I had a really great week. Tuesday we had a great day of teaching and we found 2 less actives in the garrison aka the ghetto. They were baptized about 7 years ago and they just stopped going for no reason; they haven't been in about a year. It was really cool to talk with them and to invite them to come back out to church. They said they still had a testimony but we are going to re-teach them the lessons just to reinforce everything. On Wednesday, we had zone conference. It was awesome, we got some really good stuff from President Hendricks and from the assistants. President Hendricks is a great motivator and teacher; he knows so much about all aspects of the gospel. Since it is close to Easter, he talked about the Atonement and it was awesome. He talked about how if we think about it, we are all Barabbas, we all went free while Christ suffered and died. One of my favorite things to learn about is the Atonement and about Christ's last few days in his ministry. Elder Emery and Elder Gardner gave some good counsel on how to improve our teaching. Then all the missionaries that are leaving soon bore their testimonies. Elder Fangalua and Peterson, my zone leaders, gave theirs because they are leaving in June. Testimonies were awesome. On Thursday, Elder Conder and I put the things we learned into practice and our lesson quality sky rocketed. It really seems like we are finding more prepared people. Teaching is really the best part of the day. Samantha, one of our newer investigators, is awesome. She keeps her commitments and is really open to all the things we share with her. She really wants to learn. I love going over to teach her. We found out yesterday that her father is a member and he lives in New York so she was really excited about that. On Sunday, we had 5 investigators come to church. We have 2 baptisms on good Friday this week. In gospel principles class we talked about family responsibilities and it really made me grateful for my family. I'm grateful for my parents, for the love that they have always shown to me even when I was acting a fool. I'm grateful for my mom and everything she has done for me and still does for me. She does so much for me and I don't think I could ever really pay her back for it. My dad has taught me so much, he taught me to take responsibility for myself and taught me how to work and how to be honest. He has always had good advice for me no matter what my situation was. I loved working with him on projects. I love and am grateful for his sense of humor. Even when I did some dumb things he knew what to say and only got really mad at me a few times....haha. I'm grateful for ALL the things that all three of my sisters have done for me. My sisters are amazing and have always given me a good example, they have helped me with school work and tons of other stuff. My brother in-laws and my sister in-law have been great examples for me and I loved hanging out with each of them. And of course, my brothers. My brothers have probably been the biggest influences in my life. They made me work for everything but they taught me how to do it, they taught me how to work and how to go after and achieve what I want. Playing basketball with them was more than getting myself better at basketball, it was teaching me a lot. I am very grateful for everything that they helped me do. I loved going camping and fishing with my brother Kevin, I learned tons! One of the best times was when we were fixing up our backyard. I got to spend a lot of time with one of my brothers and looking back on it now, it was awesome. Even though a lot of times it was "go ahead and start and I'll be back in a few minutes to help you"...an hour later it was "looks good but c'mon, you can do it better" ...haha. I really just want to say thanks to all my brothers.
