Josh's Journey

I don't know where I left off last week so last Monday I went shopping and bought a bunch of food. After Pday ended, we went to an FHE with the people in the branch (mini congregation). Tuesday we went and did service for a lady across from the Gs (senior missionary couple). We ended up not having much to do but she gave us $20  to go buy lunch. As we were walking back home, an old guy stopped us and we talked to him for a long time. He spoke most of the time and gave us his life story. We get that a lot. He lived alone and was lonely. He was super nice though and had an organ in his house which was cool. With the $20  we were given, we manged to buy lunch and dinner for both of us. If I live in Utah, I will have to spoil the missionaries to pay back everything that I have been given. We had another lesson with R and taught him the 10 commandments and the Law of Chastity. He is an amazing kid. I am super excited for him to get baptized. We met with more bishops about...

I'll get to the subject later. On Tuesday we got up at 6am and caught a train up to Layton where we were picked up my mission president (President Call) and some other people. We drove to the mission home and had interviews and some training. We had lunch and then we found out who our companions are. My companion is Elder W. He is from Vancouver Island, Canada and has been out 7 months but is 20. After that, we took pictures with President Call and his wife and headed over to our apartment. The rest of the evening, we set up our apartment and my bike and moved the bunk beds into another room (we had to take them apart to do this) and put them as 2 beds. I also discovered that I didn't have a blanket or a pillow which was fun. We get fed dinner by members every day except Monday which is nice. I also saw Elder (William) K at the mission office which was fun to see him. Wednesday was my first real day. In the morning we went to the church setting up my phone. We also a...

Tuesday was p-day (preparation day) so Elder S and I got up at 5am and got a early start at laundry. After that, we went and played kickball with another district. While I was catching a ball, I was running and looking up and a plowed into a sister. I caught the ball but she bounced off me and hit the ground. She was okay thankfully but it certainly was exciting. We also went to the temple. As we were walking in, Elder S realized he had forgot his recommend and so we had to wait for close to 30min for them to find the recorder to let him in. After the temple, we had choir and we sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer. We sang it again during the devotional and I felt the Holy Ghost telling my again that the First Vision happened and I was happy. The speaker for the devotional was Brother Martino of the 70 and he emphasized that we aren't special so don't complain about life being hard. Those are always fun devotionals. School started for BYU and so lots of the MTC teacher...

My district leader (leader of a small group of missionaries) is Elder L (pronounced Lassiter like Psych) and he has us call him Elder Lassie which is great. I had a lovely 4am wake up on wednesday to get to my flight. I got through to my gate without problem (take that Evan) and hung out there for a while. While I waited, I started talking to this guy who was like "Are you leaving on your mission?" I was like "yup" and we chatted and he told me how Delta boarding works because I had never gone on Delta before. He was in Baltimore for work. The flight was uneventful which is nice and Emma met me at the baggage claim and picked me up. Then we went to her room and picked up my suit and her husband (who apparently didn't like me enough to come pick me up :P) and we went to eat. I had an amazing steak bbq and onion sandwich and then we went to Brewster's and got some ice cream. After a nap, we went and they dropped me off at the MTC (missionary training cente...

Greetings from the exotic Provo MTC! Last Tuesday I didn't get a chance to write about us getting to go to the TEMPLE!!! We took some picures but they were all kinda terrible so oh well. It was great to be able to go though I almost fell asleep multiple times there because it was dark and peaceful. And maybe because I was exhausted too. Another highlight of the day was having a devotional and the Presiding Bishop Causse came. I have no idea what a Presiding Bishop does but I'm sure it's something important. We were able to sing Hope of Israel for him and that was amazing to be in a choir that loud and strong. Afterwards, he talked about the importance of being a bold missionary. He said that bold missionaries are confident but also humble so they can listen to the spirit. On Wednesday I had one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. However I will save that for after the other things that happened on Wednesday (bwahahaha). We had a great lesson w...