August 18

Hey!!

 

This has been a great week! I hear that everyone is sitting on pins and needles waiting to see when I come home. Who knew that this would be such a complicated thing? So the final word is October! They haven't been able to make our final travel plans yet as far as we know but we do know that it will be in October. You should hear from the Mission Office sooner or later.

 

That is cool that you were able to give her a blessing just before she had her baby. That is so cool that you have been able to build up such a trust with them in such a short time period! I hope that good things just keep happening there.

 

This was a great/interesting week. We had a really awesome meeting that Elder Irvine and I were able to assist in putting together. It was Bishop Training meeting. Elder Irvine and I were in a meeting with President Richardson (Stake President) and we were talking with him about the vision that the mission had. He asked us if we could come and train the Bishops on vision in the Bishop tringing meeting and we accepted. We also asked him if it would be possible to have the councilers and the ward mission leaders come to the meeting. The next day we were talking with President Samuelian and telling him about it and we asked if he would like to do that training and he said that he would love that. So we were all set for the meeting and then we decided that it would be great if we could have all the missionaries in the Zone come as well. So we decicded to call and ask if we could have all the missionaries come and sing a musical number. The meeting and the musical number went really well.

 

I have really enjoyed the opportunity to work with the Stake Leaders. It is interesting to see the different perspective. In June Elder Whiting from the 70 came and was talking about Preisthood Leaders. He said that mission presidents are all optimits and that all bishops are pesimists. I think the same thing applies to Stake leaders, optimists. I really enjoy it!

 

This coming week is going to be very exciting. We have Elder Richards of the 70 coming. I am so lucky. Usually it works out so that you get to watch General Conference 4 times as a missionary, I get 5. Usually you have 2 mission tours (where a member of the 70 comes), I get 4. We are really excited about it. Elder Irvine has an interview with him after the meeting and he is really nervous, it is kinda funny! We are really hoping that he brings the new technology (iPad Mini's) with him. In the Broadcast Elder Holland said that they would be coming to us through the 70 so if it doesn't happen this week it wont happen durring my time as a missionary. Elder Richards has also called a special MLC so we get to have meetings with him two times this week.

 

Other than that there really hasn't been anything too exciting. Thanks for the cookies and the bread!