Service And General Conference Weekend

Hello Everyone,

Can we even believe it is already OCTOBER?

Today we had Zone P-day and we played ultimate frisbee and volleyball. We had a great time hanging out with the Zone. 

General Conference was amazing and uplifting. We were able to watch several sessions with families in our ward and one session with our district. One of my favorite talks was President Nelson's talk about building your own spiritual foundation. It was very strong and very powerful. I really appreciated and enjoyed that message. And, Brother Wilcox's talk about Worthiness is Not Flawlessness. Again, amazing and inspiring. 

This week in my personal study of the Book of Mormon I read in Alma chapter 14. There are important lessons to learn from this chapter. (Skipping to verse 14, you can read the entire chapter). We read that once the burning was finished the chief judge asked Alma and Amulek "After what ye have seen, will ye preach again unto this people, that they shall be cast into a lake of fire and brimstone (v.14)?" They did not answer him so he put them in prison (v.17). Many men, all who were in line with Nehor, who had killed the good man Gideon, questioned them while they were in prison, but Alma and Amulek did not answer them (v. 18). The judge spoke to them again, but they did not speak to him (v. 19). They were hit many times in all of this. The judge asked them, "If ye have such great power why do ye not deliver yourselves (v. 20)?" They were mocked and spit upon (v. 21). They were made to go without food and drink and then stripped them of their clothes and bound them in prison (v. 22). What do we learn from this? That the righteous will be mocked by the wicked. We learn that we should not contend with those who ridicule us, but that we should wait for the spirit to guide us in our actions. The story continues on, go and read it and find out what happens. I think the most important moral of this scripture story is that by our faith we can accomplish great things. We can withstand the temptations, the suffering, and anything else that Satan uses others to put upon us. With our faith, we can be instruments in the Lord's hands. With God we can overcome anything. 

This week we had three service projects. The first one wasn't the greatest...it was at a Catholic Charities Food Bank where we were assigned to hand out cantaloupes. The problem was the cantaloupes were rotten...all of them. Some were more rotten than others. The guy in charge said to throw away the ones that had white mold on them. There was a line of cars that drove by with their trunks open and we were to fill their trunk and do the same when the next car pulled up. To make matters more confusing there was a note on the box of cantaloupes that said "Don't judge these cantaloupes from the outside. It's what's on the inside that counts. They're just as delicious." We ended up keeping the bad ones and throwing away the worse ones. As we were throwing the really rotten ones away, Elder Laws (from another ward) tossed one in the garbage and it literally exploded. So, unfortunately people sat in their cars watching us place rotten cantaloupes in the trunk of their car while the people next to us were handing out fresh green mangos. 

Our second service project was helping Brother Dawar move. This is the second time we've helped him move since I've been out on my mission. He has some heavy items and we were called to lift and move those. After the service Brother Larsen took Elder Montoya and I on a brief tour of Kansas City to see the murals. And, a really cool thing we saw was a cloud of birds. Elder Larsen said the "bird cloud" happens frequently. It was neat to see. 

The final service this week was at Sister Reeves home where we pulled weeds and spread mulch at her home. 

#PRAY FOR EIGHT UPDATE:

JENNIFER: We have officially placed Jenifer on date for baptism! We are very excited for her and she is continuing to learn and grow. Her daughter, Alexas, is also interested and we are teaching her. Jennifer's husband is supportive of them learning about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

CARROLL: Carroll had a few family members over to her home helping her move some furniture around and they really tried to sway her away from learning more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She told us later that she held her ground and told them what she believed and shared what we had taught her. We were pretty amazed that she stood up to them and is progressing so well. We hope to put her on date for baptism also. 

BOOMATAY'S: The mom still has several weeks of surgery and rehab. We are on hold with that family. 

Unfortunately we had to drop some from our teaching pool this week. We did place a Book of Mormon with a guy we met at the local park. We talked to him for about 2 hours. 

Elder Mortensen

Pictures this week:

Reading to the Shore family kids

Heavenly Kansas Sky

Mexican Tacos with Brother Rous

Kansas City Mural

Rainbow over the city

Conference with the Ramirez family