Teaching the youth in Primary about prayer.

Elder Peabody & Elder Ahrens



Hello family!

So most of last week we spent walking through neighborhoods to find people to teach.  We spend a lot of time in Ashley P's ward. We had the opportunity to do some service as well as have dinner with on of the members in the Lake Shore 2nd Ward. 

On Friday, we had ZTM (Zone Training Meeting). That's where the whole zone meets together and the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders teach us about gospel doctrine and how to improve our teaching. After that we did some more finding in Ashley P's ward. We're up there a lot.....ANYWAY. Did some weekly planning, then we met with one of our Ward Mission leaders to teach a young girl about baptism as she is preparing for baptism once she turns 8 in a few days.  So that's always a good experience! Following that we visited the another family. They have an interesting story. Pretty much Murphy's Law has been kicking them in the rear. Anything that could go wrong, has happened to this family. It's so unfortunate. The husband was away for 3 weeks and one night while he was away, his wife was doing laundry and her kids were off playing in the other room. She heard a rustling noise in one of the rooms...thinking it was their dog, she calls out to him for him to come. The dog doesn't come. She calls once more with the rustling getting louder. dog still doesn't come...the rustling gets even louder and the dog runs up from behind her and goes and stands in the doorway of where the rustling is coming from. He starts growling and barking...now granted this dog is a Great Dane. She peeks past the doorway only to find a burglar had climbed in through the window. When Brutus, the dog, sees him and starts growling and barking, the burglar books it out the window and over the fence, knocking it over in the process. Way to go Brutus! You see a big dog like that, the last thing you want is his big rear end chasing you! CUZ YOU GONNA LOSE!  So the husband told us a little about his recent past with him and his wife. And despite everything that has gone wrong with them, not once did they ever turn their backs on the Lord...which is a remarkable example of their faith and strength with Heavenly Father. Great, great people and I'm looking forward to meeting with them next week!

On Saturday, we went back out to Lake Shore to contact some of the referrals we got from the leaders out there. Then we came back to SF to meet up with one of our recent converts. We went up to the Provo Temple to do baptisms for the dead! Note to self: NEVER go to that temple on a weekend evening. So busy! However, the assistant baptistry coordinator squeezed us in and I got to baptize him for 5 people! What a sweet experience! That night we had dinner with one of the previous Relief Society President's and the 1st Counselor of the Bishopric up in Ashley P's ward. That was fun. They both are good families. 

On Sunday we went to 3 wards. The picture's you received were from the Primary President. She invited us to teach sharing time about prayer and so we did! Later that evening we had coordination meeting with all of the ward mission leaders from the West Stake. Following that we had dinner with the 2nd Counselor of the West Stake Presidency. So that was cool. He is a really great guy. Actually I like all of the West Stake Presidency! haha. Then, we had the mission wide Coordination meeting and President McCune and Elder Leavitt of the Seventy, spoke to all of us missionaries in our zone, the missionaries in the next zone over, all of the Stake Presidencies, Bishops, and Ward Mission Leaders of all those stakes and wards. It was so cool.

Transfers are on Wednesday...I'll be staying in the area...but Elder Peabody is getting transferred. So next week I'll have a new companion...hopefully we will connect as well as Peabody and I have over these last 6 weeks. After we do emails here in a little while we're gonna try to get the District together...because half of our district is either getting transferred or going home. So one last HOORAH.

Anyways...I think that about sums it up for this week!

Until next week! I'll tell you how my new comp is!

With love.

-Elder Ahrens