Hey everyone!
So this past week was pretty busy!
On Wednesday we had our zone conference. That we seriously the longest meeting of my life! We got there at 8:00 am and didn't leave till like almost 4:30 pm. The conference was really good though! We learned how the mission is going to start doing referrals differently now and we that President Cooke has committed the mission to start teaching 20 lessons a week! That's nuts! He said he doesn't care who the lessons are with, he just wants us teaching. We now have a huge goal to work towards!
We also found out that, during the car checks, our car was one of the most clean cars that had shown up that day. So the Sr. Elder who is in charge of the cars said that from now on, at car checks, he was going to find the cleanest car and take that companionship out to lunch or dinner! So our car and the car of the sisters missionaries were the cleanest cars that day.The Sr Elder has promised to take us to dinner.
The other reason that it was a good conference was because the mission doctors (they're husband and wife) came and spoke to us about missionary work and how it affects our health. They talked about stress and what causes it and then how to get rid of it. They talked about depression and the causes for that and what we could do to get rid of it. They also talked about lack of sleep caused by stress or depression and that it was because we couldn't "turn off" our brains. So, they showed us techniques on how to shut it off at night.
We learned a lot of stuff and had a delicious lunch provided by a few members from different wards.
Then Thursday was kinda slow. Not too much happened. It was again just checking on people and them not being home. I am sure it is because of the time of day that we go check on them, but we couldn't check on them later because we had a meeting with our WML.
We went to our meeting and as it turns out he had gotten a trampoline for his kids and he needed our help to put it together. So,we talked as we assembled it. Because no one was paying attention though, we ended up putting it together wrong. So we took it all apart, corrected the mistakes and then put it back together. Poor Elder Bodda though, got eaten alive! He got like 5 bites from mosquitoes and they were all on his head. I almost got bit a few times but I got them before they could get a bite!
Then on Saturday we did service all day! We helped a sister with her yard work. We got there at about 10:00 am and left at about 2:00 pm. We got a lot done though! I mowed the lawn, and the others took down ivy (not the poison kind) vines and trimmed bushes. There was A LOT of ivy everywhere they they had to clean up. Then the battery died on the electric trimmer, so we had to pull everything back with a shovel and then try to mow over it. Yeah, that didn't really work like they thought it would so we just had to leave it. In the end she was really nice and bought us some pizza for lunch :)
Then on Sunday we went to church and then later to a "Why I believe" fireside. At church Stephon was supposed to share his testimony with the ward and then (unknown to us) President and Sister Cooke were going to speak after him. Stephon was also supposed to say the closing prayer at the fireside. Well, during ward council before church, the Bishop announced that Stephon had texted the Bishop late the night before and asked if they could move his testimony to the following Sunday because he and his family were going out of town. This meant we had to re-arrange quite a few things.
Anyway, the Cooke's talks were great! They were very inspiring to the ward I think, to start doing missionary work and they also informed them that we were going to start trying to have 20 lessons a week. The ward was pretty shocked by that. I hope we have good results.
The "Why I Believe" fireside was great! They had Brother and Sister Jonas speak. Brother Jonas is actually one of the 5 physicians that takes care of President Obama. They were both really good speakers! I really liked Brother Jonas' talk because he told his conversion story, starting when he was about nine and how the first time he went to church, his mom was sick so she didn't go with him. Then when he was at church the missionaries didn't sit by him, but they had a ward member sit next to him. He spoke about how that that member saved his life and helped to bring him into the church. He told how he continued to attend church and how this member-friend helped him to grow in the church. Later, this member ended up moving and he hadn't heard from him since. He then told of all the things that he did growing up in the church and going on a mission and marrying in the temple and going to school. Well the newly married couple decided to take a trip to where Brother Jonas grew up and the ward he grew up in. When they went to church, lo and behold there was the member that had been his only friend in the beginning. His friend who was a guide and "guardian".
Brother Jonas went to talk to the member to say hello and told him he may not remember him. Brother Jonas told the story of the little boy that the member had helped and the many things that young boy was able to accomplish. Then he said "and this is that young boy returning to thank you for everything you did for him". All in all, it was a very powerful message of conversion that he shared with us.
Well that was the highlights of the week! I hope that you have enjoyed it and I can't wait to tell you about this week, next week! Ha. I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful day and week ahead of you!
Love,
Elder Gold
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