Has this been the best week ever, or what? We got to go all the way out to Taft this week! I'm certainly getting back into the groove of driving after not doing so for 7 months.
On Tuesday we headed way out into the nowheres to the this town called Taft to go on exchanges. It's an oil town that was booming way back in the day. 1930's or something. So there's not a whole lot out there. It's got a real nice college! The people are really different than in Bakersfield, so it was an interesting change of pace.
We came back into Bakersfield really early on Wednesday morning so we could go to zone conference. I love zone conference. I know most people are like "hooray, a six hour meeting..." but it's so relevant and spiritually uplifting. It just takes preparation and work for it to feel that way. We also got to go out on some visits with our Ward Mission Leader, and compare notes about the less-active members we'd all met in the past.
Thursday was Frazier Park day! We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to work there. Everything is so spread out and there's nowhere to park. Plus, no one is still in the mission who has served there and spent much time working in the area. We talked to people and walked around and tried to get the lay of the land- there are some pictures attached. It's hard to tell if a side road has houses on it or not... We did get to meet with Susie again though, and talk to her a lot about the Book of Mormon and prophets. She has a lot of concerns about organized religion, but is trying really hard to be humble- if God wants her in the church she'll try to do it. We know He does, it's just helping her to feel that.
Friday we had district meeting and had to plan! So it was... a day. Pretty much normal.
Saturday was so hot. I felt like my eyeballs were liquefying. BUT we did find a cool investigator named Antonio! He hasn't heard anything about our church, but was pretty surprised that there is a prophet today. I think it'll be fun to teach him and his family. We didn't get to say too much- it was hot and we wanted to let him get back inside.
Sunday was super crazy. So we go to the Stake President's house for dinner, right? And while we're there it's gotten kinda cloudy and dark. We get a text from the Zone Leaders: stay inside, there's a dust storm. Alright we'll stay inside. A couple minutes later, FWOOOOOSH. It's raining crazy hard. Their outdoor umbrellas (the heavy metal ones) blew into the pool. There was crazy wind and some thunder too. It only lasted for twentyish minutes, but that was enough for a hole to develop in the family's roof and water to start coming into their bathroom. Good times. It calms down, and as we leave President Judd tells us "careful! there might be branches in the road from the trees." We turn the first corner and there's a branch in the road alright- a whole tree of them. It snapped right at the base. It wasn't even the only one we saw driving back to our place. So there was a crazy storm!
I thought I'd share some cool things I learned about during zone conference. We talked a lot about teaching repentance, and about how we sometimes think of it as behavior change, but the Savior really works from the inside out. If we solely change our behavior, and there's no actual change in our nature, that's not exactly repentance (although both have to happen.) That's why Laman and Lemuel never really got any better, only worse- they didn't actually change for the better inside, they only stopped doing bad things (for a little while.) That's also why pride is such a roadblock to repentance- any changes that happen in our life become "look what I did" instead of "this is what Christ did for me." I guess it would be more accurate to say, in reflecting upon my mission, instead of "I've changed a lot" to say "I've been changed" because it definitely hasn't been me that's done it. I'm not enough for that :P
Thank you for your prayers and love!
Elder Adams
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