Easter Blessings

HEY THERE!!!!

  Happy Late Easter!! Thanks for all the goodies! Easter has become one of my favorite holidays since being on a mission. I love it! For breakfast we made waffles with shavings from Dove chocolate Easter bunnies. MMMMMMM!!! Last Easter Grandpa Richards sent me a quote that says "The most hopeless military command ever given was to those Roman soldiers to guard the tomb. No army or weapon ever assembled could keep the tomb sealed!" How true that is. I reflected on that many times this past week and can't help but feel the power of the atonement.

     Easter Sunday found us giving many blessings, 8 in total. When giving someone a blessing there is no doubt that the spirit is real, it is such a privilege to do.  You can tell how much Heavenly Father really does love all his children.

      So this week had its ups and downs, but let's focus on the ups ya? ya! We were finally able to meet with Dana after she had come to church twice with no contact from us, and we set a baptism date with her in our first lesson! She is a super sweet lady, and very shy. We had to really tune in with the spirit and ask inspired questions to help her open up.

        The biggest downer we had this week was we got dropped by 6 investigators, three young couples. No fun. It's very interesting the sorrow that you feel for people when they choose not to continue on the right path, it has to be a Godly sorrow. You all know I'm really tough on myself, and that's the hardest thing to deal with sometimes. It's crazy when you just don't know what more you could do.

         BUT! We were blessed this week in finding others to teach! A young mom with two kids referred herself on mormon.org. They are an awesome native family. Nadia, Lilaqoi, and Liesha. Nadia actually comes from a part-member family who lives in Shiprock. Her dad is still investigating the church. Her older brother was baptized, but she decided not too because she didn't want to do it just to follow big brother, and her mom is somewhat inactive so it's hasn't been such a big part of their lives. The reason she referred herself is because her grandma recently passed away and she was an active member of the church. She was very close to her and it has been hard for her to take. She remembered the Elders would bring a good feeling when they came and help with things they were going through. We had a really great first meeting with them as we focused on her needs and taught about the atonement and spirit world. After our first lesson they came to church yesterday!

Albuquerque Temple in my area

      Ok now for a quick giggle for everybody. Being April Fools day today, naturally we pulled a great prank! Sunday night is numbers night, so we are always up late collecting the numbers for the zone. Last night one of our district leaders fell asleep before we called so he had it coming. We called and called and called! It was getting close to midnight when we put the plan in action. We text and told him a companionship in his district had broken rules and went out to get McDonald's for a midnight snack and got in a car accident and that it didn't look good. We told him we would pick him up in 20 min to go to the hospital. Then we text a while later and said forget that just meet us there as soon as you can. We never heard a word back from him so we just went to bed. Right at 630 this morning our phone starts ringing and it was him alright! I answered and played it great! I told him we were at the hospital with them all night and that we would be going again today to see them. I said they both had bad cuts with many stitches and bad concussions. I played it smooth and then took all the numbers from him. To end the prank I sincerely said... "yeah it was a crazy night, we were just super luck they were able to get all the help they needed, ya know with it being April Fools Day and all." There was a really long pause and then he figured it out. It was hilarious!!! Awesome prank? Yes. A little too much? Maybe. It will always be remembered.

     Oh ya! This last week we also had a combined zone training with two other zones. It was great I learned a lot. We were asked to role play teaching faith, a principle of action, for all three zones. It was a good time. I always get a little nervous being an example for all to watch.

      Well I will end this long email by just saying thank you again for all the love and support, I wouldn't be able to do any of it if I didn't know you were all pulling for me. Have a great week and awesome spring break! Enjoy general conference!!!

Much Love,

Elder Turnbow