Zone conference!

Sorry if this email isn't as detailed as you would like. I wrote it, and then somehow it got deleted before it was sent so this is draft #2.

This week was full of great stuff!! Last

week on Monday we went to my old area in North zone around Bali and had some good fried rice with some of the Elders in the district. After that we went all the way to the south zone to play soccer with a bunch of other Elders. It was super fun and we were pretty tired when we finally got back to our home in central zone getting ready to go back to work!!

This last week was the week of birthdays. The two sisters in our district actually have the same birthday which was last Sunday. They both turned 20 years old!! And then we had another Elder in our district, and some members also had their birthdays last week!!

Elder Hyde and I have really been trying to improve our teaching and lessons. We have been making sure to have the spirit teach them through us. In one of the lessons we taught last week, we were teaching someone the Restoration and he just wasn't really believing what we were teaching. We taught the Great Apostasy and then the spirit just told us to stop teaching because he wasn't open to the message we were about to share. So we stopped and told him we wanted him to start praying to receive a desire to learn what we were teaching before we talk about the First Vision.

We taught another person who owns a shop that sells beer. He's a father and he's a really cool guy who has been meeting with missionaries for over 4 years now. We talked to him about his family and how the best way to raise his family is to build it on the foundation of Jesus Christ. He said he will ask his wife and see if they can meet with us, so we were happy that he was willing to ask. 

We have had to drop a few of our investigators this week which was pretty sad. I was working with Brother Chen for so long and really hard trying to help him. He got a text from a member that told him about the commandments which kind of scared him off. We haven't taught him or talked to him for 2 weeks now, and we are waiting on the spirit to tell us when we need to get in contact with him again. The ward mission leader came up to me and told me that Brother Chen never had a testimony. It kind of frustrated me because I've put the most effort into him and helping him build his testimony and I know be has one, he just has to realize God has a plan for him. So this week we have been trying to get new investigators. 

Because I'm the teacher for the intermediate English class level, we have a set topic that we need to talk about. This week was:"going to the hair salon". I'd never gone to a hair salon before so I didn't really know how to teach them. I brought my razor and shaved without a mirror having them tell me what to do in English! They thought it was really funny and I didn't get cut! Yes!

Zone conference was by far the highlight of this week! They told us that the Asia area covers all of Asia except for Japan, Korea,. and the Philippines. The area that we are in holds more than half of the world's population, so it's a big responsibility haha. They said the goal for our area is to have every companionship baptize one convert each month. It's a really big goal, but it is possible, so we are really going to try to do it. President asked us if we are really willing to do what it takes to reach this goal. It made me reflect on what I'm doing as a missionary and gave me more motivation to work harder!

That is pretty much all that happened this week. The pictures are just us with investigators and stuff. Love you all!!

-Elder Thayne