1 March 2010

Hey everyone! It's cool that Elder Bingam was able to call you guys last night. I met him at our stake conference that Elder Holland spoke at. I think he works throughout the area as something to do with public affairs. So yeah, it was a pretty exciting week with Elder Holland being here. I got to see him twice. The first time was when he spoke to the whole mission along with President Snow of the Seventy. That was really interesting. He's pretty funny in person and also someone I wouldn't want to make angry. He told us that he could go pretty ballastic. Mostly he talked about how important the missionary work is. It's really the most important thing in the world, he said. He also talked a lot about how our missions should be one of the biggest blessings in our life; so we should take advantage of them, work hard, grow up, and don't be homesick. He said that his mission was the greatest blessing of his life, and because of that he doesn't have any sympathy for missionaries that want to go home. He said if we wanted to talk to him about missing home then he'd get President Snow to sit on our legs and he'd sit with his knee on our throat and we could talk to him about missing home. He also taught us a little about how Preach My Gospel came about. He said that what happened was that President Hinckley told the missionary committee that they were doing it wrong. He said that if missionaries could go out and teach the gospel for two years and then come home and become inactive, then they were doing it wrong. So Preach My Gospel was designed with the idea that at least each missionary could finish their mission having converted at least one person, themselves. The second time I got to see Elder Holland was at a sort of stake conference here in the Adenta Stake. He spoke a lot about how men should respect their wives more and about how the youth were being "lost". He spoke a lot to the youth and how he wanted them to be active in the church and serve missions. It reminded me of that "Decade of Decision" talk from some General Conference not too long ago. Anyway everything is going fine here. Our investigators are doing well. Georgina should be baptized this Saturday (last Sat the baptist, her husband, was traveled). and Zainleone will be baptized the 13th and JW Appiah sometime in March as well. I'm sorry to here about Bro. Flannery. I hope their family is doing all right. I'll be praying for them, for sure. That's cool that Vera wants to be baptized. It's also cool that you're having them over for dinner, for some reason when I heard that I started imagining calzone. Love you guys, tell everyone hey! Love, Bradford