Possibly my last email from Sterling Park

Well here is the end of another transfer already! I feel like I will probably leave Sterling this time around though :( Which I'm not too happy about because I feel like we have some really great things going on here, but I will be happy to go wherever the Lord needs me to go! We had a pretty good weekend, unfortunately we weren't able to get in very many lessons with investigators, but we did get to meet with some less active families in the ward and we were actually able to get one less active girl to church! Which the church is putting just as much emphasis on as they are baptisms right now so that was way sweet! Unfortunately since I emailed so late last week I've pretty much shared all of the stories from the past week haha. It sure sounds like everyone has had a great weekend back home though! I am so proud of Shellie for getting her YW medallion on Sunday! I really wish I could have been there to see it. I'm not too sure how I feel about her first date being this weekend though haha. But It sounds like they had a great time with Granny and Pa there too, it was pretty exciting to hear that they spoke at sacrament meeting. That just shows to me how much a mission can help you overcome your fears haha. I remember how much Granny used to hate having to speak even in her home ward sacrament meeting before the mission and now here she is speaking at somebody elses! Plus it sounds like Michelle and Dane's family are planning on having a great time out on the islands this upcoming week with Granny and Pa too, man a beach vacation would be awesome! Well hopefully next week I will be able to send another email from here in Sterling! Who knows though haha. Well I love and miss all of you guys!

May 18th email

Sorry for the late email! We moved our P-Day to Thursday this week so that we could go up into DC before the transfer ended. We had planned on emailing when we got back but we had a teaching appointment reschedule last minute that we had to go to instead. So we moved our emailing hour to today instead haha. The library is closing early today though so really it's more of an emailing half-hour so I'll have to keep it kind of short for today. Mothers day was awesome though! It was so great to talk to my family and Shon on Sunday! I really am blessed to have the support of the best family ever back home haha. I got a nice little tour of the house (still looks the same haha) which included the backyard and pool that I can't swim in... I really have been wishing I could swim in it this week though haha it has been dang hot! Humidity no good at all. I'll stick to the western dry heat for sure haha. So probably the weirdest part about Mothers day though was it being my second call home out of the 4 I get. Which means that I'm already halfway done with all my calls home haha how crazy is that? We have been getting in some major bike riding this week though! This past Wednesday alone we put in 18 miles and every other day we did just a little more than 10. We are so dead tired haha. P-day in DC was awesome though. We went to the Smithsonian National Zoo and man was it cool! It was the perfect day for it too because it wasn't too hot. I got a bunch of really good pictures that I will send home for sure before too long. The only downside was that at 12 they closed down over half the Zoo's exhibits for some special event thing and we got there at 11 :/ but what we actually did get to see was really cool. They had a couple of bird atrium things, one inside and one outside, that they just let all sorts of cool birds fly free in that we got to go walk around the inside of, that was way cool. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I had been to a Zoo haha. We went to Sea World awhile back but that's not quite the same as a Zoo (I think Sea World might be better personally haha). Well I better wrap it up for the week, but when it's P-day in a few days I'll update you a little more on how all our investigators are doing and such. I hope all is well back home! Love and miss you guys!

What a great week!

Well this week has really been quite a good one! We started out the week with a bunch of really good lessons right off the bat. Then this past Saturday we got to go up to the temple visitors center and listen to some general authorities speak! It was so cool! Elder Bednar of the quorum of the 12 Apostles was there, Elder Snow the church historian, Elder Gerard of the 70, and the  general Presiding Bishop of the entire church. The whole thing was awesome! It was completely different than any of us expected it to be. We had all gone just expecting to have a bunch of talks given to us but instead each one of the General Authorities just gave a brief 10 minute opening remarks and then Elder Bednar got up and asked our opinions on a few things for some time and then opened up the floor for any and all questions from the missionaries! I tried asking him a question but he wouldn't call on me haha. It was an amazing learning experience though! It was a total discussion rather than a speech to us all, and it lasted for almost 4 hours! So sweet! He really showed us the best way for us to teach our investigators. When we just talk the whole time they won't ever really learn anything, the best learning comes from them asking questions and learning on their own from our answers. So it was really cool. Then on Sunday we had Stake conference and the Presiding bishop came to that as well and spoke. He gave some amazing insights into how everyone can be missionaries and how the role of all members, especially missionaries, is to invite others to act. President Albright also got up and spoke for a bit too, and man he gave some super sweet analogies. He was talking about how most less active members or people who are "anti" the church seem to hung up on some little thing a general authority said like 150-200 years ago and therefore count the entire church as not being true. We see it happen all the time as missionaries. President Albright said he was talking to Elder Bednar about it though and he said "It's a totally unfair assumption really. It's like looking at a huge whale and seeing a small blemish somewhere on the backside of the whale and because of that, discounting the entire whale's reality and existence." Which I thought was an awesome way to describe it haha. Elder Bednar also told President Albright that after each one of these firesides or devotionals he goes to and does the Q and A style, he always goes online and Googles his name to see what people said that he said, and even just a day later people horribly misinterpret or mistranscribe whatever it was he said so that it is something completely different, so he can totally see how something that was just noted as being said 200 years ago could be so easily misinterpreted over time to mean something completely different than what the person originally said haha. Then earlier today we had a BBQ at the mission home with the Albrights, we got to just hang out and talk with everyone, play some sports out in the backyard, and eat some really good food. So overall it was a really good week. This week should be an even better one though! It'll be so great to get to skype home with my family on Sunday!!! Plus it will be Shellie's 16th birthday tomorrow! So it should be a very exciting upcoming week too! Well I hope everyone had a great week!