Week 53: There is so much for us to learn!

Well hello there family,

 

Scripture of the week: Helaman 3;14-15, there is so much more for us to learn

well heck lets not beat around the bush, lets talk about some baptism news. Its really impossible to do the baptism justice via email so lucky for you we get to talk in two days and i will give you all of the details on it then. Just know that it went awesome and was so amazing!

Everyone at the baptism! All those in White went in the water to assist!

This week was just very wonderful as a whole. on wednesday we had interviews that i talked about last week. Our training part was magnificent! we have gotten a lot of wonderful feedback, and president is talking about taking what we used for our training and using it mission wide, that would be so exciting. So yup i did get to have an interview with president. Zone leaders get longer ones so we can talk about everyone in the zone so instead of the normal 15 minutes i got a whole 30 with the man all by myself it was pretty wonderful. We talked alot about me being in vermont so long, and i told him i never want to leave here cause its home now. His response to that was " oh dont get to comfortable" so i dont know what he has up his sleeve, but i guess we will just have to find out when it happens. I found out why i love it here in the green mountain state so much. This is the place where i have felt the closest to my savior so therefore i dont want to leave. Vermont is where elder zilles has truly been converted to the gospel of jesus christ. dang i love this gospel.

 

Sorry i didnt ever get christmas cards made, heck i havent even mailed your present yet, poop maybe ill just bring it home with me in a year and it can be for that christmas. we will have to see what happens.

 We had the biggest ice storm that has hit vermont in 20 years. Yesterday there was no joke an inch of ice covering everything. So church was cancelled stake wide. I was bummed because first that means brian has to wait a full week to get confirmed and also no christmas program.

Elder Z and the "Liahona" at the Mission home

 

 

I really dont have too much to talk about in the email, cause i gotta save stuff for the skype time.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas eve love you guys!

Hold to the rod
Elder Zilles

 

Week 52: The BEST WEEK (is yet to come)

Hello fam,

Scripture of the week: Alma 52:20-21

wow is it really monday already?? Sometimes i just dont know where the time goes. Especially on weeks we have meetings. 

So the meeting this week was really really really long. This one was different than most of them, we had all of the district leaders come to it, and usually its only us zone leaders and the sister training leaders.

Once we got home from manchester we have been spending most of our time preparing for interviews with president stoker this week. The way interviews work is while president interviews one person at a time we zone leaders do a big training with the whole zone. So i have been pretty stressed out of my mind with getting that all planned, but we finally got that all finalized last night so now i can breathe again. Our whole training is on obedience, so wish us luck a few missionaries in the zone will most likely hate us by the time its over, but i guess that is what they get for being disobedient missionaries. 

So yes i got my other package this week, and i love the whole thing, my cd is wonderful and i love the stocking from nacho, cant wait to open it on christmas. The nativity from the family has already come in handy. The day it came in the mail we had a lesson with an investigator and we realized she had never even heard the whole christmas story so we taught her the story of christmas with my nativity set. it was so cool to get that in the mail after all those years writing on it it was so neat to be on the other end of things, this is such a special time of year. 

Well this week it dropped below zero so i am no longer enjoying warmer weather. Yesterday we got a foot of snow so it looks like its here to stay.

It sounds like everything else on the home front is going well. 

This week is going to be one of the best weeks of my life. i get emotional just typing about it... But my good friend  has asked me to baptize him on saturday. as you know it will be my first time EVER in the water. I cant even express in words how much of an honor it is to get to baptize him! it will be so amazing cant wait to give you all of hte details on it next week. 

Holy poop hump day is on thursday.. No tell the time to slow down, its going way to fast i have so much to get done and so little time. Anyone who ever said two years is a long time is crazy, it is the shortest amount of time ever. SLOW DOWN!

Glad to hear grandpa is doing well, give them my love. 

Welp i think thats all ive got for yall this week sure do love ya

Hold to the rod

Tonernation

WEEK 51!!!

Hey My dear family,

I must apologize i dont have a scripture of the week this week. i think its the first week ive missed since ive been out! Well i am sure you noticed this, but it is week 51. that means there must be something super fantastic that is going to happen this week, guess we will have to wait and see. 

Elder Zilles and his Christmas tree from home:) He says "Yes, the organized desk is mine"

Well mom i do enjoy dads funky greetings, but i am totally good with you two weeks in a row. 

