Not Too Much To Talk About

Hello everybody! So, this week was pretty standard missionary work wise. We found some cool people but they all dropped off by the end of the week. All I need to do is look under the face of the earth and they'll all get baptized! A couple random things that happened this week:

We had zone conference! Our last with President Richardson! President Garns comes in this Saturday. The APs said that there have been missionaries slacking on the rules because they think that President Garns is going to come in and make sweeping changes, especially with the only-Motab [Mormon Tabernacle Choir music] rule. They said that rule in particular has been in the mission for 9 years and President told us that when they set apart a new mission president they tell them to not change anything for several months. So the transition should be pretty smooth at least on our end of things. Still exciting though! President Garns will do a tour of the mission as one of the first things he does so it'll be interesting to meet him.

We also went to the North Zone Conference instead of the South conference like we normally do. Our zone is like right on the dividing line so President switched us up. That means I got to see some of my previous companions, including Elder Lund! I got to see him give his "dying" testimony, meaning that since he goes home at the end of this transfer he gives a short testimony at the conference. It was pretty funny, he got the biggest laugh out of all of them. He said " I'll always be a missionary, except I'll be undercover since there's no more name badge and dress code. They won't see me coming until it's too late!" Haha, it's crazy that he's going home. Elder Alexis was also there and is also going home. It was a really fun time talking to them again.  

This week we also did a zone-wide exchange. The ZLs switched up all the missionaries in the zone for a day, and I went to the YSA [Young Single Adult] area. Definitely a different experience. We ate lunch at the food court in the mall, went OYMing on a college campus, and taught some investigators that are my same age. I felt the closest to a normal teenager since I've been out haha. The YSA area is also huge. They cover 2 stakes. We spent most of the day way up in Tamarac.

[Added from another email to me: So family search did a thing where they give you profiles about early church missionaries in your line, pretty neat! Here's the link https://familysearch.org/missionary?ancestor_pid_1=KWZQ-R4V&et_cid=52545303&et_rid=1496767150&linkid=CTA&cid=em-mc-6331 Turns out I have several ancestors that served out here in the "southern states" mission, including John Carter, the one I took to trek with me! Also the 2 hours a week for family history are gone, it's now 1 hour a month! Bummer, but we're called to save the living not the dead and now that we have a handle on how to do it we can teach our investigators and others.]

That's pretty much it for the week. We're keeping the finding work up as usual. Our teaching pool basically resets every week with how fast people drop off but it's all good. Bertina and fam wasn't at church this week either. We need to see what's up. She got a new job which is good/bad. It's better pay but weird hours that make it hard for us to get in contact. Hopefully all is well. I'm not too worried about her though. She has one of the strongest testimonies I've ever seen. Even still, the first year is a critical time so we're gonna stay on it! Anyways, hope all is well with you! Thanks for your support!

 

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson