June 12, 2017 - What a week!

This week was definitely a highlight from the mission. We've been teaching a lot of awesome people and finding a ton of people, and then to cap it all off we had an amazing mission conference in Kennewick with Elder Neil L. Andersen and President Donald L. Hallstrom. The conference was so good! It was so full of the spirit and was so powerful. There is definitely a special presence around those men. 

President Hallstrom talked a lot about being humble and willing to change. He also talked a lot about how when we go to meetings, we go to be edified, and that the only way to be edified is to feel the spirit, and that the only way to feel the spirit is to have faith, and faith is action. So when we go to meetings we must be willing to act on any impressions that we receive or else we will not get as much out of it. 

Elder Andersen talked a lot about different ways to find (investigators) and how we have to be doing everything we possibly can to find people to teach. That includes being as creative as possible. He talked a lot about focusing on the youth, the less actives, and the part member families in order to receive referrals. It kinda humbled me listening to this because I've never been very good at asking for referrals, but Elder Allsop and I have already made goals to ask for as many referrals as possible, and we have already seen a couple successes. 

Elder Andersen also spoke a lot about how important our time in the mission is. He talked a lot about this is the time to have our own personal conversion. He mentioned that while on a mission we need to develop our testimonies in such a way that we will never be able to imagine leaving the Savior. Then he gave us some ideas on how to do that. He said to pick 10 scriptures from the New Testament and 10 from the Book of Mormon that we know to be true without a doubt, and then memorize them. He said that once those scriptures are part of us they will become part of our heart and part of our bones, and they will come to us in the times of trail that we will face. 

Also, at the conference I ran into some old faces. Colin Van Wagoner is currently serving in the Kennewick mission as well as an old classmate from Lehi, Jaxon Tollman. It was fun to see the both of them again, and they seem to be doing well.

As far as investigators go everyone seems to be doing really well. Angie, Lydia, and Ryley are all doing well. We met Angie's other daughter this week, a 15 yr old by the name of Tasha. They are still doing super well. We had to push Angie's date back a week because she smoked on Monday (they need at least 2 weeks clean), but she has been clean ever since. Angie's been through a lot this week, but she has made some amazing progress. On Tuesday night we got a text from Angie saying her oldest daughter Tasha had disappeared and she was in a panic. We called her and said a prayer with her over the phone to help her rely on the Savior. 

After we hung up, Elder Allsop and I were super nervous that she was going to smoke in order to calm her nerves. We went to bed and the next morning we had a text that said that Tasha was alright and that it was a miscommunication between Angie and her ex-husband. Apparently Tasha had gone on a field trip and the bus had broken down, so naturally the ex-husband told Angie she's missing even though he knew Tasha was on a field trip (kinda messed up). So we went over to Angie's house that afternoon thinking she had smoked a bunch to deal with her panic, but instead she had read like 30 chapters in the Book of Mormon!!! She didn't smoke a single cigarette even though it was probably one of the most stressful moments of her life. She relied on the Lord instead, and because of that her testimony of the Book of Mormon grew so much! It was really, really neat to see. 

Evva, Trinidy, and Jeff and Amanda are all still doing well. Jeff and Amanda have been super hard to be in contact with them these past couple of weeks.

That's all I really have time for! Love you all! 

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission