Seek Until You Find It

The week here went really well. I don't really know where it went. Our zone Conferences went well! They come and go so quickly. But it is fun to be a part of. On our drive over the mountains to Redmond, we got a ton of snow up at the top of the pass! We were not expecting it. It had been raining pretty bad all drive, and then as we continued to climb in elevation, it suddenly just turned to snow! It was sticking and non-stop. There was definitely a lot of prayer going on. But we made it through and had a good Zone Conference the next day. 

On Sunday, we had a good experience. We had a meeting down in Monmouth where the area general authority, Elder Hansen, was training the bishops and their counselors and the stake presidency. It was a really cool meeting to be a part of. There was definitely a special Spirit there.  One thing that stood out to me was when he talked about the parable of the lost sheep. It talks about how the shepherd seeks "until he find it". He doesn't just give it an effort and then go back, but he doesn't stop until the sheep is found. In our responsibilities within the church there are too many times where we stop before we find it. We give it an effort and can say we tried, but we didn't go to the end of the road searching. It definitely made me want to do better at that. 

Yesterday we had a training for all of the District Leaders. It went really well. There was a great Spirit in the mission home during the training. That is what the picture is from. 

We had a cool experience this week. We had about an hour left on Saturday night before we had to go in. It was raining and pouring like crazy. It was really dark as well. We didn't have anything

planned, so we started driving and felt prompted to go park at a park in Newberg. As we pulled into the parking lot, it looked so dreary outside because of the weather and the lack of light. After we got out, we were walking through the park and a young woman pulled up to us on her bike. She was in tears and really scared. She had taken the bus about 13 miles from McMinnville into Newberg earlier that day around 3 and was supposed to meet a friend. That friend never showed up, so she was riding around in the rain for hours. She didn't have a phone and doesn't really have a place to live. She normally would sleep outside of a church in McMinnville that allows her to sleep there when she gets there before 9. So there wasn't much time. We were able to make a few calls and one of the counselors in the bishopric, and his wife, came and picked her up and took her back to McMinnville. We found out later that they also bought her a meal and some warm clothes, etc. It was a really cool experience to be a part of. It made us appreciate how aware Heavenly Father is of each of our lives. He cares and is always there. And it also made me think of how much charity and love these members of our ward showed. They saw this girl as one of their sisters and as a daughter of God and were willing to serve her without hesitation. Truly amazing.

The temple was great today! It was really great to be there and to feel of that Spirit. I've only got a few more days with Elder Oswald! I'm sad about that. He is going to do great though. I'm excited for him! 

Eye Single to His Glory

The week here was a good one. Zone Conferences started on Wednesday! It is crazy that it is already that time of the transfer again. This transfer has flown by. There is so much being talked about at zone conference. Not only are smartphones and online proselyting being rolled out, but also the way that we plan is being changed. We have a new goal setting and planning process that we use to plan for the people in our areas on a daily and weekly basis. It is a ton of information, but it is good! One of my favorite scriptures that has been talked about at Zone Conference is D&C 88:67. It says, "And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things." That principle amazes me. Keeping ourselves focused on the Lord and His work is not an easy thing to do. Life gets busy, hectic, stressful, hard, and crazy, but as we do our best to keep our eye single to His glory, He will fill us with light. And as we are filled with light, we will come to know His love, grace, mercy and the mysteries of His ways. And He won't hold back. We are the ones who hold ourselves back. I have seen that a lot on my mission and feel like I am finally coming to understand that He is truly always there. We have to take the extra effort to keep ourselves focused on Him. Nephi, in the Book of Mormon, is one of the best examples of that. He glories in the commandments of the Lord. He is always focused on pleasing the Lord and doing all he can to do His will. Because of that, he prospers, handles every challenge with patience and hope, and is ultimately filled with the joy that the Savior brings. It isn't always easy to stay focused on the Lord and His glory, but He will help us to do so as we try. 

The week here in Newberg was good. We had some good lessons this week. We have a couple of kids in a part member family that we are teaching that are preparing to be baptized on the 28th. They are doing really good! We also found a couple that we started teaching. They have really been prepared we feel. They used to live in a different part of Oregon, closer to the temple. The street that they lived on were all members of the church and they really liked them! We had a good lesson with them on Thursday about the Restoration, and we are going back this week to have another lesson. We are pretty excited about that. 

By the way, our pday next week won't be until Wednesday. Elder Oswald and I are going to the temple on Wednesday, so that will be our p-day. It should be good! 

This is the Lord's Work

The week here went really well! We had a lot of good lesson. To be honest, I don't really remember what we did  this week. We went on an exchange on Thursday down to Salem 1st. I was back in that area for the day. The exchange went well and we were able to see some tender mercies. I was actually able to spend a good amount of time with Elder Oswald this week. That was a lot of fun. We have been trying to figure out how to use Facebook effectively. It has gone well. The missionary department also came out with a new app for our area book planner, to replace the old one. So it has been a lot of new things coming at one time and trying to figure them out. On exchanges, Elder Oswald and Elder Sellaro found a young man from Zimbabwe. He took a Book of Mormon and read Helaman chapter 5. Yesterday, we met with him at the church and taught him the Restoration. He understood it all and committed to work towards baptism in November. We are going to send him to the YSA sisters, but it is really cool to see how the Lord will put prepared people in our path. We see little things like that every day. For example, on Saturday, Elder Oswald felt prompted that we should stop by a former investigators home. When we pulled up, we saw we had a couple of texts that we needed to respond to, so we took a couple of minutes to do so. As soon as we did, and opened up the door, we saw the guy that we were looking for walking out of his house and we were able to talk to him for a few minutes! That was really cool. This is the Lord's work with His Spirit guiding the work. We are blessed to witness those miracles every day. But we all see miracles every day, regardless of whether or not we are serving as full-time missionaries. We just have to look and see them. 

This week will be good. We have a really big lesson tonight after p-day, so that will be good. We also have Zone Conferences starting up this week, so it will be busy with that. It will be good though!

General Conference

 I thought Conference was really good. There were a lot of really good talks that I would like to listen to and read over. There were a lot of talks about being positive and looking towards the light and how the light would illuminate when you do so. I thought it was really cool that President Nelson and President Eyring both talked about the Book of Mormon. In their own ways, they both stood up there and sustained President Monson by talking about how they, too, took the challenge that the prophet extended and how it blessed both of their lives. I thought that was really cool. It amazes me that President Nelson is 93. It was definitely pretty cool that Elder Ardern talked. The story he told is one that he told us when he was out here, so that was pretty cool. I went in with a question  and it seemed like it was answered in a lot of different talks. I don't know if I have a favorite. I really liked Elder Hollands talk though, that was really good. 

On Sunday we watched the second session of conference with our Ward Mission Leader and his wife, along with 2 of our investigators and 2 of the more recent converts in the ward. That was really good! 

The week here in general was really good. On Wednesday, we went to the temple. Starting in October, we aren't going to be taking Investigators to the visitors center anymore, because we will now be allowed to go to the temple once every six months. So we took one last trip to the visitors center with a couple of our Investigators and it went really well! We watched the new "Days of Harmony" video about Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery translating the Book of Mormon. It went really well! The rest of the week was pretty good. Things are really busy here. We had a couple of meetings with President, which is always fun and productive. President announced to the mission that we are going to be an online proselyting and smartphone mission. That is what these Zone conferences will be about. So Elder Patterson and I have been able to start using Facebook in our proselyting and it has helped out a lot, we are excited to get more experienced with it. We also now have smartphones! It is crazy how the work moves forward.