Fwd: When in Conference

We've been traveling and just arrived home. Here's Jarod's email for the week!!!

Hey!

What a great week it has been! This whole week we were looking forward to conference this weekend, which was definitely the highlight of my week. It was fun to be able to see Temple Square and hear President Monson speak, along with everyone else. We were able to watch both morning sessions live, and then Sat pm and priesthood on Sunday. We will be watching Sun pm next week. We really wanted Conference to be fun. So we had the theme of When in Conference for the week. We bought loads of snacks Sat morning for the 2 days, and had an amazing dinner. We wanted to make it feel like Priesthood, going out for a really nice dinner. We went to Mugg and Bean, and I got the Big Daddy Burger, sweet potato fries, and bottomless lemonade. Not a bad meal.

Conference was great though! It was fun to help investigators understand it, and why it was so important. The whole week, people are sometimes reluctant to come to church, because they "have their own church", but when we can tell them that this week the Prophet of God is speaking to the world, they get a little interested. I think my favorite talk so far, was Pres Eyring's in preisthood session, or Elder Rasband's in sun am. But then that whole sessions was just on missionary work which was so amazing to have! This weekend really has motivated me and im hyped for this week!

The rest of the week was great! We really got back into the flow of things, and worked really hard. Elder Zander and I had a great exchange. We were looking for some lunch and walking around town, and saw this lady selling shishkabobs. They looked pretty great, full of beef and chicken! But then upon eating, it was very dry liver and greezed fat. The liver was just too bad. We had much better illusu later in the week at a members house, but those kabobs. no bueno. so we decided to go to kfc. much better. Outside there were a couple hundred people watching these traditional dancers dancing in this street corner. I took this great opportunity to show off my dance moves, and the hundreds of people died laughing as I walked in and started dancing with these four guys. It was so amazing.

We met this amazing lady on Wednesday while tracting in her neighborhood. We have this deal in our district that we will always knock on double stories and houses with cars, because families, and a higher chance to come to church. It has been really beneficial these past weeks, in leading to finding many large great families. So we went to this dub house and no one was there, so we went to the house down the street with a bakkie in the yard. When we go to the door, I saw this mama inside and I knocked. No response. Knocked again. Didn't phase mama. I was a little frustrated cuz I could see her in the house walking around. I was calling to her, and nothing. Then her son, Yanga, came from the back, and told us that she is deaf. hahaha i felt like the biggest idiot.

But we went in, and she is soooo nice! I was able to sign a little to her with the small things I remember (just the alphabet) and then she taught me more things! Most of the lesson was me and her writing back and forth in my journal! She writes in broken english but it is understandable. "Me want understand this book, your church and my church what different" Which led great to answer those questions about different churches and the bom. "Me heart so happy you come meet nice"

She has an amazing family and im so excited to keep working with her!

The BOM is true and I'm so glad to be teaching about it! Conf was awesome and make sure to watch and listen to the talks again and learn from them!

I love you!

Elder Ivins