So yes we did get to watch the Christmas Devotional. No one showed up here at the church so it was just the two of us chilling in the high council room watching it on the big screen. They were all such great talks. It was different to just get a greeting talk from president monson, i have a feeling he wasnt feeling to well. I dont know if you noticed, but he now needs help to get up out of his chair, it was heart breaking to see that. 

 Its 23 today and thats the coldest its been in about a week or so.

We had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators  at her home. She is 13 and prayed for the first time in her life yesterday. we sat on our knees for no joke 20 minutes just letting the spirit work with her. It goes in the top 5 events of my mission for sure. 

Well you are probably wondering who the new companion is... His name is Elder Davis he is from Layton. 

The festival of choirs went really well on saturday, we had a  family surprised us and show up so that was really really neat. 

Thank you so much for my count down package and the awesome tree, ill attach some pictures. 

I got a package from a grandma in my last area this week as well, she hand knitted me some socks they are so comfortable. I probably miss her just about as much as i miss you guys.

Headed down to manchester this afternoon for leadership meeting so gonna be another wild crazy week. Thats ok though i can sleep when im dead. 

Tell ya what though i sure do miss my cows, however i DO NOT miss dealing with that dang water trough in the frigid cold weather. 

sure do love y'all,  talk soon

Hold to the Rod

Elder Zilles

Week 50: Comfort my Soul in Christ

Hello my Family,

Scripture of the week: Alma 31:31

This is a scripture I found this week while studying, and it really hit me hard how all the real lasting

comfort that we need and can obtain in this life come through our brother and savior Jesus Christ.

Well what a crazy wild week.

First things first, to get yall straightened out! Elder Simkins is going home TOMORROW! Yup the past

six weeks have totally just blown right on by. As Zone Leaders there is ZL1 and ZL2, well I had every

intention of staying as ZL2, but I guess the lord had something else in mind for me, I of course am staying

in Essex, but am going to be ZL1, also my new comp will be a first time zone leader, so after just 6 weeks

of this I have to train a new one how to do all of this ZL goodness. It will be great though. So tomorrow

we are headed to transfer meeting in Manchester. I am pretty stoked, it’s the first time I’ve gotten to go to

a transfer meeting since March when I picked elder Guinn up, pretty good streak if ya ask me. Crazy to

think that in a year I will be in elder Simkins shoes and will be heading home! The time sure flies just gotta

live it up while I got it.

Well thanksgiving was great! We had a wonderful time at the bishops, good food, but I’m sure it could not

compare with food at the Barringer family get together. Yup you guessed it the thing I missed the most

was the pomegranate salad. Well as you know we could not play in a turkey bowl, so being me I decided

we needed to come up with a way for our zone to have a bit of a competition. So we decided we would

have a turkey eat off. We had everyone in the zone weigh themselves t giving morning and then at the

end of the day to see how much we had all gained. It was a good time. The crazy thing was I weighed in

the exact same morning and night, it was pretty crazy. But oh well.

So I realized today that since I got to Essex I have been terrible at updating you on the people we are

teaching, so I am going to try to start doing better with that. Friday night we got the privilege to go down to

the JSM for the lighting of the memorial. We were able to take one of our investigators. We will be setting

a baptism date next time we meet with one of our other families! Speaking of bap dates, we set one last

night with an amazing friend. We are tag teaching him with the Polls and he is literally the coolest person

ever. He is in his 40s and in a wheelchair, he is so amazing. He is scheduled to be baptized December

21st so excited.

Last night we spent some time with the polls, we decorated their little Christmas tree, so that was pretty

great. I won’t be home for Christmas but I will be in the next best place. Sister poll wants me to bring my

Christmas packages over and put them under the tree and open them over there on Christmas morning.

There is a member of the ward that looks scary like grandpa don. His name is brother Seay, but I told him

he looks like grandpa so now I call him grandpa Seay. He is so funny.

It sounds like t-give day was a good time as usual. Also glad the tree hunt was good.

This week would normally be training week in Manchester, but with transfers they moved it to next week,

so yup it’ll just be another super busy week. But don’t get me wrong I absolutely love my calling.

We have our ward party on the 14th. This Saturday we have what they call the "festival of choirs" choirs

from 7 different denominations come to the chapel and we put on a huge concert. We are ushering for

that, so it should be a great opportunity to get to meet some awesome new people.

I actually found a few second to write some letters this morning while elder simkins took his LAST ever

reports from the zone. So those will be on the way sometime this week. Also I got my awesome package.

