Week 77 Exactly Obedient

Far out I have so much to write this week. If anything this week has been the most I have ever grown in my mission and life. It is amazing how powerful this gospel can be!! I have so little time to write but so much to talk about....

I will start with OBEDIENCE! There is a saying obedience brings blessing, exact obedience bring miracles, obedience from a willing heart changes you.

Oh man I say that this week. I have always been obedient but never 100% exact obedient. Nobody can be but you can try. Well I sorta got comfortable with just being obedient. This week however I learned the importance of exact obedience with a willing heart!! I had a great talk with my Mission President about this and took the challenge to covenant with the Lord to be EXACTLY OBEDIENT. I know it will be impossible but the trick is trying with your heart and be willing to. I prayed my heart out every night for repentance and to be an instrument in the hands of God!!! I knew miracles would come but I did not do it for miracles. I tried because I love the Lord and want to do what He wants.

So many miracles came from it though. It only got better too. Some of my favorite ones were direct answers to my prayers!! The first is Michael. We had 3 apt in his area but they all fell through. I knew though that we were in that area for a reason! We sat in the car contemplating where to go. Michael came to mind. A potential that took our number and said he would call. Well we showed up, he was home, we taught a lesson on the restoration and set him on date for the 31 of March. It was a lot more spiritual than that but you get the just of it. It was amazing though to think that the Lord had that planned for us. He knew that I would listen to the spirit and do what it needed us to do. What a blessing!!

Another great one was Janna Spina. She is a less active member who came to church last week but missed this week. She has two girls that are not members. 13 and 9. Both want to get baptized and come to church with Mom. We are seeing them tonight and will set them on date!! Anyways on Sunday I was really sad that they did not come to church. We were just about to finish our night and the last apt canceled and we had no idea what to do so late at night. 8:30. This time it took a few minutes to get that answer from the spirit but it said to me See Janna. I was so against it. It was so late. She is a single sister with no male... But we had to go. So we showed up and lo and behold there was a male in the home and they were so excited to see us. They told us that they got in their car this morning to come to church and it started to rain. It was a bad storm. The town got flooded from it and her street turned into a river. So they were unable to make it. Such a bummer. But they said a prayer in the car that the elders would come see them this week. When we got to the home they said that was quick. Haha we were an answer to their prayer!! It was so fun. Her boyfriend is not a member but asked for a blessing. The part I love most about it is not that we taught them but that we knew that the Lord sent us there by His Spirit!! I testify that if we listen we will be lead. The best feeling in the world is knowing that you were there because the Lord needed you there.

My mission scripture is Alma 29: 9-10 It talks about being an instrument in the hands of the Lord and the joy that it brings. Well that could sum up this whole email. It was amazing. These are only a few of the great things that happened this week!!

One of the best blessing was all the rain. It cooled us off as we went out and knocked doors. On one of the rainy days we got invited in only to find out it was a JW. I hate arguing on the mission so I just sat and listened. Never have I seen any one on the mission silence a JW with bashing or scriptures, it is just not the Lord’s way.

As we listen and learned from her I kindly said. “Yes, we believe all of that.” (It was just about God and who he is) I said. “What more can you offer me than what I already have? We claim to have the Priesthood of God on the earth. We claim to be lead by living prophets and apostles, We have temples where family's can be sealed for all time and eternity. We preform saving ordinances for the living and the dead. What more can you give me than I don’t already have?” SILENCE!! hahah I was loving it. She did not dare open her mouth. She had nothing to offer. No offence. I am the only one with an offer on the table. With the silence we bore our witness that we know that this is all true and that it was restored to the earth by the Prophet Joseph Smith. What she said to that was, “Oh is Joseph Smith in the Bible?” “No but the pattern of revealing the gospel to prophets is.” I did not want to start to argue so we thanked her and left after that. But I got her. She can’t offer anything. This is the true church. This is the best offer in the world. We are so blessed!!!

