Week 26:  Ankle-Biter [January 22, 2018]

This week has been pretty good. 

Tuesday we got to watch the announcement from President Nelson and the new first presidency. We got to watch the press conference as well. The whole district laughed pretty hard when the one reporter dropped the mic (literally). 

Wednesday we had an exchange with the zone leaders. At one point we had a pretty scary encounter. We were going to see a less active and as we walked up to the house, we saw a sign that said, "Warning, Killer Dogs). There was a short fence in front to the house that we would have to go through.  We looked over and didn't see any dogs, so we rattled the fence and nothing happened. We went through the fence and as we drew near the house we noticed the door was open. Suddenly there it was. A big (and we'll groomed) poodle. At first we thought nothing of it, but then it yelled out one of the most interesting barks of my life. Then dog #2 came out...a two inch high Yorkie, which started nipping at our heels. Thankfully the owner came out and saved us, but she wasn't very interested . 

Thursday I was finally able to meet with our investigator Kristian. Most of the meeting was getting to know him, and we also talked about happiness and how it's the spiritual things that will give us lasting happiness. 

Friday I got to give a discussion in district meeting and then for lunch we went to Chick-fil-A. When they first came out with our orders they only gave me my frosted lemonade and said that the rest of it was on the way. I made a joke that they would forget to bring it out and that $9.00 was a lot of money for a small frosted lemonade. They came out with the rest of the orders, except mine!! When I asked them about it they gave it to me, but it taught me not to make jokes about such things .

Saturday we had interviews with President Nakken. One of the things he brought up was what Elder Renlund mentioned, that having a positive attitude and positive effort will bring miracles. We also had exchanges. I got to be in a threesome again because some of the elders had to evacuate from the mudslide and now can't get back to their area. The zone leaders usually have them, but they were on exchanges as well. 

Sunday we learned why the going to bed at 10:30 rule is a rule. We ended up going to bed at 12:00 the night prior and then we had to wake up even earlier for ward council. We did meet two potential investigators and set up appointments with them so that was good. 

Hope everyone has a great week! 

Elder Jason Riches