I finally found my dentist chair

We've had a lovely week in Oxford. We had a Zone Conference this week and a lot of it was focused on us as missionaries and our personal righteousness. I enjoyed it and interestingly a good portion of the conference was about Journal Writing so I was happy to have already received inspiration to write in my journal during General Conference.

Do you remember when I was talking about Monthly Goals a few weeks ago? Well I'm going to talk about them again. In most areas the missionaries plan their own goals although in preach My Gospel it says to plan goals with the ward mission leader. In some areas of the mission Monthly Goals are planned in Ward Council and they expand to more than just nonmembers. Well that is something the Stake President here wants to bring into every single ward in the Stake. Last Sunday during Ward Council our Bishop said that the next time the council met he wanted to build a ward mission plan. After church we met with him to brainstorm a few ideas and we really didn't come away with too many action items but we did introduce monthly goals with him and we also determined to meet with every Auxiliary leader individually and talk about what they wanted to see in the ward mission plan. We're trying to make a big push to help the ward leaders see how simple, easy and effective it would be to plan monthly goals. We've been correlating almost every night with our Zone Leaders to try and figure out how to best move forward and I'm grateful for their direction. 

We had an awesome lesson with a family about missionary work. We read a few stories about missionary work from the children's book of Mormon to Keegan and it was amazing to see the change in him. Before his baptism he struggled a lot to read but during our lesson he was actively volunteering to read and had an amazing retention of what he read. I remembered during his confirmation that I blessed him to develop a love for reading and I was happy to see that coming to pass. The best part was that at the end of the lesson everybody present had a specific person that they planned to invite to meet with us that week! Booyah! It was probably the best lesson I've ever had regarding missionary work and I feel like a lot of work will come from that commitment that we extended. We are going to change lives in that little next of the woods they live in. 

On Sunday night we went to visit with a guy named Peter that we had given a Book of Mormon to a few weeks ago. We had an awesome discussion even though his beliefs were far from ours. He had many questions about what we believed and explanations about why our beliefs were wrong. I felt the Spirit though the entire time as Elder Whittle and I testified confidently regarding our doctrine. We withstood his opposition and answered his questions. At the end of our conversation we had committed him to pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon was true and I believe he'll keep that commitment. The hard part is his intent. It certainly seems to us that he plans to pray almost to confirm that the book is not true. We don't know his heart though and I have Faith in the Spirit. After all in Moroni 10 he says to pray and ask God if these things (referencing the Book of Mormon) are not true. So maybe our good friend Peter is actually doing it right.

Here's a picture with the two Elders I trained Elder Acosta and Elder Nixon

Chayo has been studying up on Seminary, after all he's getting to that age

So in Edson Whipple's Patriarchal blessing it says that his Priesthood is after the Order of Enoch. Weird right? have you ever heard that before in the church? It seemed like a strange thing but in the context of the rest of the blessing it seemed like a normal statement. Well I've been thinking about it and what it meant ever since I first read it and today I found a bit of an answer! I found it in scripture. It's in the JST of genesis chapter 14 and it helped me to make a lot of sense of things so I thought I'd just write home about that cuz it was cool. 

Regarding the medical bracelet. It was actually a little big but some members had a leather punch so I just put another hole in it and now it fits perfectly. The wording is very legible and I'm sure it will make sense to a paramedic. Thank you. 

1. What is a valuable lesson you learned from your companion this week? Have Faith. It's not the most specific but I'm fine with that. 

2. What was the best thing you ate this week? Chili

3. What was the strangest thing you ate this week? Chili

4. Who spoke in church and what were the topics? It was the Primary Program this week

5. What could you use for Christmas this year? Wants and needs? I could use a humanatone and also a dentists chair. I have no wants. 

6. Tell us about a time this week when you were feeling humbled. When we had dinner with the Stake President. 

We had a chili cookoff this week and we were the judges. There were some really good ones and some really bad ones hence the answers to questions 2 and 3. 

Also regarding the dentists chair. I know I've asked for it in times past but on Saturday we found this outside the house across the street from the oxford chapel, just something to think about

Have a lovely week and don't forget to offer up specific help to the missionaries in your area. 

Also I've gotten a letter from different people five days in a row excluding Sunday! One of them was your Fall Pail of goodness so thank you for that Mom. 

-- 

Elder Trevon Turley