What a Week!

Hey Everybody!

I hope everyone is having a great week, I know that I certainly am. What a week this last one was! The highlight for sure was getting to see the Weilacher family enter the waters of baptism! It was so incredible and such a spiritual service. The whole family except the oldest daughter was baptized. It is such an amazing opportunity because even though I just got into the area and have only taught them once or twice I still love them already and have so much happiness for them as a family! There were so many people at the baptismal service that we had to hold it in the chapel, and we had to squeeze into the room with the font.

So I guess just a few other cool things this week, One is that I got to interview this guy named Fernando for baptism. He’s an amazing guy and I’m so happy he was able to get baptized! Also we gave two talks in sacrament meeting this week. My first one was on a few parts of the plan of salvation. I talked for 15 minutes about how the Atonement of Jesus Christ provides cleansing from sin, succor in our trials, and the gift of resurrection. I also talked about the importance of living righteously so that our families can live together forever. In my second talk, I talked about the blessings and freedom that are the results of obedience, and the bondage that comes because of disobedience. I have a very real and very strong witness of all the topics I was able to share my insights on. I feel particularly strongly about the restored truth of the eternal family. I’ve witnessed the power that knowledge brings into the lives of people I’ve taught, and more evidently in my own life. Anyone who’s struggling with loss can have peace in knowing that we’ll be reunited with our loved ones again. I can’t adequately describe how much I know that that is true.

I hope I’m able to provide some kind of comfort to others through my thoughts and emails. I’m eternally grateful for all of those who have blessed my life and I want to do what I can to pay it back. I hope everyone is safe in all they do and I’m looking forward to writing again next week. Until then!

Elder Orchard

The Weilacher Family

Saw a pretty cool book about the history of the world the other day

Sole the snow loving dog

Crazy Week, Super Cool

Hey Everybody!

It’s been a crazy week, lots of good stuff going on though. We had transfers on Wednesday, so I spent the first part of the week saying by to people and packing up. I was pretty excited for transfers for a few reasons, a couple of those being that I’m now in Saratoga Springs, and I’ve always wanted to serve on the west side of the lake, I’m serving in a trio with two other Elders that I get along great with (Elder Williams and Elder Johnson), and I’m part of a pretty sweet district. The only bad part is that we didn’t have a car for the first two days, and our area is pretty big, not to mention the zone covers like half of the mission. Thank goodness we’ve got some pretty rad elders in the zone who helped out a ton with rides and stuff!

So, I’m pretty pumped for this coming Saturday because we recently got clearance for this super cool family to be baptized. Because of their family background, they had to get special permission from the first presidency for it to happen. They did, and it’s happening this Saturday. It’s a family of 5 and their niece, so that’s pretty dang sweet. It was really cool because I was just thinking the week before that all of the people I’ve helped get baptized have been individuals and it would be really special for a whole family to get baptized, and now we have the opportunity to see it happen. I am 100% without a doubt sure that it is a miracle. The Lord really cares about his children and is involved in our missionary work!

That’s about it for this week, I’m short on time, but I hope everyone has a great week! Talk to y’all later!

Elder Orchard
 

Only picture this week is of my mission dad, Elder Zimsky. He finished up his mission this last week. Congratulations Elder Zimsky!

Going to Saratoga Springs

Hey Everybody!

We’ve had a great week, lots to do and lots of fun things going on! We had exchanges with some other Elders on Tuesday, I spent the day walking around in their area. It was in Pleasant Grove, where I was for the last two weeks of last transfer, so it was good to see some people that I knew and hadn’t seen in a bit. We had our apartment inspections on Thursday, and we did pretty good. Let me tell you what. You should’ve seen the look on their faces, it’s like they’d never seen a place look so nice. We also had a bunch of companionship studies with other missionaries in the Zone all week, that was really fun and a great way to connect with the rest of the zone. Then on Saturday morning we got to clean the chapel that our Mission Office is in. It might not seem that exciting, but we’ll take any excuse we can to get out of our proselyting clothes. Also on Sunday we got to teach a combined youth class. It’s their missionary month and they’re preparing for their missions, so we taught them how to teach the restoration. It was really easy because we teach it every night at dinner appointments, and it was also really fun!

In other news, we got our transfer calls this morning. I’ll be leaving Lindon, and I’ll have the opportunity to serve with Elder Williams in Saratoga Springs. I’m really excited because it’s always interesting going into a new area, as well as the fact that this will be my first time serving on the west side of lake Utah. It’ll be great! I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Orchard

If you look closely, you can see the tire treads from where my iPad got ran over. Thankfully, it still functions perfectly fine, with only minimal damage to my screen protector.

A beautiful sunset.

This wallet stacking deserves an “A” grade.

How to Distract Kids Trick #1: iPad cameras.

Spot the deer eyes.

6 rolls of sushi for $20? That’s hard to pass up!

Learning From Others

Hey Everybody!

It’s been another good week here in the UOM, full of way too many meetings and plenty of missionary work. With church meetings and mission meetings combined, I think we spent about 18 hours sitting. Not all in a row of course, but it still took its toll. But I’m still alive and well!

It’s been kind of a slow week in terms of teaching. We had a lot of lessons set up and had contact with most of the people we’re teaching, but we weren’t really able to teach all that much. Most of the time was spent just uplifting and edifying, which sometimes is what’s needed the most. I think it really helps people realize that we aren’t just trying to get them baptized, but that we actually do care about them. Hopefully we get to teach some more this week, as well as continue to administer to the needs of those around us. Whatever the case, I’m still helping in the Lord’s work. If that means learning more about patience and just being of service to some, than I’m fine with that!

In other news, we had a lot of uplifting from our leaders and ward members. Between MLC, Zone Conference, CDM, and Stake Conference, I learned more than I thought I could in a single week. I hadn’t felt that spiritually blasted since the MTC. It was great though! I hope everyone has a great week, feel free to write anytime! I can’t guarantee I’ll get to them right away, my email app is giving me problems, but I’m sure I’ll get to them eventually! Until next week!

Elder Orchard

Letting my artistic side show

Next big children’s sunglasses fashion model

Our skill is not in basketball itself, but in getting the basketballs stuck in odd places