Getting a new companion/Teaching a lot of people!!!

Elder Lyman's email this week:

P-Day again. So as for last week's French, it was Alma 7:11 if you want to check it. (Elder Lyman sends a French sentence each week for us to try and translate. Last week's sentence was: "Et il ira, subissant des souffrances, et des afflictions, et des tentations de toute espèce; et cela, afin que s'accomplisse la parole qui dit qu'il prendra sur lui les souffrances et les maladies de son peuple."

For this week; "Or voici le commandement: Repentez-vous, toutes lest extrémités de la terre, et venez à moi, et soyez baptisées en mon nom, afin d'etre sanctifiées par la réception du Saint-Esprit, afin de vous tenir sans tache devant moi au dernier jour."

We got the transfer e-mail on Saturday and I'm staying here. I'll be getting a new companion, his name is Elder Evans and I don't know him at all, he's pretty under-the-radar in the mission. He'll come Wednesday.

As for this week, it went pretty well and there were some pretty cool things that happened. The other day we taught a couple less-active/pretty much active now people and a few of their family members. They're doing really good and stuff and have just made crazy progress since I got here. Then their family has been taught some but hasn't been super interested, though they like us and are really nice to us. Anyways a sister was there and she had a broken rib and was in lots of pain and was very miserable so they asked if we could give a blessing, so we did after the lesson. She was greatful and all. Then yesterday her sister, the member, told me at church that she got way better after the blessing and was up and about and had been trying to call us to thank us and had starting reading the Book of Mormon on her own. Also the mom, who is very nice but just didn't have any desire to come to church and was just not really interested at all, she saw the difference and was amazed and I guess she has been reading as well. So that's cool.

Also, the guy who was baptized last transfer gave us the number of his friend/maybe brother-in-law a while back and we finally got a rendez-vous with him. We taught with the recent convert and it went really good and the guy seems really solid. Also other missionaries in the area called a wrong number but told the guy about who we were anyway and he said he'd see us. It ended up he lives in our area so we set up a rendez-vous and he is awesome and very solid. We taught him again last night then went to the YSA FHE and he really seemed to like everything and we're seeing him Tuesday.

So that's some of the good stuff that happened. I need to wrap up soon cuz we need to go do some stuff but that was pretty much the week. Things are going pretty well. Love and miss you all.

General Conference & a baptism all in the same weekend!!

Hey everybody. Yes I got to watch conference, everything except for the Sunday afternoon session because here it ends at midnight. So Saturday night we went to the church for the Saturday morning session, then spent all day Sunday there.

Sunday at 11 was the priesthood session, 2 was Saturday afternoon, 4:30 we had a baptism, then 6 was Sunday morning. So I won't get to hear Sunday afternoon but I'll be able to read the talks in French when we get "Le Liahona". It was all good, obviously.

I'm not sure what I'd say my favorite parts were. President Monson's talk about service was good, obviously. I liked how he said something like a life not spent serving others is without purpose. That's something difficult that I hope I can improve a lot on in the next 16 months, overcoming the natural man who feels to be happy you need to worry about your own wants and needs. Sometimes it's really difficult to see how real happiness comes from forgetting yourself but watching somebody like President Monson, whose entire life is serving others, you can't really doubt it. I also liked the talks about hardships and hard work, like President Uchtdorf's and I believe Elder Clayton's. Everything about hardships being experiences to grow and things for which we'll be grateful later when we have the full perspective I think definitely can apply to a mission. Also Elder Clayton talked about how work is a constant burdon and blessing, and that is something I need to learn. Some days I feel like I'll really be able to be happy after these 2 years are over and I can just relax, which I know isn't actually true. Life is never going to get easy and I'll be happy when I really learn to work. We just need to find joy in the journey. I hope somebody around me will be able to get the talks on their iPod or something so I can relisten to them and hoepfully be able to listen to the Sunday afternoon session. With a full day of conference and being at the church sometimes it was hard to concentrate and stuff, and the English room just had the speakers of a tv and it was pretty quiet, so it would be good to go through again.

Also as I mentioned we had a baptism between sessions so that was cool. I mentioned the guy last week, he's awesome and was definitely prepared and ready to be found by the missionaries. One cool thing about the baptism is that a priest in the ward was going to do it but he couldn't so it actually was done by a guy who was baptized last transfer. We weren't sure about doing that but he did great and knew what he was doing. It was really cool.