Elder Conner Miles - Washington Yakima Mission: November 28, 2016

This week has been great! I love the holiday time on the mission! It just seems so much more spiritual and happy but at the same time it seems a lot more sad. It's a happy time but it can also be a time of struggle for a lot of people and I've already seen some of that.

The Ward

This week started off really well with Zone Conference here in Wenatchee on Tuesday. It was our zone and the Omak zone. It was an amazing zone conference and we really focused on what the purpose of the Book of Mormon is and then we worked on our finding skills. Which was really cool because Elder Aguirre and I got to help with this. We were in charge of directing everyone and splitting them all up so that way they could spend a couple minutes trying out new ways to approach people about the Gospel. It was super cool. Also at the zone conference we got a chance to watch the new Christmas video that the church has put out. It was a super powerful video and I loved how it showed just how much we can spread the light of Christ simply by helping those around us. Then on Friday we were given permission to go on the computers and spend some time studying the new mormon.org website where there are another 24 short videos for each day up until Christmas! I'm super excited for the new video and we've already seen some really cool things as we've shared it with others.

Elder Aguirre and Elder Miles

This week was also Thanksgiving which is such an awesome excuse to eat as much as I want! Though I struggled to keep eating. We were fed 2 dinners and at each one they just kept giving us more and more food and we were given so many goodies as well. President decided that it would not be the best idea to go tracting so instead we made some brownies and went and delivered them to a bunch of members, and of course they made us eat their desserts. So in the end I think we ended up with 2 dinners and 3 or 4 extra desserts. It was so much food! But it was worth it.

We met this awesome girl this week named Jenny but she's moving to Mexico on Thursday. She's already read up through chapter 7 in 1st Nephi! It's been super awesome but sadly we have to refer her to the missionaries down in Mexico, which is a good things I guess, but she was so cool.

The members here are honestly all so awesome! They are so willing to help with everything. I love the ward up here and I'm excited to be able to stay here for a while longer. The missionaries in the zone are all so great! There are 26 missionaries in the zone which is the biggest zone in the mission. Elder Aguirre is from Colorado and wrestled in High School. He has been out 2 transfers longer than I have and is a fantastic missionary. He was born in Mexico but moved to the US when really young but he speaks super good Spanish and I've already learned a lot.