I Live for the 4th Quarter! Fist Bump!

Hello!!

   

   Wow what a week and a half full of amazing experiences! I love President Miller and his wife Sister Miller. We have been going full throttle since last Monday when they arrived, and it has been a blast! President Miller is powerful! He is down to earth and a man of God with great vision and high expectations. Tuesday and Wednesday after they arrived we had "Meet the President Meetings" Tuesday was for all of the North, and Saturday was for the South. We rode down with him to Las Cruzes and that is about a three hour drive, so we had a lot of time to talk and have a great conversation. At one point on the drive down he asked me what kind of dirt bike I had, and after my response his response was putting his arm in the back seat to give me a fist bump! It may have been the coolest fist bump I have ever received. It's so cool that he is from cache valley! I tell ya, it's just a different kind of breed if you are from our home in the valley, and I love it. I had no idea how much he was going to rely on me and Elder Ballif, they are like brand new missionaries and we are their trainers. It's a little stressful.

On the 4th of July we had our Mission Leadership Council with all of the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders. By far that is probably my favorite meeting of them all. It was great, and awesome to be with such amazing missionaries for the 4th of July. That night our YSA branch had a HUGE BBQ at President Brown's house. It was great! There were a ton of non members there. We spent the night contacting and eating good food. We found some incredible new people to teach.

Early Saturday morning we rolled out of ABQ to begin our 4 day trip down south. That morning we went to Alamogordo and the Sacramento Mountains. (Famous for hunting) We attended a baptism there and then drove to Las Cruces to meet President Miller. He is interviewing all the missionaries in the mission before next week when we start transfer planning. Saturday night we drove down to El Paso and split off to go teaching. Elder Ballif went to teach in Spanish and I in English. I went with the Elders serving in Socorro Texas. Their area hasn't had a baptism in a while so we set a goal to have a baptism date by the end of our night. We taught this lady named Yvone in her house with no AC and it was probably 127 degrees in there. We were all sweating, and the spirit was strong, we taught well and she accepted a baptism date! It was such a treat to be with those Elders and be blessed according to our faith.

Sunday was a great day! We attended different meetings with President Miller with the zone leaders and stake presidents.  Boy, President is incredible. We also went to an English sacrament meeting, and then we went to Elder Ballif's old Spanish ward where he served for 7 months. Barrio Doce. This day President asked that as a mission we fast for an increase in self confidence, and a decrease in self doubt. So when Elder Ballif got up to bear his testimony, I did as we are supposed to and went up to the stage and sat as he did. My plan of course was to just walk back down when he finished, but that's not what happened. You all know me, I am a confident person, but I think that fast stepped it up a notch, because for some reason after Elder Ballif said amen, I found myself standing at the pulpit in front of a bunch of people who only speak Spanish! It was a great experience. I started and told them all that I don't speak Spanish, in Spanish, and that got them all laughing. I then just simply bore testimony of the Savior, the Book of Mormon, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a really special moment to be able to do that. I will remember it for the rest of my life. Elder Ballif even said that my accent wasn't too bad! I got lots of thumbs up walking to my seat.

That night we drove back up to Alamogordo and went teaching with the Sacramento Mountain Elders while President went to Cloudcroft. That was great too, we had a good lesson with a progressing investigator who has a baptism date.

Monday we went to the El Paso Outlets! We made the mistake of going to the Nike Outlet..... I bought  a couple things for really cheap! We spent that day playing ball with the EP zone while President interviewed them all.  That night I did something that I have always wanted to do.... Texas Road House..... IN TEXAS!!!!!  We contacted our waitress, and she is now going to be taught by the Elders there, it was just a great night.

Tuesday we did a trainer/trainee meeting and that was great too.

We got back to ABQ late Tuesday night, it was an awesome trip! I am glad to be back though so we can focus on our area again. We have been helping President so much, so the Lord has really been taking care of our area and investigators. Thank goodness for cell phones. Jessica is doing well, her mom is being really hard on her and it's hard to see that. She is strong though and still set for baptism on the 20th. President's first day in the field, he and Sister Miller came teaching with us and we taught Jessica! It was amazing.

President Miller is just ready to go, he is going to do incredible things for this mission. I'm pretty sure he's already given out about 10 referrals from people he contacts. We took him and his wife to go get a green chili hamburgers, and he loves them!  His thing is "Be interested, not interesting" when you contact people. He has people skills. He really is a master teacher.  I had a realization moment the other day.... A lot of missionaries say they have to go out of their comfort zone to talk with people. Now if I am around a bunch of people and not talking with anyone, I am uncomfortable! My comfort zone is talking to complete strangers!

Well... As always I could go on and on, and there is just wayyyyyy too much I could say. Things are going well, we truly are living the dream out here!

This next week is transfer planning, so we probably won't email until Friday or something. Just a heads up.

I love you all, have a great week!

Elder Turnbow

PS. I live for the 4th quarter!