Zone Conference and Interviews

Hello everyone!! 

This week was super great! 

P-day was longer, which was weird! But we liked it! 

Tuesday I got to train on how to learn by the spirit! I think the district meeting trainings are more for me than others. I learn so much as I try to prepare for them. Those are some of my best studies that I have!! 

Wednesday was the missionary broadcast. I loved the missionary broadcast that we had this week! It was all about teaching repentance and baptizing converts. All about how the different principles of the gospel all work together. Something that I really liked in it was that they said that a testimony is not just what we say, but it is who we are. It reminds me of what a member said down in Lund. Sometimes we are the only scripture that others ever read, so what are our scriptures saying about us? It just reminds me that people are watching not only what we say, but who we are. We have to be so good, because when we falter, others do too. I do not want to be the reason someone falters. So we had some super good things come out of that! I really liked it a ton! 

Fridays Zone conference was great too! The drive to Elko didn't kill us, nor did anyone go off the road, so that was great! I think I'm a really bad driver? I don't know? I think I was going waayy to fast in the fog. So it was probably through God that we didn't die. I had to watch for the Elders behind me or else I would've gone waaayy too fast. They were what kept us going good. I loved the trainings and the different things we were able to learn! All about the ways we study and plan and prepare! It was super good and really enjoyable. Then Costa Vida after is always great!!!!!

So we had about half of our lessons fall though this week. But we saw sooooo many miracles!!! On Saturday we found out that our investigator, Brother Romero, knows that everything is true. He knows it to the extent that he told his devout Catholic Mother about it! He is wholly committed to being baptized on February 18! That was huge!! This week we are teaching the law of tithing, fasting, word of wisdom, and the law of chastity. We aren't seeing an issue with any of them! He has a good wife who has kept him clean. We had a different investigator that same day who told us that he knows that Joseph Smith had divine help with the Book of Mormon. He said he is a rock, but that he is getting softer. He will come. It's only a matter of time! The work truly goes on. My companion and I are just here to help. It is only by divine providence that we are here at this time. It could easily be any other missionaries. But God in his infinite mercy and wisdom has given us the opportunity to experience this. These will be days that are not to be forgotten! 

On Sunday we had an amazing sacrament meeting! The Bishops son gave his homecoming! And President and Sister Chesnut were there! Everything that RM said was what our President has said. And he kept smiling at us the whole time! It was great to be able to be with the Chesnuts. They are the best!!! We then had interviews! My interviews have been strange lately. The focus is not on me anymore. The first question I got was "hows Elder Rivers doing". Then I got a bunch about the other members of the district. The focus is on the people we care for. And it should always be like that. I like it! So my focus should always be others. For the rest of my life. I will have to focus on my callings. On my children. On my family. Siblings. Friends. making sure that I am who I need to be, so that I can help them when they need it. 

I had a cool insight in the shower today! It was that p-day is on Monday, so that we can have as much time to prepare for the Sabbath as possible. On p-day we are distracted and not sure what we are doing. But we have so much time to prepare to be enlightened! 

I love all y'all and each y'all!!

Elder Miner 

Just a little snow storm

I can't believe he drives in this

An icicle after the storm

Pretty

Elder Lyman

Ely Zone

1 Year!!!!!!

Hey Everyone! How are y'all doing?

This past week has really been great! Lots of really good things happened in our area! That miracle that I mentioned last week got even better! We met with the Romeros both Tuesday and Thursday! Mickey Romero is now set for February 18! He is super prepared! So we are super excited! And so is the ward! We have had tons of members out with us to the lessons! We are going to keep meeting with them and we are so excited!

Jake and Faith down in Lund are set for March 4 along with the Rowley kids. Things are moving ahead! We had the Rowley kids, Brother Romero, and Jake at church yesterday! And Jake brought a non-member friend! Not only are we helping people, but our investigators are helping too!  I love this area so much and I don't want to leave! 

