Temple visit....and a Donny Osmond sighting

Hey there,

This has been a full, long, but great week and a half! I'm really loving being here in this new area with Elder Torgersen; we laugh so hard and so much together, it's amazing we get anything done. We're serving in the Desert Breeze ward and the Ridges ward for right now, both pretty affluent areas of Las Vegas. The Ridges ward is actually the most wealthy ward in the mission, and you can tell. It's all behind guard-gated communities, and some of the nicest golf courses in Vegas are included in it's boundaries (including Bears Best, a course I'm reeeeaaalllly hoping someone invites us to play...). We're teaching a couple people right off the bat, which is really nice to come in to, and there's a baptism on the 1st of June for a woman who has been meeting with the missionaries for several months. This area is fundamentally very different from my last, which means it requires a different approach to missionary work, but the challenge is fun and exciting.

Elder Torgersen and I are Zone Leaders for the Lakes Zone (which is the Lakes Stake of Vegas), and in our zone are twelve other missionaries. We're blessed with some solid missionaries serving out here, and it's nice to not have to worry about what they're doing or if they're working as hard as they're supposed to. Elder Kaelberer, my MTC companion, is actually one of the District Leaders in our Zone, so I'll be going on exchanges with him pretty soon! It's been a really great week, and although it's been weird to get in the swing of things in this new area and with new responsibilities, I'm starting to get a foothold.

Love,
Jesse

p.s. totally forgot: so we went to the temple today, and guess who was chillin' in the cafeteria chewin' on some roast beef? Donny Osmond. Viva Las Vegas.

 

Elders Dowdle & Torgersen at the Temple