving though, the mission has a whole has been more successful at finding the honest seekers of the truth.

This is the last week for the transfer, but it has not felt like five weeks has already passed. For that matter it doesn’t seem like I have been out seven months. It stills feels like only a couple days ago that I was dropped off at the MTC to learn how to effectively teach the gospel. At the same time it seems like forever ago because of all the new experiences I have had. Anyway by this time next week, I will know if I will stay in Wilmington or if I am going to get transferred.

Elder Bjerregaard
#BecauseHeLives

Week 29

Why is it that when we get older, time seems like it flies? The longer I am out on my mission, the faster the time seems to go by.

I was asked to give talk for yesterday's sacrament meeting. The bishopric thought it would be a good way for the ward to get to know the missionaries better. I didn't have much time to prepare for it as I would like, but I think it went well. The talk was about how the scriptures strengthen our relationship with God. It was weird, I was having a hard time writing it and had to start over a couple of times, but in the end I thought it was really good. I do believe that the spirit helped to guide me. I don't think I could have done a better job by myself with the time I had.

We also helped the mother of one of our members to move hardwood flooring into her house. We didn't realize how big a job it would be, so we went in normal white shirts and ties. We wished we had our service clothes on instead. We literally helped move what seemed like over a ton of hardwood flooring. To "repay" us, they took us to a really nice restaurant for dinner. I am not sure if the member's mom would be interested in investigating the church, but she now knows who we are.

Elder Bjerregaard
#BecauseHeLives

Week 28

Is it just me, or are the weeks going by faster? Summer is only about a month away, and it feels like just yesterday that I had to put on multiple layers to stay warm. Now it is getting hard to stay cool. Such is life I guess.

Do you know that I don’t like the humidity? I think it is already high here, but people have been telling me that it is going to get even higher. Hopefully, it won’t get much higher! (Mom here—we don’t have the heart to tell him that it will get higher and will last until September.)

In priesthood yesterday we talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon. It does truly have the power to bring people closer to their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Last week’s district meeting was also about the role of the Book of Mormon. It is truly a wonderful book that I would encourage everyone to read. It was written for our day and the messages and principles it contains are of great worth for everyone.

We are going to have stake conference next week, and they are planning on calling a new stake president. Why is it that every ward that I am in, something interesting happens? My first week here and we got a new bishop and now we are going a new stake president. What are the odds of that? Whoever the new stake president is, I am sure that he is called of God.


We held a church open house yesterday after church. It was to start at 4:30 but no one showed up. We were about to call it quits when an investigator came. She really enjoyed it and is planning on attending church next Sunday to see how the church building is when it is being used. It was definitely was a miracle because if she came five minutes later, we probably would have everything put away and left, but now we might have someone who is interested in learning more about the gospel.

Elder Allred's picture taken May 11.

More greenery in Wilmington, Delaware

 Elder Bjerregaard

Week 27 - Happy Mother's Day

To all the mothers happy Mother's Day. I hope that all the mothers that are reading this had a wonderful day yesterday. I know my mom and Grandma did because we were able to Skype with each other. We can only Skype twice a year, once on Mother's Day and again on Christmas.

This was the first Sunday with my new bishop. I found out that he is a professional organist. It is going to be fun working with him as we work together to help bring about the Lord's work to the people in our ward boundaries.

We are not teaching very many people right now, so we have been doing a lot of street contacting. Some of the people we have talked to are drunk, so they say some of the funniest things. Sadly we have not found anyone interested in listening to the message we share, but I know that they are out there and if I try long enough we will be able to find the humble seekers of truth.

Wilmington is very green and a lot of the houses have a lot of trees nearby. It is wonderful to be able to see this much greenery since I am used to the brown desert of Arizona. I have really liked being on the East Coast so far, and I am looking forward to what else I can witness when I am here.

It is a wonderful thing to know that I am doing what the Lord wants me to do right now. I have always been told that if you make a choice before you have to, it is much easier to make the right one. I think it is the same way with my mission. If I had not made the choice beforehand, it might have been easier to follow the counsel and the wisdom of the world. The world would say giving up two years and totally devoting myself to serving the Lord was fool hearty. The world says that it would be better to go through college and start my career. I have chosen a better path and I am serving the Lord. I can already see some of the blessings of doing so, and I know more are still to come.

Elder Bjerregaard
#BecauseHeLives

Week 26 --New Area

My six month mark happened on Wednesday last week. It is odd to think that I have already been away from home that long already. It seems like yesterday that Mom and Grandma dropped me off at the MTC. It also seems like I just got to Reading and now I am in my second area.

Transfers were moved to Wednesday for some reason. They never did say why, but a lot of missionaries think that it so the goldens will know what a normal transfer meeting is like. What they have been doing is the normal transfer meeting was on Tuesday and the golden transfers were on Wednesday. Speaking of transfers, I have been transferred to Wilmington, Delaware. I had a feeling that I would be going to one of the other states in my mission, or that I would be in the Philadelphia area. One strange thing about Delaware is that it doesn't have any sales tax. That is one thing that I need to be getting used to, but I think it is nice because I don't have to think about the tax.

My new companion is Elder Allred. So far, he has only been in Wilmington for a transfers, so he still doesn't know the area all that well himself. Also, Elder Clark is in my district so that means that I get to go on exchanges with him because Elder Allred is the district leader. Elder Weisler is also one of my zone leaders, so I might get to be on exchanges with him as well. I wonder if President Anderson knew that the three of us were MTC companions or it just happened.

We have an awesome investigator. Missionaries have been teaching him for a while, and he has the light of Christ in him. He says he needs some more time before he can be baptized, but he is truly ready whenever he does decide that he is ready.

I hope that I can meet many other really cool people hear. From what I have seen of Wilmington, I really like it and can't wait to see what other people we can meet.

We got a new bishop Sunday. They even changed the time church starts to allow him to accept the calling. He has to work in the morning on Sundays, so they moved the start of church from 9 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon.

Elder Bjerregaard
#BecauseHeLives

Elder Bjerregaard with his new companion Elder Allred

They were given 20 pounds of rice and 10 pounds of chicken. This picture is courtesy of Elder Allred.