WEEK SIXTEEN: President Nelson!

(Tyson is on the right 2nd from the end in the yellow tie....This is the whole Leeds Mission gathered for the Conference with President Nelson.  I sent the picture to Tyson and he sent me back the following notes about it.  He was grateful to get it because they hadn't received it....
Elder Klingler is our other Zone Leader and is to the right of Elder Rhea in the picture. The Assistants to the President are in the centre on the very bottom. They are Elders Dobbs and Jackson. You can see the White of their shirts more than the others. If you go up one from Sister Turvey and left 6 you will see an Elder with a red tie standing. He is Elder Leavitt and is a good Elder. 6 more to the left is his companion Elder McTavish who I like as well. If you go one to the right of Elder Tuita, you can see the face of Elder Poggeman popping up over that Elder's head. It was so good to see him again as well.

Brother Turley in our ward has a sister and her husband who are serving as a senior couple in the Leeds Mission.  They had this picture of President Nelson with President and Sister Turvey.

There were some definite highlights this week as well as some things I should probably mention regardless of what I thought of them.

First things first, I played my first game of football last P-day!! It was so insanely fun! I loved it and it made me so happy to do this. I don't get the chance to play tons since Elder Buckhoff really wants to spend P-day emailing the whole time since he has lots to send. I relished the opportunity to play football. It was indoor, but still great. My touch wasn't that good, but I don't care.

We taught these two new investigators named Renata and Robo and it was so amazing. We had the Spirit and taught together so well. I felt seriously accomplished after that lesson. Not to worry, I had other lessons that reopened my eyes. It was a miracle we found them again because they had moved and changed phone numbers, so it was seriously unlikely that we would find them, but we saw them on the street the day we planned to meet with them and I know the Lord was behind it.

Also, I had Sister Crowley's pizza this week and that was amazing. It was so good and so plentiful! There were 6 pizzas and 5 people. That was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and ruined all the work I had put towards dropping my weight back to normal. But it was easily worth
it. Other food stories, I made crepes this week and they turned out great! Thanks Grandma for teaching us how to do That! I also made poppyseed chicken and that was nice to taste home, but it didn't turn out quite right.

I went on exchange with Elder Peck and that was a blast. He is such a great Elder and the Spirit is so strong when he talks. He was telling me about how he wished he could have a better approach at talking to people on the street. He walks up and says "when can we talk with you
about God". It is very direct and they understand what he wants. I saw miracles with finding people who want to learn. He talked to everyone and the Lord qualified his efforts. We challenged this man to be baptized if he finds out the truth. He agreed. I really like him. He is starting his family and he is really wanting to find out more about God to lead them right. In general I had a blast with Elder Peck for another day.

I learned a lesson this Friday about being prepared. We were told by President recently that they would change the cleaning checkups to be in random Friday's with no warning and this would help us always be clean. Our flat is clean, but isn't sparkling. The punishment if you don't pass is that you spend p day cleaning and don't get to shop or email. On Friday, we were finishing our exchange so the other elders' stuff was sitting out and made our flat look more cluttered. We hear a knock and look out and see the people in charge of cleaning checks. We passed, but the heart wrenching fear that gripped us when we looked out to see them through the windows was remarkable. I learned that much like in life, if we are always prepared, we have nothing to fear.
One day, we will die, and we will have to face God at the judgement bar and account for our actions. We will all make mistakes, just like our flat will get dirty as we live in it, but as we repent daily and always remember that we can change and improve through the Atonement
of Christ, we are able to keep our flat clean so that when we have an accounting, we will pass. This is the goal of our life. We need to keep ourselves ready at all times to face our God. He loves us and wants us to return to Him, but we have to make choices that will allow this to happen. I remember a scripture that talks about not wanting to stand before God at judgement if we don't repent because our guilt and shame will make us want to hide before him. It is sad to think that we would want to hide from our loving Father, but if we are guilty, it will be like that. The actual scripture is Alma 12: 12-15. I love it.

The next day we met President Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He is an amazing man and being in his presence lets me know that he is truly a servant of God. He spoke to us and gave us some wonderful promises, but what stuck out the most to me was that he asked us to remember the blessing of obedience. That struck me that obedience really is a blessing. Sometimes, we feel it is a burden to follow the commandments of God. But I know that our obeying God is really helping us to be safe and happy in life. I learned lots from the other leaders of our church who attended but most of it helped me to know how I could better fulfill my calling as a missionary. It was amazing to see how my questions were answered very specifically.

The other highlight I had this week came at church. Our branch struggles with having members who follow the commandments. Many of them lie to us about changing until they are baptized and then go back to their old habits. It is sad to see. It sometimes feels as if the work we do is not accomplishing anything because of this. But, this Sunday, we were able to listen to one new member speak. Her name is Katka and she used to have a really rough life. She was in a
relationship with a man in Slovakia who was in the mafia. She got into some really bad stuff through this such as addiction to cocaine and several other hard drugs. She found her partner hung one day. He had killed himself and she tried to save him, but was too late. She had no
confidence or happiness in life. She did not want to listen to us, but after a while of her father Milan asking her, she agreed to listen. She read the Book of Mormon and she felt the love of her Father in Heaven reach out and surround her. She began to find comfort and peace in reading and read more frequently. She gained a testimony that this is the true church of God as restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. She now serves in the Relief Society and helps people and has changed her life so much. She has quit all the drugs she was addicted to and has stopped smoking and drinking as well and continually changes her life to better follow Christ. Listening to her speak helped me see that if all the work we do comes to nothing except that we helped Katka change to follow the Savior, than it will all be worth it. I was glad for the week I had and the uplifting moments that came with it.