Tell the World I'm Coming Home!!!

This week was insane!  On Tuesday night we spent all night finishing up Zone conference prep.  On Wednesday we had our first [face to face in a quite a while] zone conference and it was so much fun being able to get together with the zone even if it was only half of the Zone.  It was so nice to be in person.  After the zone conference we drove home and we had Elder Arnette and Elder Powell drop us of at one of the local tracks.  We went all the way to the top and got a time lapse of the sunset for a video that we have been working on. 

On Wednesday we had our second zone conference and it was exactly the same as the previous one, but it was still a ton of fun.  Afterwards we went to get some Mexican food.  We decided to go through the drive through and that was a big mistake.  They would only take one order at a time so we had to go back around 4 times so we could all get our food.  In hindsight we should have just gone inside and sat down.  

Besides that we were able to teach the Mangums and another family on Saturday.  It was an incredible week of hard work and teaching!

Also see y'all on Wednesday! 

Pictures

Thunder storms and adventures!

 We had a crazy week this week and we stayed nice and busy!  To start out this week we met with Denise on Tuesday.  We were able to have an awesome lesson where we talked about praying and scripture study.  We were also able to reschedule her baptism for October 17.  She is still on track, but she is getting a surgery done.  She can't be submerged in water for about 6 weeks so we have to bump it back a few weeks.  

We also were able to receive a referral from some Elders in California for a guy by the name of Nate.  He is pretty cool and we were able to have a brief lesson with him over Facebook messenger the other night.  

On Wednesday night we had stake missionary coordination.  It always amazes me how much work it takes to get ready for that.  We have to call all the areas and we have to find out how their ward councils are going. Do they have ward mission leaders.   It's a ton of work, but we were well prepared and the meeting went really well for us!

On Saturday we went bike riding!  We left our apartment at 12 and we rode to a busy intersection in our area to get a time lapse.  We then trekked to the other corner and we had a lesson at Jefferson's home where we helped Denise get set up on family history. By the way, the Jeffersons are amazing members.  We had to leave so we could get dinner before our next appointment and they told Denise that she could stay as long as she would like!  After dinner we rode our bikes another half hour and we had a lesson with a part member family that we have been working with.  We were able to teach the Mangum family the first half of the Plan of Salvation.  The lesson went well and we were able to help address their concerns.  We then rode another half hour home.  Long story short we were really tired by the time we got home! 

Friday night we had a crazy lightning storm so we set up Elder Bennions GoPro up and we did a time lapse all night.  We set the shutter speed at a half a second and we were able to get some really cool photos during the night while we were sleeping!    

Photos

A Week of Driving to Say the Least!

 On Wednesday we drove out to Spring lake to attend their district council. Then we drove all the way back to Wyoming.  Then we drove all the way back down to Holt on the South side of Lansing.  Now you're probably wondering why on earth did we drive to Lansing?  If you remember from about a year and a half ago I was able to help Bob and Julie move some furniture.  Or should I say a lot of furniture.  We were able to visit them from time to time and we would share short messages with them.  Long story short Bob passed away and we drove down for the viewing.  It was a powerful experience being able to talk to his wife and to testify to her that this life isn't the end.  There is more after this.  The members who referred them to us were able to talk to Julie about eternal families.

On Friday we drove back to Spring Lake to do our final trade offs.   The transfer and my final trade offs of my mission.  It was amazing we had a ton of fun, but we worked hard.  We were able to make 3 videos between the 4 of us.  It was an incredible experience getting to work with these Elders. They had an incredible desire to do the work.  

On Sunday we were able to have our second in person lesson with Denise and it was amazing.  We ended up getting like 4 members who joined and the Sister missionaries.  We were worried it was going to be overkill, but Denise loved it and she took 2 pages of notes.  I love watching people who are just excited to learn more and to act on the message that we share!  

Friday night we got permission to stay out a little later to get a time lapse of Lake michigan for a video that we are going to make for the Facebook page and it was incredible.  We stayed until it was dark and we were able to get some amazing profile pictures.  And no, that was not done with a green screen.  It built my testimony that God is real that he is really aware of our lives because he has given us some beautiful things to enjoy in this world.

