5/23/2016

First of all NO! I CAN'T WEAR PANTS! IT DOES NOT EFFECT ME!

Now that that's out of the way:

We had zone conference this week and it was amazing. I don't know about in other missions, but here Zone conference is actually trizone conference. So I saw a boatload of missionaries that I love who don't serve in Irvine anymore. ALSO I SAW MY MOOOM. Next transfer is Sister Shober's last transfer. She's so old. I'm so sad that she's going to go home and get married and have a life. I just want her to come back and be my companion forever. She told me that they were doing introductions at some activity and one of the questions was whose your best friend. She said she said it was me! #winning I think approximately 2039485723 missionaries came up to me and said that they miss me and such. It was a weird time. It was nice though I'm not complaining.

We had this training on contacting and how you become like Christ through contacting. We had this practice where Mission Viejo zone pretended to be people to contact and everyone else contacted them. So they turned us loose and Sister Peterson and I were kind of in the back of this pretty big group. The first people who were immediately outside of the doors were Elder Ashton and Elder Fuell. (the assistants to the president #scary) I watched like probably 20 something companionships walk right past them instead of talking to them and I got so sad. I was like man nobody is gonna pretend to share the gospel with them just because they're the assistants and they're scary or whatever. I HAVE TO DO IT. So I contacted the assistants. Later we were evaluating the practice and Elder Chan asked the people who were being contacts to share how they felt being contacted. Elder Ashton shared that he as Elder Ashton learned a lot about contacting with love from my example. It was pretty cool. What I learned was that nobody contacted the assistants because they were scared, but when I'm in my area contacting there is NO BACKUP PLAN if I get scared. I can't afford to walk past people because there will be no one behind me to share the gospel with the scary non members. It was pretty cool. I used to hate contacting, but I hate it a lot less now. Actually secretly it's my favorite thing in the world.

President Orgill basically said goodbye to us and it was really amazing. He extended an invitation which was the coolest thing in the world I learned so much. He asked us to compare our notes of what the spirit has been telling us, our patriarchal blessings, and one of the lists of the gifts of the spirit. He promised us that we would be able to know what gifts Heavely Father wants us to ask him for. IT WORKS. Y'all should do it.

So, my patriarchal blessing is written, of course, in a way that I can understand and learn from it. It's divided into clear paragraphs that contain usually only one or two specific ideas. I have read it enough times that most of the promises and blessings and things are readily available if I need to call them to memory. There are a few places where it clearly talks about specific gifts of the spirit, and I've read it many times before with the intent of learning about spiritual gifts. So honestly I wasn't expecting to find any information that I didn't already know. However, Jacob is not messing around when he says "How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of [The Lord]; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways." (Jacob4:8). I learned that even though I've read my patriarchal blessing a million times I apparently have failed to notice some pretty major things. There are 18 separate references to a specific thing and I have never noticed it talks about it so much before. Amazing.

This week Sister Peterson expressed to me that she sometimes struggles with the fact that when we are in large groups of missionaries from other zones people are so excited to see me. She also said she feels as though she's living in my shadow sometimes because I receive so much praise and no one makes mention of her. This was so sad for me to learn because I've been an outcast all my life. I tried to help her understand that I know how she feels because all my life I've been mistreated and excluded and bullied. I tried to tell her that outside of the mission I'm a big lame loser. She can't understand that though because all she's seen is Sister Atchley who walks into a group of missionaries and 15 people say they love and miss her, or Sister Atchley who is admired and praised in front of three zones by an assistant to the president. It made me think of all the times that I feel like nobody understands what I'm going through, but I'm wrong because our Savior understands. Even though he's glorified and perfect he knows exactly what it's like to feel all kinds of guilt and pain and sorrow. I learn a lot from Sister Peterson. I'm also not really sure why everyone here likes me so much. It's so surreal to me when people are genuinely excited to see me. I've always though my whole life that people just forget about me when I'm not standing in front of them, but even people I wasn't super good buddies with are stoked to see me. I need to repent and love everyone else a lot more in order to come close to deserving this kind of attention.

Funny quotes n stuff (there are a lot):

*Elder Kenner being really unsuccessful at clearly explaining an awkward situation*

"What you mean member Deanna tried to swerve investigator Deanna?" -me

"YES!" -Elder Kenner

"Wow rude." -me

"Me and Elder Chan are like 10ths cousins or something and GUESS WHAT!? It's through your mom!" -me

"WHAT!? Not the Chinese?!" -Elder Chan

We shared dinner with the Northwood Elders. The children were obsessed with me suddenly making a straight face. It was the funniest thing ever.

"You look like an emo." -A kid

"little do you know...." -me

(Nobody actually believes me about this. Please send pics.)

*passes Elder Te'o the salad*

"your move Elder Te'o. White goes first in chess." -Elder Mills

"I'm feeling like I'm gonna have to take a number four tonight." -Elder Te'o

"what?" -Sister Peterson

"You know I'm just really full. I ate a lot. It's gonna be like a four five six." -Elder Te'o

"I don't understand." -Sister Peterson

"Basically, Sister Peterson, I'm gonna take a really big dump." -Elder Te'o

Sister Peterson accidentally called Elder Hales Elder Wu.

"Ha! You're all the same! Look! I'm the same too!" -Elder Anthony (he's in Yale Ward)

"Want some of my sunscreen? It's SPF 100." -Elder Killpack

"You don't mess around." -Sister Fullmer

"My skin doesn't mess around with the sun." -Elder Killpack

"The alien space bishop?" -Sister Fullmer

*Elder Hales eating a doughnut with chopsticks*

"They don't mess around with chopsticks where you're from." -Sister Fullmer

"Arizona?" -Elder Hales

(So Elder Hales was adopted from china by a family that lives in Arizona when he was like 10 or something. He has an accent and everything.)

"If you get hit you can sue them for a bunch of money." -Elder Killpack

"but I'd have to go home." -me

"but you can come back WITH A BUNCH OF MONEY!" -Elder Killpack

(Use this in your classes)

"Elder Eppig can you read?" -Elder Mills

"Uh yeah..." -Elder Eppig

"PROVE IT by reading verse 14!" -Elder Mills

"So they contacted me while I was taking a smoke break so I was already miffed why do think I was smoking?" -Elder Radeke

"President said I'm greenie breaking myself." -me

"sounds inappropriate" -Elder Burk

"UUUH what is that!?" -Sister Peterson

"Marijuana!" -me

"It smells like a skunk!" -Sister Peterson

"That's what it smells like!" -Me

"I can't see Sister Fullmer back there so she can go last." -Elder Te'o

"Oh yeah, because I'm SO tall." -Me

*Everyone dies laughing*

"I always though the chair just set up magically." -Brother Yamane

"Unfortunately we're out of wands. We used them all up." -Brother Smemoe

"They said we don't really have to know anything about the scriptures to participate." -Brother Yamane

"Stokes would be good for that then." -Brother Turner

I've learned that ward council is a meeting where ward leaders get together and talk about serious stuff for 5 minutes then act sassy for an hour. Also there's singing involved.

Your reading assignment is this:

Pure Testimony by Elder Ballard

Bonus:

Alma 40 is actually a really hilariously sassy chapter. Read it like you would imagine someone sounding if this was the fourth time they'd explained the same thing to you. It's super funny I promise. "look all I'm sayin is that everybody dies, but they don't get resurrected immediately. who knows how many different resurrections there's gonna be, doesn't mater! point is everybody gets a body, but UNTIL THEN you gotta go somewhere. So that's why the spirit world." <-- cliffnotes for Alma 40

Love Yall!