February 25, 2013

Hello!

I am getting along great with Elder Jensen, and we haven’t even been on our bikes yet. We rode them once for about 2 minutes, then Elder Jensen flew over the handle bars and messed up his wrist. So we haven’t done very much biking, but I’m sure he'll be able to catch up. Unlike another elder who came on exchanges with me this week. I was tired of driving, so I decided we would bike to our appointments and they were really far away haha. I would ride to the top of the hill and then make calls and stuff while I waited for him to catch up. It was so funny. He was all "this must be karma for me doing this to another elder!" he biked around his area with no problem, but he couldn’t hang on these big hills around here. It was good to know that I was still in good shape.  Other than that day, we haven’t done any biking really.

And the Mission Conference was awesome!!! This whole weekend has been awesome! So, Elder Christofferson from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Soares from the Presidency of the Seventy, Bishop Causse of the Presiding Bishopric, and Elder Bluth, a Seventy in our Area Presidency, spoke to us. They spoke to us in the morning and I got to shake all their hands! And that was a first for me!! So I was excited. Then that evening they had a huge Young Single Adult devotional that they all spoke at again. We got some investigators there, and I saw all of the young single adults I knew except Maura! She had to work, and wasn’t able to make it :( but that meeting was great as well, then yesterday we had Stake Conference and Elder Soares spoke to us. It was so good!  Our investigator Mariana (the one I was teaching here before) came and she got to talk to him in Portuguese, and she was so excited she was literally shaking haha. It was pretty cute to see. She is sooooo close to being baptized it’s not even funny. But for some reason she thinks she isn’t ready when she totally is. So pray for her!!!! Please and thank you. And it was really awesome because Pres. Holzapfel threw it down as usual! He gets up there and starts talking about how he has spent his whole life studying the Bible and trying to recreate what it must have been like for the people to walk with Jesus and the apostles. Then he starts tearing up and is all "I have spent my life looking over the words of dead apostles and dead seventy's. I have learned dead languages to try to understand what it was like. But I would give away all of that! All of my studies to sit at a living apostle’s feet, at a living seventy's feet for just an hour!!" He got fired up right quick and exorted everyone to listen up and pay attention. It was sweet haha.

Sounds like y’all had a sweet week as well. That gator show is awesome and I bet I could understand them without a problem. Gift of interpretation of tongues over here ;) And have y’all ever heard of some show called Duck Kings or something like that? People are always talking about that. And I heard about that zombie movie, too. That does sound pretty funny.

And oh my days, everyone is getting married around there! That is good that I will actually be able to make it to one, though!! Hahah! About time. That polar bear club thing that Lauren and Becka went to would have been super fun as well! I pretty much did that this week, all of the new missionaries had to practice doing a baptism so I got baptized this week!!! It was pretty cold, but not polar bear material. I had on a sweet old jumpsuit from the 70's and I was looking too good. It was really fun though to be on the other end of the baptism. And some of the new elders definitely needed the practice haha.

And tell Nick that I might just join him on the rowing team ;) Make it an Oppenlander team. And I hope that Amanda goes to BYU! She would love it! Everything is still going well for us over here. Thank you for your prayers for me, we have been finding new investigators and have set a couple of baptismal dates this week. The blessing tool has been working really well, and I really love it. And more than ever, I have seen the need for the Book of Mormon. It makes finding the truth and finding God’s path for you soooooo much easier. Goodness gracious, I wish other people would just give it a chance. Sister Holzapfel gave a pretty amazing talk about it yesterday, and how we need to flood our life with the Book of Mormon. And as we have been reading the 6 pages a day and trying to do that, I have noticed a difference. Its a lot easier to understand the story when you read it back to back like that, and there has been something in the reading everyday that I have been able to use to teach or bless someone. So needless to say, I love the Book of Mormon and sharing it with people. Y’all better be reading it as well. I can’t be going around helping other people do it if my family isn’t even doing it. Gotta start with the fam and work outwards haha. So here is your reminder to read the Book of Mormon today ;) 

Today and this week are going to be great. We have a "zone activity" today. It is the first time we are doing it and it’s more of an experiment than anything else. But we are going to get the whole zone together and do something to bond and what not. And because I am in charge of it, you already know that we are playing dodge ball today!!! Hahaha!!! It should be fun, with 24 elders and 4 sisters and 4 senior missionaries!!! Also, we are going to have board games set up for those who get tired of dodging and having fun. And we bought 11 pizzas to feed the masses. So I am pumped about that. I haven’t played dodge ball in sooooo long. Gonna be a lil rusty, but as you can tell I am super excited! Then we have Zone Leaders Council this week, and we are going to be on a conference call with another member of the seventy. This week has been General Authority week for sure. But yeah, things are great, I am healthy and getting more healthy each day! I love the gospel, and I’m thankful to be here seeing it work in other’s lives. Y’all have a good one, and I'll talk to y’all later.

Much love, 

Elder Oppenlander