Happy Birthday Elder! plus Leadership Training & lessons by candlelight

Well hey errryone!

First off thank you so much for all the Birthday packages and wishes and all that jazz! That was pretty dang awesome! It made me feel pretty special and the week went alot better because of it! Haha my birthday was good! It was just another day at work and really didn't feel much like a birthday but thats ok! haha I think that's how they are suppose to feel on the mission! I think because of that I didn't get home sick or anything like that! Haha on my birthday I was in Caldwell Idaho for leadership training and President Cannon made me stand up in front of everyone and have them sing happy birthday.. I did not want that AT ALL but it was ok :) haha I guess it was kinda like a missionary bday party because I got to see a bunch of my friends from around the Nampa Idaho area. Being 20,now I feel a complete increase of knowledge and maturity... :) or something like that ;0 haha actually I feel pretty much nothing like most bdays!

Anyways this week we didn't get as much teaching done because we were gone all day on Thursday and most of Friday too... But the Training was super fun! We learned a lot of pretty basic things! It was cool though because it was only the leadership so there was a bunch of really experienced missionaries there! haha I know we aren't suppose to compare but I got called on to do a role play in front of everyone with my comp for the day Elder Cellua and we pretty much killed it! haha ofcourse everyone sounds like a really good teacher in a role play. Teaching a real person with the guidance of the spirit is a whole other ball park! anyways so the meeting was fun and  I learned a bunch! I got to see Elder Bloomfield!! holy cow I've missed that guy!  After the training we went on mass exchanges to kinda get a feel of what other missionaries do in their areas. I went to Marsing and Homdale Idaho! haha those are 2 extremely redneck little towns lol! I went out with Elder Cellua and Nelson. E Cellua is freakin awesome! he's from Figi and he plays for the Figi national rugby team! Holy cow he's a spiritual giant and is seriously one of the funniest guys I've met! haha when he first came out he called deer American sheep lol! anyways it was fun and I learned alot from him! Elder Nelson is also a super nice guy and a very hard worker. So ya we worked in that area all day on Thursday and Friday morning we met back up and talked about all of the things we learned and our experiences. Haha and then we drove for 3 1/2 hours to get back to Lagrande... The Zone leaders picked us up half way so it was fun to get to spend some time with them! I met Elder Urmsten the first day in the field and he's going home in 2 weeks! time fly's!

Well as far as other things this week we had some good lessons for sure! haha we had a really good lesson with Tulley on Tuesday and we taught him the restoration and how to pray. He said that he always goes over his day at night before sleep and asks for things about tomorrow anyways, he says he's just been kinda throwing it out there hoping that someone is listening and cares!!!! so ya we taught him about prayer and he was super excited to try it out!! He came to church on Sunday to!! Haha after the lesson we ate a birthday cake Anne made for me lol she's so funny! it was pretty awesome to have someone actually remember and care about ya, sometimes people just see missionary and don't take the time to get to know you as a person.

Anyways we had a really good talk with James about baptism and what he needs to do to get ready. Right now he's just scared about what his family will think. We challenged him to pray every morning and night for strength and to fast on Sunday for answers.
I hope we can get him baptized before he heads home but I'm not sure if we are going to be able to. He also said he would start living the commandments that we taught him! He is so awesome and I can tell that his faith is growing and that he wants this in his life it’s just a lifetime commitment and he doesn't want to take that lightly and I'm proud of him for that! He also came to all 3 hours of church on Sunday!

I had a really neat opportunity on Tuesday to have a candle lit lesson up in Doug’s cabin! That was really cool! Doug really opened up about some of his concerns and beliefs. His disease makes it hard for him to talk now and that is one of his concerns about church.. He just gets exhausted sometimes trying to force words out in a conversation and if we took him to church he would be surrounded by a bunch of people who would want to meet him. We just promised him blessings if he would come but I definitely understand why that would be super hard. We are praying like crazy right now for Doug's health and ability to keep learning and remaining open to the message. He had some really bad experiences with organized religion growing up so that kind of turned him off to being a part of any religion. He has his nature and his family and he loves his God with everything he has. It’s just going to be a challenge and I want to help Doug feel happier not make life harder.. I know this message will help him though, it’s just hard getting him to see that. He's still reading his Book of Mormon like crazy and absolutely knows that it’s from God so I think he'll come around!

Well we had 9 investigators at Church on Sunday!!! That was flippin awesome! they all seemed to have a good time and feel the spirit to so that’s a bonus! We also had like 10 or so less active families that we have been working with for awhile come back to church!!! It was a really good day! we were flippin blessed! Its crazy all the people around here that I have really grown to love and how many friends I have made here! I love this area! We had a Memorial Day breakfast in one of our wards yesterday and it just felt so good to so many people that honestly care about and want to help ya! I'm definitely coming back to visit La Grande! We also had a scripture study yesterday on top Mount Emily( the highest mountain in the valley) overlooking the whole town/valley/everything around! that was soooo COOL!!! haha we are definitely doing that again! It felt freakin good to just look at the view and ponder some questions that I've had! so awesome! the spirit was insanely strong up there! I t was just very quiet and peaceful. haha and cold...

So that's my week! I had a lot of fun and this one is going to be awesome!! we are hoping to really work hard and make up for some lost time last week! Love you all so much! Keep having fun and remember that we are never alone and can always have help when we most need it! LOVE E A-Macdrizzle!!!