April 5, 2006

Wow! Who loved Conference? I've officially decided it's 100 times better as a missionary. There's so many things that you just wish all of your investigators were there to hear. I'm concocting some way of carrying a microscopic television and a tape of conference around with me and when anyone asks me a question, whip it out, hit play and have them listen to their answers straight from the mouths of the apostles. Their words are so powerful, and the spirit that they have.it's amazing! President Faust's talk (first speaker on Sunday.right?) was Lesson 1 pretty much perfectly. Anyway, it was one part of a pretty awesome week. Let me start from the beginning.

We'll begin on Friday. It was a semi-normal day. We had service at the mission office in the morning and were going to do a couple stop-backs after lunch. One of the members we had dinner with had given us a referral for another 85 yr old man named George that we were going to visit as well. He had given George a Book of Mormon a little while ago but George's wife hadn't wanted him to pursue anything. He said he heard that George's wife passed away a few months ago so he figured it'd be worth a shot to try it again. As we were getting to his house Sister Clove realized she'd tracted this street when she first got to the area in December, and turns out she
had talked to him for awhile before and remembered him. We knocked on the door and George stood in the doorway in his wifebeater, vacuum cleaner in hand and immediately says, "you caught me at a bad time." We talked for a minute and explained why we were there and he said he remembered meeting them before. George kept saying he was too busy and we couldn't help with anything and he wouldn't let us inside. We ended up talking to him outside for over 30 minutes and he listened. We gave him a flyer for General Conference and invited him to come and he said he would. He came and he
knew from the very beginning that every word was true. After the 2nd session we talked with him, and. set a baptismal date! Crazy! He ended up staying for all sessions Saturday (including priesthood) because he couldn't get enough. He was excited for Sunday too, but we wore him out and his doctor told him to take it easy, so he didn't come. We felt bad. But he loves it. It was crazy, he completely changed and softened. He says the same thing James did-Why did I have to wait 85 years for this? We're teaching a real lesson 1 tonight. Crazy how we get all the old men huh.

Anyway, that's the coolest thing this week, but there's been so many other little things. Wherever we go we see little miracles that we never expected. Like Saturday between sessions we went to lunch with George. No one could decide on somewhere so I said.. uh, Arbys. And on the way out we passed this man with his dad and I said Hey, how's it going? And he said, "you're from the church on Westwood right?" (that's our street.) Turns out he used to meet with the missionaries and the sisters in his area are teaching him now. Then yesterday we were walking past a kid at the bus stop
and he says he's already a Mormon. He was baptised when he was 12 but never really read the Book of Mormon or gone to church. It's amazing how people are put in your path when Heavenly Father knows we'll talk to them.

There's so many other times where we can see the hand of the Lord in everything we do. I wish I had time to write so much more, but we have a lunch appointment today. Sorry I babble sometimes and I'm sure all of this doesn't make sense, but I'm too out of time to go back over it and read it, so.sorry again. Thanks for all of you.you really help me a lot. And thanks for reading. Until next time...