FW: Starting to feel like a real missionary!

There is a lot that has gone on this week .We had our district meeting with President Merkley and we had stake conference. Along with that I had some exchanges this week with some new missionaries and along with that came some very funny stories.

President Merkley taught us about the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. As he read the story and explained it my mind was blown away by how deep the symbolism is in that parable. What I have to write about wont do what he taught justice but the main thing I learned was that Christ has a lot of trust in me to be a host of those that He brings to me. In the parable the Samaritan brings the wounded man who has been bound up and healed by the oil and wine to a host. Christ is the Samaritan and the oil and wine is his atonement and healing, you can say the healing of things both spiritual and physical, and what Christ does after he heals the man is He take him to a host to take care of him. Then Christ tells the host that if it cost more then two pence to take care of him then He will repay the host. In a shorter version of what I learned, Christ has a lot of trust in anyone who is a host over anyone and if you do all that you can He will repay you. There is a lot more to what I learned but that will do.

Next thing, every month we meet with the Stake president and the high counselors who are over the missionary department and have what we call "stake correlation." It's basically a meeting where concerns for every ward concerning missionary work and efforts are brought to the stake president. It's the connection between the missionaries and the normal church government. Well this past week I have been calling brother McCabe, who is the high counselor over missionary work about when the meeting was going to happen. He never returned my phone call so I just thought all was well, but on Thursday he calls me ten after six and the first thing he says was, "Are you coming?" There we are standing in a restaurant with a member who was feeding us at six o'clock and we were supposed to be at this meeting and I get this phone call. So we took our food and hurried to the church. Needless to say we were not fully prepared for the meeting, I hadn't collected all the data that we are suppose to present to the stake president and we didn't have our suits on. If there is a rule I will always follow for the rest of my life it will be the rule about always wearing a suit to meeting, especially to ones where I meet with leaders in the church. So the only reason why I'm letting you know about this mistake of mine is to illustrate the lesson I learned while in the meeting. When we got to the meeting I was a bit fearful because I wasn't prepared, but as I sat there and was asked questions about the progress of the areas and about details I was enabled by the Spirit to remember things, like last months indicators, concerns of certain wards and other things that blew my mind that I was able to recall. It was a very powerful lesson to me.

Next thing, on Friday I went on an exchange with a new missionary, Elder Bill Sherrick. A few days ago I gave my word to a man named Audrey that I would mow his lawn on Friday. Well after making calls all week to find some one in the ward to lend us one I was with out a lawn mower for Friday. When thinking about who we could get one from just hours till the scheduled event I came to the thought about Sister April North's house and that she had a lawn mower out in the front yard. The only reason I knew that she had a mower at her house was because a few days earlier I was over there changing her car battery out and fixing odds and ends on her Chevy Blazzer, which is a whole other story. But as I drove to Sister Norths I tried calling her to see if she would let us borrow it, but her phone has been turned off. So we keep going to her house in the hopes that she would be home. Well when we got there she wasn't home so I had a decision to make, was I going to take the mower or not? We loaded it into the back of our car and took off. We mowed the lawn and Sister North was ok with us taking the mower. Later that evening we went back to teach Audrey and now we are teaching his family. He loved what we taught and has tons of questions about the restoration! How awesome!

We are still teaching Mary S. and we are now teaching her daughter Rachael. We watched the "Restoration" with them both, and when it was over Mary bore her testimony that she knew our church was true because she had felt the Spirit while at church and during the movie. Her baptism date is the 10 of October.
Some complications with Tido and Erica have sufficed. Apparently Sou's ex is trying to get custody of Tido and Erica and she has Tido go to court next week over it. So we are working with a member in the ward who is a lawyer, his name is Brother Houston. As I talked with him about it, we talked out where he served a mission, and he served in the Spokane, Wa and he served in Moses Lake! So we had a good conversation and he will be a good help to Sou and her position.
Hilde B. came to church and is still growing. She fasted last week about the Word of wisdom and has a growing testimony. She is studying the scriptures and is really praying to quit the coffee and cigarettes.
That's all for this week; hopefully I will have time to write some letters today, I actually got some mail this week! I have been on a dry spell for ever.

Love your son,
Elder D. Kelly Conrad