Faith

Hey Everyone!

This last week has been great, we've been super busy as always! We had plenty of meetings as always, and an exchange to shake things up as well. Most of the week was the normal missionary life. On Wednesday there was a district leaders meeting. It's always nice to have a meeting with President Killpack. Having the opportunity to hear the input from other district leaders and figure out ways I can improve is something I look forward to. It's also definitely a blessing to get to spend some time with some other missionaries and see some old friends I haven't seen in a while.

We had exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Thursday after our district meeting. I went with Elder Mietus to the UVU area, which is a YSA Stake that they cover, and Elder McCarl came to our area with Elder Amari. We did a few different things, from knocking on apartment doors, to hanging out at a YSA event, to teaching a few lessons. It was a fun time and I definitely learned a lot. I wouldn't mind serving with Elder Mietus full time, but I don't know if that will ever happen.

The last highlight of the week was speaking in one of our many Sacrament meetings on Sunday. We had about 12 minutes apiece, and the subject was left up to us. I decided that I wanted to talk about faith. Two of my favorite examples of faith in the Book of Mormon are Nephi and the Brother of Jared (a.k.a. Mohonri Moriancumr). I hope someday I can have enough faith in Jesus Christ to act as quickly and obediently as those two. I'm working on it, I have a long way to go but hopefully I'll be able to get there someday!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Orchard

Some of my old missionary friends at the district leader meeting

A cute litter of puppies we got to hold and stuff

The clouds looked pretty cool on Saturday morning. It then
proceeded to rain for the next day and a half.

A Full Week

Hey Everybody!

This last week has been pretty great! We had a few fun things happen, including interviews, a few Ward parties, and getting a new area book! We opened the week on Tuesday with Mission President interviews, where we had a chance to sit and talk with our Mission President one on one for about 10 minutes. President Killpack is an amazing Mission President, he truly is a Christlike person! We got to hang out with Sister Killpack while we were waiting for our district to finish up, and she's pretty cool too!

On Wednesday night we had a Fall festival in one of our Wards. One focus was honoring Veterans because it was just a few days after 9/11. There were a few nonmembers and less actives there, and there was even one who would avoid making eye contact with us and would turn and walk the other way whenever we wandered near where he was. Some people are so funny! There were another two Ward parties on Saturday. One was a bunch of different dinner parties throughout the Ward, and then all of the people got together at the end for dessert at one of the members houses. The other was a Ward movie night where each group made a short home-video type thing. A few weeks ago we were riding our bikes by at the right time and so we got in the Primary's video, but we got there too late to see it. But we still made it on the silver screen, woohoo!

One last thing is that we've been super busy today! First thing, at 8:00 this morning we went to the golf course and practiced our swings on the driving range for about an hour. We went in preparation for a round we're going to play in a couple weeks. Apparently I have a good swing, but I'm not entirely convinced. Later I was able to get a new suit with a sweet gift certificate to missionary mall. I got some really nice ties too! Then we went to our Zone Activity, which was playing ultimate Frisbee in one of Orem's many parks and eating Costco pizza. Then finally went shopping, and that brings me to sitting here now typing out this email. It's been a full day!

Well, I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Orchard

Don't leave your iPad unattended around the Poly Elders

A pretty darn cute little girl of a family we teach

Elder Amari working on his swing

A Busy (Great!) Week

Hey Everybody!

This last week has been pretty great! A lot has happened to talk about, so I'll do my best to include as much as I can without making this super long. A couple of big things that happened this week, including having our Combined District Meeting for the month of September, we had another ward party, I got to go back to Alpine for a baptism, and we had a regional broadcast on Sunday! Like I said, we've been busy!

The combined district meeting was pretty great, I gave a training on how the commitments we give in lessons relate to conversion. The whole meeting was a blast! A few days before a lady that was closing down a pool in our area for the winter gave us a ton of candy, so we brought it all with us and shared with the rest of the zone. The next day we had a ward block party. It was in one of the richer wards in our area, so it was pretty nice! They had bounce houses for the little kids, a dunk tank, live music from one of the member's band, and catered barbecue. It was pretty awesome!

On Saturday I got to travel back to Alpine for the baptism of Troy, a guy I had the opportunity to begin teaching about two months ago in Alpine. It was an awesome baptism! Troy has been in an addiction recovery lodge for a while, and it was great to see that he is still making progress and was able to enter in to the waters of baptism! His father, who is not a member, was able to come all the way from Kentucky to attend! It was a great event, I love baptisms!

On Sunday, instead of having our regular meetings, all the stakes in our mission, the Provo mission, and the St. George mission watched a regional broadcast. There were at least 250 Stakes watching (that's a lot of people!). Elder Stevenson from the quorum of the twelve apostles was the presiding authority. He gave an awesome talk at the end as well. He talked about how humility, obedience, and virtue were all prerequisite to having the spirit with us. I'll definitely take his advice!

Also! I almost forgot, we got to go to the temple this morning as a district, since we're so far south in the mission, our mission president told our zone we could go to the Provo temple this time around. It was a great trip!

I hope everyone has a great week! You all are amazing!

Elder Orchard

At the temple this morning

Our candy stash

These fires don't help the air quality

Our zone after our Combined District Meeting

Our zone after our Combined District Meeting

Troy's Baptism

A cool looking sunset

Happy Labor Day!

Hello Everybody!

This last week has been great! We had transfers, and they went mostly smoothly. My new companion, Elder Amari, got moved in alright and everything is great with him...except someone took his tablet or something. Yeah so we've been going almost a week on just one tablet. It's worked out so far, but it's been a bit stressful. Hopefully we recover his tablet soon, but in the meantime, we'll just have to make due!

So Elder Amari is from Atlanta, Georgia, he's been out for about four months now. He's a convert to the church, so his testimony is super strong, and he's really motivated to go out and work. He's always wanting to go knock doors and get people baptized, haha! It's awesome being able to work with someone who has so much enthusiasm!

We had our first district meeting of the transfer on Thursday. With this last transfer, a lot of stuff got changed around area wise, and our district is completely different. The first meeting of every transfer is always really awkward, especially when everyone is new and you've only talked to them a little bit around the mission. But they're all amazing and I'm looking forward to a great transfer!

We had a breakfast this morning for Labor Day, and there was a Ward Walkabout last night, but other than that not much has happened. We've spent most of this last week getting Elder Amari acquainted to the area and making plans for how we're going to get work done. I'm excited for when we get to work this next week! I hope you all have a great week! See you all next Monday!

Elder Orchard

A wild hot air balloon was spotted this morning

Elder Amari and me