10-8-12

This week was great! Even with having quite  a few dropped appointments we have had some great success. And plus it was General Conference!!! YES! That was awesome! Especially with being able to watch it with our investigators which made that much more special. haha It is also sad because I only have one more General Conference on my mission to watch. It is weird only having one more left. 

          Monday we went to the Delmar Loop which is one of the top 10 streets in America, supposedly. It is a cool place but not all that great. haha We went to the Fitzs and had lunch to celebrate Elder Andersons and mine Year mark. Then we had a dinner and a lesson at the Rices home that night.

            Tuesday was good. First was D-meet. We had a couple of good appointments. ONe was with Ronald who was a new investigator as of last week. We were able to teach the first lesson in full. It went well. It went of track a little bit and it was hard at times to keep it foucussed on the lesson. But when we hit the Restroation part it was much better and focussed. Then we had a lesson with the Moises. It went very very well. We taught them the second and the spirit was very strong there where we got a soft baptismal commitment from them. That family is very special.

         Wednesday was good. We had a good recent convert lesson with The Lewis's which went good. They are doing well in progoressing in the Gopsel. Which makes us very happy. That night we exchanged and I had Elder Taylor come down to my area. It was good. It is really funny because He grew up in Washington and then moved to Dana Point his senior year in high school. We know very many people in common. He knows them from Washington and Dana Point but I met a lot of his friends at BYUI who were some of my really good friends actually. So that was kinda cool having all of that in common! We went and taught Pierre that night with him. It was really good. Especially our member did really well in bearing testimony and helping him understand stuff. In prior appointments with him he has not been as open and not as accepting. But he really did have much more of an open heart thought which was awesome for us and more importantly him:)

              Thursday was good. We had a good recent convert lesson with Olivia and with her Grandpa. They are way cool. SOme of the coolest people in the Ward. Then we had some good times trying to get in to see some potentials and such. Then we had an appointment with Linda that night. We set a new date for her which is the 20th of this month. This my be our last chance at getting her baptized because after this we might just drop her from the teaching pool. But we shall see how it goes though. I really do pray that she will get baptized!  Bro. Rice really connected with her. She really likes him. We kept taking all these different members there for lessons but none of them have really connected with her till we took Bro Rice. Which is great. Hopefully it will help out a bit!

             Friday was good. We had a few appointments fall through but that night while teaching Mike we had his son come in and listen and he agreed to take the lessons so now we picked him up as a new gator which I pray will go well. The rest of teh day we had weekly planning and what not and we had an appointment with Andrea who we took an awesome member with us to that appointment but she canceled right at the door because she had a death in the family and was getting picked up by a Family member for something.

               Saturday was awesome.. We watched conference at the church. None of our investigators came to watch it with us there though which was sad. They did watch it at their homes. Well at least they said they did... haha. We had an appointment with a potentail between sessions but that fell through too... Then we had priesthood session. It ended up not working at our building so we got a ride with a member to another building so we could all watch Priesthood session. it stunk becasue we missed a talk  with that happening and so did everyone in our ward and the ward next door to us. Oh well... That is what we get to do today for pday is listen to those talks on lds.org. So it still works out.  After priesthood we had special permission to go out to get shakes which were on bishop. Which bishop got us the permission for us to stay out later. It was great bonding time with people in the ward.

                     Sunday morning session we got to go watch it at our Bishops home. Then had a lunch with them. Then we went to our appointment with a potential whose name is Danny. He lives with a less active member in their basement. We taught him between sessions and he actually watched the last session with his friend! for the last session we went to the Moises to watch it with them. They really enjoyed it! It was a miracle because we almost thought that all this would not ahpen it was a miracle. Conference was awesome. Oh another cool thing Bishop Lake here is actually my 6th cousin. He was telling us of a story about one of his ancestors and that same person he was talking about is my ancestor too! This is not the first distant relative I have met out here.

      I hope you all had a great time watching conference also! Today we will go see Paint Louis and stuff. It will be fun going downtown! I hope you all have a great week this week! God Bless you all!

