First things first: Logan Institute Men's choir, way to represent! You sounded so good and I found all your handsome little faces in the crowd. I love you guys. You seriously did the best job ever and I'm the most jealous that you got to sing in General Conference.
There hasn't been a whole lot of proselyting going on this week, not going to lie. The Sister Training Leaders have had a really difficult couple of weeks. One of them got a concussion recently and the other sprained her ankle, so neither of them could drive for most of the week. So we helped them get around to their appointments, we helped them pack up their apartment and move this weekend (because that's been in the works for a while. Their old apartment was tiny, but now they have a huge one, which is super nice for them). So we've been doing a lot of service. We've also started making a huge map of our area so that we can more effectively keep track of our tracting efforts, which I think will help us as we start this new week.
Our second lesson with Samuel went a lot better than I expected it to. I was worried that it was going to be a really bad lesson because Sister Wells and I were pessimistic about teaching Samuel, so I thought that maybe we wouldn't be as prepared as I wanted to be. I tried to work really hard to be positive about the lesson and prepare such that we could teach him because he deserves that from us. The lesson lasted like two hours, and Sister Wells and I talked for maybe fifteen minutes of that, but it went a lot more smoothly than our first interaction. Samuel has some interesting (that's a very mild term) opinions on the doctrines of the Bible. Among other things, he thinks that the war in heaven took place around WWI and that WWI started because Satan was suddenly on the earth with all his demon angels. And something about giants and how Adam doesn't get to be resurrected, I don't know. It's going to be kind of interesting if we end up teaching him longer and we have to unwind all of his doctrine. I don't know how much longer we'll be meeting with him, though, because he told us that he's going to rely on his senses and his knowledge to know whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. Which is not how that's supposed to happen, but he doesn't quite get that yet. We're meeting with him on Wednesday and we'll just have to see what happens. I was amazed that I was able to feel some of God's love for Samuel, though. I mean, he's not like suddenly my favorite person, but I was definitely able to focus on some of the good things about him more than the frustrating things, and I had a lot more patience than I thought I would. I could definitely learn to love him, I think.
I don't know if it's just me, but was conference the best thing that's ever happened to you, or what? There were so many talks that meant a lot to me and I can't wait to get to read them all again. I especially loved Elder Uchtdorf's and Elder Holland's talks, as well as Elder Oaks'. I would definitely encourage all of you to reread the talks when they come out, listen to them if there are any that you missed, and try to come up with a goal that you can put into action in the next little while. Let's take Elder Holland seriously and make sure that the things we felt don't fail to have an effect on tomorrow and the next day. Let us be doers of the word and not only hearers.
Thank you all for your continued support! It's kind of crazy to think that my first transfer will be over in 2 weeks (for those interested, this transfer was 7 weeks instead of the regular 6 because
they increased the stateside MTC time to 3 weeks). Chances are pretty dang good that I'm staying in Mandan, but I'll keep you all posted!
Thanks for all your love and support!
Sister Myers
