Service and a Happy Baby

I kept thinking about you guys on the beach this week. I also am looking forward to that next year, it sure will be nice!

7-14-14 The Lord's Timing

It was stressful trying to get everyone moved around with transfers. I was hoping that the fact that we were staying the same would mean that we could get some work done on transfer day, but I was wrong. We didn't get to proselyte at all on Tuesday, and then due to our meetings on Friday we didn't get much work done then either. As great as meetings and stuff are, nothing feels as satisfying as just working, even if it still is uncomfortable for me. Anyways, this next week will be better!

We had a good lesson with that family on Saturday. We were able to get them all over to a member's home and talk about baptism, and we even committed the two kids to be baptized. Unfortunately they didn't come to church; despite us having a member ready to go pick them up. So we will have to work on a better day, but he original date for them to get baptized on was August 2nd ;) it would have been cool, but I guess it's on the Lords timing, not ours.

[Both Steve and Michael write similar thoughts on the same weeks.  They are very in tune with each other.] I don't know that I am one step ahead, or just that I am realizing that these things make sense, and since dad is very logical, he thinks the same. I just wish I had realized that a lot earlier!

Yesterday I got to interview a 17 year old girl for baptism. It was really cool because she had gone to seminary for 2 years already because a Friend invited her. I was asking her about some of the interview questions and she was answering with scripture mastery verses and her testimony...haha I am pretty sure she knew the scriptures better than I do. Needless to say she passed the interview and will be getting baptized on Wednesday.

Haha trunky much?? [Yes, we've been trunky for the past 18 months!]  Yea all the sisters here that came out with us are almost done. That is weird. At our meet the president meeting our new mission president got up and was speaking to us. At one point he was talking about how he welcomes new missionaries off the plane. He explained that after he interviewed them, he took each one over to the transfer board and showed them the pictures of all 254 missionaries in the mission and said "now that we have had this interview, I now know you better than 99% of all these people..." And then pointing to the whole board he said "and all of these missionaries go home before you". Hahaha we died laughing when he said that!! No we didn't all go to the same meeting, he had 4 different “meet the president” meetings throughout the mission. I did get to see Elder Geisler again, which is always fun. I am sad I still haven't gotten to see Elder Benedict since I got transferred almost a year ago! [These are the two missionaries Michael trained.] I still write him, but hopefully we will get to see each other again. President Marston is still adjusting. Yesterday we had our stake missionary coordination meeting and he came. The meeting went well; I really like the stake president here. President Marston explained a lot about himself at that meeting, so we got to know him even more. He is much different than President Weston, which is....an adjustment. Anyways, it is good.

I am doing good, the ties were great, thank you. I think you were right on with 2 of them, but I am sure others will grow on me. The ones that are really popular here are the ones with the big paisleys on them. I will attach some examples of ones I have, but I don't have any really cool ones. I saw a picture of Tyler at his graduation ceremony and he was wearing an awesome tie. Anyways, those are just the cool looking ones. The shinier the better! Thanks for everything you guys do for me.

Have a great week!

6 Weeks More in Olivehurst

Looks like I will be here for another 6 weeks. The only change that really affected me is that we are getting another set of Hmong elders in our ward, and they will be living with us...that will be weird...I just hope it doesn't make it hard to be obedient! [This is the first time Michael will have other missionaries in his apartment.]

(6/30/14) Miracle Discussion

This definitely has been a crazy week for sure. We had a special meeting on Friday where we got to say goodbye to our mission president. It was a great meeting, and I loved getting to see him again. He said to me "if you see me at your homecoming talk, don't think something's wrong." He is been a wonderful influence in my life, I am going to miss him. He also said that he will be at Elder Coburn's wedding, so you will get to see him there. I asked him more about his homecoming information and he said that the homecoming talk he will be giving in Sacrament meeting will be on July 13 at 1:00 PM in the Murray 12 ward. I am not sure where they meet, but I am sure you can find that on LDS.org.

(6/23/14) 4 Lessons in 4 Languages

The family we found was unable to come to church yesterday, despite us having a ride for them. We were able to get some members who wanted to give them a ride but because the wife works late we were unable to find them awake.

Doors Bring Miracles

So this past week we had 2 zone meetings, not zone conferences (just our zone was there, as opposed to multiple zones at a zone conference). Our MP did not come to zone meeting, but he is the one who teaches zone conference. Due to a lot of stuff going on this past week, including one missionary from the zone going home, we had the privilege of talking to President Weston a lot...almost every day actually. I just wish it had been under better circumstances. The zone meetings went well. We got a lot of participation from the other missionaries, and the Spirit was there, so that’s all I can ask for! 

Learning Heaven

There have been a lot of different things come up this past week. We were told by our mission president that due to the large size of our zone, we are to hold 2 zone meetings with half the zone at each one (as opposed to having just one with everyone) so this week we will be busy... We also got a call and we will have a mini missionary with us from Tuesday through Friday, which we are soooo excited for! The only issue is, for most of his time with us we will be in meetings, and 2 of the days we will be on exchanges! I hope he doesn't think this is what normal missionary life is like....haha.