As I said in the beginning, I have grown the most I have ever grown this week on my mission. It has come from being willing to learn, grow, and change. I have studied the Book of Mormon in a deeper way and listened to the Mission President in a deeper way. We had our Mission Leadership Conference. That is where all the revelation came. We spoke of simple principle but with the deepest meaning. It is one we hear every week or every training. OBEDIENCE. This time we looked at it coming from the heart. Or how to get it from our Mind to our Heart. Peter when asked, “Lovest these things more than me?” Replied with, “Yeah Lord Thou knowest that I love thee.” Yet the Lord asked it three times. By the third time it came from Peters Heart!!! The meeting we had was one of the best I have ever been to and is so hard to put into words. Just hear my testimony that I know we need to love the Lord and show him through what we do!! We need to do things his way to show him that!! We have our agency to choose what to do and when it comes from the heart it is powerful!!

The BEST part of the week was today!! I am a bit late at emailing today because we were at the temple. It was the best session I have ever been too!! Elder & Sister Richins gave us a conference talk given by Elder Holland in 1997 that spoke on making convents and preparing for the mission. Boy it was an interesting talk. I read it three times and learned a new thing every time!! The best was how it prepared us to come to the temple ready and alert!! It was not hard waking up at 4 am to catch the train to go!! We had all the elders over and getting all of us up was a struggle at 4 am but we were all so excited to go and learn!! I have never learned so many cool doctrines before!! Each covenant made was so powerful and meaningful!!

I have been reading from the past Presidents of the church. When reading about Lorenzo Snow he spoke of the day Wilford Woodruff died. President Snow was the president of the quorum of the twelve so he knew he was next in line. That night he went to the temple and said that he spoke face to face with God. It blew my mind!! So I asked my mission president in an interview after our temple trip and he spoke of how people can become exalted in earth or in heaven. It does not matter. You only have to be ready for it. Being exalted is having all your covenants sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise. What allows them to be sealed is your worthiness and willingness to follow those covenants. There was a lot more that went into it but it was very very cool. President shared with me a quote from President Hinkely that said Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have LITERALLY walked in every temple on this earth!! Boy HOW COOL IS THAT!!! I love going to the temple. There is just so much in this church that Christ has for us!! I know it has all of it.

I am out of time but could go on for ages. I love this church and learning about it. I hope you do too!! What a great week. Love you all bye!!

Week 76 I Love What I Am Learning and Becoming

Far out!!! The mission is so fun!! I love what I am learning and becoming!!

Where to start is always the question!!

I am going to start from last P-day and go over the big spiritual fun stuff. Pheew ok so last P-day we got the great idea to go on a hike. We saved up our K's and drove out to a group of mountains called The Glass House Mountains. By the way mountains here are not mountains, just big hills...

They stilled looked really cool. We had all the Elders in our zone car pool with us so we could all go. It was a 4 k hike that looked easy on a map but in real life it was hard!! The hike was 60 degree incline the whole time. We were pretty much rock climbing the hike. About 1/4 of the way up we got to a spot that everyone struggled with. Elder Aspacio and I said, “You all wait here. We will go to the top real quick then come back down.” All the elders were beat at this point so they loved the idea of stopping on a cool ledge with a great view. As we went up it got hotter and hotter steeper and steeper. I thought we were going to die it was so hot!! I was drenched and dripping with sweat!! Dehydration was near, so we took a long break in the shade and then made it to the top for 2 seconds then came down quickly. It was beautiful!!

The stupid part of this whole story is it was 37 degrees and I was the only smart one to bring water!! One elder brought 4 liters of soda. I was dealing with a bunch of idiots!! haha So to end the day we played basketball and drank heaps of water!!

The real fun began when we started our missionary work for the week. After our hike we also got to go do an interview for a wonderful lady that was getting baptized on Monday! There was also going to be a baptism on Saturday so we interview him too. I love going over the interview questions and hearing converts pure simple testimony!! Deep doctrine gets too confusing sometimes. I love hearing a brand new pure and simple testimony on the simple but powerful things that they know are true.

