Week 7: Pay for a Meal and Dessert for your Companion

January 25, 2016

Good morning, afternoon, or evening everyone! Another wonderful week in good old Sin City has passed. This week was not bad, considering how our number of lessons with investigators went way up, and we increased in our number of progressing investigators as well!

On Tuesday, we had a training from a High Councilor over the Stake and he gave an amazing training on "the Law of Attraction". From what I got out of it, it seemed like the underlining them was if you tell yourself something realistic long enough, it will happen. We just have to be looking for something in our lives. So, the High Councilor told us to write something down as to what we want to accomplish for our area and perhaps the rest of our missions. We wrote them down and then he had us go around the room and tell others what we wrote down, as if those events had already happened. The key was to be excited about it. It seemed silly at first but it ended up being quite effective for our area. One thing I wrote down was a set number of lessons I wanted to achieve for the area per week. It surprised me that by the end of the week, we ended up having close to that many discussions! Hopefully this week we can pull off the goal. I guess it just takes the right mind tools and the faith!

Wednesday we watched the "Specialized Missionary Broadcast" that was presented specifically and only to all the missionaries serving around the world. It was cool to know all my friends and everyone serving from home was watching the same broadcast I was here in Las Vegas. The broadcast basically informed us what we can be doing to teach better, find better, and how to bring and focus on the Spirit during lessons. From the Twelve Apostles, David A. Bednar, and Dallin H. Oaks spoke to us and gave us amazing training.

On the 21st, Thursday, I hit my 20th Month Mark!!! Members continue to inform me that I "don't have much time left". Ahh! It's gone by fast! 4 months is still a good chunk of time though, especially for the work you do on a mission. If anything, it's a time on your mission to train other missionaries on what you have learned, so they don't have to learn it through a hard way! Being with my trainee Elder Snyder for my 3rd transfer now holds a big responsibility on my part, and I still have a lot I want that I want to share with him to make his mission go more smooth.

Friday was another one of our monthly Mount Charleston! It was really white there! This was the most snowed in Mount Charleston trip I have been to yet. It was so snowy, we couldn't even climb up to one of our potential investigators house. We tried sledding on a piece of a trash bin someone had just thrown into the snow, which sort of worked but we went down with a lot of stops. It ended up being an alright trip for visits, but the main attraction to remember that trip was the snow. This week's challenge for Week 7 was to Pay for a meal for your companion and to buy them dessert as well. We ended up going to Subway for a sandwich then to McDonald s for an Oreo McFlurry so I could pay for Elder Snyder's meal. Elder Snyder seemed to really like this week's challenge.

Lastly, on Saturday we ran into two drunk dudes before our dinner appointment. One was Atheist and basically had a "Psychological" belief system. The other has been raised Catholic his whole life but hasn't been practicing for a long time. We shared most of the Restoration lesson with them. Afterwards they asked if they could take a picture of us. We said sure! Of course they took a picture with us, holding their drinks in front of them. Two could play at that game! We got a picture with them and their drinks as well.

It was an eventful week! Can't wait for the challenge ahead this week. Week 8's Challenge is: Hand out 20 Book of Mormons in one Day.

Thanks for tuning in! Stay true and faithful! Elder Cline