February already... in about a week and a half I'll have 17 months out...

Saturday was pretty awesome. Elder Christofferson was pretty amazing. He's become one of my top 3. He emphasized the importance of the Book of Mormon in our work, and it really gave me some guidance and direction. I need to do a better job about using the Book of Mormon, now I just need to figure out how to do that.


The general authorities are all pretty funny. Elder Christofferson has a small print triple combination, and Elder Ballard has a standard size. Elder Ballard said "I'm amazed at Elder Christofferson's small book. I don't think it has everything in it mine does (holds up standard size book)". They bantered back and forth about that the rest of the meeting, it was pretty funny.

We've spent a lot of time this week with the active members. Trying to get to know the people so they can know us and trust us and we can move the work forward. We're making progress with our investigators I feel, but it's slow. There's a less active we've been teaching, and she just loves us. We've split a lot of wood for her (I love splitting wood) and talked about the church a lot, and she just loves us. She came to church yesterday too. She's got a problem with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, she says "we have one testament of Jesus Christ (New Testament) why do we need another one?" Has a few other problems too, mostly things that Christ said "don't do" that was ok at certain points (mostly Nephi killing Laban and polygamy). She says "Christ said no, so why was it ok?" I think she's coming around though. It's been rough at times, I've had to be pretty patient with her, but it's been working. She keeps telling us she's grateful we're so patient with her. I guess I'm doing something right = P

Elder Martinez and I are getting along. We get along, but I don't feel we work well together. We haven't really had many teaching opportunities, it's mostly to active members where I share the vision I have, but we get along alright. I'm ready for a change though. I've had companions who I get along with, but we don't work well together, companions we don't get along but work well together, just not a companion who we get along AND work well together, I'm ready for that. President in interviews told me "yes, you've had a lot of rough companionships, but you're a leader, and you're good at it." I was reading "Jesus the Christ" recently and it talked about the importance of a name and what it meant to the Hebrews. I thought back to my name (Richard) and what it means (powerful leader/ruler). Thanks for that one = P

Well, that's pretty much my week. It's week 5 of the transfer, only this one then next to go before the next transfer, time's just flying by. It always seems to go by so fast. Should have some pictures coming soon!

Take care!

Elder Blomquist