April 18, 2016 The Life in Ocean Springs

Hows It Going,
This week in Ocean Springs was a good one! Especially because things
with Makala are still going good and we are on tract for her to be
baptized this Friday night which is awesome! Just have to get
her interviewed and it should be all set to go.  With spring break
happening this past week though, it was hard to see some of the people
we wanted to and so finding was really slow this week and some of our
investigators just kind of fell out of contact this week but we will
hunt them down haha.

We Got two new sisters in the District due to the sisters area getting
white washed and we got Sister Steadman and Sister May and they are
both from Idaho and from what I can tell, they seem pretty cool and
like they will be some hard working sisters which is what their area
needs.

Me and Elder Schliep got in  contact with two missionaries from the
neighboring mission and they are coming this Friday to train us and a
few more companionship's on how to teach our Family History class at
the library and how we can get investigators out of it and that will
make Friday a busy day for sure.

Just one cool thing from studies this week is in Preach My Gospel in
the recognizing the spirit section.  Lots of people sometimes stop
believing in god because they dont get the answers to their radical
prayers such as a new house or money or things of the world and I read
that God will be there to answer our Practical and Strengthening
prayers and so just make sure that when you are praying, that your
needs and wants arent selfish and that they are something that can
strengthen you and are practical to your needs.

I hope you all have a great week and thanks to everyone who emails me
and keeps me updated.  It means a lot!  Stay awesome y'all.

-Elder Crouch


Hey Mama,
The Krispy Kreme burgers were way good. Highly recommended! And this
week was a pretty quick one I guess.  But it sounds like you had a
pretty relaxed week.  Pretty jealous if I do say so myself.  We are
still working with makala and she is scheduled to be baptized this
Friday night but her interview is this Thursday so keep your fingers
crossed.  Things are going good with her.  She has had all of the
lessons and she is pretty solid so I dont think there will be anything
holding her back from it happening on Friday.
We got two new sisters in our District.  Sister Steadman and Sister
May, both from Idaho and they seem to be pretty cool.  Only have had a
few days with them so I don't really know too much what they are like.
But I was so pumped to see Elder Ah Ching come to the neighboring
district.  He is the asian looking guy in the picture with me Elder
Vest in the car on our way to service.  Thought i wouldnt see that
fool again but lo and behold he is in Biloxi haha.
We got fed almost every day this week which was awesome and that was
nice getting to talk and get closer to members of the ward.  There are
some cool people down here and everywhere we go now someone stops us
and talks to us because they always see us in town.  So benefits of
taking the long way to get somewhere if it means taking the most
populated way if that makes sense.
Other than Makala we are struggling finding some good solid
investigators.  We ran into a couple who study theology and are
interested in gaining knowledge about our religion but I do not know
about conversion so we will see next time we see them.  And our other
investigators we just could not get in contact with this week which is
kind of frustrating but it also was Spring Break this week down here
in Ocean Springs.
But we worked hard and this coming week will be much busier because we
are getting more training for the Family History class and we are
teaching the class and then we also have a baptism and a bunch of
service and so thats good (:  But i hope y'all have a great week and I
look forward to hearing back.  Love ya!
Elder Crouch

Krispy Kreme Burgers 

Some funny pictures of Elder Schliep

April 11, 2016 Staying in Ocean Springs

Howdy Y'all,
With the transfer ending, we got our transfer calls and me and Elder
Schliep are staying together one more transfer here in Ocean Springs
which is good because we are starting to see some success here in the
area!

We are working a lot with our Member Referral Makala and she is
getting ready for baptism and told us that she is excited for it to
happen and how its the beginning of a new chapter in her life.  That
baptism should be in the next few weeks so keep your fingers crossed
that everything goes well with her!

We went on exchanges with the ZL this week and I was mainly with Elder
Jensen from Las Vegas who plays volleyball and it was cool because me
and him basically had the same group of friends growing up we just
never knew each other.  Its a small world and we grew a lot and had
some good teaching experiences, including tearing up like 10 packs of
cigarettes to help a lady quit smoking. That was pretty cool.

