Holy cow.
Wasn't that just an incredible weekend? I am still trying to just soak everything in.
For you guys, you had General Conference Saturday/Sunday. For us, we had a Zone Conference on Friday as well, and Elder Campbell and I have a follow-up training meeting in Oxnard tomorrow. So, a TON of meetings, and a lot of spiritual uplifting and love coming from our Heavenly Father! I love it.
So, I hate the crying gene I have. I am super proud of Hudson first off! He is doing so well, and I am so glad to see the progress he has made since our backyard almost two years ago! Also glad to hear that the Lions beat the RedBlacks. Go Leos! Mom, my shoes are fine. I actually would love to buy some shoe goo for my Docs. They got a tear in the leather on the side from the plastic of my orthotic ripping through (I have new orthotics now though, so I will fix up my shoe and everything will be honky dory :) ). Highly recommend those shoes though! They held up really well, and my Rockport pair isn't doing too shabby as a replacement. Although, he might not need the waterproof ones if he's coming to California! ;)
So, the weekend of course has been riddled with a bunch of conferences and meetings, so not much was able to happen over the weekend, and we didn't really teach a single lesson this week. On Tuesday, our car was getting some work done on the body and things were supposed to be finished in two or three hours. We gave it to them at 8am, and didn't get it back until 3:30......... So, that sucked. Especially since I have that handicap and NEED the car to be effective. So, yeah. Things were no bueno that day. After we got the car, we saw a few people and things were going really well! But, then the other Elders got a flat tire. So, we went and helped them out and then went to dinner with the Ford's! It was a better day than last Tuesday, and then I started my exchange with Elder Endicott.
Wednesday went really well! We tried to get as much work done as possible. They have been working heavily with trying to locate and teach all of the Less-Actives in their ward, so, we hit that super hard with the car! On the other hand, Elder Campbell and 'Iongi were on bikes (Oh yeah, Elder Campbell bought my bike! :) ) and it was Elder Campbell's first time on the mission, and he had some problems. A lot of flat tires, his peddles fell off, and yeah. We helped them out too with all of that. But, it was a fairly good day! I liked it a lot. Exchanges are always so much fun!
Thursday we did Weekly Planning and tried seeing more and more people, but to no avail.
And then the wave of meetings hit HARD. Zone Conference was amazing, as usual. We watched "Which Way Do You Face?" By Elder Lynn G. Robbins (He spoke yesterday) and talked a lot about our commitment to missionary work and, most importantly, to the Savior! Then we watched President Uchtdorf's talk from the women's session about faith. I loved the story he used about the missionaries in Germany knocking on all of the doors in the apartment complex, and they didn't find success until the fourth floor, last door. It helped me to see for myself how important it is to push myself, to reach higher each and every day. I want to adopt that as my motto: "Fourth floor, Last Door." Then, we talked about invitations and commitments.
And then, of course, General Conference weekend! Saturday was just SO DANG GOOD! I loved how the theme of the first two sessions was missionary work. I AM biased about that, I know, but it was just so cool to see how the Apostles that spoke that day talked so much about the gathering of scattered Israel and about how the members of the church and the missionaries could do better in working together to bring to pass the gathering! We are all working together to put the puzzle together, we just have to be willing to ask for help!
Sunday was amazing as well. I loved Elder Yamashita too. "Boys- Be ambitious! Be ambitious in Christ!" AH. So many good talks. I am so excited to study them all in preparation for NEXT conference. Which, sadly, will be the last one of my mission. Gah.
But yeah. Elder Campbell and I are doing great. He is so much fun to be around and so easy to train. We had a good talk yesterday about some things, and we've been so busy with helping everyone else this week that I have been neglecting him and his feelings, which I am working on changing and being able to be more open with each other in our companionship! It was an interesting quote from President Felix three weeks ago at our training meeting. He said that they did a study on returned missionaries a few years after they had come home, and they asked who was the most influential person of their life, and the top answer was their Trainer! So, I want to be that. I want to be the best first companion I can possibly be.
The Gospel is true. I loved Elder Ballard's talk about "Where will you go?" There really is no where else to go if you want Christ's church. If you desire to have all of the elements and all of the blessings that the biblical prophets and disciples of Christ had, then you will be wise to look no further than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And I can testify of that to anyone that wants to disagree. The fact of the matter is, people need to come to know of these truths on their own. I can't force anyone to make any decision, as President Uchtdorf said, that is one of the things faith can't do. But, I can give everyone the opportunity to return to the strait and narrow, to return to the true fold, to come back to the Good Shepherd. That's the message, that's the truth.
I love you all, and I hope you have an amazing week! My biased prediction is that Emerson will be serving in the California Ventura Mission, but I will make an actual prediction. I think he will be called to serve in Australia. :) Throw some shrimp on the Barby there eh!
Love,
Elder Harvey
Here's some more of the crew, including Elder Mata and Elder Hiltscher (picture below)
Oh, and if you want to see some members of our ward and what our chapel looks like, click this link and watch the video! https://www.lds.org/
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