Pictures from Warren, Ohio with first companion Elder Trammell

I made it to Ohio!

Then I went to PA!

 Elder Trammell & Elder Furtney

 Nice hairstyle

 Highway patrolmen or missionaries???

 Can't touch this

Flat Tire...

 The rivalry

October 25

Hi Mom and Dad,

Its great to hear from you and that is so cool you were down in California with grandma, i bet she enjoyed it a lot. Its good to hear that she is doing so well and and i hope that she knows that i am doing great out here. Also its good to hear about Gordon, Kathy, Julie and Scott,  I hope they are doing good. I bet you enjoyed the trip.  How long were you down there for? Oh and one of the members told me about the troops leaving.  I was wondering if Eric was going to be home or not. Hopefully he is.  I bet mom would love to have one her sons back with her haha especially for the holidays. Well i hope he is able to come back.  That would be great and a lot less worrying about him. I am glad you like the pictures, there will be more coming soon.  We will be taking a lot today because it's Elder Trammell's last day in Warren and then he will be gone and i will have a new companion. This was a great week so far we were able to have some pretty great lessons with our investigators that we want to set baptismal dates with and we were able to find their concerns about what we were teaching. The only bad part about the week is we can't get Skylar and Tyler to get to church and so we are thinking about taking a break with them.  We will find out this up coming week. Actually this week i was able to learn a lot about asking questions and listening to find concerns as i already explained but i learned so much from elder trammell and it's sad to see him leave.   I am excited for my new companion. I hope he is able to teach me a lot as well. I will let you know what happens next week and who my companion is.

Dad,

I am glad you are getting the elders over to your good tan friend and trying to teach him. i hope all goes well. I hope you enjoyed your trip down to California before the winter comes haha. Its going to be interesting over here its starting to cool down a lot but the trees over here are way cool during the fall. But the snow will probably be here anytime soon I guess i will see. I have enjoyed my mission so far and I want to keep it that way, nothing from back home is going to distract me I promise. Well I hope you have a wonderful week and i love you all.

Love,

Elder Ryan Furtney

October 17

Hey Mom and Dad,

I am doing so good out here. We had a disappointing week because Skylar and Tyler didn't make it to church again but we have been teaching another family and they seem to finally want to except a baptismal date. Hopefully I will still be here if they accept it.  We have transfers coming up next week and mine and elder Trammell's chances of staying together are slim to none. Our week was pretty productive it was a week of a lot of service but we do have some new investigators that we are teaching. We don't know tons about them. We have just stopped by and said hi to them and set up some return appointments. Well that's pretty funny about your class, we see it a lot out here in Ohio how the world is more important than church and other things. I heard that Amy came over I got a few emails from Carmen and Lexi haha. They make me laugh.  They are so funny. Oh so i just put some pictures onto Facebook for people to see but I will send the rest back over there soon. Oh and don't worry I didn't have to sign on to Facebook so i didn't break any rules. haha. That's good your heard from Eric I am glad to hear that he is doing fin.  I hope his new mission won't be too bad but I will keep praying for him. That's so cool about Wesytn and Sheen.  I am glad to hear that they got their calls. I didn't know Sheen was planning on going.  That is so cool that he is.  I hope he is safe in Columbia. Oh and dad I have no idea what you were saying but thanks i guess. And I hope you know that when someone gives me a referral I am so excited. It's the best thing in the world when we get referrals because they will listen to us haha. I have loved my service so far and I love my family even more since I got out here. You are all great examples to me and I love you all.
Love,

