Hello everyone,
This week flew by because of Zone conference, I couldn't dream of getting to everything that happened but I will do what I can.
Tuesday was great, we got to teach some surprise lessons, and they went really well! We had dinner with the Smiths, and Brother Smith is hilarious. He has tons of funny stories, many about his escape from the police. He constantly has a twinkle in his eye, and has an endless stream of hilarious stories to tell.
On Wednesday we had Zone Conference, so we drove down to Longview. Zone Conference was awesome, I'm liking President and Sister Seitz more and more. We also got some new tires, which puts our possible max speed at about 340 mph. We will give it a try today I believe.
Driving to and from Longview was fun because we got to listen to some Hugh Nimbley. He talks like an encyclopedia, and is as smart as a whole library. We loved his talk "A Critical Opinion of the Pearl of Great Price."
Wednesday evening we went to the Church building and helped the clerks and ward missionaries update the ward list. It was fun, they should make an academic competition out of updating ward lists, it takes a lot of brainpower.
On Thursday we had some awesome lessons. We were able to bring the ward missionaries with us too, so it was lots of fun. He have 3-4 progressing people who are so close to being put on date, we just need them to come to church! We also had some really good pulled pork sandwiches and baked beans with a member family that night. We are trying to get the ward more involved in missionary work, because it makes it 10 to 13.62 times easier if the members have the same missionary mindset as we do.
Friday was really fun! In the morning we went to this gigantic park to help set up for a "Scout-a-rama." We put up some signs, put giant garbage cans everywhere, and at every campsite, and set up tables everywhere. It was really fun, and it was in Texarkana so there were 6 of us helping. After service we went on exchanges, so Elder Nelson and I went back to New Boston while Elder Clark and Elder Rainey went to Texarkana AR.
Elder Nelson is hilarious and he's so fun to work with. We did some stopbys in De Kalb, and at each stopby we also walked around and talked to anyone outside who was in the area. We taught around 5 unplanned lessons and gave out around 6 copies of The Book of Mormon. We found some interesting people and also even a new person to teach. It was the most successful 2 hours of my mission. Elder Nelson is also really charismatic so everytime I do stuff with him our success doubles. I also love giving away copies of The Book of Mormon because then I get to carry around a new fresh one! It's also so satisfying to talk about it, share some scriptures from it, and then give it to them. All of this is much to my companions dismay because we have a limited amount of copies, and everytime Elder Nelson and I are on exchanges we give out exponentially more than is sensible.
Friday night we went over to the Ward Missionaries' house and roasted marshmallows and made smores there with an inactive family. We invited them to church and hopefully they will come.
Saturday morning we went back to the huge park to help out some more with the scout event. It was the best "service" (if you can even call it that) I have ever done. Once we got there the staff basically just sat us down and talked with us while feeding us snacks. Then we found out that the only thing left to help with was judging the Chili competition...but this was no ORDINARY competition. >:) This was the real deal, once we signed up we became judges for the International Chili Association (which has raised over 80 million dollars in their worldwide competitions). Whichever Chili we picked would go to the world championship, so there was no messing around! They gave us a judge training and it was very serious. No talking with other judges while judging, cleanse your pallet very thoroughly after each spoonful (with grapes, tortillas, and sour cream), always use a new spoon, take as much time as needed (true judges are never rushed), etc.
We were also instructed to write comments for each chili to give the cooks things they could improve on or remember in the future.
It was really fun to judge these, it was a completely different experience than the ward chili competition. Unlike the ward cook-off, every single chili was top tier. Each one was very unique and incredibly delicious. Each judge chose their top three chili's and out of the 15 of us we were not to compare notes. My number one chili was easily the best chili I have ever had, and I kept giving it more tries well after I knew my favorite chilis, under the guise of a contemplative face--as if I was considering it very carefully and judging meticulously. Being the chili expert I now was, I shared some insightful comments about each chili on my judging sheet, and how they could improve. It took about 45 minutes before judging was completed and it was super fun!
After doing service we came back and did some more service working on a member's gigantic lawn. It was so big it had to be mowed with riding lawnmowers, and even though we couldn't drive those, Elder Clark and I used the weedwackers to get what the mowers couldn't. It was really fun, but also exhausting. Afterward we went over to some Italian Members' house and had some of the best Spaghetti I've ever had.
Sunday was good, but uneventful.
That's all for now
----------------Elder Nielson
(You can never predict the precise number of dashes I will use :)
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