Week 19, 2-5-18 and Week 20, 2-12-18

Week 19

Hey guys.

So this week has been kind of hard. Why was this week hard? Because I got the suds. For those of you who don't watch SpongeBob, when I say I've got the suds I mean I've got a cold. And this has been a bad one. I got a super sore throat, headache, and fever. It was bad enough that we had to spend a few days in our apartment. So I've been giving people fist bumps instead of handshakes under the pretense of not wanting to get other people sick. In reality, I'm most likely not contagious anymore, and I'm just trying not to get the flu from them while I have a weakened immunity.

When I was sick back home I would watch movies all day. Seeing as we can't do that Roper and I have just been reading scriptures, cleaning the apartment, and talking about movies (which is almost as good as watching them.)

One really cool thing happened this week though. So the cars we drive are owned by the mission. Once a car hits 60,000 miles the mission sells it and replaces it with a new one. Because our area isn't very big, we've had the same car for like 3 years and it was only at like 31,000. But some missionaries have huge areas and get new cars like every year and a half. So because our mission vehicle coordinator wants to get rid of some of the older cars he had some of the missionaries in different sized areas trade. So long story short, we got a new car. It's a 2017 white Malibu. It's either named Rock Lee or Shadow Fax we can't decide. It's really comfy on the inside. But I don't think the Chinese Elders are as happy about the Toyota we gave them.

But ya, this week was not very eventful other than that; just a lot of coughing and sniffling.

Stay safe and sneeze into your elbow. 

From your doppelgänger trapped in a mirror - ilE 

Elder Roper and I found these cool masks at Wal-Mart!

Week 20

Well hi people, 

So this week has been kind of similar to last week; the only difference is that instead of me being sick it was Elder Roper. So once again we did a lot of recovering and light work. We were able to get back into the groove of things later in the week. But for the most part, not much happened. One interesting thing I can talk about is stake conference.

If you're Mormon you can skip to the spiritual part. I mean you can do what you want though. 

So as a lot of you already know each congregation in our church is assigned to a geographic location called a ward. (They vary in language as well as location.) This way all the members of the ward are within close proximity of each other. Each ward is lead by a bishop who's called to help the spiritual and physical welfare of everyone in the ward boundaries.

A group of wards is called a stake. And the stake is lead by a stake president. The stake president has the same assignment as the bishop but on a much larger scale. So the stake president works closely with the bishops to help them help their wards. 

Each ward meets together once a week for our Sunday service. But every few months, instead of our normal Sunday service, we have what's called stake conference. This is when all the members of the stake meet in one building (or have the meeting broadcast live to their church building.) At these meetings, there will be special speakers who will give sermons based on the needs of the stake. (For all the members who speak a different language they have separate rooms in the building with a live broadcast and a translator.)

The spiritual part:

So stake conference was originally going to be held at 10:00 am. But around 9:55 we got a text from our zone leaders that it was postponed till 12:00 pm because of a power outage. 

The power was back on soon after 10:00 though. Seeing as we were already at the meeting by the time we heard that it was postponed we just stayed and helped out with some last minute things after the power came back on. 

Around 11:35 the power went back out... And it stayed out... 

So we ended up having to do stake conference with no lights, sound system, or Spanish translation. A few minutes in our stake president began his talk. Because of the situation, he decided to speak on the recurring analogy of dark and light in the scriptures. From what I could hear it was a good talk, but to be honest as hard as he tried, without the sound system his voice was often stifled by crying children. But what I did hear, and I think everyone heard, is when he said: "Jesus Christ is the light." I kid you not – As soon as he said that – all the lights turned back on and stayed on. As he was finishing his talk they quickly got the sound system and Spanish translation working for the rest of the speakers. But dang it was crazy.

One of the other speakers was talking about how things don't always work out how we want, even if we think it's right and good. He used an example of a student not getting accepted into a church school, someone losing their job, or someone having to get their leg amputated. The point of the talk was God knows what's best for you better than you do. Completely unbeknownst to the speaker one of the members of the Wakefield ward recently learned that he was going to loos his foot. It was a real blessing for him to hear that talk. 

Revelation and miracles are not a thing of the past.

Stay safe and tie your shoes.

From a bear holding a shark. - Eli