What. A. Week.

Tuesday was Zone Conference! I am always so excited for these because I love seeing all (not all but a lot) of the missionaries in one place. I also knew that I would be seeing Elder Palepale and Elder Kessler from my MTC district and Elder Stock, the one who got transferred out of the district I am in now. So I was really excited about that. Zone conference was really great- as usual. A couple things that "touched my heart"...
- Can't follow His way when we aren't doing His will.
- "To harbor anger, is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die"
- You must be WILLING to be heard
- As saints we are a light unto the world and we will just get brighter
- You will have no idea who you will have an impact on
- God is aware of flat tires
So yes Zone conference was really nice.

Me and Mr. Goat

So on Thursday nights we have a man in our ward that has been wanting to start up a Bible study. He is HIGHLY educated in the scriptures... LIKE INSANELY EDUCATED. So Wednesday morning we passed out about 200 fliers to a HUGE neighborhood for the bible study. That pretty much took up our whole morning. BUUUTTT we met this one guy (probably like 25... 26....) PRAY THAT WE WILL FIND HIM AGAIN! We have been searching. He told us he just moved here with his aunt, so we gotta catch him.

Thursday rolled around and we had dinner with one of my favorite families WHO GOT TO HANGOUT WITH MY FAMILY THIS LAST WEEKEND!!  They are so down to earth and willing to do anything. Our friend with the dreads, NO LONGER HAS DREADS. We were talking to the kids and then the door behind us opened and he came out, FRESHLY cut hair. Both Sister Val's mouth and mine were wide open. We were shocked. We stayed a little too long and it takes a bit to climb back down their big dirt road back to Ione so we missed Bible study. After all that work passing out fliers for Brother B he told us that not many people came so we aren't going to be doing it anymore. Bummer. We were looking forward to that.

This kid is so much fun and so freaking adorable.

Conference was so amazing... It is hard to even put into words... but a couple things that "touched me heart" were these...
When Uchtdorf spoke first I was like DAAANNNGGG starting off strong! His talk really was STRONG. I loved when he said "We must have the WILLINGNESS to swim up stream when necessary". Is swimming upstream easy...? Heck no, but that's the point. With Christ we are able to do hard things. So yeah I really liked that.
I LOVED Bednar's talk. Not going to go into detail but I love his comparison of our lives to an "Amazing Tapestry carefully woven". This conference really spoke to me.... Man, God is so aware of all of us.
W. Craig Zwick, This guy was funny! "Look beyond what you see" the people that you work with are probably going to have imperfections as we all do but if we didn't "Look beyond what we see" then we would never be finding anyone to teach. We have to look at their hearts and their intents. And "Forget yourself and go to work" this is not the first time I have heard this. Our mission president says this all the time, but it is so true. Nothing about this mission should be for you, it is ALL for Him.
Bonnie L. Oscarson: unless we lose ourselves in the service to others our lives will be purposeless, DO NOT MISS THE OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE.
Cutest thing when Elder Holland said missionaries our little 6 year old friend
turned to us and said "MISSIONARIES, That's you guys!" I loved when he said "Perfection is still pending" and adding on to that, it always will. What authority do we have to judge another. We don't.

Preston Castle

Those are just a couple things that really touched my heart from conference and I am sure that all of us got a very important message from it. I love and sustain the Prophets and Apostles, and believe every word they say and testify that they are true. Neil L. Anderson's little tribute to Elder Hales was so touching. We will all graduate from mortality but until then we must work hard, strive to be like Christ and endure to the end. I really love this Gospel and I am so grateful to be where I am.
God be with you!
Love,
Sister Hansen