Dear Family:
This week we had a district leader development meeting in Columbia. I drove with my companion to Florence, SC, dropped him off and he worked with another district leaders companion and I met up with three other district leaders and I drove them up to Columbia. It was about a 220 mile round trip from home to Columbia and back. We limited on miles, but I was able to get these miles aproved because I was carpooling with other Elders so that we all would not have to drive all the way to Columbia. We drove to Columbia Tuesday night, slept in some other Elder's appartments, woke up Wednesday at 5am, ate, prepared, and drove over to the Irmo Chaple. We started the meeting at about 7pm. It was a fantastic meeting. I learned so much about being a district leader! The meeting ended 10 hours later at about 5pm. During the meeting we were provided lunch and plenty of opportunities to stretch out. During the second half of the meeting they told us to change into our baptismal whites. It was really cool. We changed into our baptismal clothing to help us to remember that we do EVERYTHING with baptism in mind. We then all walked through the baptismal font with about an inch of water on the floor of the font to "get our feet wet". (symbolic) I really enjoyed the meeting and learned a lot. After the meeting ended at 5pm we cleaned up the building and put everything back in its place, leaving at about 5:30pm. We drove back to Florence and then got back to Hartsville. It was an amazing two days! Tiring, but amazing!
Friday and Saturday we had an ice storm come through. We went inside early Saturday because it was 27 degrees out side and raining, meaning that the water that was falling was freezing on impact, covering everything with ice. It was not safe to be out driving and working so we went inside. After the ice storm passed it was really beautiful out side. Everything was covered in ice! It looked like everything; the trees, bushes, flowers, grass, car, etc, were made of glass. It was a really cool experience. I didn't think it would get cold enough for ice here in South Carolina, but it did.
This week has been really great! As I mentioned in the first half of this message, already sent, we had a great meeting in Columbia. We got to go down to Florence so my companion could baptize some one that requested that he baptize them in his last area. We unfortunately also had an ice storm which hindered the work, so we were about a 2 days short this week for proselyting time. Every week we have a mission standard to get 14 new investigators. Getting 14 new investigators can be very hard, especially in a week like this last one, between the meeting, the ice storm, and baptism. Well, Sunday morning, our last day, we had 10 new investigators, and the previous weeks we had averaged 14 new investigators - if you don't count the 1st week which was a half week because we transfered in Wednesday. We set a goal to get our 14 new investigators on Sunday because we really really wanted to get our 14 for the week. At sacrement meeting- which was a stake conference broad cast- we had two new people show up unexpectantly. They said that they were looking for a church to attend. Our church service was moved from 10am to 1pm because of the ice on the roads and few other churches were open because of the ice. They walked in and listened to stake conference, liked it, and afterward asked if the bishop could marry them. We introduced our selved and got their information. We asked if we could speak to them after they talked to the bishop. After the stake conference the bishop met with them and we waited outside. About twenty minutes later, they were married. I had no idea some one could be married THAT fast. We taught them a first lesson in the church and set up a return appointment. (TWO NEW INVESTIGATORS) Later, we were following up on an appointment we had set up with some other people in some projects. They were unavialible and so we hopped back in the car and pulled out and were trying to decide what to do with our time. We had 1.5 hours before our member exchange. We really wanted to get our investigators and we were trying to figure out what the best use of our time would be.
This picture has all the zone leaders, district leaders, and assistants in it.
I am in the front row. Do you recognize me?
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