We have been getting fed well by the members and should be getting fed
almost every day this week which is awesome.  I really like the
members here in Ocean Springs.

One thing that I really liked today in personal study was in chapter
one of the preach my gospel and it is on our purpose.  We as members
have the key to the celestial kingdom and we are trying to give out
free copies.  We need to teach boldly so that people keep commitments
and so that they can use that key and experience the blessings of the
kingdom.  So see how you can teach boldly and clearly.  I will work on
it as well.  I hope you all have a great week and cant wait to hear
back.

-Elder Crouch


Hey Momma,
This week was pretty good and I am glad that you had some cool
experiences with Emmas BDay and the check from Lally and then your
friend feeding some missionaries.  It is cool hearing experiences like
that.

First of all, we got our Transfer calls and me and Elder Schliep are
staying together for one more transfer so at least until May 22.  So
this transfer we will have mothers day calls and my birthday which
will be sweet.  We are in our new apartment. Wanna know the best part about
the apartment.... i dont get cut off in the mirror because its huge in my bathroom haha

the exchanges with the ZL was cool.
I was with Elder Jensen and he is from Vegas as well and we have like
the same group of friends and he plays volleyball and we even played
against each other without knowing it so that was pretty cool to
figure out.  Today we will probably be playing football with some
missionaries in Biloxi and that is about it.  Eating dinner with the
Chelsey family having Krispy Kreme bacon cheeseburgers.  Totally
excited for that one.


We Have been teaching Makala lately and frequently and she is ready
for baptism for sure.  She told us that she is super excited to be
baptism and how it is not the end it is just the beginning of a new
chapter of her life so we will be teaching her a few more things and
have her baptismal service probably April 22nd or 23rd.  So baptism
number two for Elder Crouch is coming in the near future.

We have also been teaching Brett but he isnt keeping commitments and
that makes teaching hard so hopefully things will change soon and he
will see the importance of the message in which we teach.  We didnt
get a chance to teach Arty lately but we will try to establish contact
with him as well.
The ward here is being way awesome.  They are feeding us every day
this week which is sweet and a family just moved here from vegas which
is pretty cool.  I am glad that I am staying. The two sisters that
were in my district though are leaving so the missionaries we work
with are totally changing on us which is crazy but oh well.  change is
good.
I hope that you all have had a great week and have a good week coming
up.  It will be awesome chatting and cant wait to do so.  Love ya!
-Elder Crouch

With Elder Jensen from Las Vegas

Town Hall in Ocean Springs 

My big mirror

April 4, 2016

Hey Everybody,
I hope that you all got to enjoy General Conference this weekend and
if not, I hope that you are able to read and or listen to the talks
given.  It was a really good General Conference.  My favorite talk was
the Saturday morning session with Kevin R Duncan talking about
forgiveness because that is the hardest thing to do sometimes...
forgive... but when you can do it, you can have the spirit with you
and be so much closer to Christ.

This week we were able to move out of our older apartment and into the
new one and it is way nice having two bathrooms and also a washer and
dryer.  As a missionary, you cherish the little things and its way
nice.  We also turned into some chefs' this week and made some home
made deep dish pizzas and they were really good.  You learn to cook
some good stuff.

Thanks to the move we were really jam packed with cleaning and moving
things all week and so we didnt teach as much as last week but we
still did decent.  We taught Brett and hopefully by next time we see
him we can consider him a progressing investigator.

General Conference was really good and it was the first time in my
life that I have really watched all of the sessions and you get a lot
out of the words of the Leaders of the Church.  I hope you all got to
get something good out of this conference and that it is enough
inspiration to guide you through these next six months.

I did get to try Sushi for the first time this week and that was way
good and so thank you to the Meline family for taking us out after
Saturdays session!  I am really liking it down here in Ocean Springs
so hopefully when we get transfer calls Saturdayy, its good news
that I am staying.  But have a great week everyone and cherish the
words in which you heard this week.

