Week: One-Hundred and One:  All the Comforts of Home [July 1, 2019]

Hi Everyone

This week has been pretty good! I had a little more time this week so it's a bit longer than the last few. 

Tuesday evening we had a really cool broadcast from the Area Presidency! In it they talked a lot about the new plan for members and missionaries to work together to help bring lasting conversion to those we teach. It was also cool because we sat by the Nakkens during it and he gave some thoughts afterwords. 

Wednesday we set some baptismal goals with the Zone Leaders. We're going to try and set David with a date before we leave so please keep him in your prayers! We also met with Dizi in the evening and she's doing much better! We talked a bit about baptism and how we renew our baptismal covenants when we partake of the sacrament. We pulled the sacrament prayers up on her Kindle and she got to read them in Albanian which she really liked!

Thursday morning we met with Eddie. For the most part our meeting with him got off topic (as it usually does), but it did have one good part. He started talking about how everything has it's opposite and we read 2 Nephi 2 with him. It seemed to interest him and he has more of a desire now to read from the Book of Mormon! 

We also ended up having interviews that afternoon. It's crazy to think that I'll only have one more interview with President Nakken! Since we would be meeting again in a few weeks our interview was short. He did give me some advice though. He said that the end of the mission is one of the best times to feel God's love and that I should work to feel that. It was also President Nakken's birthday! 

That evening we met with David. We talked a bit about baptism again and he said that that's something that he's still praying about. He also said that he's been able to feel more of a relationship with God! 

Friday we had our District Council and later in the afternoon we helped a member move some stuff in his storage unit and afterword gave us a nice little nightstand. It makes our apartment feel a little more like home. He was going to give us some other stuff, but we don't have enough room in our apartment. Later on in the evening we went by some members and as we were leaving I noticed that the TV was on and the show that was playing just so happened to be my favorite TV show! I didn't see much, but it was a little distracting. 

Saturday it seemed like the only people we were able to catch were some of the members. We ended up committing one of them to give away a Book of Mormon in the next few weeks. Also we caught a potential I haven't seen since he was first found. He's a Russian professional boxer and showed decent interest when I first met him. The conversation was brief though as he was about to go off and meet some friends. 

Sunday was good, but nothing too crazy happened. After we got home in the evening we heard a crashing noise outside of our apartment. Someone ended up crashing into one of the parking stalls and another car. It looks pretty bad. 

That's all for me this time, hope you all have a marvelous week! 

Elder Jason Riches

Picture of the crash