Week-9

Another week of new experiences has been added to the list. The general conference weekend has come and gone, and I'm feeling all the more excited because of it. Some fun stuff happened, and some not so fun things happened, but it all helps me to grow.


MONDAY wasn't the most interesting day this week, but it was very restful. It had been decided by our zone leaders that we'd be doing District P-day instead of a zone P-day, so it was just the six of us elders in the East Mountain District. But that didn't really happen either because the other Elders in our house still had COVID and were quarantined, as well as the other two not in our house were almost an hour away. Because of all this, we just ended up staying at the house and hanging out all P-day. I spent most of the time just talking with my family and taking care of some odds and ends around the house. Afterwards, my companion and I cut P-day a little short so that we could go have a lesson with someone that we had met tracking in a neighborhood. It started off with us just getting to know her and how we can best help her come closer to Christ. After that, we gave a quick introduction to the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ before we had to head out.


TUESDAY we woke up early to do a favor for the Edgewood Elders because they were still sick. In the church, there is an early morning class held every weekday whenever there is school, where the high school-age youth can go and discuss some of the scriptures and other topics that they'd studied on their own and with their families that week. The teacher for the class wasn't able to be there for a couple of days and had asked the Edgewood Elders to help fill in for him and teach the class. They'd agreed and had been planning to go and teach, but then ended up getting COVID and needed to quarantine until they were healthy enough to go out again. And so they asked us to help cover for them, and we said yes. It was a bit earlier than we were used to, but it was worth it to be able to help out and hear all the insights that the youth had to offer. We didn't need to do much since the assistant teacher had planned a lesson, but it was still a good experience. When that finished up and we got back home, we got ready for the day and started planning out what we felt we needed to do that day. Once all our studies for the day were done, we headed out and spent a good amount of time tracking different neighborhoods we could find.


WEDNESDAY we woke up early again to help teach the seminary class. The difference this time was that Elder Bates and I would be the ones leading the lesson. I was a bit nervous until I realized that I was in the same spot as them just a while ago, and they weren't something that I needed to be scared of. We decided to teach a lesson on the restoration of the gospel and teach them about some of the ways they can prepare for their own missions. It was really inspiring seeing just how many of them were planning on going and doing the Lord's work. Another thing that I really enjoyed that day was an email I got. It was from a friend from high school and some of the things he'd been up to since we graduated. It was nice to be able to read that and reminisce about the things I did at that time. It's only been a couple of months since I graduated, but it feels like that was a completely different life from where I am now. Later, Elders Bates and I went to one of our friend's houses to help them out with some service. We headed on over to their farm and spent about an hour and a half helping them with things like cleaning up weeds, planting some sprouts, moving wood, and moving a chicken coop. It was pretty tiring to do all that in the time frame we had, but we managed to use our time wisely and get as much done as we could.


THURSDAY I had exchanges with one of the elders new to the district, so I was excited to meet and get to know them. Once we started the exchange, we planned out our day and started to drive around the area tracking until we had to head over to our lessons. Unfortunately, though, every single one of our lessons fell through one after the other, so we ended up with a lot more time than we were expecting to have that day. We were a bit thrown off, but we just kept at it and got back to searching for the rest of the day.


FRIDAY we ended our exchange and started getting ready to head into town for zone council. When we got there and started the council, we began with a social media training that wasn't like any I'd had before. They first had us all make a circle with the tiny chairs for the primary-age children and then draw a rainbow, write the alphabet, and number 1-20 using crayons. All the elders were having a lot more fun with it than you'd expect, but there was a purpose to all this. It was meant to remind us that we need to practice the basics of using social media just like we learn the basics in primary. After all that, we decided as a zone what we wanted our goals to be for this upcoming month and how we were going to accomplish them. Once we ended, we all headed back to our areas so we could keep at the work. Elder Bates and I had some service moving a bunch of mulch that had been dumped in the wrong spot, which gave us a pretty good workout and made us smell like wood chips for the rest of the day. Once the sunset, we headed over to our chapel to help run the youth sports night. It was going well, and everyone was enjoying themselves until I accidentally swung my arm out and hit Elder Bates in the face, giving him a pretty bad bloody nose. Thankfully, it's not broken and was just bleeding a lot, but I was really scared I'd hurt him badly for a minute there.


SATURDAY was the first day of the general conference weekend. For anyone who doesn't know what general conference is, it's a big meeting held in the church's conference center in Salt Lake City where the leaders of the church speak on topics that they are inspired about. To watch the conference, our zone all headed back into town so that we could watch it together at the chapel. Once the morning session was over, we all decided to just stay in town and watch the afternoon session together as well. While we waited for the session to start, we went over to the zone leaders' apartment, made lunch, and did companion study. The thing that made all that email-worthy was that every other companionship did the same thing. There were 10 elders in an apartment meant for 4, all making lunch and doing their studies. At one point, there were 7 elders in the very small kitchen all making food. It was very hectic and very funny to watch. After we escaped that, we headed back to the chapel and watched the afternoon session of conference before Elder Bates and I had to rush back home to get to a member's house for dinner.


SUNDAY, instead of heading into town to watch conference, we headed to a member's house to have breakfast and watch it with our district. This family has a tradition where they have all the East Mountain missionaries over on one of the conference mornings to feed them breakfast and watch the morning session with them. And this one was special for them because their own son had gotten back from his own mission the night before and would be watching it with us. The food was great, and I was so thankful for them having us over to watch the session with them. Later in the day, at the end of the last session of this conference, we had a talk from the president of the church, Russell M. Nelson. I was a bit worried that we wouldn't hear from him before he'd fallen and hurt his back a couple of weeks earlier, so I was pretty happy to see him talk. He'd recorded his talk and sent it to be played in the conference center.


I really enjoyed this week and its pace. Preparing for conference in my studies was nice, and watching conference really helped me feel the spirit this week. And the talks during conference were some of my favorites that I've listened to. The thought I'd like to share this week is some of the things I was thinking while listening to President Nelson talk on Sunday. He'd talked about "thinking celestial." What that really means to me is that we need to focus less on the here and now and more on where we're going. This life isn't the end, and the choices we make now will influence how we live in the next. Our actions have meaning, and we can't take the life we have for granted.


Exchanges activities
Zone council
Sports night mishap
Watching conference with the zone
Watching conference with the district




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