We received this letter in the mail today

Dear Brother & Sister Turley,

Your son, Elder T. Oliver Turley was recently called as a District Leader in the Massachusetts Boston Mission. Serving as a District Leader is a sacred calling that will require him to be at his very best.  In this position of trust, he is expected to lead the missionaries under his direction in all phases of the work, i.e. finding, teaching, baptizing, and the development of missionary skills and Christlike attributes.  In addition, he will help them improve through training and personal example as he serves with them in companion exchanges and district development meetings.  He is responsible, with the help of his fellow missionaries, in the training needed for their district to be effective at missionary work.  A District Leader sets the spiritual tone for his part of the Lord's vineyard.

Truly the Lord expects much from your son in calling him to this priesthood assignment.  He will benefit greatly from your prayers and encouragement while he carries these extra responsibilities.

I know Elder Turley is worthy to serve, and have the trust and confidence that he will move the work forward, and that many more souls will come unto Christ during his leadership.

We love your son.

Sincerely,
President Packard

The treacherous jungle of the city

So I have only taken like a single picture since we've been so ridiculously busy saving the souls of God's children. But today is P-day and I'll be sure to take cool pictures of stuff. 

It's been a little hard to take an active role in planning since I don't know anything about the area but I'm trying my hardest and I feel like it won't be too long until we've got the area down. Something of a change is that we take public trasnportation everywhere! It's all called the "T" but it could be anything from the bus to the train to the subway so it's been really fun to get a taste of that style of life. It's also a lot easier to talk to people when you're stuck sitting next to them for however long they're on the T. 

My companions name is Elder Corpus he is from Oregon. He's older than me by like two months but I came out a transfer before him so he's going into his second transfer and I'm going into my third. We hit it off pretty well and I think we're gonna be really good friends. We've already decided we're gonna work super hard!

We also have the most concentrated group of missionaries in the mission. We have a set of Elders and Sisters over the English ward and the same for the Spanish ward. The Portuguese group has two Elders and one set of Sisters. We also have a set of Haitian Elders and we all go to the same church building and cover the same area! We go to church at different times of course but it's completely different from my last area where the closest missionaries were an hour away. All in all there's like 26 missionaries in this area, and there's a ton of work here! It was a little overwhelming at first but things have been getting easier and it won't be too long before I feel comfortable navigating the treacherous jungle of the city. 

I'll be sure to include more details in my next letter but I've gotta go for now.

Elder Turley

P.S. My new address is:1 O'leary Way Apt. 93

Jamaica Plain, MA 02131

This is the last picture I took with Elder Stevens, he goes home at the end of this transfer. 

The Heart of Boston

Well I'm being transferred! As far as I can tell I'm actually going to be in the heart of Boston, not just one of the neighboring suburbs. I'm very excited and I'm certainly going to miss Elder Stevens and my District and the Zone but I know that there are big things in store for me.  In fact the ward I'm going to has three sets of missionaries so it looks like things are really happening there. It might pose some problems with the dinner calender though. I don't know my new address yet so hold off on sending me anything until next Monday. I also don't know who my new companion will be. I'll let that be a surprise but I am excited. 

I kinda figured I was gonna get transferred. I was really starting to feel really comfortable in the Pittsfield ward, I felt like I had enough knowledge and experience to really help get things going. I had really gown to love the people there as well. Especially with the new Bishop it seemed like we really could have worked well together and I was very excited to be able to serve with him but it wasn't to be & Boston will certainly be great. My companion & I along with a ward member, Jose Lu sang in church Sunday. We sang 'Let the lower lights be burning. '

I got to go on exchanges again with Elder Morgan on Tuesday which is always a good time. He is such a good missionary at balancing work with fun and hopefully I'll be able to pick up on some of that too. I stayed in the Pittsfield area with him because we wanted to see how I would do if I were theoretically introducing a new elder into an area. It wasn't hard at all and I thank God for that because every single one of our scheduled appointments fell through but it was still one of the busiest days we'd had. 

We also tried a hot wings challenge thing at the pizza place across the street from our apartment. It was so hard! The first wing actually tasted good but with each wing we could taste less & less and it only burned more. We had 10 minutes to eat 10 of them and he only ate 6. I on the other hand only had a wing and a half left so I felt semi accomplished. Our mouths were hurting for the rest of the night but it was worth it. We had some really good contacts in that restaurant. 

