WEEK 96- zone confrences and mobile devices

There was a time early on in the mission of Gordon B. Hinckley when times were tough and he wasn't sure how he was to continue. When that story is told, we often hear of the words his father wrote to him: "Forget yourself and go to work." Rare it is however, that we get the other side of the story. His companion - a relative of my current companion, funny enough - told him very simply: "Elder Hinckley, the only way I'm going to let you go home is in a pine box."

That has been an idea that seems nearly inevitable these past two weeks. haha We've been working so hard, I expect to just drop any day now! but I'll have a huge smile on my face when it happens.

 

one thing of note, though is the weather!! It's super crazy, it's cold and snowy! We've had a lot of fun learning how to care for a car in the snow, and have become very grateful for a TRUCK!!! We got 18 inches of snow last week, which melted over a warm couple of days, and today, we're expected to get up to 10 again! Last time we ask California to pray for rain! haha we got all the leftovers!! ;)

 

The past two weeks have been zone conferences. We've had 10 zone conferences that last 7 hours each plus lunch breaks, set up, and take down. Long story short, our daily schedule has become something like this: 6:45-7:00ish leave apartment. 7:30 set up zone conference. 8:00 begin zone conference. 4:00 end and clean up. 5:00 dinner. 6:00-9:00 do real missionary work like it's going out of style. 9:00 stop by mission office and avert all catastrophes that arose during our absence. 11:00-12:00 depending on the night, return home and crash. Because of our schedule, we noticed we weren't getting to do our studies, so we got permission from President to get up early to do that. So, essentially, we're pulling 20 hour days and running the whole time.

and... yeah! That's our week haha.

Last Monday, The two of us, the office elders, and our four Mobile Device Specialists received our iPads and our Mobile Device Training! Then Tuesday, the MDS Elders trained one district on how to use them. Then, tomorrow, the day after and the day after that, we'll be going around training the rest of the mission!!! So, that's pretty exciting.

Man, I really don't know what else to say... haha that's been my past two weeks!

I'm happy, I'm working hard (especially from 6-9, when we do normal work like chickens with our heads cut off), and I'm loving life! Somewhere in this past week, we squeezed in an exchange...

Unfortunately, I left my camera at home this week, as did Elder Riggs... So, no photos today, either...i love you mom ....

Last night President had a stack of papers to sign that he described by simply saying: "your probably don't want to look at this..." turns out, it was our certificates of release! That's DISGUSTING!!! But yeah, I'll survive. I have plenty of time :)

That's about it this week! Love you all!!

-Elder Hodgson

 

MOM questions:

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS OR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE NEXT TWO TRANSFERS?

Well, what I expect of myself is pretty simple. To not hold anything back and to give nothing less than everything I have. I'm working hard to make sure I not only do all the things I want to do, but to also  try to become  what I want to be as well....not doing but TRYING. So, I'm taking a lot of inventory not of what or how I am doing, but  also what I am. It's a difficult process..aahhh life.

HOW ARE THE IPADS ?

iPads are awesome! Our area book planner app is sweet and it makes things super efficient! We have a couple worries about people using them responsibly, but hey, in the real world, you have to learn how to do it, so we all might as well learn on a mission. There are a few apps I wish we could have just to "fine tune the beast" a little bit more, but it's all good :)

FAVORITE MISSIONARY LESSON THIS WEEK

We did teach a lesson in  one home that was cool, we taught two lessons to three people at the same time! We were meeting with one of our progressing investigators and he had some family we started teaching, but he started looking distracted, so I split off and taught him about faith and repentance and how they will help him prepare for baptism while Elder Riggs continued teaching the restoration to the other two guys. it was awesome!