November 21, 2016

I'm excited for your new job I think it's going to be a good thing. The Elder Oaks training was cool. We all got to shake his hand and introduce ourselves. It was more of a devotional than a training . First our mission President Thomas and his wife spoke, then the area 70 and then Carl B Cook the General authority 70 and then Dallin H Oaks. President and Sister Thomas talked about how our motivation and desire to serve comes from learning about, loving, and following the Savior. The area 70 bore his Testimony of the Church and Jesus Christ. Carl B cook talked about lining ourselves up with Church (aka the leaders/general authorities). Then Elder Oaks talked to us and he said that he never prepares anything for when he goes and talks to missionaries. He listens to the program and jots down notes and impressions he gets and then talks on those. He talked about switching our teaching focus from baptism to repentance, and that true conversion comes from living the gospel (repenting) and as they repent they'll seek out baptism because they come to learn that it's true through experience. So he challenged us to understand repentance more. One of the things he said was that most people associate repentance with the bishop's office, when it really has nothing to do with the bishop's office and everything to do with the Sacrament. So he said to make sure we repent every time we take the sacrament. That's the main thing I remember him saying. I took some notes but I didn't bring them. It was cool experience. He was the one who spoke at the MTC devotional when I was there as well. I fell asleep through that one though haha. He looks a lot different in person. He looks almost buff for a what, 90 something year old? And he's full of energy. It was pretty neat to see. 

We are having Thanksgiving dinner with the Curtis family. Their daughter also has her boyfriend with her. We ate dinner there last night and taught him the Restoration. It went well. We gave him a Book of Mormon and we're waiting for a call from brother Curtis to see how it went and what he thought and if we'll teach him again. We're definitely going over for Thanksgiving no matter what though. Adam wasn't at Church yesterday so nothing much has happened recently. The gave us a training on contacting which basically was telling the missionaries to not be awkward and try to have good experiences with people even if they aren't interested. So that was interesting because we have a lot of missionaries who will like chase people down and cross busy roads and scare people just to contact them .So they said stop doing that, use your head, try and leave good impressions on people. stuff like that. It was interesting. 

Well, this is my last Thanksgiving till I come home. I have 2 more skype calls, 1 more Christmas, 1 more General Conference, and then I'm home. Weird to think about! I'm in the single digits in months left. But I'm not counting of course! ;) 

Love you! Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder Sherwood