Elder Ryan Furtney

October 10

Hi Mom and Dad,

This week is going good I pulled my hamstring playing football with some elders but other then that i have had a great week. Its not cold yet but it is suppossed to cool down at the end of the week and its possible that it will be snowing at the end of the month. I will go and check out dick sporting goods and see if they have any and then if not the UPS guy is pretty smart about keeping the boxes and not leaveing out in the open for people to steal. Well the halloween decorations are starting to show up around here and i think that its pretty funny. I guess on halloween we can only work during the day then at night we just have to stay at a members house tell we go back home to sleep. They must be scared that we will get jumped or something that night haha. I have been able to email carmen and i loved hearing from her she sounds like she is growing up more each day and I love the letter you sent me too thank you so much. I am glad that you and dad are still thinking about a serving a mission. The senior missionaires are great around here they help us so much and they are all so kind. Like elder holland said they bring a maturity to the mission that is so true. We actually have a senior couple in our district and we have been helping them move in and helping them learn how to teach because they only have a week at the MTC. But they are great people and i am so glad that you are still thinking about it. Well skylar and Tyler were not able to make it to church today tyler was pretty sick and didnt feel like going. So we pushed the date back to the 23rd but now their gradma is able to come to church more because she changed her work hours so she will start taking them now. I have been learning a lot from once i started to now and it is amazing. Love all of you and thank you for being great example to me i love both of you so much.

Dad,

Its great to here your humor over here in ohio. Long underwear looks good on me didn't you know haha. I would rather have a nice new pair then one from the DI just saying dad that pretty gross haha. I am glad you are still doing missionary work dad i really wish that we had member here that would do the same because that is where we get the baptisms its not from tracting even though that is good. I hope you keep handing out Books of Mormon to those you feel impressed to give them to. Member missionary work is amazing and like President hinkley said "There is no point to missionary work without the members" If the member dont help missionaries then those we do baptize will just fall away we need strong members to keep them active. I am sorry to say but we do not have to many lamanite brothers here it would be nice but i have not seen one yet I dont think they like the cold. Well thank you dad for all the good news and humor. I hope you know that my testimony is growing and I feel like i am learning so much everyday that i am out here.

Love,

Elder Ryan Furtney

October 3, 2011

Hi Mom and Dad,
This weekend was amazing, elder Trammell and I were able to watch all of the sessions and it was so amazing. Watching Elder Holland's talk was amazing it was another testimony to me that this is where I need to be and it gives me a greater desire to go out and work. It was great to hear from the Prophet and it is always nice to be able to have a good laugh from him and be taught so much at the same time. There were so many talks that I loved and I don't think I have ever been so into a conference before in my life. I took a lot of notes so that is probably why haha. We were not able to have the baptism yesterday Skylar and Tyler need to make it to church more often but we were able to talk more to their mom and we gave her a Book of Mormon to start reading for herself. We hope that she will have a greater desire to listen to the lessons and want to be baptized. That's so great that you were able to see Eric on Skype, I have been thinking a lot about him and I miss him a lot. Hopefully i will be able to skype on Christmas i don't really know yet but it is very possible. I wish that we had warm weather here the past two days we have had coats on and it seems to be getting colder but i think it should warm up again by the end of the week. Yesterday i was surprised it didn't snow though it was very cold but it was raining all day too. I got the boots and thank you so much for them. I haven't tried them on yet but i will tonight and I hope they fit. Oh so i guess my coat i have probably wont be thick enough for the winter but i will wait and see i will just buy one here so you don't have to worry about that but I will probably need money in my account so i can buy it. We have dinner most of the time with members but really only three families feed us at least once a week and they are amazing. The members here are way funny, we have been working with one of the 17 year olds in the ward and we have had a lot of fun with him he would be a great missionary he just has a lot of doubts and doesn't feel like he needs to go. We are hoping he decides to go, but it is his choice. Well the flu shots just came out and actually like more then half of our mission has had the flu, The last two weeks like every missionary was sick but it didn't hit us so its great here. President Sorensen actually just sent us an email recommending us to go get a flu shot but it has to be paid with our own money. Well i have heard from Brock and Matt but not Dillon yet, i sent him an email but nothing yet. It was great to hear from Matt I guess he is doing really well in Brazil so that is good. Well I am expecting another great week and it should be very good and productive week this week as well. I love you all and pray for everyone all the time.
Love,
Elder Ryan Furtney

