God loves us and the Gospel is very important and makes us more happy.

I'm trying to learn the full velocity of what I'm doing as a missionary. It's quite enormous. The importance of the Gospel is hard to grasp. All I know is that God loves us and the Gospel is very important and makes us more happy.

My district is amazing. They're so awesome. Last week we had a zone conference. Our zone is small with only two districts. Elder Jordan and I. My pops and I as the DL's. :) That's pretty cool. I'm so glad I can stay in contact with him and sit with him in zone meetings and hear his wisdom throughout the meeting. He goes home after this transfer though.

This week we had a training by Elder Hamblin and myself on finding. Every training we have is on finding and member presents. The zone leaders attended this district meeting. Our standard is to find 6 new investigators a week and have 8 member presents. Ask the missionaries what they're standards of excellence are. Stay involved with them. It's hard but we know it's inspired and we can reach it.

We went on exchanges with the zone leaders. Elder Condie came to Steamboat. He's a great missionary. He may sound very monotonous but he loves the work and does have a passion in talking with people. He taught me a lot. We OYM'd everyone. (street contact, open your mouth). He runs up to them when they're all the way down the street and shares the gospel. And it works. We found a pretty solid potential that way. It was really cool. He told us that he'd been looking for something to fill him with serenity. So he taught me to run to people with a smile. "I lit myself on fire and they came to watch me burn." Light yourself up with excitement and people will wonder, "why on earth is this weirdo running up to me and so happy?" It's helped me a lot to not care what people think and just love them and the Gospel.

One night after a very spiritual experience we were oyming and saw a figure in the distance so we ran all the way down the street (in 15 degrees on ice) and caught her just as she was about to go inside. (we called out to her and didn't sneak up on her like previous). She was completely weirded out. Why are you running in 15 degrees? "because our message has changed our lives so much that we want to share it with everyone!" Ok... well I'm going to go inside now...

In district meeting today doing role plays. Elder Dean role playing on a bus talking to a non member.
"how's it going" "pretty good" Do you like riding buses?" No." "Why are you on a bus?" Because I have to." "we ride buses so we can corner people and talk to them because they don't have anywhere to go." (seriously) I come in and say we're going to start over and not creep them out and be more serious. Investigator pretends to text. "....Who are you talking to?" (serious straight faced.) hahahahha everyone started busting up laughing. He's a hit.

OYMing is hard for me because sometimes I feel I do it because I have to and it's not from the heart. So I start feeling weird. But I'm learning to put my heart in the right place with love and charity. It's been stressful and my mind has been cluttered thinking about what I can do better. A lot of peace has come to me accepting these trials and realizing I need to put my heart in the right place.

Kirk is being baptized this Saturday! :) We had his interview and have been teaching him about repentance and the law of chastity. The Law of Chastity was actually a really good lesson on how relationships and lives can be so much happier. Our lessons have never been amazingly Spirit filled, yet Kirk sees the difference. The Spirit works to what we need. It's so amazing.

Joe is having questions on the church. He's wondering if we're in an apostasy and the prophets have been faltered. He doesn't want to accept no marijuana and no gays. So we had a powerful lesson on how he has to be ready to give those up if he wants answers. Reminded me of Alma 12:10-11. If we harden our hearts things will literally be taken from us. Knowledge, reassurance, our testimony. If you hold your testimony dear, if you want a better one, then keep your heart open to the fact that you just may be wrong. I've had to do that this week because I've noticed the Spirit is not with me as strong. God will give amazing things to our understanding when we are humble.

I love you all. The church is so true. Even I am gaining more and more of a testimony of it everyday.


-Elder Edgel