Sorry So Long...But Worth It!

This is President Smiths last week :( he leaves this Friday and President Droubay gets here. Sad day, but happy beginnings. 

Hey everyone, this was a sweet week, lots of administrative things and an exchange in the boons.

Tuesdays have become the craziest days of my life now, we meet with the stake president every Tuesday and he expects us to know the ins and outs of every person being taught in every area, not only that but we have to update this massive spread sheet with all that information so he can review it during our meeting. So we spent a large portion of our day preparing for that. And after the meeting, planning with the sisters for our All-district council the next day.

Wednesday was sweet, we had a mini zone conference type thing, its hard to explain, but we met with the Richmond East zone for the beginning hour and President, Sister Smith and the assistants trained about what we discussed in MLC about vision. The next hour we separated into individual zones and discussed how to apply this vision. Specifically i shared verses form the Book of Mormon (Alma 29:10-13, 2 Nephi 4:23-end, and 1 Nephi 4:1-6 for those interested) where BOM prophets had a vision of things they could accomplish and where (in Alma) he relied on his "Pioneer" forebears and the strength they had in accomplishing the things that were before them. It was a great discussion. the rest of the day we had to find things for the companions of the 7 missionaries to do while P-Smith did departing interviews. 

Thursday we had another meeting with the counselor in the stake presidency who is over missionary work, it was kind of funny cause I was in the MTC with his son haha, same zone, different district. But good meeting overall, we had some time at the end of the day to do some finding in our own area finally. 

Friday was the exchange in the Boons! Welcome to Louisa, VA! Ever heard of it? Neither has anyone else lol. But Elder Frey and Brown are killin it out there. We had dinner at the local pizza joint "Joe's Place" where a conversation ensued among the locals as to whether or not a piece of rope out in the parking lot was a snake or a piece of rope............For the life of me I could only understand only about 45% of the conversation. They were speaking the "central Virginia" dialect of English, im a little rusty on that one. 

Saturday was a sweet exchange with the Mandarin speaking Elders. I went with Elder Buehler, hes fresh from the MTC and he promptly ripped the seam of his pants the first time we went to climb on our bikes haha, so after we got that straightened out we had a good day.

Sunday was great, we had an awesome experience with this lady on her doorstep, she was really nice but not too interested, however we got into a discussion about her faith with her and shared 2 Nephi 31:20, she had tears in her eyes by the time she was done reading it. We gave her that copy with Moroni 7 marked to read, she wouldn't set a return appointment, but we are definitely going to try back by. 

"Let us never forget the faith of our fathers and the selfless sacrifice of our mothers, those pioneering Saints who set such an inspiring example of obedience. Let us remember them as we strive to be valiant servants in our work to “invite all to come unto Christ” and “be perfected in him.” .............. We who have been blessed to know the fulness of the restored gospel owe a debt of gratitude to those who have gone before us, who have given so much to build the kingdom into the worldwide miracle that it is today. Our debt of gratitude to our forebears is a “debt that can best be paid in service to this great cause.” 
-Joseph B. Wirthlin