ztms the ER and other great acronyms

Sept 2, 2014

So this week has been a pretty busy week. After my email last week I came back to Bend with one of the zone leaders for exchanges we got in at 8 and hadn't had dinner yet so we went to Glory Days which is a pizza and more place in town. It’s the best place to eat and the owner is a member and lets us eat for free.  So we stopped there to eat. When got back to the apartment and started to plan. That was exciting as I had to take the lead and really be the one who was in charge of what we were doing. We had some appointments and names just kept coming into my mind to visit and Tuesday we ended up getting a lot done. We had two lessons one with a less active who we were going to teach about patriarchal blessing from true to the faith. Except the one problem was as we were pulling up I realized that I had forgotten the book at the apartment, so instead we decide to go over a chapter in the book of Mormon. So we go in and we are talking to her and then we ask where she was in her reading and she says 2 Nephi 13 and so I say ok lets read that. Then I turn to the scripture and it is about Nephi having a vision about the future of the Americas. It was too late to change so for the next hour I'm trying to explain this chapter and what’s going on while keeping her on track.  Which was hard but it turned out to be good while it wasn't a chapter I would like to go over normally.  I was glad I was there to help clear things up or else I think she would’ve walked away with some really weird ideas about the chapter. Then we visited some more people before our first appointment with our two new investigators which was rough at first as there were a lot of kids packed into that small house, and there were lots of distractions. We were able to teach part of the first lesson and leave them with books of Mormons and reading assignments. Wednesday we visited some more people and had another lesson with the two girls where we finished the first lesson and talked about the intro to the book: and recommitted them to read that and pray about it.  Then we went to another lesson with Jory and that was really good.  We talked about chew,  he seems to have more of a desire to quit now and then we played basketball with him. While we were warming up mutual was going on. As I'm getting a rebound this girl comes out of nowhere and tries to get it at the same time, but I start talking to her and it turns out she is the one girl we got a referral about.  A little bit later she asks how she can join the church. Then before I could really talk to her she leaves. I felt really bad for not talking to her more but then she was at church yesterday and we talked to her more and exchanged numbers, and told her we would call her later to set up an appointment. Thursday we were in Bend again and got back in time to go play Frisbee with some members and nonmembers which was good, except I always hate explaining that I go by my last name because I'm a missionary. That and everyone here has a really hard time saying Telford. That was fun my team won and after being tackled a couple of times I woke up the next morning with a bruised rib which wasn't fun, it’s getting better. Saturday we went with a recent convert family up to the Steens mountains and right as I get out to take my first picture of the mountain/ valley thing my camera died, so you'll just have to google pictures of the Steens and pretend I'm  there.  Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting and as we are sitting there I feel a tap on my shoulder from Elder Johnson and he motions for me to go up and at first I was really confused but then I realized that he wanted to bear his testimony which meant that I had to go with him and bear mine as well. I felt really nervous as usually I had more time to think about what I wanted to say and I usually get really nervous anyway bearing my testimony to the whole congregation.  As Elder Johnson is bearing his I silently prayed for peace and to be relaxed and right before I had to get up I felt this peace wash over me and I know that it was from my Heavenly Father and I bore my testimony which in itself wasn't anything special, but as I sat down again I had a special testimony in my heart that Heavenly Father is real and that he loves me so much as to bless me with something that was really very minor but important to me. After that we went to lunch with a ranching family in the ward. They bbqed steaks and that was really good. Then we planned for the coming week and went to a lesson with Kenzie and Zoey the two girls we started teaching this week. Hardly anyone was home not even Zoey so we just taught Kenzie, and things went a lot faster. She had done her assignment and prayed and we asked about that at the beginning of the lesson how she felt while she prayed?  She said hot and cold flashes and so we said sometimes answers don't always come at first and then continued with the lesson and the whole time I had this feeling that we needed to talk more about her prayer, so at the very end I felt impressed to ask her how she felt after her prayer and she said good.  I asked if she felt like she wanted to do it again and she said yeah so I bore a short testimony that those feelings were from the Holy Ghost, and that as she continues to read and pray that the feelings are going to get stronger and she will know it's true so that was good.  Then we went to go to a less actives house to share a message and as we are going and it’s like 8 by then we get a call from a member that works at the hospital asking us to go over and administer to a girl from the Crane Branch who had been in a car accident and was having some really alarming symptoms so we called Bro. Johnson and he met us over there. We go in and all the lights are off and there’s this teenaged girl laying in a bed with sunglasses. We talked to her and her mom for a little bit and then we gave her a blessing and during the blessing even though I wasn't saying it I felt the spirit really strong and felt like everything was going to be ok.  So overall a busy week, I got a haircut again I think it’s the shortest I've ever had it.  Best of luck and if you ever have any questions ask the missionaries they can help