The Traveling Elder

Hey everyone it was an absolutely crazy week. I was all over the
place, from Kutztown to Exeter to Reading to Broomall to Valley Forge
and finally back to reading. I spent most of it in Exeter with Elder
Martinez, and some on exchanges in other places and a couple meetings
and doctors appointments in others. It was kinda gnarly being a ZL for
the week! I got to see a little of what it's about. We got to go to
MLC on Thursday, which is a meeting for all the Zone Leaders with the
Assistants and President. It was a great meeting, happy I got to go! I
also got to go on exchanges with the Assistants which was pretty fun,
they are great elders!

So I thought that this would be a super short email not being in my
area all week, but on Wednesday night I got a call from my companion
saying that Kory texted them and wanted to be baptized this weekend!
So I had to micromanage the entire baptism over the phone, it was
pretty rad! Kory said it was the temple that finally helped her decide
to be baptized this week. It was so great! They had a bunch of family
there and she was so excited! She was so ready for it! Pretty crazy
too because I got a text from President Randall before the baptism
asking if he could come! I guess this is the first baptism he's been
to since coming out here, pretty special! Then he came out teaching
with us after too!

Probably the other biggest news is we are now one of fifteen test
missions for Facebook, so we all get to be Guinea pigs for a while!
It's gonna be super interesting using it. Other than that I'm super
happy to be back in my area for another week and to keep the work
going!

Philly Temple

July 25, 2016

The contrast of the beginning of the week to the end was HUGE! To
start off the week I had to drive myself to UrgentCare early Tuesday
morning because I was in a ton of pain. Yes I had to drive myself
because my companion doesn't have a license haha I suggest never ever
driving yourself when you in pain because you get so tempted to run
every red light. Anyways so I was pretty much out of commission for a
few days while I was recovering.

That's okay though because last Sunday we saw a miracle that keeps
growing! When we were at church last week we had a less active/part
member family come! We've been seeing them for a bit, but it's been
hard to get them there! The cool thing about them is that it's three
generations of less actives. Sister Gonzalez, her daughter Colleen and
her daughter Christina. Colleen is probably about 40 and hasn't been
to church since she was 18 and Christina is actually not a member!
They invited us over for dinner this week and after some good food and
a bunch of chatting because they could talk for hours, we got a return
appointment with Christina! When we came back for our return
appointment she offered us some cake she baked and wow was that good!
I about dropped my fork when I tasted it! So as we were enjoying this
wonderful baked good she says "so I really want to get baptized". I
about dropped my plate! She's so solid and we had a great lesson with
her and she loved church and I'm so pumped about this all!

To end the week on Sunday we got to go to a special tour of the
Philadelphia Temple with our investigators. We went with Ben and Kory
and their kids and it was just wonderful! I haven't been through a
temple in quite a while so it was great to be back. It was so amazing
to see all the missionaries with a bunch of investigators getting
their first glimpse of the temple! Philly is crazy sweet too!

In other news I had to do 3 moves on Saturday and 1 today.
#dylansmovingandstorage Also one of our zone leaders headed home for a
week so I got put with a Elder Martinez for the week in Exeter.
#zlforaweek it's gonna be a super gnarly week! Love you guys, thanks
for the support you give.