-Elder Compton

A Week of Miracles

 It was an amazing week. We had two exchanges and we picked up two new people to teach. We also got Denise on baptismal date for Sep 5!  It was actually pretty cool how it happened.  Elder Bennion had pushed pretty hard to put her on date on trade offs, but she didn't fully commit one way or the other.  Last night we were meeting with her again. We were asking how her week went and she said she received an answer that she was ready.  In her exact words she said the holy ghost told her if not now then when.  She agreed to September 5 and all we need to teach her now is the commandments and get her to church a couple more times!

We were also referred to this fellow by the name of JR this week.  He has been a wild ride to teach to say the least.  He has read almost all of the Book of Mormon and he said this book more clearly explains Jesus Christ than the Bible!  That was pretty sweet, but he got caught up on 2 Nephi 6:9 because he believes in the Trinity.  He thinks we have two "Jesuses".  We are now working to overcome that concern.

It has been incredible these past couple of months figuring out how to do missionary work from the apartment. We usually spend the day making videos and posts and then 6-9 we message people over Facebook. It has been incredible seeing the miracle that have come from Facebook.  I was actually able to place my first Book of Mormon the other night using Facebook! We are even starting to get people to church that were found on Facebook.  I'm honestly kinda bummed I'm leaving just as we are getting this Facebook thing figured out.  The goal pre-quarantine was to have 10 meaningful contacts every day and it's still the same thing in quarantine. It's just over Facebook and doing calls. I'm betting we will soon be having people baptized and confirmed who were found through Facebook!  It's definitely not come without the bumps along the road, but we are figuring out a new way of doing missionary work!

Pictures.

-Elder Bennion burned his fingers cutting peppers so he put them in milk trying to cool them off.

-Elder Bennion and I with the whole green screen set up!

Friend at Church!

Denise is amazing!  On Saturday we had a lesson with her on the restoration and it was amazing.  She practically taught us the restoration.  On Sunday after church we were able to have our first in person lesson with her.  I didn't realize how out of practice I was at teaching in person.  I kept catching myself looking at my phone looking up scriptures and not looking at her.  We were able to teach her about the sacrament.  She really enjoyed church and she is excited to keep learning more.  

We were also able to have a district council in person for the first time in 5 months.  It was so relieving to be able to get together with the district rather than seeing each other as a 2 inch square.  

Pictures

-District council

We Rode Our Bikes 14 Miles on Accident

On Sunday we had a lesson with our friend Denise and she said she wanted to be baptized sooner than later.  We weren't able to nail down a date, but She did agree to pray about a baptismal date.  She said she would like a physical copy of the Book of Mormon.  The only problem was we didn't have the car so we hopped on our bikes and went for a ride.  We accidentally put in the wrong address and we ended up being at the wrong corner of our area.  Long story short, by the time it was all said and done we rode our bikes about 14 miles on a fast Sunday.  Dinner was definitely a reward that night.  A really cool miracle though with dropping the Book of Mormon off to Denise was she just opened to a random page.  It ended up being 2 Nephi 31 Which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It was pretty cool to see how that all worked out. 

We also had transfers this week and I picked up Elder Bennion.  It was a long day though.  I started in Spring lake and I drove to Grand rapids and from Grand Rapids we drove back to spring lake and back to Grand Rapids. Finally we were able to drive home.  We did not get home till about 9:00 o'clock. It was a lot of driving and dropping off.  Then to top it all off, on Thursday we drove to Lansing and back to pick up Elder Arnette's trainee. 

Week One of My Final Transfer

Wednesday Morning we got a call and President Heap asked if he could talk with me privately. I said "yes."  I found out my new companion is going to be Elder Benion.  The reason we got transfer calls early is because Elder Caldwell is the new vehicle coordinator.  He needed to be trained for a couple of days before the old vehicle coordinator got transferred out.  In the meantime I've been with the Spring Lake Elders in their area till transfers on Tuesday!  

We saw many miracles this week. The main one that comes to mind was a referral we got from church headquarters.  We gave her a call and she was super enthusiastic to talk to us.  We were able to set up a time to talk with her over the phone.  When we had that lesson she told us she wanted to join the church.  So we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited her to be baptized!  She said absolutely she just had some concerns about the timeline of it all.  

I really wanted to share a Facebook miracle we had this week.  We have been messaging a lady that we met on Facebook for quite a while and for some reason we started exchanging recipes.  She started talking about her Italian background and how she wanted to learn more about her family.  We gave her instructions of how to download the family history app.  Hopefully we can get  her connected to her family!  