Love,

Elder Derek Turner

*Serving in Zion*

10-1-12

This past week was awesome. So many great things have happened. Miracles have been happening and The lord has truely blessed us here in the Hazelwood 2 area. Plus this past week I hit my hear mark!!! Yes I am half way done now. It is way weird to hit that point. It seems like everyday everything speeds up a little bit more and more. And now being on the downhill it will be going even faster. Plus we got 7 new investigators this week! This is how the week went!

         Monday after Emailing we went to the church to go play some Basketball and other sports with the other Hazelwood Missionaries and the Florissant missionaries who are the other city missionaries in the Zone. We were supposed to go to the Arch that day to play football but since it is barely outside or our zone and to many misisonaries were trying to go out of other zones we could not go anymore. Confusing story it was. But it was still good. We ended up playing indoor baseball with a kickball. It was actually way fun to do. That night we went to the Rices for dinner and a lesson. Oh yes.

           Tuesday was awesome because we had zone conference. It was a joint conference with St. Louis Central Zone. It was a really good conference. There they presented this new presentation that the church came out with which is the called The Mormons Next Door. It was a way cool presentation. Great for a QandA thing for non-members. WE are planning on using it in an activity here with the members bring there non member friends. We had some great trainings and such at zone conference. It was awesome being able to see many of missionaries who I have become good friends with. It is wasy fun when we all get to gather together for that stuff. After that we had to go straight to an appointment with a potential gator, Andrea. We taught her and it went awesome and we picked her up as a new Gator. It was awesome. We should be able to pick up her daughter as a new gator this next week also. It was funny because her pastor told her to read The Book of Mormon. So that is why she decided to meet with us. Crazy a pastor of another church telling there congregation to read The Book of Mormon! Pretty sweet though at the same time!

              Wednesday we had a coule differnt appointments. We taught Linda who is now going to be baptized on oct. 20. We had to keep pushing it back because she was not coming to church and such. Then we went by a potentials place to try to contact him. He wasnt there but his dad answered and said he was not there. We were able to teach his dad though and picked him, Ronald, up as a new gator! Then on the way to our appartment to go eat dinner we got a media referal in a txt message. We decided to go contact it right then and we taught the guy, Pierre. And now he is a progressing gator because he actually read what we left for him when we came back for the return appointment. So we picked up three new gators that day. It was awesome.

           Thursday was a great day also. We had a lesson with Donna who was also a media referal. Our member who was there did great bearing testimony. It way well. She asked some of the greatest questions! It really led the lesson well. It was a great blessing. Then later that night we were supposed to have a couple of lessons one with Lyod and one with Melanie but they both fell through. But it worked out great because that night we went to go see some potentials and we picked up three new gators that night. The Moise Family. They are way awesome. They invited us back over Saturday night for a lesson and for dinner! It was a miracle.

             Friday was good. That morning we had to drive down to Fenton my 2nd area because my comp had a doctors appointment down there. That was cool to be down there again. We had an appointment fall through with Andrea, because she had someone in her family pass away that day so it was hecktic. We were able to go find a few more new potentials that day but nothing to special.

            Saturday was a great day full of 4 different appointments. That morning we contacted more potetnials and such. We had members for all 4 appointments. We taught Linda, then Debbie appoitment ended up falling through. Htne we had  an appointment with Pierre. That was very interesting. It took an hour to teach just on principal in the first lesson.  He is reading The Book of Mormon though! THen we had dinner and a lesson with the Moises. It was awesome. It was a good dinner too. But we had a great lesson teaching the first lesson in full. They really liked it. Everything they talked about and questions theyt made always led to the next prinipal. This is the coolest family I have taught my whole mission so far. They are amazing!

          Sunday was alright. No one made it to church. The Moises could not come because they went out of town that morning and then ther others we dont know exactly what happened to everyone else. It has been hard getting these people to church. Our appointment wiht another potetnial fell through which stunk. It seems like when we are teaching the most we have the most appointments fall through. Makes sense right? Then dinner at the Gonzo's is always fun. haha

         I hope you are all having a great time rigyht now. General Conference is this week! It is going to be amazing! I can not wait for it! I have been getting really excited. I never have been this excited for a General Conference before. It is such a great blessing to a Prophet who speaks to us. So please watch and listen to Conference! Don't fall asleep either!!! I love you all. I can not wait to see you all in a year from now!

Love,

Elder Derek Turner

*Serving in Zion*