. . . The Worth of Souls: October 22, 2012

Dearest Family and Friends,

I hope this letter finds everyone doing well. Oh what a crazy week it has been. Seriously, one of the busiest of my mission. I met my new companion on Wednesday. Her name is Sister Williams. She is from Brigham City Utah and excited about missionary work. So far it has been really fun working with her. I'm excited about training. However, I didn't realize just how many questions there are to be asked or how many things I figured were common knowledge, but aren't. I forget that I have been doing this for more than a year now. I feel like I've always been a missionary. I feel like my brain is always on, thinking about what else I should explain, who we need to see, what we need to do, where we need to go, and how we should do things. You could say I'm slightly overwhelmed, but still excited and accepting of this new challenge that will continue to stretch me. It's been nice to really practice teaching the lessons again, to get back to the fundamentals of the Gospel, to be 100% obedient, to help Sister Williams learn and grow, to see her greenie fire and to pray more sincerely than I ever have before. I'm enjoying my new experience of course. If we didn't have experiences that made us stretch then we wouldn't improve or become better. I love Sister Williams! She is awesome. Ready to learn everything and practice. We had a new trainers meeting on Wednesday morning where President Campbell explained that what we do now with our new missionaries, how we train them, will set them up for the rest of their mission. No pressure hey? I was also sad to see all the departing missionaries bear their testimonies at transfer meeting. I served around most of them. Sister Jones (my trainer), Sister Coltrin, Elder Graul, Elder Pieper (were two of my district leaders), Elder Lane, Elder Gardner (two of my zone leaders), and Elder Blanton. It's really weird when people you know well start going home. I tell you, this mission thing goes by way too fast!

Sophie was baptized on Friday!!!! It was awesome. She asked me to give a talk on baptism. It was really neat to be able to do that. The Spirit in the room was so strong. The ordinance was performed in Chinese. Which was super cool. She was just beaming! I'm so grateful that I have had the opportunity to teach her. She also received the Holy Ghost on Sunday. :) Oh yeah, Tuesday we taught her about temple work and family history. She had gone to the Calgary Temple open house last Saturday and loved it so when we taught about temples she had a picture already in her head. We taught her about Baptisms for the dead and at first she thought that we actually unburied our dead and baptized their bodies. It was quite funny. We were able to clarify and she was so excited to call her mom and China and explain that it's not as weird as we thought. She's excited to do baptisms for her family now that she knows it's just proxy work. We also watched Finding Faith in Christ with her in Chinese. That was a neat experience too. Saturday morning Sophie took all us missionaries who taught her (Elder Wood and his new comp. Sister Roberts and her new comp. and me with my new comp.) To a Chinese Din Sum Restaurant. Din Sum is awesome! You could say it's Chinese food meets the eating style of Tacano's where they have servers who just come around and ask if you want different items. I loved it. It was more traditional Chinese food (nothing like panda express or even Hunan City). Din Sum! Yum! i will definitely go to that restaurant when I come back to visit. :)

We had stake conference yesterday and a special boundary change meeting right after. The Beaumont ward (my first area) is now a part of 3 Different wards. Crazy!!! It just goes to show how many people were in that ward. It was a huge ward!!! The boundaries don't really affect us in YSA since either way we cover all areas, but all the other missionaries will have to pass their investigators over to new missionaries. Not fun. Oh, speaking of new missionaries, so President Campbell was at a Mission president's seminar in Nauvoo the weekend after conference and they said that they did a survey with alot of the YSA in the Wasatch front and the average number of sisters who started their mission papers after the announcements were 12. One ward had 29 Sisters!!! So crazy!!! The work is progressing! No unhallowed hand can stop it! This will change the world!!! Also, they said that on average 2 countries come and tour temple square in any given year, but just since Mitt Romney's election they have had 30 Different countries tour temple square. Most of those countries don't yet have missionaries serving in them. That is so cool. The work is moving quicker and quicker. :) I'm glad that I get to be a part of it!!!

It's getting colder and colder every day. It's not supposed to get above 0 C this week. Burrrr!!! Thanks for everything! i love you all!