sept 19 email

Hi Mom and Dad,
I have been doing great here in Ohio. It rains pretty much everyday which is really weird to me, i have never seen so much rain in my life haha. Its way green near the lake but once you get down near warren and those areas its still green but not as much as it is in Kirtland. Skylar and Tyler's baptismal date moved to Oct 2nd because of some family problems but their mom is thinking about taking lessons as well and hopefully being baptized with them as well. Im very excited for them. I hated having to move the date but we had to and they have been having a really hard time. That is so cool that Zack is going to England. We actually had a senior couple that is serving in that mission here last week with their daughter because they wanted to see their first grandson's baby blessing. They were so funny, they loved to see us and they feed us a few times. Also our ward mission leader served there on his mission, he finished 9 months ago but he loved it there. England is so cool, I'm pretty excited for him if you can't tell. He should start watching soccer and get into to that haha that is all they are about there haha. You will see the gnomes soon i just haven't taken many pictures for a while but i will start back up again. You will love my gnome his name is warren haha he is great. I think its funny but pretty much football is peoples lives over here, so I get an update from so many members about michigan. I don't watch games they just tell me how they did so its great I get to hear about my team all the time. I believe we go watch General Conference at the ward building or we go to a members house and watch it, but don't worry we will watch it. This week has been great and i have learned a lot. How is the family doing? Oh i was wondering what Dillon's email is and what Matt's email is, i can email them as long as they are not in my mission its ok haha. I haven't talked to Dillon in forever and would love to say hi to him. Well I'll try to send some pictures home in the next few weeks but not promising anything haha. Love you all and hope you have a great week.
Love,
Elder Ryan Furtney

sept 12 email

Hi Mom and Dad,
Its going great this week not to much has changed really. Elder Trammell and I are still together for another 6 weeks. Only one missionary left our district in these transfers so its not to bad. We are still looking for people to teach here but we have been doing a lot better we had skylar and tyler come to church this week which was great and we are setting three more baptism dates this friday. We have been doing a lot with less active members its been a huge push the past few months i guess and we had one come back to church last week and two others are planning on coming this week. The work is going great here we had a baptism for one of the other areas at our building on saturday and it was great to see him be baptized. We taught him a few times so it was almost like we did all the work haha just kidding we only taught two lessons, but he is a great guy and he was very excited. Thank you for looking i dont really know a mobile one would be a lot easier. The weather here has been cooling down a lot this week but only to the 60's about not to much lower. We have pretty much been getting rain every single day its pretty surprising I have never seen so much rain all at once. We dont get to much time to shop around here its hard to ever find time. If you could it would be great if you could send some stuff I probably wont need it until october i guess thats what everyone has told me when it really gets cold around here. Thats pretty cool jesse actually got a girl to say yes to go on a date with him haha. No but that is cool hope he has fun at homecoming thats always a fun dance. I hope to see some pictures of jesse in the BMW. Thats way cool that westyn sent his papers in im way excited for him it is an amazing experience out here, and there is nothing like it. I don't think i ever thought of the gospel in the ways that i have out here. The plan of salvation is one of the most joyful things in the world and it brings so much hope and peace to those who except it. Well hopefully eric gets sent home early that would be great, and then mom you would only have to worry about me haha. My testimony has grown so much since i got out here and i love the gospel so much. Actually this week i have been thinking a lot about grandpa and it has been nice. I always feel very calm and happy when i start thinking of him, and it helps a lot when im feeling down about that day. I have learned so much about this gospel and how much it blesses peoples lives. I love you all hope you have a great week im planning on having one haha. Oh also mom tell Lisa I loved her letter, i just can't find time right now to write back but i will. It was great to hear about matt i hope he is still doing well in Brazil.
Love,
Elder Ryan Furtney