I have worn my shirt to write in my journal each night this week. Cookies were great as well. I can’t think

of much else I need to tell you at the moment, but I am sure there will be more that I think of later.

Sure love you

Hold to the rod

Elder Zilles

Week 49: Teaching the gospel, parenting, and missionary work

Wello, (went to type well hello and that’s what my fingers typed instead so that’s what you get)

Scripture of the week: Alma 26:35-37

I must admit.... we were talking with the Polls last night and I could not take the suspense anymore, so I made them look up the outcome of the state game for me. Kind of a bummer that they weren’t able to pull it off, but it sounds like it was really a hard fought battle.

It’s officially cold here in Vermont. We got our first snow that actually stuck and today its 16 degrees out. I’m working really hard at being positive about how I feel about cold weather, but you all know how much I just hate it, so it’s a battle trying to be positive about it.

Twas a fantastic week though. I had the privilege of being here in Essex on exchange with elder jessee, you met his parents at the wilkeys homecoming. It’s kind of interesting, he and I have never served close to each other and we weren’t even in the same district in the MTC but he is probably one of my best friends in the mission, we pretty much just had a party the whole time we were on exchange. While we were together we hit our 11 month mark so it just gave us even more of a reason the celebrate. It was really nice being on an exchange that I could just kind of relax. Most the time on exchanges I am spending the whole time correcting elders and doing training, so this was a really nice break.

Hmmm what else happened this week?.... well it is officially really really cold here in Vermont. It’s pretty bad, the whole mission has caught on to the elder zilles being stuck in Vermont jokes. Every time I call president or the assistants they have to make some crack about me being stuck here for life. I’ve decided I’m good with it though. I will for sure be here for my first year. Found out this week that I could totally apply for in state tuition and stuff for the state of Vermont cause I haven’t left the state in a year.

I spoke in sacrament yesterday. It was just me and the high councilor so I had to take half the time. It went really well though. My topic was "teaching the gospel" At first I thought I would totally just teach about missionary work, but as I was preparing my talk I got the feeling I needed to direct my talk to parenting. So I titled it "teaching the gospel, parenting and missionary work". I will send my notes to you and you can check them out. Sounds like nacho did a great job speaking as well. GO LOU! I based most of my talk off of the story of the stripling warriors!

So for thanksgiving we are eating with our bishop and his family. Up till late this week we didn’t have an appointment, cause most people are going out of town, so we had decided that we were just going to take ourselves to the Chinese buffet. But we lucked out and don’t have to do it. The ward is having a turkey bowl but unless something changes we won’t be playing in it cause president stoker doesn’t want anyone getting hurt, kind of a bummer but important to be obedient.

I hope dad’s surgery goes well this week. Always scary to know that kind of stuff is going on when I’m not around, but all will be well. I won’t have any time to hand written any letters today. We are going bowling with our district, and then we are going on a tour of the Ben and Jerries Ice cream factory, then I am going on exchange to Montpelier, so it’s a pretty crazy day and a start to a really wild crazy week. Gotta love it though.

 Hopefully I covered everything, sure love you guys.

Love ya

Elder Zilles

Week 48: "Let your shoes tell you the story of your mission"

Hello my dear family,

Scripture of the week: Ether 12:18

 

 I forgot my zone conference notes at the apartment so I don’t have anything to give you insights from it. Sorry I guess we will just have to go off of my memory, which can be scary at times. But anyways zone conference was incredible. The spirit was just absolutely amazing the whole time. The day started off with my interview with Giff Neilson. He is an incredible man. He had so many great stories to tell. He came in to interview me and was like "so why are we meeting today" I said "I don’t know you tell me" he had no idea either, so we just talked about the gospel and gospel leadership the whole time it was a really special treat. The whole conference was just so wonderful. I really wish i had my notes with me though. You know how I like quotes. There were so many good ones from this conference. Elder Neilson talked a lot about the atonement and the infinite power that it has in our lives. It was very neat. some of my favorite quotes from him were "You were not sent here to be AVERAGE" "Let your shoes tell the story of your mission" "let the savior be the editor of your life story" and there were so many other amazing ones that my bad memory can’t think of right now.

 

Elder Quinton Joseph, conversing with the Prophet Joseph

 

The more time I get to spend with president stoker the more I grow to love him. I loved president wilkey, but president stoker is definitely supposed to be in this mission at this time. He is a wonderful ,wonderful man.

