Tuesday we had a zone conference with Elder Jorg Klebingat! On our way to the conference we ended up getting lost and drove for 30 extra minutes trying to figure out where we were suppose to be. We also called the assistants twice so I'm pretty sure they think we have no clue what we are doing. Anyway, the zone conference was amazing! So many of my prayers were answered and the spirit was so strong. I had been struggling with adjusting to the new mission and felt like I just must not be a good enough missionary if I was just struggling so much. I had been praying that I would receive some kind of revelation at this conference. President Layton was taking his turn to speak to us and asked us what were some obstacles of being a missionary. Sister Jackman sitting next to me commented that she has a hard time giving her will over to God. I second this motion and admitted to everyone that this was something that I was seriously struggling with at the moment, and I thought I was bad at giving up my will. President Layton looked at me with tears in his eyes and said. Sister Howard may I correct you? I very hesitantly said yes. And he said, "You are one of the very best at giving up your will to Heavenly Father's. The spirit filled my heart and I knew that Heavenly Father was proud of my efforts. I also knew that President Layton loved me as one of his missionaries and that it was okay that I was having a hard time adjusting. After this I just felt a huge burden lift off of my shoulders. Elder Klebingat then took over and answered a lot of our questions and taught us ways to better memorize the scriptures. I even was able to eat lunch with him!! It was really cool to speak with him because you could just tell that he was called of God. Then we had a special mission leadership meeting after. He better explained what I as a sister training leader needed to do to better serve my missionaries. Then we went home and I got to have dinner with the Todd family!!
Wednesday was an amazing finding day! We found 4 people! Brent, Daphne, Danny and Alma. They were so excited to learn more about the gospel.
Thursday we found out that Liberty, Luis, Logan and Brandon were all sharing a bed, so we put a post on Facebook and got a really nice wooden bunk bed donated to them. We had brother Lawler pick up the bunk bed in his truck and drive it to Liberty's. Then Sister Weaver and I got to out it together and it was so funny because Brother Lawler was worried we couldn't do it so he kept checking up on us. We had it almost done when we realized we didn't have enough screws. So Brother Lawler had to come back and finish the top part for us. But he was super impressed at all that we did get done and admitted that we could have easily finished it without him. We had dinner at the Smith's house:) then we went back to Liberty's and Brother Lamerson and Brother Lawler gave her a blessing for her pregnancy.
Friday we meet with the Burgesses to read more scriptures. Then we had dinner at the Lamersons. After dinner we had a lesson with Jesse, but we could not find parking. We ended up parking at our aprtment and walking to Jesse's lesson. Well I was wearing really bad shoes to be doing a lot of waking... And he lives far from our apartment so I ended up getting really bad blisters on my feet. As we were walking there all I could think about was how much I loved Jesse and how bad I wanted him to accept the gospel and just come to church with us. It surprised me because my old self would have so been complaining about my blisters... Then I started thinking about how Jesus Christ never complained about anything that he was asked to do. He just did it because he deeply deeply loves us. Everything he does is motivated by love for us. This is the same with our Heavenly Father. Needless to say the lesson with Jesse was fantastic and he is continuing to read the scriptures and be more and more open with us.
Saturday we went over to Liberty's to have lunch and to teach her more about tithing. Her friend Chile ( the cutest Hispanic man ever) was there and wanted us to help him cook lunch. I was the lucky one that got roped into it. Chile got his name because every time he cooks he uses a ton of hot Chile peppers. He also only speaks Spanish. So I got to learn how to make a bunch of spicy Hispanic food! He also taught me Spanish as we were cooking. Then Sister Weaver and I got to burn our tongues off eating it. It was awesome. Sister Weaver is not a huge fan of spicy food so we all ended up laughing at the faces she was making. After lunch we went to a stake ward counsel leadership meeting. We talked about missionary work and how we can be better at sharing the gospel with out friends. We went back to Liberty's to finish teaching her the lesson, and ended up getting Logan interested as well. Every time we go over to Liberty's he wants nothing to do with us, but this time he was interested. We took advantage of the situation and taught him about Jesus Christ. His favorite thing is that he is a son of God, Jesus is his brother and Sister Howard is his sister. This simple statement of truth made him so happy. Every time he repeated it back to us you could feel the spirit. After the lesson we got to go to the wedding reception of Caroline Cawly. It was gorgeous. They had beautiful white lights around the trees and a donut bar. They even had golf carts driving you from your car to the reception. We ended up parking super duper far away on accident and Cooper, Jennifer's son, happily drove us around. Which honestly was a highlight. It's the little things that make life so worth living.
Sunday was stake conference. Brother Cornwall gave Marion a ride there and Brother Todd gave Logan and Liberty a ride. We all sat up on the front row and had a wonderful time. Logan and I ended up playing tic tac toe the whole time and I'm happy to say that I am still undefeated. After stake conference we found out that there was going to be a baptism and Liberty and Logan decided that they wanted to stay and watch it. While we were waiting for the baptism to start we watched bible videos about Jesus Christ. Liberty and I got talking about how much Jesus Christ loves all of us and how he even atoned for the sins of those who don't love him back, at this point Liberty and I both started crying because we were just so amazed that Jesus cares about us so much. Everyone was looking at us like we were weird or something. Sister Weaver was teaching Logan more about the importance of getting baptized and he loves to now tell everyone what CTR means. We had dinner at Brother and Sister Leavitt's. We taught them the restoration and Sister Weaver set it up so I would have to teach the first vision. Which is great only problem is I just memorized Joseph Smith's account of it and I knew she wanted me to quote it to everyone. I was really nervous about just reciting it but did it any way and was amazed at how strong the spirit came into the room. There is so much power in the story of Joseph Smith.
I love you all and hope you are doing fantastic!!!
Love, Sister Howard.
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