Hey Mom,
Thank you for the email its always good to hear from everyone back home. How has school been so far for Jesse, it just started here so I have been wondering. So like four days ago there was this crazy storm at like 2 in the morning. There were a bunch of tornado sirens going off but nothing ever hit, but the cool thing was the lightning storm that was going on the whole time. It was like those ones that every second a bolt is coming down so for like an hour or so it was very loud thunder and also lightning keeping it very bright the whole time. But I really didnt care and I fell back asleep like instantly cause I was tired. But dont worry Elder Trammell couldn't fall back asleep so he would have woke me up if a tornado did hit so I was safe haha. But I thought it was pretty cool and right now we have been getting some storms from the hurricane but it passed through pretty quick and it didnt do to much here. So thats great that you and dad did some service out in the heat. Edler Trammell and I have been doing a lot of service out here and its usually always very hot here. Ya our little mishap was a pretty great experience and pretty much every missionary that is near us have been making fun of us. Oh that bird is named Katie and it is hilarous. The bird belongs to a less active member and we have been teaching her grandkids and they have a baptismal date set for Sept. 25 so thats pretty cool. But that bird is hilarous it freaks out when it sees us because it gets so excited. So I bought the best thing in the world and you will probably just think I'm crazy for buying it but its worth it. I bought a Michigan Gnome haha its in all of the pictures I have taken just so you will know. If you didnt see Elder Trammell has an Ohio state gnome so we have a little rivalry its pretty funny. Thats so cool that Jordan Comstock is going to Hondorus he must be pretty excited. Well so far we have just been teaching a bunch of different lessons and such but mostly the Resoration and the Plan of Salvation. I have been learning so much since I got out here and its pretty crazy. In fact we went to early morning seminary and I learned that there are some scriptures that are scripture masteries that I never knew of haha that shows how much I paid attention. Well so far its been a great the past week... actually this next week we could have at least two new investigators that are friends of YSA people so we are pretty excited. Our mission is starting to focus more on YSA so we teach a bunch of people near our age and its a lot easier to teach them then someone that way older then both of us but we still teach them as well. Oh also we have a mission confrence On tuesday and Elder Nash is speaking to us so I cant wait for that.

Oh also mom could you send me some email addresses. Like Julies and Grandma Herrin, and any other family emails you might have. That would be great if you could do that for me, I havent been able to write to anyone really other then Aunt Penny. Also just say hi to everyone from me.

Love,
Elder Ryan Furtney

Hey Mom,
Well first off, Elder Trammell is from Pocatello, Idaho. He is a great guy and we are always joking around with each other, its pretty funny. Well I cant remember all of your questions so I will try my best to remember but I'm sorry if I miss some. So Warren is a great city - not to big but it is big enough. There is alot that happens here. Its kind of a run down city, but its nice and i love it. Most of our investigators live way out side of Warren though. So yes we have a car because our area is pretty massive and it takes about 40 minutes to get to the edge of our area and its mostly farm country. There are a few Amish in this area so its funny to see them we have taken a few pictures of them but we have to be pretty secretive about it or they just get mad and want to kill us haha. But I have a pretty funny story about our car that happened on thursday.Well first of all our car is a Toyota and there is always problems with that haha. I think you can kind of guess what will happen just by what kind of car it is. Well anyway, we were driving home from doing service for a nonmember when all of a sudden our battery light pops on and we were a little confused. But then all of a sudden all the lights turned on and we lost power steering. We call our vechile cordinatoor for the mission and he told us to get it to a shop that was near us. So we start driving again and the RPM's are freaking out and we couldn't get past 20 MPH's cause the car is pretty much just dying. once we are about half way there all of a sudden our brakes went out and we could slow down but it would try to go by itself as well so it was a little freaky. But we made it to the shop safely and got it in the shop but we were told it would take a least a day to fix. So we walk home which was about 4 miles away from the shop which isnt to bad but when we got to our place we remembered that our keys for our place were on our car keys. So ya we were locked out for about an hour before someone came to let us in to our place. Then we get a call that we wont have a car for at least a week haha. But our day was far from over at this point. We still had a lot of time to go do stuff so we went to vist a part member family that was a little bit far from our place but we had bikes so we were good. But we locked our door thinking that we had a spare key but also left the back door cracked as well. Well... When we got home we found out the key didnt work and back door was actually closed.... Ugh. So we were trying to call everyone that could let us in and we could not get a hold of anyone. So we got there at about 9:30 and started calling people we finally got a hold of someone at about 1015 and they couldnt get us in so they started calling people for us. They got a hold of the apartment manager at 11:15 and they live like 45 minutes away so they drove down and let us in. By that time in was pouring outside and we were just hanging out under our garage area. And we got in at a little after 12 which sucked a lot. But we learned a lot that day. First lesson was to never forget your keys and also test all the keys you think work. Then second, people in Warren after about 10:30 never have shirts on. I'm not lying about this, there was not one person we saw who didnt have one on and im pretty sure more than half of them were either really drunk or high so it was pretty funny watching them. Well thats my story of the week haha it was just fantastic. Oh and the next morning our mission president called and made fun of us for like ten minutes and then he said the assitants were bringing us a new car so now we have a chevy malibu. But we were freaking out cause our place was clean but not at its best so we were cleaning everything that morning haha. Well hope you dont worry too much about me, we are usually very safe here in warren actually all the time unless our GPS wants to lead us into the ghetto then we dont feel too safe. Well hope you enjoyed that story it was pretty fun other than being way tired the next day. Well I am loving Ohio and having a great time. I havent been too homesick so dont worry about me. I work so much I don't really have anytime to think about much so I dont get too homesick ever. Well I love you all hope you are having a great summer and enjoying it.
Love
Elder Furtney