Second Facebook miracle.  We have been messaging this guy by the name of Andrew for probably two weeks now.  We were able to get an invitation to church extended and he said yes!  So keep y'alls fingers crossed that he makes it to church on Sunday!  

Okay a funny story from this week!  Yesterday we went to film a video where we reeled in a Book of Mormon with a fishing pole.  And when Elder Taylor first casted all we had was a bare hook and two weights.  While he was reeling it in he said, I caught a fish!  Elder Cardona and I were like there is no way, but sure enough there was a fish darting around in the water.  He caught a bass on the first cast with no bait and no lure!  What are the odds?

-Elder Compton

Lake Michigan

Earlier this week we had a meeting with the technology specialist for the Grand Rapids zone.  It was brought up that we needed to update the background photo for the Facebook page.  I suggested that we get a set of missionaries on the West coast to go snap a photo of the sunset and have them send it to us.  Then it was brought up that the mission bought a super nice DSLR for us to use.  Long story short Elder Caldwell and I got to drive out to lake Michigan.  We were able to take some photos for the background photo on the Facebook page.  We even got permission to stay out later and we got some amazing pictures of the sunset.  It was well worth the time!

We are still trying to find people to teach, but we were able to talk to David over the phone this week and he expressed that he would be interested in learning more.  We are hoping to meet with him over video call this week.

Another interesting story as far as people we are teaching!  We randomly had this guy by the name of Robert show up in our Area Book a couple of weeks ago.  It turns out that he wanted to be baptized.  We invited him to pray about baptism.  When we followed up on Saturday he said he felt peaceful and comforted.  We are meeting with him on Tuesday and we will hopefully be nailing down a date! 

-Elder Compton

pictures

-Lake Michigan!

I made it back to church! Yeeehaaaaaaa

We met with a part member family.  Our bishop went in full force and invited the Dad to be baptized.  It was good though because the Dad just needs to make the jump. It was crazy though because literally the wife and kids were begging and pleading with  him to say yes.  His daughters were saying Dad you need to get baptized so that you can come into the temple when we get married.  It was intense, not the usual approach I would take on part member families, but it was needed.  We committed them to pray as a family about when he should get baptized.  We will be following up with them next week and we hope all goes well!

Something that is exciting is we have started to master Facebook proselytizing, sort of.  We are at least starting to figure out how to do it somewhat effectively!  What we have started doing is we find prayer groups and we join them.  We then message people hi and if they respond we say 'do you want' to talk about prayer. We have actually gotten some pretty good results from it!  The next challenge is finding other groups that aren't religious and finding ways to make a normal and natural conversation.

Church was crazy. We texted our bishop and asked if there was room for us and he said there might be.  We ended up waiting outside of the building and one minute before he sent us a text and said come on in!  It was a throwback to West Branch; there were only about 17 people there.  After serving in larger and larger wards my entire mission it felt pretty scarce.

-Elder Compton

Week Two in Wyoming

This week we were able to meet with a part member family.  The dad isn't a member and we were able to have a super powerful lesson with them.  We both had the thought to ask him why he isn't a member because he comes to church pretty much every week.  We are hoping to meet with them again this upcoming week!

Besides meeting with members we have been doing our best to find through Facebook.  The new tactic we are trying now is to find local prayer groups in the Wyoming/Grand Rapids area.  We then join the groups and message everyone in the group "Hi how are you?."  If they respond we ask them if they would like to talk about Jesus and believe it or not we got 4 solid conversations going from that last night so miracles still happen! It has been a very interesting experience in isolation because I feel like I am being trained again, but I don't have a trainer.  It is very interesting!

Pictures

-out at on a walk!

First week in Wyoming!

Yes, I am in Wyoming now, but Wyoming Michigan that is. My companion is Elder Caldwell and he is from Mapleton, Utah.  Not too much exciting has happened here. I got to know our bishop last night and he is super cool.  The ward seems really supportive here.  

On Wednesday I got picked up to come over here to Wyoming.  It was a lot of driving because we drove from Lansing to Kalamazoo and then we drove up to Wyoming. We spent a good 3 hours in the car that day.

