Beat the heat

Wow, so much happened this week! It started off last Tuesday with our zone conference with Elder Lawrence. I learned so much, it would be impossible to right it all down. It started with his wife Sister Lawrence giving us a training on what our true purpose is as a missionary. One of my favorite things she said was that "spirituality is the ability to recognize truth and act on it." She went into great detail over many things. Then we had lunch with all the missionaries in the mission and it was so much fun. It is always great day to be around other missionaries and make new friends. We are all out here to preach the gospel and serve the Lord. I especially had a great time seeing Elder Young Yen again. Every time we see each other it is always nonstop laughter. I can't wait to serve around him someday. We are great friends. After lunch we had another training by Elder Lawrence where he talked about our goals as a mission. We are a little behind for the year and he gave us some advice to help us get back on track to reach our goals. For a time he served as a mission president in Russia and when they were struggling to reach their goals he called for a mission wide sacrifice. The sacrifice was for each missionary to find something personal to give up. He gave us the same advice and promised us it would help us. He said that "Sacrifice brings for the blessings of heaven" and that "the first law of heaven is obedience, the second law is sacrifice." This is something each missionary has committed to do here and we all feel it will help our missionary efforts. We know the Lord will bless as week make that effort to do all we can to help others come unto him.  It was a very spiritually uplifting day to say the least.

Unfortunately our lessons with Emily, Charles, and Isabel all got rescheduled this week, so we were a little disappointed we were really looking forward to seeing them this week. However we were able to have an amazing lesson with Neil. We taught him the plan of salvation and he loved it so much. He knows it is all true and he has been keeping up with his reading in the Book of Mormon. He is enjoying it so much and loves to learn more each visit. Something really awesome he told us was he has a friend from Mexico who has lived in Mexico his whole life and his ancestors have lived there as long as they have records of. He said he recently got his blood test done and found out that he has Greek, Arabic, and Jewish DNA. He said "the only way that would be possible is if the Book of Mormon was true." It was a real testimony builder for me as well. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. We also invited him to be baptized and he accepted! He is scheduled for July 27th! We are so excited to see him come unto Christ!

On Thursday we were also able to go on teams ups with Elder Robison. He is one of the Assistants to the President and he is probably one of my favorite Elders. He is so awesome. Elder Toki and I learned so much from him. He spent a whole day with us, going to lessons with us and helping better street contact people. While we were with him we were able to find two new investigators. Brian and Timothy! We were able to meet with Timothy yesterday and share a little bit more about the Gospel. He is enjoying reading what we gave him so far. Unfortunately we weren't able to set a return appointment with him because his work schedule is so crazy he never knows when he will be home, he invited us to keep coming by though to see if he is home. We have a return appointment scheduled with Brian tomorrow and we are excited to meet with him. He was very excited to have a chance to read the Book of Mormon. So well will see how that goes tomorrow and report back in the next email. 

On Wednesday we taught Ruthie again. She is in chapter 18 of the Book of Mormon and every time we come visit and ask about her reading she always tells us her new favorite story or lesson she has recently learned from it. It is so awesome to see her enjoy the Book of Mormon. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. After which we invited her to be baptized and she accepted. The only thing holding her back right now is that she can't make it to church because she has to work every Sunday. She is trying her best to move schedules around so she can have that day off but she says the next time they will be rotating is in the beginning of August. We are praying for her that a miracle will happen in her life that will allow her to have that time off for church. She knows it's true and wants to come but she just can't right now. 

Well anyways that is my week. It has been so amazing. The only thing is the heat. It has been in the 100's all this week and will continue to stay around there. We are soaked everyday, but we know it's for a good cause. We share the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and we know it can bless lives. 

Elder Hallmark

 A sneak peak of the weather this week

The prophecy hoop in the AP's apartment