Kelsen, June 21, 2010

So this week started off to be pretty normal.. People canceling lessons.. Doors being slammed.. Being told im going to hell.. so on so forth. Just the typical week in Detroit until saturday came around. Saturday was a pretty gnarly day.

Woke up @ 5:30 in the morning to be ready for the other missionaries to pick us up @ 6:30 to go to a missionary conferance. The Detroit michigan mission and the Lansing Michigan mission all met together in An Arbor. Its a day all the missionaries have been looking forward to. You are probably wondering why.. Because Elder Bednar, Elder Hallstrom of the presidencies of 70. The New guy who was just called to serve as a seventy last general conference who is from peru.. I dont remember his name.. Anyways they came to speak to the Lansing and Detroit missionaries. It was all focused on us.. As missionaries. It was 3 hours of question and answering. We were aloud to ask what ever questions we wanted and Elder Bednar would answer and ask Hallstrom and the other guy to give there opinion. One question was asked.. what is the number one problem in the church today? I would give you the answer.. but.. We made an oath we wouldnt tell anyone because members would take it the wrong way. I had the oppurtunity to talk to him about prayer. He explained to us how he choose who he was going to talk to next... He would look into your eyes and he would let the spirit choose. So I guess the spirit choose him to pick on me. pretty cool huh? the cool thing about this whole thing is that elder Holland was supposed to come rather then Elder Bednar. Elder Bednar stated in the begining that he was here because of some of us. That the lord wanted him there for specific missionaries. I feel that I was one of them. I was able to speak with Elder Bednar the saturday before I left for the MTC when he came to California. I feel like i have that personal connection with him.

let me end with some funny stuff.. after the conference. My companion and I went and taught this lady. On our way back to the apartment for dinner a dog came sprinting out of no where. It charges me. I decide to ride faster.. It catches up to me and tries to bite me.. I stop and kick it.. It comes at me again.. I dropped kicked in the face.. it comes at me again and I had the urge to just say "stop and go away" the dog stopped.. turned around and walked away.. haha wow. I feel bad for kicking it when all I needed to do is say "stop and go away" haha good stuff.

another quick story. We met this guy tony @ his house 2 weeks ago. We are teaching his neighbor andre. who served in the marines for 22 years. Anyways, Tony starts going off on how we are called "elders" it doesnt make sense to him because an Elder is someone who is wise and old. My comp Elder Matthews got really offended and started to bash with him.. (btw my comp does this a lot.. he has a short temper haha) Tony starts bashing him. (saying we dont deserve to have the title elder) Meanwhile im sitting back just watching this whole situation. enjoying this cause its pretty funny. My comp gets fed up and stops talking to him and ignoring him. Tony turns to me and ask's me my opinion. I sit there for a minute thinking about what im going to say. I said what came to my heart and what I knew in a calm soft voice.. Tony just looks at me dumbstruck.. He was like wow.. now you deserve to be called "elder" He goes on to say what I just said to him he had nothing to say back.. He was trying to figure out a way to bash me.. but he couldnt.. cause I said it from the heart. He goes on to say.. A true elder is patient.. They think before they say anything.. They say it from there heart. He was even more impressed when he found out my age.. It goes to show that I really dont need to know anything about scriptures or other religions. All I need to know is what I do beleive in. That no one can bash you if it comes from the heart. saturday made my week. Love you all

elder jones