Week 70, Weird weather!

I can't wait for it to finally warm up here. It has been really cold and extremely windy!

Early in the week while teaching Kenel Charles, I had my testimony reconfirmed that Joseph Smith really was called of a God to be the first prophet in this dispensation and to restore the gospel! I felt it as I watched the Restoration video. I have watched that video 100 times, but this time it was special to me. I feel like I also looked at my 1.5 years of my mission in retrospect and seen how much I have grown! I am so grateful the Lord was willing to, figuratively, cut me down so I can grow into the man He wants me to be. I truly have changed! I love the gospel and my Heavenly Father.

I went on an exchange with an Elder who is training and been on his mission for one week! I remember my first Zone Leader exchange when I was training and I learned a lot. We had a miracle on the exchange! It was 3:40pm and we needed to get dinner so we could have our exchange interview before we ended the exchange. We had some time before 4, so I suggested we pray that the Lord would lead us to someone in these last few minutes. We prayed and began walking around the park looking for someone that we felt would be interested and this girl spotted us and said "Hey, are you guys Mormon?" I was just like yes! Thank you Heavenly Father for answering our prayer. She was taught by missionaries and her brother is a member. We got her info and passed it on to the sisters. It was cool! Elder Knight thought it was cool as well.

One of my favorite things to do as a Zone Leader is holding Zone Training Meetings. I know the Lord loves the missionaries that I am serving with as He always sends ideas and topics that the missionaries need by the spirit. Throughout the week I was having thoughts about the sacrament tying into faith which President Calderwood talked about in his workshop in a meeting. My companion and I put our ideas together and gave a powerful workshop that many missionaries came and said they needed. Knowing that the things I learned and prepared for the meeting really helped certain missionaries makes me so happy!

There is nothing that makes me happier seeing these missionaries be successful.

So here is kind of a funny story! So I was trying to find someone who had their wifi unprotected so I could use it and we noticed that the church below us has wifi and we helped them out once and knew the pastor there so we thought we would ask. We decided that we would be willing to pay $10 in case he asks us to pay a little. We ask, and the man we asked says he had to ask the Senior Pastor, so we went back the next day and the guy says, " Ok, I talked to the pastor. How much are you offering? "$10 my comp says". The man replies "$25 no less". I didn't say this, but I was just like yo, we aren't going to pay your entire bill, haha! No wifi for us :D.

Everything is great! Our zone had 2 baptisms last week and we will have 4 this week with a few temple trips as well!

Until next week,
Elder Hooper