Apostles are Cool

The highlight of this past week was most indubitably having Elder Neil L. Andersen come to speak to our and the Rancho Cucamonga mission. I got to drive us and our room mates to Rancho on Saturday so that we could have the mission conference. 

First of all, driving through my old areas in Rancho was pretty awesome. It's been quite some time since I've had the chance to go there. Second, it was really great being able to listen to an Apostle speak to us missionaries. Before he addressed us he asked all of us to come shake his hand. Definitely a privilege you don't get too frequently. He mostly talked about the Atonement and how it can help us. It was great. And third, since we were meeting with the Rancho Cucamonga mission I got to see Elder Grill for a little bit! He was one of the few missionaries I even knew from that mission. Totally an exceptional experience all the way around.

Then an added bonus is that Elder Andersen also came to have a stake conference in the Redlands stake. He also gave a great talk there.

Another thing of note from this past week is that it's definitely not winter. At all. And I'm on bike. Like, it's hot here. And I'm on bike. Elder Hevner and I bike to about the farthest part of our area and the people we wanted to see weren't home. Bummer. Since Elder Hevner was pretty tired we just sat on their front porch for a while while he rested. Yup. California gets hot.

Yesterday I really got to see how phenomenal it is to have a member go with you to lessons with investigators. There's this investigator named Lucas that I've been meeting with for a while and normally when we talk with him the conversation doesn't go too much into the spiritual side because Lucas has knack of getting off topic super easy. We set something up with him for yesterday and since it was right after a meeting with the ward, we asked one of the ward missionaries to go with us.

The lesson was completely different than any other meeting with Lucas. He was so happy to have someone there and actually asked us why we hadn't brought him along sooner. It was great to stay mostly on topic as well. Proof that missionary work is better when members and missionaries work together. 

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Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor