Zone Conference Ft. Elder Keetch

So the highlight of this week was having Zone conference in the Peg with two other zones. I don't think I've seen so many missionaries in one place before so that was fun :) I also got to witness half of "the Fleet" I wish I got a picture of it but it's quite the sight to see 40 cars and knowing they were all missionary vehicles. 

So some of the highlights of the highlight were this. Elder Keetch has only been a member of the seventy for about a year but he had quite the experience when he got called. So this is throwing it back to his mission but on his mission he served in Germany. In his mission he described it as being similar to our mission in that there's not a lot of people who are interested in the gospel. So long story short he never put the white pants on and got wet. But, he did have one baptism in his companionship. He struggled with feeling like he was successful on his mission. He told us it didn't help that his second son to go on a mission within the first 6 weeks of getting there he had about 10 baptisms. But, when he sat down up on the stand right after being called and sustained Elder Anderson changed his whole perspective. Elder Anderson told a story about a couple who lived in Germany who the husband wanted to go back to his roots after joining the church. So he and his wife along with another couple went back to the Ivory coast and started a sunday school there. Now the Ivory coast has many stakes and is flourishing with the church. All because Elder Keetch and his companion felt prompted to invite him to be baptized. That put his mission into perspective :) 

Finally we were able to have exchanges with the zone lords down in I-Falls. That was a lot of fun :) Elder Tippets back from my time in North Battleford is now one of my zone leaders but, instead of going with him I went with Elder Griffin. That was a lot of fun. Even though it was raining for a decent part of the day we were able to be pretty positive and get a lot of things done.

So because my internet decided to be done I'm going to be done. Hopefully it'll start working again soon so I can tell you more about zone conference but this is all for now 

Thank you for all that y'all do and I hope you have a great week :) Potatoes gonna potate

*later*

One of the things that really spoke to me was when Elder Keetch compared missionary work to having a life boat and cold weather rescue. The life boat one he desctribed it as everyone is in the water trying not to drown and we have a life boat that we're trying to go and pick everyone out of the water. There would be things said like "oh thank you for saving me! thank you so much" Now this analogy just didn't make sense to me because we're out knocking on peoples doors for days and people are like "No thank you I like the water it's comfortable" or "I don't like the designer of your life boat" Stuff like that. So Elder Keetch then gave us the analogy of cold rescue where people are up backpacking an an unexpected storm comes around. So the rescuers have to hike about a day to find these people and by the time that they get to them they're already numb and feel abandoned so they're to the point of not wanting to be rescued. So he told us that in the first thirty minutes of talking to them they have to 1.build trust 2.give them responsibility 3.give them warm nourishment. Now that spoke to me because that's how it feels like when I'm trying to share the gospel with the people up here and honestly probably because -40 degree weather just sucks

Pictures 

I can't remember if I sent this or not but, one of the perks of serving in the Falls area  is being the only missionaries in the mission to ride a private boat :)

Here's the first time all three of us have been together. Elder Lee and his two sons