Dear Family,

Thank you one and all for all the gifts, cards, packages, and love. On Wednesday I received Grandma and Grandpa Boothe's package and thanks to them I am well stocked on mac & cheese. In fact I've bought so much food and received so much from packages that I won't have to buy all that much when I'm doing groceries. Elder Bell and I went out to Quizno's on Friday. I was able to get him two sandwiches which made me feel fantastic!

        Wednesday was zone conference and boy it was a powerful one! President Beck spoke A LOT about us getting our investigators to church and he severely chastised us on our dress. He said our shoes need to be shined frequently and that they should be as shiny as his. His shoes were so shiny you could probably see your reflection in them. Then he chastised us on how our ties needed to be at the proper length and how our suits need to be clean and not look like they've got snot on them. Then he said something I'll never forget,

          "If you go home after your mission and aren't doing what you're supposed to be doing I will hunt you down and do bad things to you."

        Then he invited a stake president to come up and speak to us about the power of the sacrament and of the power of the atonement. Oh my goodness the Spirit was strong there! It was incredible! This guy was as intense as President Beck! He spoke about how we need to gain a testimony of the sacrament and of what it really does and how it blesses us if we are to get our investigators to partake. I've been pondering a lot about the Atonement and about the sacrament and how it has blessed my life. I received a prompting to share some of these things with an investigator we had and I think it helped her out a lot too. Partaking of the sacrament's meant a great deal more to me since that talk and I've pondered a little bit about what the sacrament's really all about.

       That same investigator that I just spoke about finally quit her job and came to church with her whole family! It was amazing! They were all there and they stayed for all three hours too! Another person who came to church was a less active lady who it turns out has a much bigger concern about the church than we originally thought. We told her to talk to the bishop about it and I don't know what happened but she came to church too and neither of us were expecting it! Then in our other ward another investigator (who's name is Lynzee. She's a nine year old girl.) and her dad (who's a less active member) showed up to church before we did! That really made my day! What was even better was that nearly half the ward fellowshipped with him and he seemed to get along with everyone. One of members even volunteered to come with us!

HALLELUJAH!

 

After all this time I truly feel like we're finally moving forward! It feels great right now. One of our ward mission leaders said something that also made my Sunday. 

 

Before I say it I need to give some background on the area so you know where we're coming from: Elder Bell's been in Surprise for about a year now and in two weeks he goes home. Everybody's going to miss him. Everybody. At district meeting this week we had a member speak to us and he said that we should all strive to become "an Elder Bell". He said that if we're like Elder Bell we're doing great. 

 

Anyway so when we were talking with our ward mission leader, Brother Campbell, he said that we are the "dynamic duo". He said that we were hard working missionaries who are there to work. He flat out said that he was expecting my new companion to suck. My response was "well he's not going to be Elder Bell" but then Brother Campbell said "Yeah but he's also not going to be you". That really made my day since I'd always assumed that I was some robotic uncaring missionary that the members really didn't like but after that comment I've thought differently. I mean yeah I'm a lot more serious than Elder Bell and I'm learning to lighten up but now it really helps to know that you're being cared about.

 

It is true though. Nobody can replace the kind of impact that Elder Bell has had on me and ever since I've been with him I've grown exponentially. He's been with me through some really hard times and he's helped me learn and grow. Speaking of time I'm excited for this next week since we are going to be really busy! I'll let you know how everything goes in my next e-mail but we're basically swamped in one way or another for the entire week!

 

After zone conference Elder Bell and I went on exchanges with the Spanish elders. The Spanish Elders live about 45 minutes north of us in a small town called Wickenburg. We originally arranged rides for them but it turned out to be too much of a hassle so we switched off during zone conference. Because we had district meeting up there Friday morning we were basically on exchanges from Wednesday afternoon till Friday morning. That's the longest I've ever been on exchanges. I did a lot better than I normally do.

 

Well my time's almost up. I wonder why Ryan didn't e-mail me. Don't worry Ryan I love you a lot! I just want to hear from you.

 

Love you so very, very much

Elder Boothe