Both baptisms were beautiful! Satan works hard though. We had to frantically call the Mission President as the baptism was starting. One of them went out with her family on Sunday to celebrate her wedding and she didn't realize it but she drank wine. So at the baptism we talked with her and she got the mission presidents go ahead but boy was it a scare for the sister who taught her. She has not been drinking since before Christmas.

It just goes to show that Satan will try everything to stop just one soul!! On that note too he tired to stop Victor. Another one of the baptismal dates we have within the zone. His sister showed him antimormon things and he wants to investigate more. We had the stake president go over to see him and address his concerns.

The work of God will go forth and nothing will stop it!!

Yesterday we had one of the best Zone Conferences I have ever been too!! I was just so caught up in what we’re learning about!! It was held at our stake center so we were asked to get there a few hours early and set up with the AP's. As we were setting up Elder Pugsley grabbed me and said Elder Cahoon will you conduct this meeting. Haha I freaked out!! I was pretty scared!! We had about 50 missionaries at the meeting. They had me sit right next to President McSwain. That was really cool. He would lean over to me and change the scheduled or talks or trains right there just based on what the spirit said. It was so cool!!

The meeting was very basic and went over things that we have been over a million times. Obedience and The Book of Mormon!! Repetition is key though, it is the way we learn. We are not running out of things to train on, we have to have a foundation before we can build the rest!! So it was really amazing!!

I was just so excited after that!! We went to see Dontay!! He did not come to church this Sunday which was all our fault!! He said he was all ready but did not know the time!! Man sometimes you can forget the stupidest simple things.

This lessons with him was the best one!! RESTORATION!!! The power that comes to an honest soul looking for the truth or for something is amazing!! I think we blew his mind! I wish we could record these lessons with people!! His whole mindset changed and you could just see it all make sense in his mind. Even though he does not have a background in religion or God you know he can feel it. Well, wait I take that back. He has the biggest background in God, we all do. Pre-earth life. Duh!! Haha the spirit testifies that it is true!!

I am so excited, we have not taught the Word of Wisdom but he know because we mentioned it for baptism we have to be clean!! Well he made a commitment last week to try and this week it has been 4 days since he smoked!! PROGRESS!!! He was so excited to tell us!! I am so excited for Thursday this week. We are going to go over and take him to the Addiction Recovery class they do at our chapel!!

After our lesson he had a few questions and one them was what is church like. As we described you could tell he felt a bit weird about it. He does not have any "nice" clothes... I felt so bad. I love the guy so much. He is so fun!! He is also my same size. Well I have 3 long sleeve white shirts and heaps of pants. So I am going to give a pair to him so he can look really good. I remember an email my sister sent that talked about giving a man a white shirt and how happy he was for it. I am so excited to give it to him. I picked out a really sweet flower tie I have for him too!!

The blessing of being apart of the Lord’s church is so amazing!! I think my most favorite quote of all time is " This Gospel is here to bless our life so God can work though us to bless other lives" I don’t know who said it or where it came from but it is so true!! I am so blessed right now!! My family and friends and sister are so blessed right now!! It is amazing.

I love this Gospel!! I love Jesus Christ!! This is his church!! It is a true church!! Love you all, have a great week. Enjoy the photos.

Love,
Elder Cahoon

Week 75 Feeling Better and Working Hard

Phew I just hate being sick on the mission!! I was still out for a few days this week. It was killing me to just be doing nothing. I felt so bad for it. I wanted to get out and go serve. So eventually as I got better we went out more. Now we are back in the groove and just loving it.

So much happened!! haha I just love mission work. It is dang hard when you just have to knock doors and it is 36 and 80% humidity but there is a special power behind it.

