Service Week

This week started off with Zone conference in Carlsbad, New Mexico. We went and received more instruction from President Heap, and the Assistants. It's fun to see everyone. It consisted of the whole Fort Stockton Zone, and the Roswell zone, a total of like 40 missionaries or so. I had to help the office staff do car inspections, and then we got back late that night.. kinda the same instructions they gave at MLC.

Right when we got back, (Wednesday) we did Exchanges with the Iraan elders. They were so excited to get out of their trailer for a while... we have two sets of bunkbeds in our room, so all four of us stayed the night in Fort Stockton, and then we did exchanges the next day. I went with a newer missionary (Elder Despain) and then exchanged back that night. It was a blast... after serving out in the middle of nowhere for a while, you really come to savor the times when you get to be around other missionaries. 

I finally finished calculating miles for each area of the zone, and will be reporting them back to Lubbock.. it's been such a pain, and the zone (especially the sisters) will not be happy to see how many miles they're getting cut haha. 

On Friday, we went and ate at Elder and Sister Wells' home. Every Friday morning they feed us sourdough pancakes... I can't even enjoy normal pancakes anymore... I made some the other day, and I thought that I had made them wrong because they didn't taste nearly as good as the sourdough... the Wells are a huge blessing to us. 

Did I mention that this last week was bike week? In order to set a good example for our zone, and to save some miles, we went an entire week without using the truck. It was a pain in the butt. Haha I'll never do it again, but we found like 6 new investigators doing it. It was hard, but we received a lot of blessings from it. 

We're not teaching anyone super consistently right now... 

President Hiinkson (Our Branch President) called us Saturday night and asked us to give talks on Sunday.. that was fun. People always bail out on talks, so we end up giving them... I've learned how to prepare talks FAST from serving in branches. 

This week for service we, 

Built a fence to hold in out Branch President's goats

Visited old people at the nursing home

Cleaned out kennels for a pit bull breeder

Helped the pit bull breeder chase down javelinas that have been tearing up his dogs. 

delivered meals on wheels (in the Iraan elders car)

and wrote letters to prisoners at the local jail

To top it all off, yesterday, for P day, we hiked Mt. Guadalupe with two of the other sets of Elders in the area. It was a ton of fun. Makes me wanna be a granola and just hike all the time when I get home. 

In other news, Bill the dog followed us out proselyting this week and almost got hit by two trucks... silly girl. 

Spiritual thought: I've made the book of mormon the center of my studies these last few months, and the results have been HUGE... I've come to know my Savior so much more, and have come to love the book so much. 

That's all folks, 

Elder Johnson