This is Elder Morgan that I went on splits with. He's our zone leader & he goes home in 2 days. The guy behind us is Elder Slade & he's from Heber, AZ & he is related to Mason. 

After that we went to try and teach one of our investigators and he lives in an assisted living facility which isn't a big deal but we normally try to meet in this semi-quiet room and say it's semi-quiet because it has a bird cage with a few parakeets. Unforunately it was apparently a field trip night and we had so many people stop in to see the birds so with each batch of people we had to stop and kinda change gears from teaching Steve to contacting with all these people so we really didn't get to teach him a lot but we had a lot of good potential investigators so all in all it was a good visit.

On Thursday we had an impromptu Zone Conference about where we wanted the mission to go since apparently not all the mission was on board for our goal of averaging 70 baptisms a month. So President got up and talked about consecration and miracles and faith and then we had a little bit of a Q and A adressing specific concerns. It was fantastic! So many people were bearing testimony about how great this mission is and what we can accomplish when we work together. My favorite part was when one of the new sisters who had only been here for like 3 weeks got up and said "I didn't know what Zion looked like until I got here". It really made me want to do my part to be a part of this wonderful movement. 

I've really been trying to figure out what I can do to be a more consecrated missionary. It's been a struggle for me because there are honestly so many things I know that I can do to be better but I also know myself and if I try to make all the changes at once I could very easily become overwhelmed and just give up. So I'm only working on one thing at a time in a sense. Of course I'm always trying to be better but I'm really focusing on one specific aspect of the work.

Thank you for all you prayers and encouragement. It's always a strengthening experience to get to read letters from home so thank you. Tell Jaron to write me because he has no excuse while he's laying around recouping from knee surgery. I'll be sure to start taking more pictures mow that I'll be in the thick of Boston. Don't forget to read up on those "knot Chapters" my personal favorite is 2 Nephi 2. It is so packed with doctrine and meaning. Go study it. 

Love,

Elder Trevon Turley

So I was able to take some pictures of this really cool historical mormon memorabilia that this really neat guy we do service for collects. So this is the first edition of the Doctine and Covenants which is not really the book we have today. Today all we have are the "covenants" from the doctrine portion. The rest was actually lectures by Joseph Smith on certain gospel topics. For example Joseph Smith's lectures on Faith which has actually been published as it's own book was originally included in this book.

This was orson Pratt's personal Book of Mormon although when he went on a mission with Hyrumn Smith, Hyrumn took the book and gave it Emma Smiths sisters husband if that makes sense. You can kinda tell by reading it but I thought that was pretty cool.

So this is perhaps the most historically important Book of Mormon known to exist today. This is Martin Harris' personal Book of Mormon. Some of the things that are significant about is that he signed it twice out of the six known Martin Harris signatures two are in this book. The other two were not by him. The book also has the only known writing of Martin Harris besides his signature and that is the word 'sealed" he wrote that on the page that supposedly talks about him which is pretty cool that he figured that out. 

Busiest day in the temples history

Well I have my camera but I realized that I forgot to take pictures recently so I'll have to be more on top of that.

 Things have really been starting to pick up around here and It's pretty exciting. We've been working with a lot of less active members and hopefully we'll be able to get some referrals from them in the near future. In fact all of our goals right now are focused on finding people. 

So I don't know if I've talked about this but we had a goal as a whole mission to get 100 recent converts to the temple with their own names in the month of december. We specifically set up the 27th to bring converts but really just getting them to the temple was important. It was the busiest day in the temple's history! It was so awesome to be a part of it. There was a chair set up beside the font and right after someone was baptized they would be confirmed right after. There were baptisms and confirmations going on at the same time and hundreds of people were able to receive the ordinance of baptism and confirmation because of their descendants who joined the church. It was truly remarkable and a huge blessing to be a part of. As missionaries we've been working on making our focus not just baptism but extending our vision to the temple. When recent converts are able to go to the temple they receive increased strength that will enable them to remain lifelong and dedicated members of Gods true church. 

