This week has been absolutely fantastic! Tarzana is turning out to be as amazing as I remembered it to being several months ago. We had dinner with the bishop this week. He is a convert of about 20 years and is so much fun to be around. We’ve met several more super awesome members this week. Sadly, and I address this later, is that stake conference is this weekend, so it will be difficult to meet the members of our new ward.
We have several investigators that the missionaries have been working with, supposedly. One of them would appear to be, more or less, an eternigator. Mel has met with missionaries for nearly 4 years. We’re still trying to get a hold of him for an appointment. Another, named Lily has a return appointment for later next week.
Just before transfers, one of the investigators got baptized. His name is Leo. He is super solid and we’ve started going through the lessons again with him for his recent convert lessons.
Stake conference this weekend has been 2 parts blessing, 1 part curse. The blessings came in the form of seeing the members of the Chatsworth Ward again and feeling the spirit of instruction while being gathered as the saints of Zion. The curse is that it is impossible to know who the Tarzana ward members are as they look just like anybody else in the stake.
At stake conference, there was a lot of instruction on the importance of member missionary work, the importance of making good choices, and not to procrastinate. One of the speakers noted that the first 4 letters of sacrifice and sacrament are the same and considering the fact that sacrifice was the ancient way to show our Heavenly Father that we wanted to accept the atonement. In our time, it is the sacrament.
At the Sunday session, one speaker spoke about making church “fun”. We can make it “fun” by going into church with an open mind, a heart ready for learning, and free of judgement of those who are there. The stake president spoke on faith and searched a variety of websites to find various definitions of the word faith, including a YouTube video he quoted from (see? There are good things on YouTube.) He quoted somebody who said “Faith can move mountains, but, don’t be surprised if God hands you a shovel.
I’m still really mad at President Henrie right now. I still feel that he’s blowing this situation out of proportion. He can tell me that I’m addicted to computers all he wants, but it simply isn’t true. Okay, so perhaps I spent too long on the computer on p-day too long or even if I did post a link to a church video on Facebook, it doesn’t mean that I’m addicted. It doesn’t mean that it’s turning my thoughts away from my mission. I feel as if I am being unfairly punished. Will you please call him and ask him to remove my email restrictions? The attached document explains how I did not break my rules or regulations.
Love Elder Allen Blodgett
written 5-16-16
Category: Uncategorized