I just met you and this is crazy - 09/09/11

I finally get a new full-time companion!  I don't know a ton about him yet, because he hasn't gotten here yet. But I know he served in the Menifee singles branch with a friend of mine last transfer, he's been in the field for 8 months or something like that, and he hails from West Virginia. So, this should be a lot of fun, from what it sounds like. I was super paranoid that they would kick me out and put sisters in my ward. That seems to be par for the course in this mission. 

In fact, starting today, there will be more sisters than elders in this zone: four sets of elders and five sets of sisters. They added a second set of missionaries to two of the wards. One of the sets of sisters will be a second set of Sister Training Leaders, which basically translates to "Sister AP". So we have more female APs in our mission than male APs. I'm fully expecting them to give the women the priesthood next general conference.... just kidding. Kind of. 

We were talking about the huge numbers of sister missionaries with the high councilor over missionary work.  He is so excited about the next generation of youth that will be born into households where both parents served missions. It's going to be pretty amazing when most of the Moms can tell mission stories as well as the Dads. That little thought just blew my mind. I can't wait.

So yeah. I'm excited. Only one missionary is being sent away from this zone, and five are coming in. Three are new recruits. In fact, one of the districts is led by a 3-month-old elder who is training, and his district has two 3-month-old sisters who are training. At the end of this month, if you add up all of their mission ages together, I'm still older than that entire district. 

Gosh I'm old. 

I gave a really awesome object lesson this week.  Elder "S" and I cut out a bunch of paper swords and spears and axes. Then we went and taught a lesson about the Anti-Nephi-Lehis throwing all their weapons of war into the ground so they wouldn't be tempted to use them to kill people, as described in Alma 24. Then we read Alma 23:7, which reads: "For they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of their brethren." We talked about how all of us have weapons of rebellion against God, and how we allow sin and temptation to separate us from God's love. So we wrote down our temptations and pet sins on our paper swords, and then tore them up and threw them away as a sign of our commitment to avoid those temptations that so easily beset us. I thought it was pretty effective. 

All in all we had an awesome week. I'm really happy to know that Jesus died so that all of us could be happy, and that we get to go to church and take the sacrament every week to be cleansed from our sin and reminded of our eternal worth. God is awesome.

Love you guys.