Tired....so...tired

This is the former Elder White. He completed his mission in San Antonio a little over a week ago. The last ward he served in was in New Braunfels and his Bishop was Bishop Alley! And now he is in the Centennial Hills YSA Ward where I am serving :) I was at the chapel and he walked in and looks at my name tag and says, "This is a long shot, but you don’t happen to have family in San Antonio do you?” And, of course, I say “Yes, I do. My uncle is a bishop down there” and we made the connection and it was super crazy!

At the Zion's Youth Symphony

The first pic is us driving TOWARDS Vegas. 

As you can see...

We are waaaaaay out on the outskirts.

November 23, 2015

This last week was an exhausting one! But in a because-of-all-the-hard-work-we-did kind of way ya know? I was on exchanges with 5 different missionaries this past week and 3 of them were all less than 3 months out on their missions so I had to really lead the work for the day a lot. I spent most of the week just going to bed as soon as possible after daily planning due to how tired I've been recently. All the exchanges were due to sick companions and also Elder Adamson had to do some things to prepare for going home, and we have another elder in the zone going home with him, so they would go off and do their things and I would stay and work. Someday that will be me having to prepare for that, but today is not that day! Haha So needless to say I did a lot of running around and I was beat.

The two highlights though for this past week were the Mission Tour with Elder Corbridge and the Zion's Youth Symphony.

The mission tour with Elder Corbridge was awesome. I won't be able to truly share the knowledge and wisdom he gave us over email, but I will share two specific things he shared that really stuck out to me. First, in our special MLC we did I asked him to share with us things he has learned in his time as a general authority in how to best help people understand the need for consistency with gospel principles. He shared that there are two ways to get people to do things. 1) manage them 2) inspire them. He then talked about how managing is using outside forces to make people act the way we want, while inspiring them allows them to use their own internal motivation to change and become who they need to become. I thought that was awesome!

Secondly, in his actual tour he did with us he made a comment about the relationship between the Atonement and Jesus Christ that really stuck out to me. He said that we often times don't give enough focus on Jesus Christ, and that we focus too much on just the act, and not the person. To put it in other terms, think of it this way:

The Atonement doesn't forgive us of our sins.
The Atonement is what put Jesus Christ in a position so that HE could forgive us of our sins.
The Atonement doesn't comfort us.
The Atonement gave Jesus Christ the necessary knowledge and experience so that HE could comfort us.

It just makes you look at it in a different way, a more personal way. As Ive started to look at it like that I've feel that I've grown a more personal relationship with the savior. It makes Him more real for me. It makes me focus on a face and a person, rather than the vague concept of an act. It was a beautiful insight!

Then last night we got to go to the Zion's Youth Symphony again, and this time it had the group, GENTRI, as the guest artist! Yupp, the same group Mom and them saw at the Women's Conference. It was a spectacular performance, my favorite one of the three I've been too, by far. We went with Chris and the Wong family. It was a super fun night and we are so blessed as a mission to get to attend them.

This next week is the last week of the transfer, so I'll be officially killing Elder Adamson this next week. I'll find out on Saturday who my next companion will be. Our goal is to make this one of the best weeks ever so that he can finish his mission on a high. I'm excited! I love this work and I love you all! Have a muy Bueno week!

-Elder Alley