Hello friends. Here in Marion we've had another pretty slow week but
we're trying. Nothing we can do about it except keep trying. Every
lesson we had planned this week cancelled so that was kinda sad but
it's ok. Sorry for the later than normal email we spent our P-day
doing service cause a guy in the Branch told us he needed
our help and it had to be done today. He took us to a ladies house to
mow her lawn and she said she had someone coming to mow it and didn't
want us to but he insisted and said he was going to call our mission
president because we wouldnt help him...so ya not much of a P day for
us. TNDO tho right?? Also they gave us a couch for it. Well on the
bright side our A/C got fixed this week. It hasn't really worked for
like a month idk but they finally fixed it. Sadly my comp is from
Arizona and he likes the apartment to be like 80+ all the time it
seems like so we kind of have a low key battle of the thermostat haha
I just turn it down when I start sweating and can't focus super well.
But ya pretty slow week. Testimony meeting here is always interesting.
We had an old guy get up and talk about teaching his kids to be his
"voice activated dishwasher" for like 15 minutes...ya idk. Got a great
quote for y'all from our property manager tho: "The cigarette smokes,
not me. I just puff." So remember kids. You don't smoke, the cigarette
smokes. Ok now onto what we did lol

Probably the most exciting thing to happen to Marion in years is in
the works. We met with our Stake President and discussed a plan called
"The Marion Branch Blits". I am so pumped for this. Since we have a 7%
activity rate and the most widespread area in North America, the Stake
presidency, high council, bishops/branch presidents, and all of the
missionaries in the Florence Stake/Zone are going to come to Marion
one night. We're all going to go on splits and try to contact as many
of the less active families as we can in around 2 hours. We're hoping
to be able to reach out to those in need and figure out the
situations/wants and needs of the less active members all over our
area and honestly do in one night what would take us months. I'm so
pumped for this wow it's gonna be so sick:)

One other  cool thing from this week is that we actually stayed under
on our miles limit for the car. It's been over a year at least since
missionaries stayed under on miles here in Marion so I decided to see
just how hard it would be to stay under. Found out it's pretty hard
but we did it. As my good friend Tony Jay Benard would say we got  out
the iron horses and made our way around town. I lost track towards the
end of the month though and since we didn't really drive for like 3
days we had over 100 extra miles and forgot we got 40 miles at the
start of the month for an oil change in Florence and 28 day month so
we had a bunch extra. We took the opportunity and spent the whole day
in Dillon which is almost to the NC border. We ate a pizza from papa
johns while parked in the car and were up there for like almost 9
hours.

On the way home from Dillon we got a call to go give a blessing to a
less active who I haven't seen at church since I've been here. Her BF
who has tattoo sleeves and piercings and what not, asked for us to
give him a blessing. He had to have surgery and have like 20+ teeth
pulled and part of his jaw taken out (don't smoke) so he wanted us to
give him a blessing. Then the next day when we were at young men's at
the church, she showed up...I talked to her for a bit then she met
with the branch president, so at least she was in the church that was
cool:)

On Friday we had ZTM in Florence and it was probs the best ZTM I've
been to yet. We got a new zone leader who was just released as AP and
new Sister Training Leaders and they're pretty sick. The new Zone
leader gave a training on the standards of excellence which is 3-On
Date 3-at Sacrament 3-New Investigators. He related it to 333, or
dropping 3's, then made it into March Madness themed so I was pretty
into it:)
One of our STL's gave a training on fighting for the Lord and she said
something that hit me. She told us to think of those who died for this
work. Think of Abinadi who was burned to death, The believers in Alma
14 who also were burned to death, Joseph Smith who even in the modern
day was martyred for his belief. These men gave their life for this
work so we could have it today, and some of us struggle to give up 5
minutes to read for ourselves. Its sad and I hope y'all will strive to
give up more than 5 minutes lol.

I want to finish this email with something very interesting that was
taught in Elder Holland and President Eyring's Face 2 Face on
Saturday. Elder Holland talked about prayer and receiving answer. He
said that we need to give The Lord time to answer us. Too many of us
pray the. Just get up and walk off or climb in bed or dig into our
meal, and we don't allow him to answer. Bruce R. McConkie taught that
when we allow our thoughts to go elsewhere, it is as if we are praying
to a wall. Just as it is when we are praying, it's the same when we're
trying to receive answers. If we allow our mind to immediately wander
off, we're essentially putting up a wall for the Lord to talk to and
blocking ourselves in. We need to give time to receive answers. After
you close your prayer, stay on your knees for a bit and continue to
reflect on the prayer you have just had, the things you need to find
clarity on, or just think about the Savior. Stay focused and keep
listening. Allow him to answer you, because he will. Don't waste a
prayer by saying amen and immediately heading off into the world.
Spend some time with your Father and let him speak back to you.

I hope everyone had a great week. Look up Nephi's courage (Pg. 120) in
the children's hymn book and read the 3rd verse. Think about yourself
and be courageous:) love y'all. Have a great week!!

Deuteronomy 1:7
1 Samuel 16:7
2 Chronicles 19:6

Pic 1: just a pic with cool sunrise
Pic 2: our front yard idk
Pic 3-4: my lil homie Josh:)