I want to start off with a fun thing that happened when I started feeling better. We had an appointment to go see Allan and read the Book of Mormon with him. He is slowly getting there. I wish we could do more but it is all up to him to want to get baptized. He loves the ward and everyone loves him. So on this night we thought it would be good to have Bishop come along with us. So I picked up Bishop and Elder Aspacio went with our ward mission leader to see a great family that I will talk about after this.

So Bishop Cumming and I went over and Bishop had prepared a bit of a message for our reading. We read about the people of Alma and how they were desirous to come to the waters of Mormon and be baptized. We shared with Allan that it is up to you, you have to desire it. We then read about Moroni and how if everyone was like him the devil would have no power over us. He just loved it. Allan is like Moroni. Large and powerful. We had a great evening talking to each other and just getting a bond between Bishop and Allan. I hope he gains that testimony!!

The other family is the Blake family. There is Mom, Dad, Maddy, Joelie, and Shade. Well long story short, Mom and Dad are less active and we found out not married. They arranged the whole thing and in a few weeks Bishop will be marrying them in their home. We also found out that the 2 youngest; Joelie and Shade are not baptized. We have been visiting them for a few weeks now and they have opened up and have started coming back to church. The whole family is super excited for the marriage and the baptism of the younger kids. They are a really keen awesome family!!

By Saturday this week I was feeling really good. Last week at church an old couple was there and they were going to be moving in this week. They asked if anyone could help. We said we might be able to and then the ward members said they would be there. Well we thought since I was feeling good and we had no appointments we should go help. When we got there nobody was there, not even Bro and Sister Kingsley who were moving in. We waited 20 mins and they finally showed up. The sad part is nobody from the ward that said they were going to be there was there. So we had 2 skinny Elders and 2 really old people who should not be lifting anything. All through the week they brought over all the little stuff. There were no boxes or little things for us to move, just all the big big heavy stuff. Fridge, laundry, couch, dressers...We thought we were going to die. It ended up talking a few hours but we got them moved in.

I am really excited to work with them. As we moved them in we found out they moved all the way up here from there old home south of Brisbane just to do missionary work. They were visiting our chapel a few weeks back and both looked at each other and said we need to move here to do missionary work. The rest is history!! How about that for dedication to the lord and his work!! I have known Brother and Sister Kingsley for a while now. They work in the temple all the time. Every time I have gone he has always been there. I am so excited to work with them.

To finish off this email I have a fun one!! On Sunday night at 10;25 Elder Puglsey, one of our AP called us as we were in bed. He said, “Elders I feel really prompted to come and do a trade off with you tomorrow, what do you think?” We told him we NO set appointments and no big plans. We were going to knock doors all day. It was going to be really boring. He insisted though that we have this trade off.

So the next day both AP's came around. Elder Pugsley was my district leader up north. I love the guy so much!! Both of our AP's are the best missionaries you will ever meet!! They are so hardworking full of love and obedient. I was excited!! All my time spent up north I never could go on a trade off with him since we were both drivers. Well now was our chance. We have been buddies our whole mission but now we were finally together!!

I looked through all our papers for people’s names to visit. I did not want to knock any doors!! It was so hot!! So we got on our way!! I put down every potential that we have ever gotten in Redcliffe, Our first stop was a family who have never had a spare moment for us. Susan and Levon are the parents and Grace and Rose are the 2 kids.

Levon came to the door and said, ok fine come in. You have 5 minutes. Just having that was the biggest miracle!! We sat down and instead of teaching as fast as we could we just talked and tried to get to know him. Susan was off and the two girls where doing school work. They are home schooled. We chatted with Levon and found out he is from Jamaica and has a very strong belief in God and family and respecting people!! Our 5 mins talked turned into 45 mins. He just loved us. The girls came out and just loved it too!! At the end we gave our 5 minute powerful witness that God has called a prophet on the earth. Man I wish I could record our visits some how. You should have seen how thankful he was for our message and to find out about the prophet. Get got his number, Susan's number and a day to come back to teach the whole family!! Man Elder Pugsley and I were like little kids full of excitement.

