Week of January 20, 2014

How's it going? So there's a little bit more to write about in this week's email, but still nothing flooring. One of our Zone Leaders is going home in a couple weeks, so this transfer he's been trying to do exchanges with all the elders in our zone. So on Monday I was in Norman. The Zone Leader I was with actually went to the same high school as Payton Dastrup. He knows him too! His name is Elder Traasdhal. He's a great missionary! Anyways we exchanged after P-day, and he accidentally left his wallet in the church building, and didn't realize it until right before dinner. So I got to drive the zone leader's truck around! Haha that was on my missionary bucket list, so I can check that off now! haha That was a fun exchange though! We watched the Mormon message "Wrong Roads" by Elder Holland. I think that's what it was called… Anyways while I was watching it I had a story click in my mind. I was thinking back to the recruiting process, and how it felt right to go to Pepperdine. But things totally did not work out with that, and as soon as I found Davis I knew for 100% fact that Davis was where I needed to be. Looking back on it, I know that Davis was the best place for my life, and I did question a little why things felt good with Pepperdine, yet it didn't work out. Anyways that video helped me relate that. I shared that story with the less active we were visiting and the spirit was really strong as we talked. So that was sweet!

We had a really cool experience on Tuesday. I'll back it up to my study. I was thinking about Helaman 13, and how it says that the voice of the Lord came to Samuel the Lamanite. I was thinking a lot about that, and I realized that it probably wasn't a voice booming out from heaven, but rather exactly how the voice of the Lord comes to us- through a simple thought. When he acted on that thought, it was obvious that it was the Lord speaking to him. Well on Tuesday we were about a 25-30 minute walk from the apartment. It was about 8:30, so I was like. "Alright let's head back." We started to cross the street and Elder Barrett said, "We should go see our friend Ryan at the gas station." It's a guy who works at a gas station that we met. Anyways I said, "We probably don't have time tonight." We walked about 50 feet toward our apartment and I thought, "We should go visit him." So I said let's go and we turned around and walked about 5-10 minutes in the wrong direction to this gas station. We walked in and Ryan wasn't there. So Elder Barrett got something, and when we were checking out the lady there leaned forward and said, "I knew it! Are ya'll Mormons?" We said we were and she said, "I honk at ya'll all the time! I wanna here what ya'll have to say!" So we talked to her for a little bit and gave her a Book of Mormon! She doesn't live in our area, and she said her mom probably wouldn't let her have the missionaries over there, but maybe we can work it out. Anyways it was a way cool experience. The other cool thing was we walked a normal pace all the way back and we still made it back to the apartment at 9! I learned there's always time to follow the spirit! And now looking back at it, that was totally the voice of the Lord telling us to go there! That was my cool experience of the week.

Other than that not much else happened. We had a super powerful lesson with Lee, but she's just not willing to give up beer. She told us she'd call us if she wanted to meet with us, so we don't think we'll be invited back, but it was still a super powerful lesson and things went great, so we did all we can do.

Well that's about it for me here. Hope life in the real world is doing everybody well! Have a great week this week!