Helloo!

Another great week! This one started off a bit interesting and stayed that way haha. So on Tuesday Elder Unasa and I went with Brother Harrop (our Elders Quorum President from Agua Fria) to finish doing yard work for Sister Vickers and Brother Starnes. It was miserable because we were having dinner with them later that night and Sister Vickers had already started cooking at 10:30! So we were out there, mouth watering and miserable haha. But the work went well and I got to know Brother Harrop really well! Then we had our Ward correlation with Mingus Foothills and we went around to deliver more invitations for the temple open house. We were out knocking on some less active members and we saw the relief society president drive by. She stopped and we talked for a minute and she drove off. When she did we saw a lady standing outside on her porch so we decided to go talk to her. As I approached her driveway she started yelling at me for my "Shady Actions." She was head of neighborhood watch and was super upset that we had two cars in the street while we talked with the relief society. She assumed we were planning a break in or something. Then I said, "look lady, if I was going to break in to a house, do you think I'm dumb enough to wear white, with my name on my shirt?" She was super upset for the way I addressed her so I just said "I'm really sorry for trying to invite you to something, I apologize" but Unasa was pretty upset haha. Then on Wednesday I went on an exchange with Elder Davis, he is the other new missionary that I live with and he is hard to deal with sometimes just because he won't focus. But I took over our area with him and it was cool because I had to step up and not be shell shocked anymore haha. It felt good to see that I actually can take the lead in discussions. On Thursday we had Zone Conference with was a spiritual overload! We had Elder Westlund and Sister Walker going home so they gave their departing testimonies. It was really cool to hear from them because they were so torn up about having to go home. So it was spiritual from the start. But what we didn't know was that we were getting to see "Meet The Mormons" as an early release! It is SO good! And the end of the movie is really strong! I want you guys to take the chance to see it while it is in theaters because it is awesome! Then later that night Elder Unasa and I and Brother Dobson (Mingus Foothill WML) taught the relief society how to contact people and how to smoothly invite them to the temple open house. After that we taught our new investigator family and the dad came up and hugged me when we were walking out the door and said thank you. It was really cool to see how the message effected him. On Friday we finished our weekly planning and went to Prickly Pear Cafe where we usually go every Thursday. We eat there once a week because a member own it and feeds us for free! Then that night we went over to the Sullivan's and brother Sullivan has a talk that is in the March 2012 Ensign called "Latter Day Saint Voices" getting to know them was cool. 

Conference, conference was awesome! I don't know if it is because I'm a missionary and everything seems to apply to me or one of our investigators, or if it is because we watched it at the chapel and I was a lot more focused, but the talks were all really good! My favorites were Elder Holland talking about helping the needy and the less fortunate, because in the sight of God, all of us are needing of his blessing. My question for conference was "How can I become more converted, and how can I help others do the same?" And the obvious answer from this conference was to love everyone. I think all of the talks had something to do with loving our neighbors the way we love ourselves and our Heavenly Father. Which is cool because when you think about it, conference talks all came down to the very fundamentals of our beliefs. And I liked when Elder Bednar got up at the end and just called out to everyone who aren't members. It was cool because we had an investigator sitting there with us and after she said she loved it. It makes more sense when it gets put the way Bednar did it. Between his talk and Meet The Mormons, it shows how Mormons aren't trying to force beliefs, but we all want to share the blessings the Gospel has brought us in our lives. 

President Griffin opened a neighborhood in our are that was closed for a long time. About 8 months ago a guy was shot and killed. It's a sketchier neighborhood but I wouldn't call it ghetto. But we went in there and everything was going totally fine. One man told us to be careful on a certain street and of course it was the street we had already parked on haha. It was late and we were walking back and out of nowhere a glass bottle shattered like 15 feet away from us. These guys were saying something in Spanish and they seemed pretty upset haha. We decided we would only go there during the day haha. 

Just for a thought, Lynn G. Robbins talked about Gods standards. We need to live to that standard because the standards of the world are continually dropping. We need to hold ourselves accountable and step up higher than what many people see as normal. 

Things are going great here! I am loving the work! Love you guys! Tevin.