Zone Leader Conference

Good good week. There is nothing to complain about in life. Except for cold weather.

So. I'll start off with some weird news. We had ZLC this week and President Greer let us know of some transfer date changes. The next two transfers are going to be normal 6 week transfers. But the following one will only be 5 weeks dues to the huge influx of missionaries. Then everything else after that will be normal 6 week transfers. But due to that one 5 week transfer all subsequent transfer dates move up a week. So I'm coming home a week early. It's kinda bitter-sweet. But mostly sweet. I know that that is what needed to happen and that will give me an extra week to prepare for school. I was supposed to come home to Missouri on August 20th, and school starts in SLC on August 26th. But now I will be home on the 13th. I definitely appreciate those extra 7 days to get ready for school. Also, President told us that in some missions they lost as many as 9 weeks because of the amount of missionaries coming in. So I am grateful that ours was only a week.

We had ZLC this Friday. That is such a wonderful meeting. I love meetings in the first place but ZLC takes the cake for all meetings. I learn so much in a few short hours. President just lets us know what's on his mind and what we need to focus on as a mission and then we take that back to the members of our Zone in a Zone Meeting. Yay! More meetings :).

It was an interesting week working with just two of us. We were still able to get a lot done but it was definitely different. It's a little bit easier when you have 4 people haha. But I love working with Elder Lyells. He is so great.

As for the people we teach:

James Draven

His date had to be pushed back a week because we weren't able to make much contact with him at all last week. We stopped by about 6 times and never caught him home. We were trying to call him all week but we learned yesterday that his phone isn't in working order. BUT. We did get to see him yesterday after church. He was playing the new Call of Duty of course. He has already beat Halo 4. He likes video games. But that was a side note... He is still on track for baptism. Still excited. I still love him. He is such a cool guy. It was great to talk to him yesterday after stressing all week about how he was doing spiritually. He's still doing alright. And he will be baptized on the 15th.

We have FHE tonight and James will be coming to that. We're making gingerbread houses tonight for FHE! We also have visit nights for the YSA on Tuesdays. We go to the church at 7 and anyone who wants to visit someone in the branch comes too. Then we divide and conquer. Then meet up at DQ at 830. That little activity has been quite effective at finding us new investigators in the YSA. We found Trina this week through that. She is dating Josh Statler who is a returned missionary in the YSA. A couple weeks ago that is how we found Hannah and her roommates. She is roommates with Jaimi Cox who is an active member of the branch too. I LOVE the YSA. The Branch President is great too. President Hendrix.

We found another new investigator in the YSA. Juaquin Horta. He knows Cameron Mugleston, who is also in the branch. We will be having a lesson over there on Wednesday with Cameron right before institute and Juaquin wanted to go to institute as well. I'm super excited for him. He seems pretty cool.

That same night we have an appointment with Trina. And Clair Schend, a less-active member of YSA.

But we do work outside the YSA too. I just don't want to talk about it. Because I would rather  talk about YSA. I love teaching people near my age.

It has been a good week. I hope I was able to convey that.

Love,

Elder Paxman

 

This is a picture of Marilynn and Jonathan's baptism. They got baptized Sunday . The missionaries are Elder Snow (left) and Elder Packham (right)