The Winds of Change


Religious freedom devotional with Elder Oaks
Hello Everyone!!! 
I hope you all had a great week, because I sure did! :) Things are going great here in Tempe, and the weather is already warming up into the 70s sooo spring is already on the way! Just kidding this is still winter weather here. So many things have changed in the past 2 weeks. You will see why. Here is the week:

Monday - Zone p-day, and we played zone sports! Soccer, basketball, and gatorball, which is a missionary game I wish I could explain, maybe another time, but it is tons of fun. Went to a little bit of FHE with the ward and played mafia and scored some pie!! 😎

Tuesday - My first district meeting! Only half the district made it (the sisters and the assistants had things come up), but I trained on our attitude towards finding, because finding is a little rough in ASU. There are some restrictions on missionaries in YSA (Young Single Adult) areas that make things complicated but it is still awesome. It went pretty well according to everyone else! Met with April who was really open with us and she committed to come to church again! Talked to this one guy named Steve who yelled at us when we told him while on our missions we don't watch the NFL games on Sunday. It was funny. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he seemed pretty interested actually. Got to refer him to another set of missionaries, hopefully it goes well.

Wednesday - The worldwide missionary broadcast! They gave some awesome training and discussed a lot of things that were really helpful, and I learned lots. They also changed the daily schedule for missionaries which was interesting. Definitely going to be an adjustment. Had a good lesson with Danielle, a recent convert, and went to Panda with Blake, another member in the ward.

Thursday - had zone conference, which was pretty awesome. Even more was changed about the schedule. President changed lots of things on weekly planning, district meeting times, and member dinners.(Less meals scheduled with members, so if you'd like to provide meals to two hungry missionaries, fast food gift cards welcome!) Things are definitely different around here. So many adjustments, but it makes things interesting in a really good way :) Had a good lesson with Stephanie too, an investigator committed to baptism, she is the coolest.
Friday - Weekly planning, nothing new there. We had some lessons fall through but had a great lesson in the evening with Darryl, a member in the ward we have been working with a lot. He said he wants to start coming to church again, which was awesome! Elder Pope killed it in that lesson, he really opened up which was cool to see.

Saturday - Went on exchanges to University Ward with Elder Jensen and Elder Southworth! Elder Southworth is a new missionary from Italy, he is a machine! Elder Jensen is the IT specialist and one of the zone leaders. It was great! Had a few lessons, talked to a lot of people, and I learned a lot from both of them.

Sunday - Church went well! About an hour before, we were asked to speak! So that was fun. We spoke about the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet. Elder Pope talked longer than expected, so I only had time for a short testimony since a few others spoke as well, but it went well. We also gave part of the 5th Sunday lesson on the ward mission plan. It was a good opportunity for the ward to see our faces and get to know us a little better. We had a few investigators say they were not interested, so that was not fun, but we had a good time in the evening. We walked a round and visited less active members in the ward.

Pretty awesome and crazy week! I love the area, I love the people, and I love my companion! You can't ask for better than that! I hope you all have a great week :)

Elder Barlow

Elder Graham and Elder Pope messin with physics...

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