week 68

I don't think I told everyone about my companion Elder Ericson.  He has been great. I am glad that I have him as my companion since I am a district leader.  

week 67

Today is an all day p-day so we will probably play sports as well. I am hoping I will have time to write a ton of letters that I need to write. I sent Tacia a letter yesterday for her birthday. It might not get there until Monday the day after her birthday. 

It is crazy covering an entire stake. English work is also a little weird. But the work seems like it will be going well once I get my feet on the ground. My companion is great.

week 66

All right so much has been happening. I had so many emails to read from President Brinkerhoff, and from the mission and other things. I am finally writing my email. 

This last week was crazy. I got my new companion. I had no clue what I was doing in an area where I know nothing. The area is so large that there is no way we have enough miles just to go try and find people home. Getting sick because the last elder that was living here was sick. I did not find out until after I got sick from him. When I found that out, I disinfected everything. The next day I started to feel better. I never actually felt really sick. I was waiting for the sickness to just hit me hard one day like it usually does, but it never came I seemed to only have minor runny nose problems. I am now feeling a bit better.  Being a district leader has been crazy. I am also trying to figure out what to do when you cover 9 units. (1 branch and 8 wards) I still don't know what I am doing in the area. 

Yesterday, the Boise temple was dedicated. That was special. I never really could remember well if I had seen a temple dedication before, but as we were singing The Spirit of God at the end, the spirit filled me so much and I could remember President Hinckley waving his handkerchief. I don't really know when I saw a temple dedication before, but I could remember that as well as the spirit I felt when I was younger when they were singing that song before. That was such an amazing experience.

week 65

I am moving areas again. I am going to Blackfoot.  I will be training again. I will be white washing the area (that means the area book is your best friend, unless the last set of elders did a horrible job at the area book, then that means you start from scratch.) I will be doing bilingual work, both English and Spanish. I will be covering a Spanish branch and several English wards. I will be covering the whole stake. This is going to be very interesting. My companion will be waiting for a visa to go to Spain so I will need to start talking like I am from Spain. I am also going to be promoted to district leader.

I think the companion I am going to get is learning Spanish and I think he is American, my first non-Hispanic companion.

I learned something about perfection the other day.

People always say, "What would Jesus do?"

However I learned something that is quite odd.

The scripture that talks about the mote in thy brothers eye and the beam in thy own eye, it states that in order to clearly see what is wrong with your brothers eye you have to first pull out the beam out of your own eye. So, the beam in your own eye causes that you cannot see clearly. What you would see as perfect, once the beam is taken out of your

eye, is no longer perfect. What appears to be wrong with someone else is only wrong because you cannot see clearly. So, when people ask, "What would Jesus do?" they only see what their eye views as perfection, not what actually is perfect. 

That phrase actually does not do that much good. 

What is required is inspiration to know what you need to correct within yourself. 

The phrase "don't judge" now has a lot more meaning to me. 

This explains why so many people reasoned within themselves that Jesus Christ was of the devil. Because what they saw as perfection was far from it. Which is why it is so important to not judge and view the fruits of every action, not the action itself.

Christ did command that we must be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect, but He gave us the gospel as the way to become perfect. The whole idea of the gospel is becoming better one step at a time. having faith; repenting; making, keeping, and renewing covenants and commitments; then receiving, following, and being cleansed by the spirit; and enduring to the end which basically means repeat this process. 

week 64

For Halloween we watched Kong fu panda 2, so much fun.

Then the next day we had two miracles happen. 

1st 

We found a new person I have never talked to and she is so golden. 

2nd

A person I have known for a long time, that has had a lot of anti Mormon info in his head, listened to us. We taught all of lesson 1. We answered all of his questions. He was actually amazed we were able to do that. He told us at the end of the lesson that he was surprised that we were able to explain everything using scriptures. He now has a baptismal date. Yay!

In preparation for the baptism, we spent all Friday preparing for the baptism. 

We also found another new investigator that we have not written as an investigator because he is so drunk we don't know if he is already a member or not. He said he was baptized in the name of Joseph Smith. We are not sure if that means he was part of the FLDS church or what. We are going to try to get him sober to we can teach him better.   His wife is not drunk and is actually a real investigator of ours.