General Conference! 10/2/2017

First of all. General Conference was amazing. We watched all 10 hours in the Chapel at our little Branch building. It was the first conference in my 18 years that I can remember not playing conference bingo. So that was very hard. However it was also the first conference where I won "I see Karen" every session (it's where we yell "I see Karen" or "I see Dorothy" when we spot our lovely ward members in the choir.) I was completely uncontested. I guess the people in Massena don't know the rules or something? Also the talks, the talks were incredible. Elder Gary E. Stevenson's talk about a Spiritual Eclipse was incredible. Go read that one again everyone. Another thing that was really cool was the prayers. At home I never really paid close attention to them, but when I heard them pray for missionaries, wow, that was cool. To think that just about every member of the Church, had their arms folded, as we all prayed for the missionaries in NY, Ghana, Texas, Croatia, etc. That was awesome. Because I am one of those missionaries. How cool is that?

     Ok, so, this week. It was another busy one. Seems to be the pattern. We spend quite a bit of time tracting and hunting down former investigators. Tracting around here has proven very unsuccessful as of late... I think it's so lame that people can walk up to their doors, look at us, and turn around and walk away. Without even saying anything, much less opening their door. I mean c'mon, what are we. 12?  However, every once in a while we'll knock on a door who will actually talk to us. Last night we were knocking doors, and a guy opened up, and was very apologetic and said it wasn't a good time, but tomorrow night at 6:00 would be perfect. That's what we like to see. People setting up their own appointments. Makes our job easier. 

      We also get referrals from other areas on occasion. This past week we've been trying to track down Tiffany. The Elders in Potsdam gave us her info and said she was interested. We've checked by her house pretty much every day this week, and had no luck. Until Friday night. We knocked and managed to talk to her husband. He gave us her phone number, but said he didn't think there was a night any time soon that would work. We thought it was because he didn't want her to talk to the Mormons. After texting her, we found out the real reason. We will definitely go visit Tiffany once she's had the baby, and returns home from the hospital. We will also mention to the Potsdam Elders to include important details, like she's a week past her due date for her baby and will be going to the hospital at any moment. 

     We had the usual service at Salvation Army, Meals on Wheels, and the Methodist Dinner this week. They're always good, and my mother would be glad to know that I can indeed wash dishes. And I wash them well. At Salvation Army we take a LOT of stuff, and throw it away, or put it into a shipping container to be hauled away. Darlene is hilarious, and she's in charge of telling us what to keep and what to chuck. We sorted through Halloween Costumes this week, and she had us try on all of them, to make sure they had all the parts. As we sort through the endless piles of junk, we have great conversations about missionaries, and why we're out here. We get asked by her, and many other people, what we did wrong to get sent to Massena. I guess I'll have to ask President.. 

     On Saturday we had a once in a lifetime experience. One I am so glad I had. We were at DD's in the morning, dropping off our laundry, and as we were talking, about conference and all that, the doorbell rang. It was two older dudes, one was wearing a turquoise suit coat and white pants, the other was wearing a terrible plaid suit. We knew immediately, it was the Jdubs (JW's/Jehovah's Witnesses.) Let me tell ya, I have never seen two elderly gentlemen so surprised in my life. Here they are, expecting old DD to answer the door, and they got 2 white shirt-black nametag Mormons, both holding a BoM. One of them couldn't even speak, and the other one said "Oh my. This was unexpected. We were calling on Mister Elliot. It appears you've already gotten to him. We'll be going now." It was hilarious. These two JDubs would have been less surprised if the house had blown up when the door opened. It was classic.

      It was kind of a slow week... Idk what else happened... We did missionary work, and found like 3 new investigators. We taught some good lessons, and I read some more good stuff in the BoM. OH WE ALSO GOT OUR FIRST REQUEST TO CAST OUT AN EVIL SPIRIT. The sisters have an investigator who says there's a bad feeling in her apartment. I don't know many details, but the sisters are going to contact us with a time and a place... We're trying to study up on how exactly we approach that, but I'm sure with the Priesthood and the Spirit, we'll sort it out. Alright, other than that, a rather slow an uneventful week. A final shoutout to my family for sending me my coats, as well as some homemade cookies. I miss those more than I thought I would. 

LOVE YOU ALL.