So this is the big secret for all the missions of the world! Most already know! Our nightly planning is now in the morning. After that is personal study. Then everyone is out by 10. Lunch at 12-12:30. Then comp study and then language study. Dinner MUST be done by 6:30 now. It should be from 5-a6. So be aware of that all y'all at home! This new schedule is different but good! I feel like our planning is more effective now that it's in the morning. We aren't half asleep when we make our plans. There has been a lot of times where I've said the next day, "why on earth would we decide to do this today" And so far that hasn't happened with this new schedule! We have been able to set up lessons at 10 almost every day now! It has been super cool to see that change! Everyone seems to be enjoying it! It is keeping us more productive! 

Our next week is super stacked with appointments! We have appointments every hour for almost the entire week! We are going to Elko on Thursday night and then we have ZONE CONFERENCE on Friday! We are super pumped for that!!! Also on Wednesday we are having the missionary broadcast to all the world about the scheduling stuff and who knows what else! 

So on Friday I hit my year mark. January 20, 2016 is when I entered the Mtc. That day has now passed in 2017. Super crazy!!!!!! But to commemorate that event, my parents(who are arguably the best on the planet) sent me a box full of CHICK FIL A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So that was pretty dang cool!!!  My Dad had a huge part to play with that! He is the BEST! 

On saturday I was on exchanges with Elder Gamble (for the 6th time) and we were able to see something really cool! Our neighbors are a less active and non member. My last companion Elder Anderson tried them and they were not interested. But we tried them and they are super duper down! He wants to come back to activity! She (studied with the JW's for 30 years) wants to learn more about the church and what we teach! We saw them saturday at 8 and they were planning on coming to church the next day at 9! We don't know yet if they came, because we were in Lund for Church.

But the work is moving forward! It is growing! our board now has 26 people on it! It has room for 32. We will fill the board up!! It will be great!!! I love this place so much!!!!! So many miracles! 

Thats all folks! 

I love all y'all and each y'all! 

Elder Miner 

Planning

Driving

Whats left of the Chick fil a

The Romero Family

Good Week

So this week has been super good! On saturday we got to drive up to Reno in a very small car. I did not drive. I was not happy about that because the Elders that did drive are not good drivers. We hit the sleeper rails about every 2 minutes or so. But that's okay. We made it  alive!! we had an extra hour of time and the other elders wanted to go hang out with some missionaries who are not the most obedient, but after some impressions about what we should be doing, we made it to where we were supposed to be with our zone. 

Then we had an amazing experience with Elder Christofferson. I really really loved being with Elder Christofferson on saturday. I had some questions answered that have been very near and dear to my heart. I got revelation that I needed. It was a very uplifting experience for me. We got to be in the presence of an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then after that we drove right back home! We got home about 12:30 that night. It was a very long long car ride! And I didn't drive any of it. Which made me very uncomfortable. If i'm going to die in a car, I want it to be my fault haha. 

Yesterday a miracle happened!! A man, Mickey Romero, who is married to his active wife, with two active kids in their teens, has softened his heart and is ready to hear from us. He broke down after the second hour and told everyone that he was ready! He is ready to make steps in his life to unite with the Church of our Savior. This has been something that people have been fasting and praying for, for many many years. He has had a valiant home teacher since 1999 who has visited him consistently. His wife has had the stake president's wife as her visiting teaching companion for 12 years. Diligence in our service and duties really pays off!! Miracles happen!!!!  Home teaching and visiting teaching are so critically important! He is already more active than most members. So we will be meeting with him this week, and we plan on setting him with a date. We are super excited for this!!!!!

The Rowleys are on date for march 4. And for the kids in Lund, Jake and Faith, we will find out more on wednesday. They canceled our appointment last week. So we will see what happens! I am super excited for what miracles we will see this week in our area!!! 

The work is progressing!! When I got here we only had 5 families on our board of people that we work with. Now we have 24! THe work is moving along and Elder Rivers and I are just trying to hold on so that we don't miss it. We are seeing everything go well! The Lord has humbled us and we are trying to be better. We've had some people drop us and that has not been fun, but the Lord has given us people who are more prepared. We are hoping to see more miracles and we are praying for them! I love this work, and the stone cut out of the mountains really goes on without us. So we will hold on for dear life! 

