Mission Leadership Training, Zone Conference

[Elder J. Walker became an uncle over the weekend to a nephew Charles born on August 1, 2014 at 5:41 PM].

When Charles was born I was eating pizza at a member's house. Haha. I am glad he is so healthy. That is really good. The baby looks really cute. It will be strange to come back home and find a new member of our family.

This week has been full of miracles all over. We had 5 investigators come to church. and we have about 4 people on date to be baptized. Exciting! This area is on fire. Lots of work is happening and I love it all. We had MLC this week, That is mission leadership training. It was really neat to be able to be in a council with all of the other zone leaders and the sister training leaders. Something I learned is that the work of the Lord is hastening, but it is not because we are doing anything differently, but because God decided to make it go faster. He compared it to this analogy: 

When you are young your Dad takes you for a walk in the city and it is your first time. As a child you see things that are unfamiliar and it is loud with city life all around you. You walk really close to your dad and hold his hand as you see this unfamiliar world, but then after a few weeks of this the child gets used to the path and lets go of his father's hand and does not stay as close to his father, but then the father takes him on a different route and a different part of the city. He also has quickened his pace so the child has to walk a lot quicker. Now what we need to do is to hold onto the father's hand and not to let go. 

This is like today. God is changing how he does missionary work and some people don't like that. They tell him, "We have done missionary work like this for years and I am not wanting to change" (I get this a lot for members, "We think you are too pushy to ask in the first lesson for them to be baptized, we never did that on my mission"). They are not holding onto the father's hand and if we do not, we will be left behind. This is what our mission president told us. the work is going to speed up. and the Lord is preparing the way with PMG, Younger missionaries, more missionaries, Facebook, . . . the work is going faster and faster.

We had a baptism this week. Toni, she is 10 years old and I was able to confirm her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That was a special experience for us. I love this work. There are so many people that are just waiting for the gospel in their lives. God is preparing a lot of people out there. I have a lot of faith in that. There are people in all of the world that are craving the gospel and the peace that comes from it and all we have to do is to follow the Spirit and find them. The Spirit knows exactly where we should be and what we should be doing all the time and if we listen to the voice and our feelings that we get from God then we will be led to those people out there. 

My companion is great. One of the best! He is a hard worker and understands how to follow Christ. Good example to us all. 

We also had a zone conference. Those are always fun. They are from 9am to 4pm. We get so many revelations in those meetings from the spirit.

I am excited to see you at our upcoming zone conferences. In preparation for our learning together, will each of you please read and ponder the following scriptures? Specifically, pay attention to what these verses teach us about the worth of a human soul. Come prepared to discuss your insights.
Genesis 1:27
John 3:16-17
Hebrews 12:2
Mosiah 28:3-4
D&C 18:10-13
Moses 1:38

Read those verses. We read them and then talked about them at zone conference. They are really good. Just think about it. God created this world for us so we are worth more then the whole world. That includes everything on it. God's purpose is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life for man." His whole purpose is for us to become like him. Jesus Christ suffered just for us. He did not have to do that. He had agency just like the rest of us, but because He loved us all, He chose to. That is incredible and I need to see that worth in every person.  

We had a guy the other day and he was putting boxes into his car and we went over and asked if we could help. He said no. Then we told him what we do as missionaries and he said he was not interested and started to walk away from us. Than Elder Hammond said when can we come by. He looked at us and said without even thinking about it, "2nd week past never" and walked away. Elder Hammond then yells back, "OK we will come by at that time." 

Kinda Funny.

Also a lot of people ask me if my mom is on Missionary Moms on Facebook. I tell them I don't know, but apparently it is a group where people post pictures of missionaries when they see them so there mom can see their sons or daughters that are serving missions more. At least that is what they made me think. Check it out, maybe there will be pictures of me.