Hi Mom,

I'll be looking for the box hopefully I can get it but it might be hard. Hopefully Matt is doing okay and Lisa too. I think he will be fine. I will pray for him. I have been working very hard and we are just trying to get new investigators as much as possible. This area was kind of dead when I got here but we are teaching a mom and her two kids and we invited them to be baptized and they said yes so we just have to teach them some more and get them to church. They are way funny and have been very nice so far. Also we have been trying to teach another mother and her kids as well but she is always pretty hard to find haha. We have been working with a lot of less actives but they are pretty stubborn but always love to listen and talk with us. The ward is pretty small but we are being fed pretty much every night so I'm happy. The only real hard part so far is getting people to care and actually want to keep commitments. But other then that most people will talk to us and are usually kind there are a few who will yell at us but they are usually high or really drunk so its pretty funny. There is a massive falcon that lives right outside my window so its pretty much like failure to launch all over again cause the bird has the screech of death. Its not crazy over here but I'll just say I have stumbled onto the ghetto more then once and actually have talked to a few gang members so its been great here. Also in Cleveland our car got broken into and they stole our gps which was pretty funny but thats just how it is. Well I am still having a great time and im sending some pictures to you in the mail. Also at Christmas I'm supposed to be able to skype so you should talk to ari about that and try to set something up so I can talk to you on skype, but I will have more info later I don't really know yet. Also thank you dad for the post on the blog its great to hear about things back home. Hopefully your not letting Jesse drive yet haha. Well I just want to thank you for all and day for all the stories you told me about your mission, it helped a lot. Well I love everyone and love to hear how everyone is doing thank you so much.

Elder Furtney

Made it to OHIO

Hi Mom,

Ohio has been amazing so far. I was only in Cleveland for about a day. It was very humid in Cleveland but not where I'm at its only slightly humid. Kirtland was so amazing, we had a tour of the temple and Karl Anderson gave us some pretty amazing experiences. Karl Anderson is the Church's main historian for Kirtland and he wrote a couple of books about Kirtland. He was amazing though and there was such a strong spirit in there, it was like being in all the other temples. But they brought us up to Joseph Smith's office where he recieved a lot of the revelations in D&C and the feeling of being in a room where God and Jesus Christ were is just crazy. The spirit was so strong in there and I loved it. Then after the temple we went to the whitney store and that was so cool as well. The School of the Prophets was so cool I loved the entire experience and I recommend it. I cant download my pictures today I left my camera at my apartment but I will do it next week. My compaions name is Elder Trammell and he is from Idaho. We have tracted alot but not much comes from it here. We have had about 14 lessons in the 5 days I have been here so its been great so far. Its good to here about Eric I hope he is doing well and hope there are more updates from him. Well I need to write a letter to my mission pres before my time runs out but I love you all and hope you have a good week.

Love Elder Furtney