Bell, Rigdin PT

Another week down and two weeks closer to my first baptism because they moved it up a week. It's also the first full week of the new transfer, so talking with all the new people and learning where all the missionaries got moved to. MONDAY started off with us going to lunch with a member from Elder Stanger's last ward at this hibachi restaurant. It was my first time at one and it was pretty cool, but the food could definitely be better. After that, we headed to P-day and got to know a lot of the new people in the zone. Surprisingly, with all the changes to the zone, there was little basketball, and it was mostly board games instead. Later that day, some members actually took us to Top Golf for dinner and let us play a bit because they had a premium membership. Pretty crazily, while Elder Stanger was using one of the premium 5 irons they brought out for us, the head broke off and went into the green target. It was really surprising, but they told us that it happens every once in ...

Into my fifth transfer, and the trend has been broken! I'm staying in my area, and I'm staying with Elder Stanger! But with the excitement of all the hellos in the new transfer comes a lot of goodbyes. MONDAY was the first taste of those goodbyes for some in the zone. One of our zone leaders, Elder Yates, was heading home Thursday, so many missionaries were bringing them their transfer journals to sign. It's sad to see him go, but I feel like I've learned a lot from him in the time that we have served together. TUESDAY we got back to work in full force, with us having a couple of lessons and some finding time after our weekly planning. It was a pretty normal day, with the only really standout thing being us dropping off a couple of copies of the Book of Mormon with a member who needed them for her class on Sunday. WEDNESDAY we had a mission-wide devotional on how we can better use Facebook in our finding and teaching. The rest of the day was a lot of running from lesson...

This was a really good week, but a lot of it is kind of blurred together. There's a day where I'm thinking that we talked to a certain person just yesterday, but it was really three days ago. At least that means the days are going quickly. MONDAY was a fun and sad day. At zone p-day, we had a lot of fun playing basketball, board games, and just hanging out, but we also said goodbye to a sister who was going home early. It's sad to see missionaries go home early in every case, but I know that the Lord has a plan for each and every one of us. At dinner that night, we got to hold some snakes that this member family had. It was pretty cool to be able to hold them and feel them, but Elder Stanger was not as excited as I was. For the last bit of the day, we were able to have a lesson with the bishop of one of our wards and a less active family that we had been meeting with, and you could just feel the bishop's love for them. It's always amazing just how much the gospel un...

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! We are officially into 2024 now, and I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be my first full year on the mission, so I'm excited to see what I'm going to learn and how I'm going to grow. MONDAY was pretty normal for us. Shopping, talking with family, and then zone p-day where I finally learned how to play Catan, which took way longer than I would have expected. After all that fun, we got back to finding and teaching before dinner. If I take at least a couple of things home from my mission, one of them will definitely be life advice from members. We get given so much life advice from them at dinners; I might need to start taking a notebook with me to dinner. TUESDAY we spent around 3½ hours just walking to different neighbors we felt we needed to tract, talking to anyone we met on the way. By dinner time, my legs were pretty sore, so I was happy to sit and be given even more life advice. WEDNESDAY was really good just off the fact that ther...

Hello, would you be able to add my talk to the week 22 part? Thank you. Good morning, brothers and sisters, i hope that y'all have had a wonderful Christmas season and are excited to come into the new year with hope and faith in the promised blessings to come. Because im still a bit new to this ward and haven't met some of yall just yet, I'll just give a quick introduction. My name is Elder  Bell . I've been on my mission for about 5 and a half months, and im from Chesapeake, Virginia. Today, I have been asked to speak on how we can learn to hear and speak Jesus Christ's love which is a topic im very grateful to be able to speak on because as this world gets louder and louder, its become harder and harder to hear the voice of the Lord and live as he lived. But, as ive prepared for this talk, I've found many wonderful ways we can better hear his love for each one of us and then show that same love to others. During his April 2020 general conference talk called ...

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! I hope that the holidays have been great for each and every one of you and that you're all excited to start off the new year. This week was pretty great just because of all the holiday cheer we felt in our work. MONDAY started off pretty great with everyone calling their families and opening their presents. After that, Elder Stanger and I had to head out because some members invited us to have breakfast with them and their family. It was really nice getting to know them and feel their love for one another. While we were there, we got to listen to some of the tabernacle chair's old Christmas concert and see all the decorations that they would put up. It's really amazing to me just how much effort they must put into it. After all that, everyone in the northwest and east zones got together for the Christmas party. It was great seeing a lot of the missionaries I had been serving with in the east again and just hanging out with the...