With the Guesmans at the Las Vegas Temple

Hey everyone!

Don't have a ton of time to email today; it's transfers again, so we're way super busy today. It's also Serre's birthday, so we're going to go have birthday lunch with her soon! Then we set up some pick-up baseball at some nearby ballfields for the zone p-day activity, so just in case you wanted to know what my planner looks like today, there you go.

 

This transfer has a lot of changes happening in the zone! Three of our wards are being double-transferred, which is crazy. That means three brand new companionships are coming in tonight and taking over an area they know next to nothing about. Hopefully the missionaries leaving have updated all of the records necessary so that the new elders can pick up right where the old ones left off. We're kind of excited about the "facelift" we're going to be experiencing here in Meadows shortly; it'll be a new start, and a fresh one, at that. One of our favorite missionaries, Elder Tanner, has about 4.5 months left and so he's dropping from Zone Leader and becoming one of our district leaders! He also happens to be Tunney's trainer, so we're really excited to have him here with us. All in all, the zone will be well-equipped to find, teach, and baptize at quite an efficient pace. That's the plan, at least.

 

We've been able to teach some good lessons this week and meet some new people. Our stake has organized a basketball night at the stake center on Saturday nights, opening it to missionaries who have investigators/less-actives who like to play basketball. We play for a couple hours and then have a little lesson at the end. We got three kids to come out with us this weekend and we had a great time; I've been blessed (or cursed, depending on the viewpoint) to have a couple companions that are really good at basketball (Tunney, Herlin...), and so that comes in handy in this instance. It's all about the unorthodox finding methods nowadays, and this is definitely one of them.  

 

The most amazing thing that happened this week (saving the best for last) was Tuesday. Tuesday night, I got to go to the temple and be there when Susie and Johnny Guesman received their endowment. That night has been the absolute highlight of my mission to date. It was an incredible blessing to be able to witness these two worthily enter the temple of God and make covenants with our Father in Heaven - it was almost surreal. The entire ward (Logandale 3rd) was there as well, and so being in the temple with all of them together was pretty much like being in Heaven; everyone was so happy, there wasn't a dry eye in the room, and the spirit was as strong as I've ever felt it in my life. Standing there with them in the temple, my mind raced back to that night in 2012 where we knocked on the door we've knocked plenty of times, not expecting anyone to answer. Susie opened the door and let us in. Now they're temple-attending latter-day saints. Nothing I've ever felt before can compare to the joy that filled me when we hugged in the celestial room (for more info on LDS temples, visit http://mormon.org/faq/church-and-temple). I understand now the pure happiness that will come when we're reunited with our loved ones who now reside on the other side of the veil.

 

Awesome week. Love you all.

Jesse

 

With the Guesmans at the Las Vegas Temple