The One Where I Went Teaching with President Russell

Hey everyone!

So this was a pretty interesting week for us. We had a ton of service and we were able to get some good lessons in. You ready for this?

Monday after P-Day ended, we had a lesson set up with Brad. We had a good lesson about eternal families and the role as a parent with him, mainly because his daughter just gave birth to his first grandson and he was SUPER pumped about that! That lesson went pretty long, mainly because he was talking a ton and showing us gospel country songs! When we got out of his home, we had just enough time to pull our stuff together to go spend the night in Gold Hill.

Tuesday morning I was waiting for the district leader conference call when I was told there wasn't one that morning! It was one less thing I had to worry about that day! We had a lesson in the morning with Brother Mad*** and that went really well. He had some questions about the Lamanites and about the curse that was put on them at the beginning of the Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool to teach about what happens to us when we lose the presence of God in our lives! After we had lunch with him we tried contacting a couple of potentials with no luck. We were supposed to met up with President Russell to go teach Samantha and Eric at 6 o'clock but dinner was pushed back till 5:30 and then we helped out one of our members move in a couch and a love seat so we didn't get over to the church until 6:40! Luckily, our lesson with Samantha and Eric was at 7 so we got there right on time. It was a pretty awesome lesson! We had Eric, Samantha, Eric's parents who are members, and President Russell all in this lesson! We taught them about the Restoration and Samantha really liked it! She also said the closing prayer and that was just awesome! It was interesting having President Russell there to help us out.

Wednesday we had specialized training in the morning and had interviews right after that. The specialized training was all about obedience and then in my interview, I had a good talk with President Russell! It was good being able to talk to him for a bit. When we got done with that, we attempted to get in contact with a couple of less actives but nothing happened with that. We were able to get a few lessons set up so that was good. For dinner that night, we had it with a former member of the Seventy! It was super cool to be able to talk to him and get to know him a little bit. We had a lesson scheduled with Kevin but he wasn't able to make it because of work.

Thursday we shoveled horse manure for a widow in the Gold Hill ward. It took us a long time because there was a ton! Sister Stam*** is a funny lady and feed us corn dogs and chips outside on her patio afterwards. We got back to the apartment and did some weekly planning before trying some of the people in the Gold Hill area. We were able to talk to a member named Heather and she asked if we could come back and see her later on in the week. She had some interesting thoughts about different aspects of the Church. We went back into Central Point and met up with the Sta*** to talk about a couple of things pertaining to missionary work. After dinner we booked it back to Gold Hill for our lesson with Kevin. It was a super short lesson but we were able to teach about keeping the Sabbath Day holy so that was awesome.

Friday morning we were over at Sister Par***'s home moving some more stuff around. We had a ton of fun moving pipes and throwing old barrels around! When we were finished, Sisters Hagamann and Park met us up at Burger King and feed us lunch! We got cleaned up and went and saw Mike. We watched Elder Holland's talk from this last General Conference and he really enjoyed it. After dinner, we went and saw Samantha and talked to her for a few minutes. She was doing well and is making some awesome progress! We were planning on going to see Heather that night but she had to cancel. We stopped by Brother Reitte***'s house and ended up talking with him and his less active aunt for an hour! It was awesome!

Saturday morning found us at Twin Creeks helping out at a MS Walk! It was a ton of fun and I got a free t-shirt! We helped out on the walking path to make sure that people went the right way! After the MS Walk we helped out with a move in our ward. It was fun, considering the storage unit was a lot smaller than what they had! After we helped there, we went over and shared a message with Adam Barge before going to dinner. I got a speed Rubik's cube from a member! It is super sweet!

Sunday I gave two five minute talks and they both went pretty well! Samantha came to all three hours of church so that was pretty awesome. After church we had dinner with the Idiart's and then we met up with the Cole***'s to finish up the night.

I love all of yall! Thanks for all that you do! This church is true!

Elder Tonini