A miracle we saw this week was that we were messaging people on Facebook in the Wyoming area and we messaged a guy by the name of Sam and he actually responded.  He even watched the live stream on Facebook. It was a small thing to be excited about, but it really cheered us up!

Pictures

-Elder Caldwell and me

Transfers!

I am getting transferred to Grand Rapids to be a zone leader there.  It will be good but I was hoping to finish as a regular grunt work missionary, but this will be good as well.

This week we got a referral from church headquarters and at first he was acting all interested.  We had an amazing lesson where he was telling us all about how he wants to change his life and the spirit was super strong so we decided on the next visit that we were going to try putting him on date.  During that second visit we went to put him on date and as we were about to, he stopped us and said I know what you're about to ask and the answer is no.  I was baptized in Grand Rapids as a teenager.  I never thought I would try to put someone on date who is a member!

This week we had a lesson with a guy by the name of Ryan and he is on baptismal date for July 8th.  The sister missionaries were originally teaching him, but since they are leaving Lansing they are leaving him to us.  It was a powerful lesson we were able to help him recognize the spirit and supposedly it was the first time he gave an affirmative answer that he would get baptized!

Erin Got Baptized

For Erin's baptism a member made some white masks for us.  We zoomed in the ward over one of the sister's phones. We then changed and confirmed her at the water's edge.  Elder Davis did a fantastic job!  It was nice not having all the people around and to just feel the calm peaceful spirit!  Erin was so happy and she is excited to be a lifelong member!  It was amazing getting to watch Erin's countenance change. It is the best part of helping people into the waters of baptism! 

On Sunday night we got an amazing devotional from a BYU professor on the Pearl of Great Price.  He gave all kinds of interesting facts and what not about the history of the Pearl of Great Price.  Although the greatest part of all the facts was when he explained how revelation from God is always right, but academic knowledge can be wrong!  It was amazing!

-Pictures
Late night pictures because I was bored
My botched haircut

Erin is getting baptized this week!

Well the title says it all!  Although she may be in a different area than what we are over we are still going to be able to participate in her baptism!  She asked Elder Davis to confirm her and I get to baptize her! 

We got an amazing referral from our ward mission leader this week by the name of Lindsey!  We were able to have an amazing lesson with her about the current events that are going on in the world and how gooGod loves all his children!  The spirit was super strong and she was super excited to learn more!

-Pictures
-Out for a walk and a bad hair day

Isolation nation!

This week we had a couple of amazing miracles!  On Wednesday we had a lesson with our friend Justin and he was wanting his son to learn about going on a mission.  We were able to have a super spirit-led lesson and he and his dad said they wanted to learn more.  It was an amazing lesson.  We were able to schedule a follow-up appointment for the upcoming week!

We also got a referral from our ward mission leader!  He referred an entire family to us!  We are so excited to start teaching them it is going to be amazing! 

Fun story!  We got approved to get hair cuts this week so messaged our mission presidents wife and asked for one.  She said yes so we headed over there and she started cutting my hair and she got nervous and handed my companions the clippers.  About halfway through Sister Brennan starts laughing and Elder Davis cut a big hole in the back of my hair.  Good thing they don't see the back of my head in Zoom calls! 

Pictures

-At the mission home post hair cuts!

Weeks of Isolation

This week we found out that Erin, the lady we had on date for baptism, doesn't live in our area.  We were so bummed because she was literally the only person we were teaching.  Everyone else dropped off the face of the planet.  Although we are hoping that because we were honest and passed her off that the Lord will bless us!

On Wednesday we had 3 hours of district councils.  The reason is we are the zone leaders and the district leaders so we have to join a district council and teach a district council.  The crazy part is the district we were joining, their district leader was sick so we ended up having to teach both of them.  Long story short after that we were pretty worn out looking at our cell phone screens! 

Picture
-I wanted to see how long my hair was getting.

First of all Happy Mother day to all the mothers out there!  We were able to meet with our friend Erin who is on baptismal date twice this week!  In our lesson, she was telling us how she thought she had to go to the holy land to get baptized, but when she prayed about it she said getting baptized into our church felt right.  It was exciting and we all got a good chuckle out of it.

Besides working with Erin we have been trudging away at Facebook proselyting.  We are hoping to be able to post one more video this week fingers crossed!

