Hello

October 19, 2015

Well hello to y'all once again on this wonderful Monday! We had a pretty good week this week and had some pretty sweet stuff!

First off I would love to tell you about Zone Conference that we had on Wednesday in Midland. Dang it was good. Well, President Heap was good. The assistants were kinda "eh" but it was actually good stuff that I needed to hear. But anyway, back to President Heap. Before lunch he gave a sick instruction about the Book of Mormon! I saw that he was gonna be talking about it and I had high hopes, but he exceeded them! He went hard on how the Book of Mormon is the tool that is gathering Israel. Holy cow, he made it so amazing! He basically told us that next time somebody asks us what makes our church different or unique that we should ask them what their church is doing to gather Israel, since the Bible talks about the gathering is Israel in the last days SO MUCH) and then told us to expound unto them how the Book of Mormon is what is doing that and told us what that’s all about in an amazing way. THEN, after he already outdid himself he closed off the conference by blowing minds up with an INSANE instruction about the sacrament! Oh, my gosh. Just when I think he can't outdo what he did the previous time he blows everybody's minds once again with something else insane. He got DEEP into the sacrament. About how the sacrament table is the tomb and also the altar. He based everything off of Moses 1:39, Matthew 26:26 (JST), Matthew 27, and then of course Moroni 4&5. With Moses 1:39 he talked about how the sacrament emblems represent immortality and eternal life and said some crazy stuff about that. And then with Matthew 26:26 (JST) he emphasized how Christ broke the bread before he blessed the bread and how important that was. And then with Matthew 27 he related it to how we are each Barrabas each and every week and how we are the guilty ones who should be the ones being crucified on the altar, but then how Christ steps in at the last moment when the sacrament prayer says "and witness unto thee" to take his place on the altar and save us week after week after week. Then he made the point that if we don't let the sacrament change us we are letting this man who has done so much for us and who we love so dearly die in vain each and every week that we don't let it change us. The way he teaches though is so dang powerful! He is a master teacher. I have never met anyone that can teach even close to the way he teaches. He just interprets the scripture in such an amazing way and expounds on things so incredibly. Every time he teaches the spirit just slaps you across the face and you feel like you know everything there is to know about whatever he's teaching about. But then you forget half of it because you just can't recreate what he says in your notes or your thoughts.

We had some sweet fun at the Art Museum this week as well! Usually we sit at the front desk for 4 hours and do nothing but this week we went at a different time and helped guide some 3rd graders on their little field trip! It was so fun! They had two galleries open and then a classroom so there were three places to rotate through and there were 6 stations with activities in both of the galleries! So basically we just told them when to rotate and helped them with their stations. But it was so fun! They are funny little humans and always crack you up! I was just laughing at them when they were standing in line waiting to enter into the building! I guess I just really like 3rd graders and am entertained by that age group extremely easily... but they are for legit like the perfect age to be fun! We were supposed to do two different sessions, however the school went on lock down before the second group could leave so we only did one group of them :( But I can't complain.

So some other interesting news... our mission family is super legit now! My son, Elder Cardon was called to be a Zone Leader this transfer! Our family is just royal right now with my father, Elder Stringham, as AP and my son as a ZL. Then I guess I'm just cool and stuff so that's what I have to add to the family! Anyway, just wanted to brag about my family. Maybe I'll train Elder Despain up unto the ways of his forefathers. We shall see how that turns out.

Oh yeah, we did another service project at the cemetery on Saturday. And by "another" I am referring to the one that I did in Sweetwater like the second week on my mission. Well, I highly highly doubt that you remember what came along later that night after the first time I did service at a cemetery on my mission........ it was totally the day that I literally blew chunks all over the Weldy's floor!!!! Hahahahahahaha classic! So anyway, every night at the end of last week I felt like I was going to wake up sick the next day. So before I would go to bed I would down some Vitamin C and also in the morning. So, when the Bishop called and asked us to go help I was extremely worried that history was going to repeat itself!!!! I just knew that I was going to puke somewhere that night on somebodies floor. BUT, I survived. I did feel a little iffy that night after dinner but I went out and hopped on my bike and went to work and had a sweet night of work! We actually went to talk to this one guy we talked to a few nights prior that we left a Book of Mormon with and he came out on Saturday night and handed it back to us and said that he read quite a bit of it and that he was just going to stick with the Bible. However, we worked some magic over the next 15 minutes and that man walked inside when we left excited to immediately read and pray about it! Ha! Heck yeah! We used a little bit from President Heap's instruction about the Book of Mormon and bore some strong testimony and he came around! The spirit really went to work on him! Hopefully he actually follows through! We plan on going to visit him tonight so we will find out!

Well, I gotta go! I hope y'all have a fantastic week and hope that God has great things in store for y'all this week! I love you all!

Oh yeah, Thursday is my year mark! PARTY! Dang, time has gone by so quick! I feel like I've already progressed so so much and learned so so much that I could go home accomplished so it excites me to know that I am only half way through and there is just that much more in store for me to learn and so many more ways for me to progress! I am sure it will go by quick though... maybe too quick! Wish me luck as I embark on the second half of my journey starting Friday!

Lots of Love,

Elder Reed Ericson