A week of conferences...

Whew, big week.

Well, it was a week of conferences. Monday night was a New Elders training, for all the trainers and greenies in the East London, MD, and Queenstown Zones. It was similar to the training I received when I was being trained not so long ago. It was really good though, a good refresher on the missionary purpose and extending baptism invitations. We also had a chance to meet as trainers and I heard some encouraging words (I was a little bummed that our area was struggling a little) from other trainers, and hearing about some of their greenies made me even more grateful for Elder Gillespie.

Wednesday was Zone Meeting and Interviews. One of the topics of the training was integrity. It was very well done, and really made me think of areas in my life where I need to be more honest. Another focus of the training was not gossiping. It has been a problem in the mission, and as you can imagine, a problem I am sometimes a part of. So that was another thing I need to repent of. Interviews were interesting as well, and I think President forgot I had gone to BYUH and when I reminded him, he said “Wow, you survived!” and then asked something like... “You’re not planning on going back there are you?” I guess he had a couple of sons go there and he told me we would discuss it more when I got closer to going home. I do not like my odds of winning that “discussion,” especially after I remind him I would like to by a lawyer (President got his undergrad at Stanford and Law Degree at Cornell).

I guess the big news of the week is that I will be the new EL 3rd District Leader. I was kinda of expecting that, but then President didn’t say anything in the interview and Elder Hama was dropping all kinds of hints that he was staying so I wasn’t sure. But yes, Elder Hama is going to be a Zone Leader in MD. Elder Hama’s greenies, Elder Madsen, is training (!) so we dropped him off at the airport today. He has been on mission for a whole 3 months, but he is a good elder and I think he will do a great Job. We have got to be like youngest district in the mission, if not the world. 

Conference was amazing. I loved many of the talks. Elder Hollands was powerful, both President Uchtdorf’s and Erying’s talks were very good as well. Some of the 70s talk were very nice was well. The ones on Saturday afternoon about what your soul being worth, and also the one that spoke about the remodeling of the Laie temple were favorites of mine. I loved just about every minute of it. We managed to get four investigators to attend, but most only made it to the Sunday afternoon session, which I thought was kinda the driest of them all. One of the people who came was a guy we just started to see this week, named Avuyile. He is a student at Fort Hare and has all kinds of golden questions. We gave him the Book of Mormon and he accepted it pretty readily. The only down side is that he, with the rest of the students, will be leaving in a few weeks and won’t come back till like January. But his home is in King Williams Town and there are missionaries there, so all is not lost.

Anyway, things I think are going pretty well. I feel pretty refreshed after this week of conferences. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Martin