"Bits & Pieces" from April 2015

April 6, 2015.....
 

So I don't have too much time this week to write but I loved conference as well it was so sick! My favorite talk was probably Dale G Renlunds when he talked about how a saint is just a sinner who keeps on trying!! So sweet. and I loved the music analogy as well it made a lot of sense but what hit it home I feel like was Boyd K Packers, L Tom Perrys, and M Russell Ballards talks on the family and how important it really is. And how that needs to be our number 1 priority!! Which gave me some good revelation for when I come home:) but I also like Pres Uchtdorfs talk on grace. That has probably been the biggest testimony I have gained on my mission. The importance of grace and what it actually is. I had a cool experience, I had a question in my heart of what I could do for a couple of friends and I prayed in my head during the conference and then 2 minutes right after I prayed, Brent H Nielson talked about the prodigal son and how we can deal with those who are struggling to come back and what we can do. It was such a cool way to receive an answer! 

But the mission council trip was so awesome!! I wish I had more time to write about it. We hiked Kennesaw mountain where a lot of the civil war took place. At least two major battles, Pigeon Hill and Death Point at Chetham hill and we visited both places as well as the Marrietta Cemetary with all the graves. It was so cool and gave me a deeper appreciation of the land where I am serving as well as for America and what we had to go through to make it as it is today. How cool is it that Joseph Smith testified that the civil war would happen before it did!

April 13, 2015.....

That's awesome that y'all got to go up and be with Cassidy as she went through the temple, must have been a spiritual moment for sure to see another one of the cousins go through.

But my week this week was great. Elder Barnes is the new Companion!! He came out one transfer after me and he has been a ZL before so we have just hit the ground running and have connected really well. He is 23 and from Alpine as well! They stuck with me with 2 of them! But the crazy thing is they are actually from the same home ward and have known each other for 12 years.  So its fun hearing all the memories they have had together. Its just a small world. Nothing really crazy happened this week in the teaching game due to the fact we had a lot of meetings with all of our District Leaders and getting all the stuff out of the way at the beginning of the transfer so we are excited to kick it off this week! We did have some fun on Saturday doing a community service project cleaning up Conyers. The ward was assigned to clean up Old Town and we had a great time and found a lot of new people to teach from that. Ill forward some pictures and the big news of our week is they changed the bishopric in our ward!! It is now Bishop Nolden!!! We are so stoked! He is our favorite member in the ward and so focused on missionary work so its gonna change this area!

April 20, 2015....

Another glorious week here in the Conyers zone family!! I have already told you basically what happened but we just went crazy with being bold and inviting everyone we found to come closer to the Savior through baptism and we saw the results from it. Many people accepted and we went from 29 baptismal dates to 68!!! The next closest zone to that is 35! So we are so happy with what we are seeing and we are teaching way more people with members.  The zone averaged 13 member present lessons which is amazing. So that was really cool to see. It all really happened cause in our zone training meeting that we had we were planning on talking about how we need to be more bold but it was going to be in regards to the members, but a companionship brought an investigator who is getting baptized this week to the meeting and she stood and and said "Yall are selfish, you are not being bold enough with these people! You have no idea what you have!" it was AMAZING. The spirit jabbed all of us to the heart and we all committed to being more bold. and we are now seeing the results from it so it was really cool. 

But we taught a lot of great people this week and found a lot of new people. We are trying to rebuild our teaching pool cause we kind of baptized out of it. And one thing we have just implemented in the mission and I want to testify of the truthfulness of it is Singing!! We sing in every single lesson with a member or an investigator we use it as a finding tool and just sing with random people on the streets and they LOVE it!! It has helped so much and I think that is another reason for the success because what a great way to bring the spirit into an atmosphere than by singing one of Gods Hymns! So its pretty cool. I never thought in a million years that I would walk up to a stranger and ask if I could sing with them but I do it and I love doing it! 

I am just grateful that I have been able to serve the Lord for 2 years and have been able to at least bring one soul unto Christ. Myself. Its the greatest blessing ever and I will definitely cherish every minute I have left. Its amazing with all the work we've got going on I have no time to even think about home. It honestly feels like I'll never leave this place. I love it!

 

Always time for fun in a busy missionaries life

 

April 27, 2015.....

 

So crazy week this week, so much went on, but lets just say our zone is still killing it!!! There were 5 baptisms with many more to come but we had an average per companionship and we have 15 companionship with 4.3 people one date for baptism and 4.3 investigators at church!!! So sweet! That's unheard of. We had a lot of success in our own area with a lot of cool miracles. First off Sammi is doing great. She is still going strong and coming and doing family history work. The big news this week is David received the priesthood!! And his mom and uncle were there to support him! We are super stoked for him. He has totally changed. Then we had 7 of our investigators come to church!! It was crazy to make sure everybody was in the right place and having a good experience. We were pooped at the end of church but thats what its all about! And I forgot to mention that we got a new ward mission leader last week and it has been exactly what we needed to change this place around. He has previously been a bishop and knows how to do missionary work. He is amazing and he is constantly helping us and making sure everything is working smoothly. He really helped us out this week. So 2 of our progressing investigators, Monica and Eric need to get married before they get baptized. So we took the ward mission leader on a team up to teach the law of chastity with them and they are both young 19 and 21. And as we were teaching he  cued in and said we can get you married in 2 weeks if you would like to.  Ill set everything up and make sure it goes exactly how you want it and then you can get baptized!!!  Monica's jaw dropped and her eyes got super big and the first thing she said was "I dont know what Im going to wear??" hahaha so they have now met with the bishop and will be getting married on May 3rd at the church!!! We have all the members of the ward council helping and then in 2 weeks on the 16th they will get baptized!! Miracles! We are super happy. I've always wanted to marry someone and get them baptized and now its happening! All because our ward mission leader was bold with them!