Elder Colbridge coming down & zone exchanges!

This week we had our zone exchanges! we shuffled everyone in the whole zone around, it was a really good way to get to know new people and have a lot of fun! it seems like whenever we do activities like that we always have a lot of miracles! When I was working with an elder named Elder Lake we found this awesome guy named Santos. he was really cool! he had cancer on his throat and tongue so they cut a lot of it out, so it's hard to understand him at times, but he's super humble and came to church early yesterday just to get a church tour. 

This week on thursday we got a call that we needed the whole zone needed to be in McAllen on saturday (which is really far away, so it took a big hunk of miles) but we found out that it was more than just half the mission there like we thought, but the whole mission was there! we were all there to hear from Elder Colbridge, who wrote a really good talk called "the fourth missionary" it's a great talk that we all got when we got there. he talked about the importance of teaching repentance and baptizing converts. He really is a great speaking and you could feel the spirit very strongly as he spoke about how important the spirit is and how it truly is the greatest gift any of can have.

This week has been crazy! we've been running around interviewing people! we have a lot to do this month! it's going to take a lot of miracles to get down with everything we promised the lord we would!

yesterday I had a very cool learning experience. We went by to give a blessing to this semi-active family in our ward. the woman is in the middle of high risk pregnancy and her husband suffers from PTSD from his years in the military. so they don't come very often, but they are a great family. so after we gave blessings to the mom and one of the daughters, I felt prompted to try and get the father to come out of his upstairs bedroom, but he got very angry at the daughter who went to get him. The mom looked so embarrassed and sad. in the car my companion said that God would hold him accountable for not being a better man. but I Think I know God better than that. I know that he's going to judge us with a perfect judgement. and I don't think that he'll have such little mercy on this man who I've grown to love these last two transfers, who generally is awesome, and had just been having a "bad week" as his wife says.

That was just a cool experience I had yesterday.

-Love you lots! have a good week!

Elder Duerst