Pictures
-Downtown Lansing
-Jerusalem bakery
-The moon at 10 at night!

Transfers Sort of but not really?

We got our transfer calls this week and I'm staying in Lansing with Elder Davis for one more transfer! 

This week we were able to put our good friend Erin on a baptismal date for the 13th of June!  She is progressing super well and she is most likely going to make her baptismal date!

On Saturday we got a super cool training on how to use technology!  Church headquarters did all kinds of crazy statistics on the best times to post and what to post.  It was super cool!

Facebook Madness!

This week we spent pretty much the whole week getting our zone Facebook page up and running.  It has been insane.  We probably have spent 5ish hours this week on the phone with the Assistants to the Mission President figuring things out.  We are hoping this week to have a video of the whole zone reciting parts of the Living Christ.  It's going to be super cool. 

Yesterday we went to Lansing to get a picture for the Facebook page, but we weren't able to because of bad weather.  We ended up going and picking up some Jimmy Johns!  And on the way there were just two ducks sitting in the parking lot of downtown lansing.  So that is why I tagged a picture of ducks!

So we have started doing something kind of fun with the Elders in our zone.  A lot of them don't have a lot of teaching appointments so we have scheduled half-hour teaching visits with them all.  We have written down who we are acting as for each companionship and it's a lot of fun!  It's something different that makes it so missionaries have something to look forward to!

We were finally able to have a lesson with Erin this week!  We have had several text message conversations with her, but we just haven't been able to have one over video.  On Thursday we were able to.  We invited our Bishop to join and we had an awesome lesson.  He was able to connect to her really well!  She expressed an interest in coming closer to God so we are hoping the Book of Mormon helps out with that!

Pictures
-Ducks in downtown Lansing
-By the capitol building!

Isolation!

Last P-day we were playing basketball. I may have been winning 6-4 and poor Elder Davis Rolled his ankle.  Because of that, we couldn't really go for any walks for a couple of days while he was recovering.  One day I said we were going for a drive and I saw a green patch on the GPS.  So we went there.  It ended up being a graveyard of another faith.  It was actually super cool they had gravestones that the death date dated back to the 1800s.  The coolest part was the memoir to Jesus Christ at the very end [of the cemetery] to Jesus Christ hanging on the cross.  I was so shocked to learn that they didn't recognize the suffering Christ did in the garden of Gethsemane or the Resurrection.  Those two things are so incredibly significant to the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  It made me grateful to know that in the Garden of Gethsemane that Christ felt all my sorrows and on the third day he rose from the grave so I can also rise from the grave!

Wednesday morning we decided to make a "stop motion" video.  Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into!  We ended up only being able to finish up the storyline and making a stand for our phone.  The next day we were able to figure out exactly what animations we wanted to make. Friday we were drawing and taking pictures for about 5 hours,  But hey, we were able to finish all the pictures and we are hoping to be done with them tomorrow!

On Saturday night we were calling through our Area Book and we hadn't had much success, but we decided to make one more call before 9 o'clock came. Our new friend Erica answered and we were able to have a very powerful lesson on the Atonement!  It has amazed me even though we have been stuck in the apartment!

Pictures
-Working on our stop motion video
-The sunrise
-Out for a walk

I Think Week Three of Isolation? (Actually 4 Weeks!)

Although we were in isolation we have been able to see some amazing miracles!  On Thursday night we were calling through our Area Book and we must have been doing it for 2 hours when we called Amari.  She answered and it was a super bad approach, but when we asked if she would like to hear a message she said yes!  So we had a lesson on the restoration right then and there on the phone!  She loved it and we have continued to text her videos and scriptures and she responds in 5 minutes!  That never happens.  It was amazing! 

We also got an awesome referral for a lady by the name of Erin.  We have been trying to get in contact with her for a while, but the other day she texted us out of the blue asking how we were doing.  We were able to have a short conversation over text messaging. Ever since then when we text her scriptures and videos she is always excited to read/watch them.  She even replies and tells us what she thinks of them!  Even though we are in isolation miracles are still happening!

Another awesome miracle we saw this week we were going through groups here in Lansing and we found a bible study group.  One of the people in the group asked why there are so many bad things happening in this world because of Adam and Eve.  We were able to send him 2 Nephi 2:22-25 and he said that it answered his question!