We would have been so happy for the rest of the day if that was the only miracle. I was so scared to have all the potentials fall through but the lord prepared a way for us man!! Some how every single person that I planned for was home and invited us in!! None of them were as amazing as Levon and his family but they were still really nice.

I knew we needed to go door knocking. We got to the street and Elder Pugsley said, “Hey Elder Cahoon do you remember up north when you used to run to doors?” ( the doors are really far apart up north and sometimes we would run to doors) I said, “Yeah you taught me that.” He said, “Let’s do it today!!” Geez I was so excited!! Haha we got out of the car and SPRINTED from door to door. They were a lot closer but it still worked!! It was such an inspired street too!! We taught so many people at the door!!

My favorite was Malana. She is 20 years old and is in love with Americans. Haha so she was so shocked that 2 handsome American boys were knocking her door. She told us to just talk so she could hear our accent. I guess I still sound American by the way. Anyways we just asked her questions like what she believes and thinks. After a great conversation we taught and testified that families can be together forever!! She already knew that, so we asked how it was possible. She had no clue. BOOM!! It opened it up to teach about temple and how we have the authority to seal beyond to death do us part!! Man I am so excited to go back and teach her!!

Again I was so happy and could have ended the day of miracles there!! But it did not stop!! We went by to see Dontay!! We have not seen him since my terrible lesson with him. So we were really excited. Yesterday night before Elder Puglsey called we had a mission wide conference call!! We started reading the Book of Mormon together as a mission and we were learning about that. At the end of the call President McSwain said he feels impressed to give our mission a promise from God. President McSwain said that if we do all we can to work hard this week that the Lord would bless our mission and every companionship would set someone on baptismal date!! That is quiet the promise when you think about it!!

Well to sorta go back in time, the whole time I was with Elder Pugsley his phone did not stop buzzing. Whenever someone sets a date we send the AP's a miracle text so they can keep track of who is on date. By 5 o'clock that day our mission set over 30 dates. I was so happy for everyone but it was getting annoying getting theses text! We went into Dontays lesson determined to teach him with the spirit!!

Boy that was a cool lesson. He actually knows way more about God than he thinks. He just does not know it. The best way to describe it is like when Alma is teaching and asked do you believe in God. The reply was I believe in a great spirit, is that God? Since he grew up out in the bush with all the native Aboriginal people of Australia he has grown up with their beliefs. So he knew everything just by different names. We also learned that they still make goat and lamb sacrifices and throw the blood on the people to cleanse them. It was heaps cool to learn about!! After testifying of the Savior and his sacrifice for us. Dontay set the date March 31 for his baptismal date. Our only problem will be overcoming smoking(he has already been trying) and not going to jail. He has to go to court for a class 1 offence. So we are hoping that all goes well for him. If he does go it will be for 4 to 5 weeks. So we could still reach his date even if he goes. Poor guy, but he is on the right track!!

Man how cool is that! But it gets better!! SAM was with Dontay!! Sam is in his mid 20's. He is a former investigator who moved out of our area when I got here. I have not seen him ever but have heard about him. He has moved back into our area and is living with Dontay!! We started to get to know him as we taught Dontay. Man he is keen!! He testified to Dontay that the Book of Mormon is true and that this church is true. I blew our mind that he did that. We had no clue he was so powerful. We found out he was about to get baptized but he moved. Again the only thing holding him back is smoking. He had given it up last time but got back on it when he moved. So when we got Dontay on date we set Sam on date too!! Same day. Together they are going to go over the Stop Smoking Program the church has.

The sisters in our area have a awesome investigator on date too who needs to stop smoking. His name is Pat. I have met him a few times!! He broke down this week and thought he could never do it. (give up smoking) so he got a priesthood blessing and started attending the Addiction Recovery program at our chapel on Thursday nights. We are going to try and get Dontay and Sam to go to it since they live by the chapel!!!

