Week 89: Zone Conference

March 14, 2016

This has been a good, hard week! Lots more trials and challenges, but we're staying positive and working hard! The weather's been pretty good this week too, so we're excited for that! Hopefully it keeps getting warmer.

Last Monday, it was Elder Lindsay's birthday! He's one of the missionaries serving in Maldon. We went to a restaurant called Nando's to celebrate! It's a really popular restaurant over here - it's famous for its chicken and spices. Elder Lindsay's companion got the staff to bring him out a cake and sing to him, so we hope that he had fun.

Tuesday was a great day as well - we had Zone Conference with the Ipswich and Norwich zones! President and Sister Stevens taught a lot about the Atonement, and we got to watch the #Hallelujah video (followhim.mormon.org) - it is SOOO good!! We've used it in our finding, and it really invites the Spirit into our conversations with people. We also received some great trainings from the mission leaders. One of my favorites was the sister training leaders' training about adjusting our teaching to meet needs. They started with an activity where they asked missionaries to come up and ask for something they needed (simple things like a phone, food, wood, etc.), and the sisters would tell them where to go to get those things. When the missionaries all got back, they had items different from what they needed. The sisters told us that those objects the missionaries found were good, but didn't help them with what they needed. They then taught that the gospel has many different aspects that can help everyone with all their needs, and we need to make sure we teach the things that will most help our investigators. This helped me to realize the importance of teaching people, not lessons. A person may be ready to receive the gospel but may not progress if we share something that doesn't fit their needs.

One final thing I loved about Zone Conference: I got to see Elder and Sister Blackham!! It was heart-warming to see them and to talk with them about how things are going. Seeing and talking with them helped me realize how grateful I am to be a missionary. I'm making eternal friendships here. I am helping others to change their lives and their eternal destinies. These experiences have helped me realize the truth of the promise in D&C 18:15-16, that we will have joy as we help others to come unto Christ. I love being a missionary!

Went to football with Chelmsford & Maldon wards on Saturday, one of the Sisters' investigators came too. He enjoyed it! He also came to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it. It actually turns out that he's watched the film about President Monson, "On the Lord's Errand" on his own this week. He also watched "The Prophet of the Restoration" on his own last week. GOLDEN!!

We had a miracle on Saturday! L, one of our new investigators, dropped us on Saturday. However, within one or two minutes, we received a golden referral from a member!! It turns out that this referral doesn't live in our area, but it was still cool to receive a referral immediately after someone else fell through.

Finally, J attended church on Sunday! Right after the Gospel Principles lesson was over, the ward mission leader sat down with J, told him what our purpose as missionaries is, and invited J to meet with us. Awesome ward mission leader!! We set a return appointment and put him on date for April 30th! Lots of members brought non-member friends too!

I love being a missionary!

Love you all!

Elder McOmber

Funnies of the Week:

Sister Blackham told me I look thinner and taller than when I was in Norwich. She told me that it's because I'm not eating as well since I left Norwich (she cooks a lot of food for the missionaries in Norwich).

We were preparing to teach English to a couple from Bangladesh on Wednesday, and we realized it would be helpful to look up what language they spoke. After searchinglds.org, we found out it was Bengali, so we went to Google Translate to see what the language looked & sounded like - we were hoping they would at least use a similar alphabet. We were wrong. "Hello" = "ওহে". We decided the alphabet would be a good place to start.

We were at a member's home on Thursday, and they needed some help getting their Christmas lights down, so they asked us to use their big ladder to get it done. I got halfway up the ladder when my fear of heights and the bendiness of the ladder became too much for me. I got back down and Elder Jackson got it done. He decided it would be funny enough to announce to the district on our district call.