It's All About Prioritizing

Well this week is probably going to shatter your brains.  It was super epic.  We all just had super epic weeks.  Where do I even begin?

Thursday is a good place to start.  Zone conference.  It was awesome.  I sure love zone conference.  It was President Stucki's last zone conference as mission president. I love that guy.  We talked about working with the members (one of those most important aspects of the work!) He took some time at the very end to talk about families.  It was kind of his last-time-i'll-speak-to-you talk. He was telling us to imagine our future families and stuff.  Yeah, hard to focus after that. He gave us some great counsel about families and keeping temple covenants. Great stuff.  At the end he announced that Elder Christensen of the Presidency of the 70 is coming on the 30th to speak to the missionaries and he'll be accompanied with Elder Echo Hawk of the first quorum of the 70 (and a member of our area presidency). I'm so stoked.  This type of opportunity doesn't come around too often. I'm getting all excited just thinking about it.

After the conference, President Stucki came and worked with us in our area!! Was that an experience or what. It was kinda funny because he can't understand anything so he is completely reliant on us to translate and help him through the lesson.  Everything he said though was always heart felt and according to our tinuturuan's needs. It was a good time.

Great news! Jojo and Jess both passed their interviews and will be baptized this Saturday! Aren't you just so excited? I hope you guys can make it to the service. I'll save you a seat. It starts at 2. We had an amazing experience after Jess' interview. We were talking to him about the service and we asked him if he had a specific hymn that he wanted to be a part of the program.  He thought for a while and then responded, "I always hear the children around here singing a song and I’ve really grown to like it.  I think it's called "I love to see the temple." Holy crap.  That's my boy.  That answer could not have been any better.  His family is going to be sealed in one year. That's a man that knows what's important in life.

Saturday was great.  Romeo was baptized!! It was such a great day.  It was quite comical though because everything that possibly could have gone wrong went wrong. The printer ran out of ink so no programs, our piano was taken before the program so no piano, our chorister was tone deaf so that amplified the problem, one of our speakers didn't show up, there was a party going on near by so we were jamming to Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus. It was great.  It was still a beautiful service.  The spirit was strong and everyone felt it. I love baptisms.

We participated in a service project earlier today! We helped clean up an elementary school.  It was disgusting. This is one of the nicer schools around and I thought I was going to get some sort of bacterial disease. I don't think they've cleaned it since this time of year last year. It was fun though. Gotta love doing service.

Well I gotta bring this letter to a close. I would like to end with a quick thought that I mentioned earlier.  We learn from Alma that this life is a time to prepare to meet god. One very important aspect of that preparation is prioritizing what truly matters. Every day I see and talk with people that don't quite understand what truly matters in their lives.  The counsel of the Savior is clear, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." We should learn to internalize this statement and make it who we are.  Daily scripture study, prayer, church attendance and other commandments should never be optional. Never allow the question "Should I read the book of Mormon today?" cross your mind.  It shouldn't be an option.  We should just do it because we love the Lord and understand that the Lord’s commandments lead us to happiness. It's all about prioritizing. Never allow something of the world to interfere with those things that truly matter.