Pictures
-Elder Davis and I (if you're wondering why our hair is long it is because all the barbershops are closed😁)

I'm alive!

We had a good week and I'm alive.   Here's a picture of Elder Davis and me and our steak dinner!

Week 2 Of Isolation

NOTE:  This is last week's e-mail (Mar 30) that didn't get sent, so you get two e-mails this week!


This week was wild.  We had transfers and my new companion is Elder Davis.  It was crazy how they did transfers.  They had every single person who was getting transferred drive to the Lansing stake center.  We were instructed not to leave our cars.  They came one by one and transferred us.  We got to the church at 7:00 and we didn't get home until about 10:30 it was a wild time.  We have been doing lots of online proselyting and making videos, calling through our area book, lessons with members, and everything else you can think of. 

Because we're in Lansing we have been the local hotel for missionaries going home.  We have had 3 different missionaries spend the night in our apartment this week. 

On Sunday we had so many meetings that we ended up being on conference calls for about 7 hours.  Needless to say we had to charge our phones multiple times that day. 

I want to share my testimony of prayer.  Earlier this week by some crazy accident the glass that covers the camera on my phone shattered.  I called the phone repair store and the guy told me to check to see if the camera still focused.  I did and it wasn't focusing.  I decided to say a prayer.  Later that night I tried it again and it was focusing.  I was so relieved because it would have been more expensive to fix the phone than the phone was worth.  It may have been a small problem, but God is aware of us and is always willing to answer our prayers.  Now it may not always be in our timing, but God will answer it when we are ready for it and when it will be best for us!

pictures
-Out on a walk with Elder Davis, and Elder Astle.

Day 7 in Isolation

As the title reads, we are now in Isolation.  Monday evening we were able to go out tracting, but when we woke up Tuesday morning we had an email from president Brennan that said effective immediately we are going into isolation.  Although we have been stuck in the apartment we have still been able to see some miracles!  We met with Pedro over technology this week and we had an awesome lesson.  We read from Alma chapter 2 then we talked about baptism with Pedro.  He said he knows he needs to get baptized he just needs to do it.  We committed him to pray about it this week and we are going to follow up to see what he ended up deciding. 

We also met with Arianna this week over technology.  We had a really good lesson on the spirit and how we feel the spirit.  Arianna keeps telling us that she likes the feeling she gets when we come over.  We are hoping that her friend Sis Mcmillin will be able to help her recognize the spirit!

Besides video lessons, we have been going through our area book and calling people trying to set up lessons.  We also did something that I did not know you could do.  There is a feature within area book where you can make a group of people and then you can tap text these people and you can send out mass texts.  We ended up making a group will all the people who were formally taught in our area book and we sent them "Men's Hearts Shall Fail them"  by pres. Nielson.  It was crazy sending about 700 texts in 5 minutes definitely a personal record! 

Also, you know those annoying telemarketers?  I was one of those this week.  We went through this app called white pages where you can look people up.  We would go to the map feature and pick a neighborhood and then we would call the phone numbers in that neighborhood.  It was really awkward at first, but eventually, we got it figured out.

Pictures
-Out on Walks

Life is Good!

This week was wild.  We had 3 trade-offs and a zone conference.  We got super lucky this Zone Conference because we had a member of the Seventy come and speak.   He did a super good job.  He talked to us about how the spirit nags at us when we have something we need to do, but haven't done it yet.  We also got plenty of training on how to wash our hands.  We also couldn't shake hands or give hugs at zone conference it was like no other zone conference I have been to before.

On Thursday I was with Elder Morey on trade-offs and we met our good friend Justin.  We talked to him all about basketball and found out that the NBA is canceled for this year.  Also, we had an awesome conversation about prayer and we even helped him say his first prayer.  The following day when we stopped by to meet with him again he had invited his friend [miracle] over.  We had an awesome lesson. We started out by going over The Restoration and then he asked about Adam and Eve and then we got talking about the purpose of life and then we started talking about baptism.  The spirit was saying yes so we put him on a baptismal date for May 16th!  It was really exciting, especially because the missionary I was on trade-offs with had never been a part of a baptismal invitation before.  Elder McDaniel was pretty excited after that lesson!

pictures
-My Food Storage
-Toilet paper isle
-Downtown Lansing in Abandonment
-Elder Denison and I