Week 74: 1/12/15

January 12, 2015

Longmont, CO

These pictures are really exciting to me so I am going to start with them.  This giraffe is in Loveland.  It is right next to the road as you drive in from Longmont.  However, it is a divided highway so you don't see it as you are leaving.  This is important because I have driven past it so many times and wanted to take a picture, but we are always on our way to something so we don't stop, and coming home it is out of sight, out of mind.  This week as we headed home from our mission conference I finally got a picture!  So yeah, another mission bucket list item fulfilled ;)

The mission conference was because Elder Bednar came to visit.  We weren't sure at first if we would all get to meet with him, but they made it a mission-wide conference, as long as the weather was good enough to get there.  At the beginning of the conference Elder Martino and Elder Christensen of the 70 both made a few remarks, then Elder Bednar began.  He premised the rest of the meeting with two things: first, we have this funny thing we do in the Church where we take all of these notes, and then never use them.  They are useless.  So we talked about keeping a 'small plates' type of record.  Then, he mentioned another game we play in the Church called "Guess what's in my head" and promised that they would not play that game with us even once in the time that they were there.  Then he asked for things we had learned from studying the talks which were assigned reading in preparation for the meeting.  Many comments followed.  He changed the question a bit, many comments followed.  When we had about an hour left he invited us to ask him questions and commented, rightly so, that we were in a room with only about 200 other people and an Apostle of the Lord, and would probably never be in that small of a group with one ever again.  Really, Elder Bednar didn't teach us much, but he invited us to learn from the Spirit which was far more powerful.  He knows his role which is very similar to ours.  It is not to teach, except to the end that he can invite the Spirit to teach us and invite us to act on the things which we have received.  There are 15 men on the earth who are prophets, seers, and revelators.  And talking with one who is in that calling was a wonderful experience.  There are several things which I am going to do because of what I learned and felt, that will reflectively make the conference even more meaningful.

There were some really amazing learning experiences in other avenues this week as well.  Monday I was able to see part of the result and much of the reason for my fast the previous Sunday.  It had to do with F____, who we still hadn't been able to reconnect with.  We happened to be driving past his apartment building that evening, and saw lights on in his window.  We pulled over immediately, got someone to let us in the building and ran up to knock on the door.  It was hard to say if my heart was beating so fast because of the running or because of the anticipation and anxiety of not knowing what he would say.  Standing in front of his door, who happens to come up the stairs behind us but F____!  He greeted us very nonchalantly and invited us into his apartment where we met his wife L___ who was in there with A_____!  F_____ doesn't not like us, but he lost his phone, he got a new one but didn't have our number because it was in the old phone.  So that was a major relief.  And he had told L___ about meeting with us and she seemed positive about it!  We still didn't get to meet with them for a lesson this week and he didn't come to Church, but we are really glad to know that he is doing well and still interested.

As we went to the C______'s house afterward, the road was pretty icy and this is an exchange that Sister Allen and I had:

"Watch out for the road!"

"Nothing can get me down right now, not even the street!"
"Maybe not emotionally, but physically it sure could!"

We were pretty stupendously happy!!

Another funny conversation this week, with a man we tracted into named J_______, after we introduced ourselves:

"I don't have much time to talk right now"

"Okay, well, have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?"

"I saw the musical"

"Would you like to read the book?"

"Sure!"

I could not believe that actually worked!  Since he didn't have time to talk we invited him to read the introduction and testimonies at the beginning to understand what it is, and asked if we could come back by another time to talk about it.  He agreed.  We happened by a funny happenstance to get to see him only a couple of days later in the park and he told us he had read the beginning and started 1 Nephi!  He was really liking it, and decided to set some time aside to really focus on it and understand what was going on.  The Lord sure works in mysterious ways!

Hope you all have a great week full of the wonders of life!  Love you!

love, Sister Emily DeFord