How cool would that be!! We could go too and help and have 3 investigators give up smoking and get baptized!! Man I love this work!!

Elder Pugsley is the MAN and we had so much fun with each other. I got some really good advice from him and we are going to smash it!!

Fun story time. Yesterday at 8:30 Sister Wengert and Sister Tamanivalu called us and left a message saying they need help. They said it was an emergency. When we tried to call back they did not answer. We thought crap!! What happened! They did not answer. We tried 3 more times!! So we thought we should swing around their flat and make sure things were ok. On our drive over they called back and said they were locked out of their flat. Man thanks for the biggest scare!! I thought something bad was happening to them!! Emma my sister had a scary thing happen a few weeks back so I thought crap... Man they were just locked out! So we had fun giving them the spare key we have to let them in!! haha

Well have a great week everyone.

Love you all,
Elder Cahoon

 $20 box of Goldfish 

 Sleepover before area broadcast

Week 74 Spinal Meningitis

Well I will start out with a fun P-day story from last week. After I emailed we went to go get a haircut. Usually a member does it but he was not free for the next few weeks. My hair was pretty long so I did not mind paying to get it cut. For a while we’ve driven past this little barber shop and I felt prompted to go there for a cut. Haircuts are the best for sharing the gospel. You get 30 minutes to just talk about who you are and what you do.

So I sat down and this nice old grandma starts cutting my hard. After the first cut she asked what church I go to. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint. I thought things were going to go perfect after that. Well she looks at me and says oh great I am a Jehovah Witness. I just hate the JW. All they do is argue and content. So the whole haircut she is trying to have a go at me!! I was so mad. I just bit my tongue and talked nicely and in a way that she could not argue with what a said. Haha it was terrible. She did a great job on my haircut though.

The rest of the week went ok, half of it was work and the other was rest. I got really sick but I will get into later.

I was able to go on another great trade off with Elder Etilage. He is from Tahiti. We had a great day set up!! We had one really solid investigator to see and lots of potentials to visit. We started with the really great investigator Emma. She investigated for a few months before leaving on holiday to USA. She has been back for a bit now and wanted us to stop by. When we got there all she talked about was how much she loved coming to Mormon church and how good she felt there. We only had a few minutes with her. She had to go do some stuff so we talked about how she could have that feeling forever!! Baptism. Boom she accepted and will be baptized on March 3. It was pretty amazing. After that every lesson the other appointments fell through so we door knocked for the rest of the day! The best part was 18 degrees and raining. So it felt so good to be out in cold weather and knock doors. Sadly nobody was interested.

At the last door we met some really nice people who started to ask us question and it was going nice but then they got aggressive. They started to yell and "contend" with us. I HATE bible bashing. It is no good. A waste of time and appearance. So we avoid it at all cost!! After they started to really bash I asked before it got bad and said "Hey we really appreciate and respect your beliefs. We have ours and we don’t want to force it on you. We would love to go." The lady responded with are you scared cause your wrong? I did not argue but I spoke back nicely. We should have just left right then but some how we got into a bit of a discussion. I felt like Abanidi. It was so bad. So we apologized for our behavior and left bearing testimony of Jesus Christ. I felt bad on how it went and my comp and I talked about what we should have done and then repented.

When we got back to our car after finding in the rain I was drenched. I had a raincoat on but it was just soaked!! We got in the car and I could not stop shaking. I was so cold for the first time. I thought boy this is just great!! Even with the heater on I was still cold. I knew something was up.

When I woke up that morning I had the biggest headache of my life. I felt so sick. Flu like. So I called the doctor and slept for the whole day. It felt really really good to get some rest!! I was in so much pain.

That night I felt bad for not serving the Lord. It is so hard to just sit and be useless. I wanted to get out and go go go. It was still raining so it was perfect weather!!