With Love
-Elder Crouch


Hey Mama,
This week was a slower week because of the move.  We had to dejunk the
apartment for like two days.  You would not believe how much crap was
in the apartment.  So I am not going to miss moving the family to
Vegas that is for sure.  Moving sucks.  Dont look forward to moving
with my wife or whenever because I can guarantee that she will have a
bunch of stuff to fill the closets. But i am now glad that I am in the
new place.  It is really nice having a washer and dryer in the
apartment.  Makes things so much easier.  And we have two bathrooms
and that makes it easier.

The New address is:
216 Dominion Drive
Ocean Springs MS 39564

I sent Emma a birthday card and it will be on that as well.  And i am
pumped that I am getting a pretty decent return.  That will be nice to
add to either of my bank accounts.  That will make next summer nice
because I already know that these white shirts will get wrecked!!!

It looks like you had a fun weekend however.  I am jealous of the BYU
game.  That would have been an awesome game to go to and the canes
looks good.  I havent been in like a month.  I went to that art museum
my senior year on a field trip and it was pretty cool seeing some of
the big named artists on the wall so that makes it awesome to go and
see.

We watched conference at the church, all the sessions, and that was
the first time I have watched them all.  There was some good stuff in
there.  I learned quite a bit.  And members fed us after every
session.  One of the sessions, we had sushi and it was my first time
and that was so dang good.  I am kind of craving another yum yum roll
haha.  But thats all we really did this week.  Nothing too exciting.
I hope you all have an awesome week this week and cant wait to hear
back.

Love ya
Elder Crouch

Letter of Thanks

Hi there!
Look who we had over for dinner! Just wanted to share with you that we have enjoyed your son's fun spirit  in our ward. We had him over this week for dinner and spiritual thought with a less active family Who live next-door to us. Then we saw them out Saturday evening and decided to bring them some pizza. Your son is a delight and we look forward to getting to know him better.  May your days be showered with blessings and your lives full of joy as he serves, thank you for your sacrifice!
Love,
The Holland family

Monday March 28, 2016

Hey Mamma,
Happy Easter.  We have had a pretty slow week because of a lot of
meetings and what not.  We had a decent turnout this Saturday for our
Family History class.  We wont be teaching that again until the end of
Next month, which will be close to my 7 month mark... kind of weird to
think about but times moving pretty quick.  And May 8 is mothers day
which means skyping which should be awesome as well. But anyways haha,
We also did a lot of service.  A lady in the ward named sister
Lippincott has a 100 acres of land and so we got to do service over
there and I was in charge of the weed wacker and had to mow down like
2 foot tall weeds over a quarter acre, and so I couldnt really see
where I was stepping and I stepped on a red ant hill and they climbed
all up my legs and bit my legs like crazy so it looks like I have
chicken pox but they are calming down now and hopefully it isnt
chiggers as well but if it is, I am sure I can handle it.  Its only
annoying occasionally.
We have been teaching Makala and a guy named Brett.  Brett is in a
wheelchair and has only one leg and has something wrong with his vocal
chords and talks like he was smoking ten packs for twenty years but
hes a cool dude and listens to us teach the gospel is nice.  Makala is
who is really progressing.  She is taking the lessons regularly and
coming to church and so she should be baptized within a month is my
guess and her friend who is a priest in the ward would probably dunk
her.
I did hear about mitchell.  Washington DC.  That is such a dang cool
mission.  I am really jealous.  He will do awesome.  I know it. What a
stud.
We had a good easter.  We had a crawfish boil with the members named
the Doyles.  They are a young couple and probably my favorite in the
ward.  In August they said they are going to visit their family in
Vegas, so i said they should stop by and say hi and they said maybe
you would want to go to the temple with them and so that could be a
cool experience for y'all.
Other than that we had a meeting on thursday where they put these
boxes in our cars that tells the president where we are at all times,
if we speed we lose our driving privelages and its basically big
brother for our car.  Kind of sucks.  But i am not to worried about
it.  I am a good driver anyways.
But thats about it for me.  Hope you have a great week and cant wait to chat.
Thanks for the package by the way.  Loved  the Photo Album.
Love ya
Elder Crouch