Feb. 3rd, 2014

I got the peanut butter and the scale and the quest bars! I wasn't
expecting any of it to be honest!! Thank you so much! And thank you
for the extra money as well for the other things! I love you so much!!
I really don't know where I would be without amazing parents and
siblings. I have seen so many families torn apart and suffering from
bad choices. I'm so blessed to have been born to goodly parents that
taught me how to make right choices and and loved the heck out of me
even though I made so many wrong ones. You have both supported me at
every turn supplying me with anything I might need to have the
greatest chance for success. I consider the greatest blessing in my
life to be you, my wonderful family!!! Sometimes, on Sunday evenings
when I'm worn out from a long week and tired. I remember those Sunday
evenings and nights back at home. I sure did waste a lot of them. But
if there were good times that we had as a family for some reason
Sunday nights come to my mind. Especially before I left for the mish.
Being with the fam playing games eating bologna and cheese and
crackers and nachos, watching church videos and home videos, and
playing board games. I'm so thankful for those times. The weird thing
is that when I remember those times I feel a sense of Great peace and
satisfaction and I have a renewed desire to serve The Lord more
diligently. I guess you could say that I have a testimony of taking a
moment to look at your life and count your blessings. The song rings
true! Count your blessings, see what god has done. I think it reminds
me of how greatly God has blessed me and that I should serve him the
best I can to show him that I am thankful for those blessings and
recognize where they come from. Anyways what I'm trying to say is that
I love you!
So this week we accomplished a lot!! And we had a couple of
really great spiritual experiences. First of all it was great because
we had members out with us to every single lesson and that was fun and
awesome and way better than going without them. If there is one thing
i have finally been able to knock through my brain and into my heart
in the past few months it is that there is almost no point in going to
a lesson if you don't bring a member with you to help you teach and
bear testimony and more importantly to fellowship. So I have a huge
testimony of that and we have seen the blessings. On Sunday two brand
new investigators that we taught for the first time this week came to
church with their member friends who referred them to us. So sweet. If
you take away that member friend one we never would have taught them
and two they probably wouldn't have come to church for the first Time
on their own immediately after hearing the first lesson. That just
doesn't happen too often. So it just goes to show how important it is
for members to be missionaries and invite.
So that was great. We had the sweetest lesson this week as well.
It was with a guy named Andrew morehead. He is 20 years old and has a
3 year old son with a girlfriend who is no longer a girlfriend. He was
referred to us by bro. Crist a member in our ward. Andrew is trying to
get into the CHP California highway patrol and has been shadowing
officers or so,etching and he has shadowed bro Crist a lot and they
have become good friends. We went over Thursday and met him and we had
one of the most powerful first lessons I have had in awhile. It has
been rare lately that we find someone who is totally new to the
gospel.P Point is that often  we are teaching former investigators and
part member families and less actives who already know or have heard
quite a bit about the church and Joseph smith so it was a tender mercy
and great refresher and reminder of the power of the restoration. We
taught him the whole thing and it went awesome. He loved it and was
feeling the spirit really strong. I invited him to be baptized and he
accepted! We were very thankful for that opportunity to teach and bear
testimony and invite someone to partake fully of the atonement of
Jesus Christ. We were also very thankful for the spirit backing our
words and filling our mouths. I'm also thankful for elder Wride and
his awesome skills. He is a great companion.
I haven't talked much about elder Wride have I!? Well he is
awesome. He is from Ogden! He is funny and quiet but he is very chill
and is a great missionary. We have been getting along great and having
fun! I am hoping that I get to stay with him for two transfers.
We had zone conference this past week. It was good but I must say I
feel like if you go to one zone conference you have been to them
all..I hate to sound like a bum but I hate those meetings haha they
are way to long and about the same old stuff. It's not bad and I did
learn but sheesh. 8:30 to 4;00? It's just drug out and too much. I'm
gone after three haha. But it was good. We have good leaders.
We had one of our gators at church on Sunday for the first time.
She didn't stay but seemed to really enjoy it! We were excited about
that.
I have to give a 12 minute talk this next Friday on "why serve a
mission" to about 50 youth at a mini MTC experience we are doing here
in Vacaville. If you have some thoughts on that I would love to hear
them!
Well that's it for me! Oh yeah I had a splurge this
week.....fentons ice cream did me in haha here is a pic...