CONFERENCE WITH A GA

May 18, 2011

Today all the city missionaries were invited to a conference with David Evans. He’s a seventy from Sandy, Utah. They have 8 kids. They served as mission president in Nagoya, Japan, then a full-time mission, and he’s now a seventy. In June he will take over as director of the MTC so he’s touring missions and teaching missionaries until then. He was very sharp and taught from the scriptures and Preach My Gospel. It’s always a pleasure to be taught by a GA. The spirit guides them and it’s very evident. It’s one of the perks of going on a mission.
After the conference, we taught Ariel about Joseph Smith. She remembered what we’d given her on Sunday. She’s a sweet girl and she’s starting to open up with us a little more. We then watched “The Restoration” with her. Her grandpa, Franklin Witehara, watched it with us. He hadn’t seen this new version before and really liked it. The poor guy. He was hired to install a bunch of piping in some mines in New Zealand years ago and was exposed to asbestos. He’s been on oxygen for 9 years now because of it. He’s super cheerful and so happy to be part of the church. What a great spirit he has.
On Monday, Scott and Melissa Mortley invited us over for dinner. Orson did some work in the yard with Scott. I helped Melissa with dinner. She had me grate some cheese. She had an awesome grater she’d gotten for a wedding present. Like a dumbhead, I exclaimed over how neat it was. Tonight she and Scott showed up at our house with a grater for me and some homemade fudge. What good kids! She’s expecting their first baby in a few months. (We also taught them to play Mexican Train on Monday—we all laughed a lot over that.)
Tonight we gave James the Word of Wisdom. He said he knew it was coming—that made us laugh. His partner is an inactive Mormon. Giving up drinking was easy since it was the cause of his “marital” problems. He’s more worried about the smoking but said he would do it and coffee at the same time since he only uses them at work and always together. He’s a good guy—we really like him. And D’nella, his partner, promised to sit in on our lesson with him next week for sure.