Monday, October 27, 2008

First transfer is over!

Alright the crazy things first; its funny you mention Elder Clements because I had something really crazy happen the other day. My companion, Elder Harrison, came from Grantsville Utah and his whole family lives there. He got a ton of pictures from his aunt who lives there in and I was looking through some of the pictures and I almost feel out of my chair! It was a picture of all my companions' cousins and on each side was a missionary and on the right side was Elder Clements! It was so weird and I was in shock for the rest of the night! Out of all 53000 missionaries and out of all the pictures taken of them we have two pictures of an Elder who came from my small ward we is thousands of miles away in our apartment! Which I am very happy to be back in; I love my companion and have been learning a lot from him. We had a long chat the other day and set some goals to focus on to be even more obedient and have a celestial next transfer, which starts today.
When I look back at who I was 2 month ago I see a lot of growth in myself, but im still not where I want to be. One of the hardest things for me out here is my self confidence. I know the gospel and know how to teach, but im not confident in myself. I have let my being humble take away any confidence that I had before I came out here. Its gotten way better but I would say that that was the main trial for this last transfer, and for this transfer its going to be "becoming a better teacher transfer" and what ever trials the lord see fit to inflict upon me that will give me that growth.
Mom im sad to say that I can't read that book that you sent me, its not in the missionary library. It looks like a book that would help me out a lot but what I have come to figure out is that the Bible and Book Of Mormon has the same message that any book can hold. Just a thought, most books that are written by Prophets or Apostles are inspired by the Spirit and by the pondering the meanings of the Book Of Mormon or the Bible. But what you can do is keep sending articles and stuff like that. Doing that helps add to my library of knowledge and aids for teaching. I got your last package before I can to email so I got to read all of the family's letter and that book you photo copied for me. Its weird how these past few weeks I have been noticing how relationships are build on trust and how relationships are what bring us the most joy in life. For me its forming relationships with ward members and gaining their trust. So when I read what it was about it hit home and is going to help me learn and grow.
Elsie and her family are getting closer to being baptized and that only thing that is holding them back is that we are required to have them come to church five times before they can be baptized, and we have 2 others who has dates and are progressing. It really sweet when you can see someone grow in the Gospel, to see their life's change and there understanding of the scripture grow and change.
If you have a Preach My Gospel handy turn to the 3 chapter and those are the lessons we teach. WE make lesson plans according to the needs of the investigator and focus on a certain commitment that we want to leave with them. But the lessons we teach are not just from PMG, the spirit might lead us to read a chapter out of the Book Of Mormon to them, like for example when we go over to Elsie's today im going to read Lehi's vision with her and commit her to study the scriptures and my companion is going to teach the rest of the family out of Alma 32 on faith and how we can grow it and so on. We really rely on the Spirit and that's where self confidence comes in, if I don't have any confidence in myself and im not confident in a prompting I lose trust from God and have to gain it back. If you didn't catch it I referred to the trust and relationship lesson I learned. I want to have my Heavenly Fathers trust, so to get that I must show him that I am trust worthy.
New topic, I got this keyboard thing called an "Alphasmart 2000", witch is like a digital journal and I have been writing in it and it has the capability to plug it into the computer and download what I type and send it through email to you all. The only problem I have is that I don't have the right cords that I need to do so. So I was wondering if Will could do something for me. Could you ask him to look up what cords I need and anything else he can find out about it? It would help out so much and I would truly grateful if he would do that.
Mom, Dad I love you and am thankful for all that you are doing for me and know that God is Blessing are whole family because of your examples and your faith in the gospel. I feel like I grow closer to you and the whole family every week im out here and know that I have bee blessed to have you all as my eternal family. I pray for you always and want you to know how much I love you all.

Love
Elder David Kelly Conrad 

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