Dontay was going to have us come over that night for a lesson. So I took some pain killer medicine and went out to see him. Turns out he was sick to so we got his phone number and set up another day to come around. He was still just so excited!!

That night I was showering and just froze in pain. I could not move. I fell to the floor. After a minute it passed and left a massive headache. I thought maybe I moved the wrong way... well the next day same thing happened but for a while. So I called the doctor. He came out and gave me a look over. I have caught a virus. So he gave me medicine and I got rest!!

So the rest of our week was spent getting rest!! I slept a lot towards the end of the week. I was told to get heaps of rest! So the morning I would rest and if we had plans or something easy to do we tried to go out in the afternoon to do a bit of work. It worked out ok.

I am feeling a lot better today and still am going to take it easy but try and get some work done. We have a lot going for us.

Have a great week. 

Love Elder Cahoon

Week 73 We Found Our Groove

Fairdinkum, what a growing week this was for me!! Where to start is my big question!! We had so much happen!!

I guess I will be upfront about my comp and I. Isn't that what everyone wonders back home? Haha well I won’t lie, last transfer was hard and we struggled to get along. But boy I can testily of the power of prayer and being humble. I am not the most humble guy, so I am so grateful for Elder Aspacio’s patience for me. We really hit it off this week. Like I said we really struggled last transfer to get along and have a love for each other. We kept pointing out the bad and not looking for the good. This week we got into a deep chat about how we can grow and look for the good in this companionship. From that day, we have been rock stars!! We still drive each other crazy but with that we have learned to make sacrifices for the other and to really work through our differences. I love it. Last transfer I sorta prayed that we would not be together but then I read a quote, "sometimes God does not change our circumstances because he is trying to change our heart." Wow that hit me hard and changed it all for me!! The way I have looked at things now is amazing!! I have learned a deep principle from every single one of my companions!!

I guess with that being said it’s a new transfer. I am so excited!! We are getting a brand new missionary in the zone and got 2 superstars who have been out for a little over 6 months. They seem so great and they are so ready to work!! Our zone/stake is doing so amazing right now!! The culture of missionary work is changing so much in our wards!!

We have the wonderful opportunity to have a zone meeting every week. The way it lines up with sister and elder we have to do it in a big group so it is not a double date. Right before our zone meeting on Friday we had a big meeting with our Stake President. I love going to meetings to talk about missionary work. There is just a cool spirit. Trying to figure out how we can yoke with his keys and our bishops keys is the funnest!! The meeting went really well. He talked about a lot of great things and how we can help. One of the out comes from it was President Ziesel wants to come to our zone meeting or have a stake member be present. This way they can be heavenly involved and know how to help!!

Well that was Friday and we have our meeting Tuesday. We started to prepare every needful thing for this meeting. I have been really slack on filling out all the paper work and staying up to date or being 100% ready but this was a wake up call to me. I stayed up the whole night from when we got back to the flat catching up on all the reports and paper work. We prepared so much for our meeting and it was just lead by the spirit!!

When the meeting came around we were all ready in suits and pretty dresses for him. We went over our goals for the month and our plans to accomplish them. Man I loved planning now and being on the ball. It was so great!! Everyone was so inspired and our Stake President gave a really good humbling training on how we can work with our ward leaders! This work is really just so amazing!! The way it flows and the way the spirit testifies and works through you is one of the coolest feeling ever!!

We have been having a great week thus far and last week was so great!! For those of you who have read my last two emails about being in two wards I am happy to say that this week I did not fall asleep in any of my church meetings. I was awake and attentive the whole time. We had a really good ward council meeting and have a great proactive Bishop who eats and lives missionary work.

On 26 we had a ward party for Australia Day. Last year I went all out with my Aussie pride so this year I did the same. It was really fun and all the members loved it. Back to this awesome Bishop... At this party he invited all his neighbors to come. We held the party at the church and gave them a tour of the place. It was just so great to see that our Bishop is leading by example on how to do missionary work!! It really got the ward excited to share the Gospel. We are really pushing this month to work with the members and get their help. We are doing ok on our own with finding people to teach but the best way is when the members bring them in.