I love all y'all and each y'all! 

Elder Miner  

The whole mission with Elder Christofferson

Zone P-day

Jenga in the apartment

View from Austin Summit

Ely Zone

Elders in his apartment

Ups and Downs

So this week started great!!!! And then slipped a little in the end, but it pulled through! 

And by that I mean that we rebounded from the holidays super well! We had tons of people we were visiting! We mets lots of new people! We had some pretty great days!!!! Then on thursday it started to snow a little and we got a text from the assistants and they said that we couldn't go outside because the roads were too bad? So we looked outside and there was about a half inch of snow? So apparently, the rest of the entire mission got hit super duper hard by a storm and everything got canceled and there's flooding and sandbagging! lol in Ely we are doing great!!!! Nothings going wrong! Church didn't get canceled! We ended up getting only a few inches of snow! It all froze! Today its all turned to water! So not too bad at all haha. 

Elder Rivers and I are super excited to be staying together this next transfer here in Ely!!! We are seeing a lot of good work out here, and we are feeling rewarded for our diligence. We found two new investigators this week! One, Keith, is very prepared. He knows the Book of Mormon is true, and that he needs to be baptized and is looking forward to that. But he just needs to kick the habits of smoking and drinking coffee. The other investigator is Brittany Slight. She was a referral from our Bishop. She wants to learn more from us about what the church is about! So we will be doing a church tour on Friday! 

We are excited for the work here! This week was super good!!! Lots of people we visited! I was sick on friday and saturday, so Elder Harmon and I were on a sick exchange for two days. Those were super long and frustrating two days. Just because we couldn't do anything. When you're sick on your mission, it really isn't fun! Its super not good! You seriously can't do anything! Yesterday I was still not doing so good. Church was rough. But by the end of the day I was doing better and today I feel a lot better. We are excited for this week!! 

But no matter what happens, miracles happen. We found Keith while I was sick, and we found Brittany when I was really not feeling good last night. The Lord rewards us when we strive. When we give it our all, He gives us those miracles. He is truly protecting Ely too! If we had been hit by those storms, we wouldn't have found those people! I love this work! 

I love all y'all and each y'all! 

Elder Miner 

Oh and Ps, This saturday we head to Reno for the mission conference! Elder D Todd Christofferson is coming!!! And a seventy and an area seventy!! Super duper excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Planning!!!!

Costa Vida after Zone Conference-- Picture from a member.

Duckwater

So this week was fun!! It had interesting things happen!!!!

We went to a little indian reservation on wednesday! Its called Duckwater! We went with the zone leaders and blitz'd the area! We saw miracles!!!! Super cool!!!! Best thing about it, the zone leaders drove! So the 198 miles we drove was on their car haha. But it was soooo much fun!! It was the nicest part of our area!! Everyone has nice houses. They just let us in!! Most of them said "come in". They didn't even know who it was! Such nice people!! There used to be a branch out there. It's closed now, but we want to reopen it!!!! So we will be going there once a month now!!

On Monday we got to watch movies!!!!!! G rated ones!!!!! So we watched toy story 3 and mulan! Us elders nailed the "be a man" song!! Supposedly that video is on the internet? so go find it!!

On new years eve we came home early, because the roads ain't safe out here. So we came home and cooked 8 ribeye steaks!! We each ate 2!!! They were each bigger than our hands!!!!! GIAGANTIC!! Thank you members!!! Y'all best be nice to the missionaries. It helps!!!

But this really has been a good week!! A little slow for teaching because of the holidays! But that's okay!!!

Yesterday we had the privilege to speak in sacrament meeting. my companion spoke of the importance of the book of Mormon. I then committed everyone to do the book of Mormon challenge!! The spirit was there super strongly and our pleas for it to touch their hearts were answered!! It was sooooo amazing!!!! I love giving talks!!! Its soooo much fun!!! 

But the Savior lives. He helps us. God answers prayers! I saw that all throughout the week this week! So many prayers answered!! I love my God! And I seek to lose myself in Him. I am trying to give up my will. So we shall see.

I love all y'all and each y'all!!

Elder Miner