Mission Conference

I'll start off by telling everyone why I didn’t email yesterday. We had a surprise mission conference with Elder Richards of the 70. Basically what happened is last Thursday Elder Richards called President Van Cott and told him he would be in the area to visit some family and he wanted to meet with all the missionaries and do some training. So um yeah that was basically what happened. We realized that the church is the only organization that could have set something like this up in 3 days. Pres called the AP's (Assistants to the President) and they called the Zone Leaders and then the Zone Leaders called the District Leaders who then called the missionaries in their districts and everyone found out about the meeting by Saturday and all the rides and stuff were figured out on Saturday and basically everything just ran nice and smooth and everyone was there on time. It was awesome. But also crazy because if we had had a mission wide Christmas party/social/get-together thing then we wouldn't have been able to have this meeting with Elder Richards.  It was kind of not fun not having a party but we got something even better then it so we are all pretty happy. Because what he talked about was simple teaching, and that is what President Van Cott is about to start with us now. We have gone over obedience and now it’s simple teaching. After that well I don't know but it was super cool how much we learned that day. I forgot my notes at home but I’ll write about it next week. After the meeting we had to go to the DI (I'm not sure what it stands for but it’s like Deseret Industries or something. They have clothes and books and it’s owned by the church. I've never been to one it was well like a thrift shop. so yeah cool I guess) so that we could pick up a table and chairs for the hermanas apartment and so we spent like a whole like 2 hours doing that and then we had dinner and lessons. So now it’s P-Day and I'm emailing you.

Starting back at Christmas. Elder Cebreros was sick so we really didn't do anything that day. Just sort of laid around and practiced the uke and I read some scriptures and Elder C slept like literally the whole day. So yeah it was a lot of fun. I loved seeing my family!

At the Bishops house on Christmas Eve

The Bishop has a tradition of giving the missionaries pj bottoms for Christmas

Thursday and Friday basically nothing happened. Nobody was home and if they were they had guests and didn't really want us over. But Saturday was pretty good. We had a good amount of lessons and I taught quite a bit and my Spanish is getting better. Slowly but surely. I have this problem, I'm not out spoken. I love talking to people but I'm soft spoken and not really interesting to people and so basically even when I talk to people in English I just get ignored pretty often. So I don't really talk very much, to anyone.  It’s kind of interesting because I get to look at every situation from a 3rd person non-participant and I think some people think I don't want to talk or participate. I do. I really, really do! I just have no idea what to say to people and when I do know what I want to say I don't know how to say it and my companion seems like he gets frustrated when I turn and ask him how to say something. But that is neither here nor there. The fact is it was a pretty good day.

 Sunday was just sort of any other Sunday. I went to ward council. Understood most of what was going on and talked a bit about the people we are working with and then sacrament meeting and then classes. It was good. Oh!!! We did have a baptism. 2 boys that Elder Molesworth and Elder Barrus taught were baptized and they were like super, super pumped for it.

And that's my week :)

I had a really cool experience but I don't have time to type it because I have to leave in about 5 minutes but I’ll write it in a letter to my family tonight and maybe they can type it onto the blog for me!

But something I learned at the mission conference. Is that Nephi thought about his children long before he was married and we were told that we should do that now. Because even though none of us missionaries have kids we will and it’s a motivator. What kind of parent do I want to be? How do I want my example to affect my kids? What do I need to do in order to become the parent they need? That is one of the reasons why President Van Cott stresses so much on obedience. Because if we break rules here on the mission that are designed to keep us safe what rules will we think are not important after we leave. What might we do and who might we affect. So just remember and keep in mind when you are about to make a choice my youthful friends of my generation. How will that affect your kids and would you be proud to tell them that was something you did?

Well that's it for now. We have to head to dinner because we have to be our houses tonight at 7 :( so I hope everyone has a fun New Year!!!!! :)

I love you and miss you all!

Elder Zachary Gore