One week older and wiser too...

Another week down! Every week blends together and feel like one huge long week to be honest. This week the oldest district in the zone left so as a result my district became the oldest! It's a scary, but exciting, thought to think we're leaving for Taiwan in only 3 weeks. I got called as Zone Leader yesterday, and with 20 more missionaries coming in on Wednesday, it's going to be a hectic few weeks making sure they're all doing alright and everything is organized.

For this past Tuesday Devotional Elder David Bednar was the speaker! Along with him, 9 other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were in the meeting. It was so surreal to see them all in person up close. When they all walked in there was such a special spirit in the room, it felt like you could cut it with a knife. Elder Bednar spoke on "the word" and what "the word" is along with how to help it grow your testimony and personal "Tree of Life" inside of you. It also happened to be 173 years since the martyrdom of Joseph Smith the same night Elder Bednar spoke, making it that much more special. We sang "Praise to the Man" in the MTC choir which was also such an amazing experience. It definitely felt like there were angels singing with us. 

On a funnier note, the room next to ours has been empty since December of last year but some of the new Elders coming in this week are going to use it. As a result people came to clean it a couple days ago and there was a TON of stuff inside. Suitcases, shoes, books, language learning material for Tongan, English, Chinese, and Spanish, old shriveled up bananas, brand new- still in the box- alarm clocks, and this slightly creepy but slightly glorious blanket with majestic horses on it. Of course I took the majestic horse blanket. Yes I'm definitely keeping it forever. We're convinced, however, that whoever was in that room either died or ran away. Either way, it's definitely haunted. 

On Saturday we got to watch the Stadium of Fire from the 6th floor of our new building! We were looking right down at the Lavell Edwards Stadium watching it which was so cool. We got special permission to stay up extra late that night so we didn't get to bed till around 1am. Safe to say walking up for my 7am meeting the next day wasn't very fun.

Elder Smith (Shi Zhang Lao)