Family!

This week has been good! To start off, on Tuesday, Elder Longhurst
and I went over to a recent converts house because her husband is not
a member. He used to be standoffish earlier this year when Ullie (his
wife) was baptized. They had us over on Christmas Eve for a German
Christmas and when we were over there, he hinted towards becoming a
member of the church. We decided to play it out and not bombard him
the next day. But when we went over on Tuesday, he had been reading a
lot about Brigham Young and Utah-Mormon History. It was pretty cool to
see how much more open he is now. Then after, we had a service project
to do with another Recent Convert who was a part of the Hells Angels
haha. When we got done helping him clear off his patio, he took us
upstairs to see his Weapons Collection. He is obsessed and he had like
5 Katanas (Japanese Swords), Throwing Knives, Throwing Starts,
Nunchucks, All kinds of tactical knives and some other crazy stuff.
They are a family of that gets it, but they still don't fully get it
haha. That night we had a lesson with Anthony who is a chain smoker. I
opened the door and literally, smoke came out. But we had our lesson
and then our member dropped us off at the church. There was stuff
going on at the church and members mentioned how we smelled. We talked
to our Elders Quorum President and Bishop in the Bishops office and
the Bishop had to spray us with Febreeze to get rid of it. Our Elders
Quorum President said something awesome,
"I heard a guy talking once about smoking, and about individual
sins. He mentioned how obvious it is to smell someone who smokes,
everyone knows instantly. And many people are quick to judge. But
think if every sin had a smell. And everybody knew our sins everywhere
we went. I'm sure some of the other sins would smell much worse than a
little cigarette smoke. Imagine every sin we have done, and how bad we
would all smell if our sins all had their own smell."
It was really cool to think about. Because it puts it into
perspective that we all have problems and we all have things we need
to work on.
We gave Anthony a tour of the church on Wednesday and then we met
with an inactive young couple. The man is a manager that needs people
to work for him and we were able to get him and Lawrence in touch with
each other! Lawrence has called but we don't know if he has gotten the
job yet. Lawrence and Anthony came to church yesterday and they had a
really good time. Lawrence is opening up a lot in Gospel Principles
and he loves what he is learning.
On Friday we had a Zone Conference which was pretty much about
obedience. It was really good for us all to hear. There are mostly
smart missionaries that do what they are supposed to, but there are
some who try to push limits and do dumb stuff. So President wanted
everybody to talk about obedience and how we need to govern ourselves.
I think it's ridiculous that he had to have a Zone Meeting around the
mission because some people don't obey simple rules.
We are finally getting a bit bigger of a teaching pool but we are
struggling to get some of our investigators to keep commitments. A man
on the streets starting ripping into "us Mormons" and was telling us
how stupid we are for the money we pay and for serving so that the
leaders can sit back. He thinks we paid for the Temples and only
leaders get to go in them. Elder Longhurst got upset at first and I
wanted to argue but when I opened my mouth, I ended up just talking to
the guy and asking him where he heard that. Of course it was a
"buddy". But it made me think about what we do. Not every kid has an
opportunity to represent Jesus Christ for 2 years. Nor do they get to
learn the life skills we get to.

Things are still going great out here! We are building our
teaching pool and we are getting more people to church which is great!
Elder Longhurst and I are growing closer together, he is starting to
realize that he really only has like 30 days left haha. He Zone won't
let him hear the end of it, neither will our Bishop! I hope you guys
are doing well and have a great week! Love you! Elder Byington
Sent from my iPad