Where Did October Go?

Wait, it's November? When did that happen! It's crazy to think that one year ago I was a broken and battered temporarily returned missionary!

This last week was a pretty fun week! So how about we get to it!

To start off, our ward had their ward Halloween party with a trunk or treat, and that was really fun. It was exciting to see quite a few members of the ward in creative costumes, and even Elder Ball and I dressed up! Guess what as? You got it! Missionaries!!! Who would have thought? But the activity itself was very fun, and some people were pretty creative for the trunk or treat, especially one of the members who turned their car into the "Teeny Tiny Tunnel of Terror!" A couple of our investigators were at the activity as well and they really seemed to enjoy it.

Got to go on exchanges this week with an Elder named Elder Phillips. He has been on his mission for about...a month, and this was his first time being in charge of the area. He did really awesome, and we had a really cool time together. One awesome part is that the members we ate with that night fed us tri-tip steak and s'mores for dessert, and Elder Phillips normal companion was pretty upset that it was on the one night he was gone. Also we got to teach one of their investigators, and that was pretty cool, we read Moroni 10 with him and just talked about the chapter, and it was really good.

Also this week it was Elder Ball's birthday, October 30th, and that was pretty fun. Not much different from any other day except for the fact that it was Elder Ball's birthday. Started off the day with a pretty fun District Meeting where we had a missionary relay race where we practiced the lesson bullet points, finding desires, and contacting all at once! And then later in the day the members that we had dinner with picked us up in their dune-buggy, so that was pretty fun to ride in!

As far as Halloween goes...honestly not much happened. We had a pretty awesome dinner with one of the sisters in our ward and a couple other members who were there as guests so she could feed us, and then we went in for the night because of it being Halloween. So Elder Ball and I just played a few games in our couple hours of "spare time" I guess you would call it. But overall nothing too exciting for the holiday. Thankfully there were no trick or treaters as we had no candy to give out.

And then Saturday was pretty fun. In the morning we got to go with some other Elders and clean up the stake center with one of the wards here, and that was pretty fun. And then for lunch that day one of Elder Ball's recent converts took us out to lunch. The reason why this happened is because Elder Ball used to serve in the Young Single Adult ward that covers San Marcos and Escondido, so now since he is back we have come across quite a few people that know Elder Ball, including one of his recent converts from the ward. It was fun to go to lunch with him, especially for Elder Ball.

My spiritual thought comes from something our ward mission leader shared in Gospel Principles this week. We were talking about the blessings of righteous living, and one of the scriptures brought up was Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." And he brought up that in Greek the word "filled" could be better translated as "satisfied" and how when we are living righteously we really are "satisfied" and happy with our lives, and then someone brought up how Satan makes sin look appealing and "satisfying" but in the end we never are satisfied with our lives when we sin, and we are always looking for the next thing to entertain or "satisfy" us.

That's all for this week! Thank you for all of your support!

Love,

Elder Wixom