We also got a new Bishopric this week which always is cause for excitement. In fact all the missionaries were supposed to get up and bear testimony about the miracles going on in the mission but we never had a chance. The whole meeting was the testimonies of  the former bishopric, the new bishopric and the stake presidency. But we already have a really strong friendship with the new bishop (Bishop Handfield) and last night we went over to his house and talked about what we can do as missionaries to help him. It says in preach my gospel to make sure that you're a blessing and not a burden to the Bishop and I feel that we can really get off on the right foot here and establish a relationship with the Bishop that can last longer than just my time here in the Pittsfield ward. I've talked a little bit about the Handfields in the past so hopefully youre already a little familiar with them.

We figure out if we're staying or going this Friday so hold off on mailing anything. I'll be able to tell you next Preparation day so just a heads up with that. 

Have a great week and remember to say your prayers and read your scriptures,

Elder Trevon Turley

Every wave of adversity whacks me closer to divinity

Well after I got off skype with you we had to leave the Bishop's house which is fine since they needed time to be with their whole family. We had nothing else to do since it's pretty hard to schedule things on Christmas day and it didn't feel right to just barge in on people so we wrote thank you notes/Christmas cards to people in the ward. When dinner time came around we had nowhere to go either and we really didn't feel like making dinner but we knew that there had to be a chinese restaurant or two open so we headed off to find one. Lo and behold tucked in the corner of a shopping center we found a seafood Chinese buffet! Boy was that an experience. To say that it was good would be a very generous praise. it certainly will be a memory that I will not soon forget. It was great however to see and talk to you all. 

During our cooldown time at night I've found something that is a wonderful stress reliever and I encourage anyone who finds a need to relieve stress to try what I have recently started doing. That is Crocheting! Yes indeed one of the sisters taught me how to do it and it has become very relaxing. I have already made a tie and I am working on a second one. 

We have been working to bring our two recent converts to the temple to do baptisms for their own names but things were just not working out. Everyone else in our district were going and we were pretty bummed that we weren't going to be there. At church that Sunday there was this new girl and she looked to be early 20's but I didn't really get a chance to talk to her. Anyway Bishop walks up to me and tells me that she's a former investigator and she's ready to be baptized so we got pretty pumped when we heard that but she looked way too comfortable at church to be a former investigator. With a little more investigating on our part we figured out that she was taught in Pittsfield, baptized in Boston and now she's back in Pittsfield. So we brought her with us to the temple which was a wonderful experience as always!

Yesterday I was thinking about member missionary work and how we can apply principles to full time missionary work and I figured the best way to do that would be to read the book the Power of Everyday Missionaries so I did and it is such a wonderful book. My favorite part is that the author is actually in the mission presidency here and many of the places mentioned in the book I have been to! It's really an amazing book that is very well written and if you haven't read it you should.

Well have a wonderful week and remember who you are as a child of God and that as Joseph Smith put it "every wave of adversity whacks me closer to divinity" I'm sorry to hear that Jaron had to come home & needs to have more surgery but he is strong & he will rely on the Lord to help him through this. I'll be praying for him, you can count on that!

Love you all,

Elder Trevon Turley

Remember where it all comes from

So on Wednesday we had our Christmas Mission Party which was so much fun. It started off super spiritual since we all got to go to the temple and then we had some instruction from the mission presidency, by the way the guy who wrote the Power of Everyday Missionaries is in our mission presidency so it's way cool to hear from him. He's a great man.  We had a musical fireside after that and man do we have talent in this mission. We have this asian girl who can play the piano better than anyone I've ever met before. She can play ridiculously well I can't even explain it. We also have this guy who's a master at the organ in fact he's played in a concert at the Conference Center and I guess that's not even the most prestigious organ he's played. Then we had dinner and after that each zone had a skit and a song that they performed. I'll try and get the skit to you eventually since it was recorded. Then we got our presents from home and I can officially say that I have enough food for a long time now so thank you very much for that Mom. Especially the eating out gift cards.  Also thank you to everyone who mailed me presents and cards and stuff it's been a lot of fun to open them up and share them with my companion. 

We've had quite a lot of success knocking on doors with this Christmas season since people are much more open to messages of Christ and with the new church video that came out we've made some real progress with people. Plus when it's below freezing people are more inclined to let you in their house just for the sake of warming you up.

