Meeting new challenges (week 12)

It has been a bit of a crazy week. On Tuesday we started our nice long exchanges and didn't exchange back until Friday morning. It was so different not being with my actual companion or working in my actual area. I was with Elder Baker and we worked in his area which is an all Spanish area and includes those people who speak Mixteco. We didn't talk to anyone who spoke Mixteco which I'm glad because I have no idea what those people are saying. I don't think Elder Baker knows much of what they say either. Elder Baker's area is a biking area and we used bikes Wednesday but that same night some goat heads got in the front tires of both of our bike so we had to walk all Thursday. Wasn't to bad especially since the weather has been perfect as of recently. Looks like its going to be getting colder soon. Not looking forward to that. It was a good long exchange and I was able to learn more about patience with Elder Baker.

This past weekend has been where most of the excitement for the week has occurred. General conference being the main reason it was so awesome. So many great talks and so much to learn. I really liked Devin Durrant's talk and his suggestion to ponderize a scripture weekly. My scripture this week is D&C 12:8 "And no one can assist in this work except he shall be humble and full of love, having faith, hope, and charity, being temperate in all things, whatsoever shall be entrusted to his care". Its a great scripture and taking time to ponder it daily will really etch it into my mind. I love the scriptures everyone else has picked. Hopefully the boys are going to be ponderizing a scripture as well. I think it would be a great way for them to really learn more scriptures. So many other amazing talks and so much I can learn from all of them. I can't wait until the next ensign gets here and I can take some more time to study the talks some more. 

This past weekend Elder Turley and I ran into the youth priest for the Nazarene church while we were trying to contact a referral. He was a really nice guys and let us into his house. We started talking about religious views and what we believe. When Elder Turley and I said that we believe that we need to do works to be saved and we can't just rely on faith the guy started to preach at us. It got really uncomfortable since we were sitting at his house and there wasn't very much we could do. He was telling us that we didn't have to do anything to be clean of our sins. All we could do was wait for him to finish and testify of what we know to be true. We left him with a Book of Mormon and he said he is going to read it in 6 weeks and wants to meet with us each of those weeks. He also left us with some scriptures to read and told us to be ready when we come back to his house this Thursday to talk to him. If he just tries to preach at us and doesn't read and pray with a sincere heart we are just going to have to drop him. I could tell the spirit didn't want me to be there and that there was no way he was going to feel the spirit. We just have to see how things work out on Thursday. He said he was going to make us food which is nice though. 

Yesterday morning after we got out of the morning session we came out to find on of the back tires on our car flat. One of the members helped us put on the spare and we got the tire fixed this morning. One of the members said a lot of the tread looked low but when we went to the tire place they said all the tires were good so I hope we don't get another flat anytime soon. Yesterday we talked to this kid who told the bishop that he wanted to change his life. We meet him at the church and talked to him. Right now all his motives are messed up; such as thinking being a member will bring him money and girls. Hopefully talking with him and having him read the scriptures will change that for him.

This week we are meeting with the Goddard family again and are going to have dinner with them. We are thinking the plan of salvation is going to be something that will really apply to them and give them the urge to learn more. 

Hopefully everything is going well back home. Make sure the boys aren't slaking off. I hope they watched all of conference. If they didn't they should defiantly take some time to read or listen to them this week. Love you mom. Really loved Elder Hollands talk on mothers.

If you are still going to put together the flash drive with music would you mind throwing some of my pictures on there so I can use them for planner covers. Thanks a ton.

Love,

Elder Boren

Dylan and Elder Baker