Beth is still doing great!! We have not been able to meet with her this week because of school and work, but we have kept in contact with her via calling her. She has been reading the Book of Mormon in her spare time and is really excited to meet again and learn more.

Allan was really great this week. The way we are going to get him is through love and the Book of Mormon. We saw him 3 times this week and just had a fun time eating and reading the Book of Mormon. His wife gave a talk at church so he came. Usually he comes but it was a really neat thing to have him come to hear his wife give a talk. I hope it touched his heart!!

Our biggest MIRACLE this week was while finding. We always see the biggest miracles while finding. It started out with a young boy Dontay 17 coming to the door and saying hi. We got chatting. He just moved down from the Northern Territory. That is the bush of Australia. He lived off the land in the middle of the desert!! A lean to for shelter from the sun. He befriended a massive kangaroo, emu, and dingo. For a few years he just lived off the land hunting and serving. He is only 17 so I thought that was just so amazing!! As we chatted a few kids (Brock and Reese. 10 and 6) came out of the house and their Mom. Dontay is living with them to help take care of the kids. His mom is good friends with the Mom there. Lekreesha. haha crazy name. Well in our chatting he talked about doing some things that he was not proud of. I told him hey me too but guess what, we can overcome them. We taught about the atonement and how he can get rid of those feelings. So they invited us back the next day a 4pm

That morning we were trying to get one of the young men to come with us. None were available, then the spirit said bring Mariah... I thought that would be so weird. How could we? She is a YSA girl who has no car and we can’t pick her up. That would be weird to bring her to the lesson. I put the prompting off and we went to Dontay’s at 4. They were home but about to head off to the library. So they invited us back at 7. We thought sweet we are going to be one splits tonight so we can bring one of the Brothers here.

As we continued to door knock that day Elder Aspacio looked at me and said we should bring Mariah. I thought crap!! It was the spirit!! Lets go get her. So we asked if she would be free to come to the lesson at 7. Since we were going to be on splits we would be able to pick her up since the priesthood holder would be driving his car. So we worked it all out and got to Dontay and the family at 7. They were all ready for us and super excited... then I just lost it.

I got companionites if that is a thing. We.... wait I started to teach what we had prepared. Far out I need a comp to help me. I was digging myself a hole. Dontay, since he lived in the middle of nowhere his whole life has no clue who God or Jesus is. Everything I prepared went out the window and I had the priesthood leader with me and a pretty YSA girl all looking at me to teach this lesson that I did not now how to teach. My whole mission I have taught people who know who God is or have a small idea of how it works.

Dontay knew NOTHING!! I was digging myself a grave. It must have looked so funny. The miracle is that they still are interested. Brother Tredray was able to give a really powerful testimony that what I will teach is true and Mariah tied the bow to wrap it up with a powerful testimony too. I don’t know why I needed her, but I know that she needed to be there. That much I do know. I know that we followed the spirit on that and it might have saved the whole thing. Who knows... It was just good to know we did what the Lord needed. We got a return apt for Saturday and this time I will have my comp and a member. It will be very interesting to teach who God is and the love he has for him. It will blow his mind. I am so excited!! They are a golden family. I ended the lesson with teaching about what we do as missionaries and how we help to learn about God. Boy I was a mess, it must have been so funny for everyone.

I want to leave my witness that this is Gods work. Man I love it. I may not do the best at times but I am on a high right now that I will not let down!! The key is to REMEMBER HIM, ( Jesus) what he did for me (you) us... That has been my drive this week. It is so amazing!! We have so much going for us. I am so excited. We just got a new senior couple from Draper Ut and they are ready to go. It was been fun to work with them. This work is really so great I can't say it enough times. I love it.

I love you all, thanks for the love and emails. Have a great week!!