We've been helping out this guy who's a neurosurgeon in our ward with his horses. Every saturday we go and shovel the stalls and feed the horses and stuff like that. In return they feed us some of the greatest breakfasts known to man. Mostly because they buy really nice maple syrup from northern Vermont and it is amazing! It might even be better than buttermilk syrup. This guy is also the largest collector of Mormon antiques east of the Mississippi. He's got stuff that the church would love to get a hold of. As a result I've held a few 1830 editions of the Book of Mormon, I've held Heber C. Kimballs personal Book of Mormon, I've held the rarest edition of the Book of Mormon which is actually the first edition of the Hawaiian version and countless other books and notes and stuff concerning church history. It's really helped me to see these early church leaders as real people with real personalities and given me a greater appreciation for what they've done for us. 

Well have a great Christmas everyone and remember where it all comes from. 

Love Elder Trevon Turley 

Christ is the one who matters most in this season

Well things have been crazy lately with the mission. We havent had much time to actually teach people since we've been going to so many meetings and have been doing a lot of mission stuff but This week should open up. 

Me shoveling snow down at the church

We found this tree up in our attic so we decided to set it up. Here is an Artistic shot of our christmas tree. We didnt have very many ornaments and for whatever reason we have a bunch of poker chips in our apartment so we made ornaments out of them! You can see a few in the picture.

I was making a snow man before a district meeting and I was the only one building him. Everyone else said it was too cold and they didnt have gloves. SO the Arizona boy representing it up here. I lost feeling in my fingrertips for a few days but it was worth it!

We baptized our only progressing investigator so now we can spend a lot of time finding people and doing service and working with ward members to get referrals. He's worked in security his whole life and he keeps telling us stories about the churches security service for the apostles and stuff. I dont know where he hears these stories but he loves them and he tells us that he meets almost all the requirments to aplly to be a security guard for the apostles so I think it's a dream of his to do that one day.

This Guy was baptized two days ago and he is way awesome! He's the guy who came to us wanting to be baptized so it was great to finally baptize him. We're also going to the temple with him on Dec. 27. 

This guy was baptized on November 29th & we are also taking him to the temple on December 27th. It's very exciting. 

One thing I'd really like to receive from you Mom or either of my Grandmas. Names from my own family line that I can take to the temple. That would be so awesome! Also Mom a little photo book with family pictures in it, please. 

Tell Cam that his white elephant gift sounds great. Good for him for being original. Also can you send me your skype address one more time & I'll write it in my handy address book you sent me. Thanks Mom!

When I heard that the Ultimate Gift was making a new movie I was so excited! That is certainly one of the things I'll be looking forward to when I get home. Tis the pinnacle of Hallmark movies! I wonder if it's going to have Jason in it as a child? The possibilities are endless!

Our mission Christmas party is this wednesday and It's gonna be so great. It's the only "party" the mission has the whole year and the best part is that we get to go to the temple again so I'm very excited for that as well.

Our Boston temple gingerbread house. 

Elder Stevens and I in front of the Boston temple. 

I've been learning so much here on the mission but I feel as though the fact that I'm a missionary isn't why I'm learning so much. It's becasuse I have a purpose behind my studies. Something to give me a drive and push me to be better. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that anybody can learn and grow as much as a missionary so long as they have a purpose behind their learning. There is so much that we don't know but we're promised knowledge as we follow the steps in Alma 26:22. That is one of my favorite scriptures and it has so much depth to it. It's definitely one worth memorizing.

My Companion & I were talking about how if the world could have one scripture and one scripture alone what would it be? The challenge was to find a scripture so simple and full of doctrine that anybody could learn from it in a positive way. At fist Elder Stevens said Alma 5:12 but we don't know what caused the change and what was true so we got rid of it. Eventually we decided on a few scriptures that we thought were good candidates for our one verse. I'll list a few, I'd like you to read them & let me know what you think. 

2 Nephi 31:20

Moroni 10:32

2 Nephi 2:25

2 Nephi 2:27

Let me know your pick or of any others that you think are better. My personal favorite is 2 Nephi 31:20, It's a way awesome scripture and I'm pretty sure it's Grandma Turley's favorite at least that's what I have marked in my scriptures. 

Remember that Christ is the first Gift of Christmas and that he's the one who matters most in this season. I love you all and am praying for you daily.

-Elder Turley