Hey everyone!
This week was awesome! At the same time though, I had some struggles. I'll start with the struggle first so I can end on a good note :).
So I think the first struggle was that I got sick! There has been a bug going around the area and through the mission and it is not a fun one. Saturday before last we went over to the the Hinckley's apartment so we could use their computer to work on a project I had started for the ward I'm in. When we got there, Sister Hinckley told me she was sick and that she wanted to wipe down the computer so I didn't get sick. She looked and looked and looked and couldn't find anything to wipe it down. I told her not to worry about it. I would be fine and wouldn't get sick. Ha! Boy was I wrong! That Monday I woke up and my sinuses were just on fire all day. No matter how much water I drank, my sinuses still burned from being dry.
The next day (Tuesday), I started feeling the start of the cold. You know, some congestion, sneezing, sinus pressure and a bit of a dry cough. So I went about the day thinking it would go away after a couple of days. We were on exchange with our district leader, so I just kept working like normal. The very next day (Wednesday) was horrible. It felt like I had gotten run over by a truck!! All the previous symptoms had increased the congestion went into my chest and I started coughing more. Then, the body aches started coming, it was just miserable! So after we had dropped off our district leader to his apartment, we went back home and I took a sick day so I could recoup a bit. That was so very much needed. Well as of today I'm still getting over it and I feel like I'm getting better, but I've started wheezing. If anything else pops up I'll probably go see a doctor.
The other bad thing was that we had a lesson this past week that just completely destroyed the spirit. I hate lessons like that because when the spirit isn't there then I get frustrated and then it takes even longer for the spirit to come back. What happened was there is a YW in our ward who has a friend who has been asking her a ton of questions about what we believe and about where we get the doctrine for what we believe. So she asked us if we would come over to answer some of his questions, which we were fine with doing. When it came to the actual lesson though we told him that we weren't there to Bible Bash or diminish his faith but to answer the questions that he has about what we believe and just get to know what each other believe. So at first it was going well and we answered a couple of his questions. However, he started to become very contentious with ideas and scriptures he found on an anti site. Rather than be a humble seeker of truth, his desire was to prove us wrong in the most contentious way possible. With that of course the spirit left the meeting and it didn't go very well.
Now for the good stuff!! This past week we had an awesome opportunity to be addressed by Elder Kacher of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. We went to two meetings that he spoke at. The first was the Ward Council meeting. This included all the Ward Councils from every ward in our mission, plus all the missionaries were at this meeting. He really made things clear as to the way they should be running the ward council. Ultimately the focus was that the Bishop needed to have a vision of where he wanted the ward to go. Then he needed to share that vision with the ward council so they could come up ideas of what they could do in their own quorums and auxiliaries to help the Bishop accomplish his vision for the ward. So he had us talk with our ward councils just for a few minutes so that the bishop could share, or come up with his vision. After meeting together, we realized Bowie didn't really have a vision for it's ward. The First Counselor came up with some great ideas. Later, the discussion between Elder Kacher and the crowd was awesome! I loved it!
Then the next day we were able to get even more advice and teaching from Elder Kacher because he came and spoke to of our zones! It was so cool! President and Sister Cooke spoke to us and then both Sister and Elder Kacher spoke to us. That was what really stood out to me the most. He spoke to us, lovingly rebuked us and most of all taught us :). He spoke a bit and then turned it over to us. He wanted to talk about what we wanted to talk about. So each zone came up with four things that we wanted to talk about. He then narrowed it down to 5 or 6 things. One of them was how to teach spirit directed lessons. Another was how to build faith. Another topic was how to better utilize the Book of Mormon in our teaching. These topics are exactly what I needed to hear! It was so inspirational and I learned so much! I also learned the importance of hymns! I always knew they were important, but not fully the spirit they brought because I had never experienced it so strongly before. While teaching how to have more spirit directed lessons, he stopped and had one of the missionaries stand and sing a hymn and then another to give a prayer. The spirit was so strong it was an amazing experience!! When I said that he "lovingly rebuked us", it was more like he would ask "okay, why aren't you doing this? I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, I'm just trying to make you think about why this isn't happening." I think that was great because I didn't feel defensive or angry or anything, just the spirit :). All in all, those two conferences were amazing :).
Then last, but not least, the "Why I Believe" at the temple visitors' center was last night!! Denis Pitta a tight end for the Baltimore Ravens spoke and it was super cool! We had one of the members give the B. Family a ride to the meeting. It was super awesome! Dennis spoke about the importance of church and serving a mission. He spoke about surrounding yourself with good people so they will help lift you up to the potential the Lord knows you are capable of. I think a lot of it was super good for them to hear!
His wife also spoke! She talked about the conversion of her parents and also herself. She spoke about being open to the spirit and reading and praying about the Book of Mormon and bore a beautiful testimony about it. They both were very inspiring and they both said things I think the Baldwins needed to hear to help them progress. We can only have faith and pray that it was what they needed.
Well that was our wonderful week!! It was packed with spiritual and learning experiences that I'm grateful I was able to experience, even though some of them were a little more difficult to handle. I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week! I challenge you all to try and share your testimony this week! It really boosts your spirit and it will boost your week as well!
Love,
Elder Gold
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