 

we got the privilege of taking an investigator  on a tour to the JSM on Saturday, that was a very neat experience. The spirit is always so strong at that sacred place i hope you get to see it someday. We are teaching another family tonight so details about that will have to follow next week. But we did however find another awesome family, they referred themselves to us when they were in Hawaii a few weeks ago. They are the only non members in their family. We had dinner with them last night, and out of nowhere they asked “do you give blessings to non members?' We of course said yes. So it was a really neat experience.

 

Each Monday morning we have to do zone reports. And every other week we report to president. This week was president. At the end president was like "wow your zone has a lot of issues right now, I now see why you two were assigned to that zone". It’s pretty cool to have him say stuff like that but at the same time it’s no fun to have to do all of the dirty work in the zone. But somebody has got to do it and I’m not going to complain because this is where the lord has called me to serve at this time.

 

Good luck this week Pirates. I’ll have to make sure I wear my west side football shirt to do service on Saturday. Hope they all know they have people cheering for them all over the world. So cool. I hope they win this one for coach Eb.

 

 

Sure love you guys have a wonderful week

Hold to the rod

Elder Zilles

 

Week 47: Birthday Goodness

Hello Family,

Scripture of the week:

Acts 27:23

What a week! where did the time go? weeks go really fast when you spend all of your time either in a car or in meetings or on the phone correcting disobedient missionaries. The good news is we have a full pday today so i have more time to email and i hope to even get some hand written letters replied to. First off thank you so much for all the birthday goodness. It was a great day. Sister Poll made me dinner that night and we played cards with them as well, it was just wonderful, i missed you guys but we will reunite in no time. sister poll made me chicken enchilades and then asked what my favorite desert was... i couldnt decide if i wanted cheese cake or pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. So sister poll being the awesome mom she is got on line and found a recipe for pumpkin cheese cake and then put an oreo crust on it to make it pumpkin chocolate. It was so stinkin good. I love the polls.

Before i tell you about last weeks meetings and stuff i want to tell you about our new investigators! Lets just say the members of the essex ward have really caught the missionary fever. The fellows family had their friends  over for dinner and they asked if they could learn about their church. so of course the fellows said yes and called us right away. Well we were in manchester so couldnt go over so we called the polls and they played pinch hitter for us.They came to church yesterday and stayed for all 3 hours. They are like the ultimate golden couple.

So the meeting last week was great. Very cool to be in a meeting with president with just a small amount of people. like 24 missionaries or something very awesome. We discussed a whole bunch of stuff, but spent most of the time preparing for zone conference which is wednesday. Its a big deal cause we have a visiting general authority coming. Gifford Neilsen is gonna be in the NHMM. He spoke in conference and gave the awesome talk about the lords game plan. Guess who gets to have a personal 15 minute interview with him???... Yup i do. At each conference he is having a personal interview with 4 missionaries, and president chose me as one of them. I asked president what on earth i did wrong to have that ha. He just told me he wants elder Nelson to get to meet the best of the NHMM, im stoked. I think ill probably ask him how many touchdowns he threw when he was at BYU!

Probably my favorite part of the meeting last week was getting to see missionaries i havent seen in forever. I got to see elder hales for the first time since we got to the mission. Also got to see my buddy elder walker, they both just got made zone leaders as well.

Well i cant think of anything else i was really dying to tell you.

Love you guys

Hold to the rod

Week 46: Busy...

Hello family,

Scripture of the week: Romans 8:28,31

Well hello there. Sounds like all is going well at home. I am sorry for the short email last week, and also sorry for the lack of hand written letters, I won’t have time to write any today either I am very very sorry. Being a Zone leader keeps me really busy, between zone leader stuff and regular missionary work i really have no time. Maybe one of these Mondays I will have time to write some letters. So please don’t give up on my I promise I still love you all the same, I just really am so swamped right now. So I’ll try to reply to the email and the letters in this email but I am sure I will miss some stuff.

So you asked some Questions about the Zone leader stuff. We are both Zone leaders. Its kind of cool there is no such thing as junior comp and sr comp we are both just zone leaders. We travel a lot and go to ALOT of meetings. We go to two district meeting each week, and every first Monday and Tuesday of the month we have to go to Manchester for Mission leadership meetings. So yes that is today and tomorrow so I really have no time today we have to leave to Manchester at 3. I’m excited to see how that all works though, so more details to follow next week.

So you say Essex doesn’t look very big, well compared to a city in the west it is not very big but for what i am now used to it is HUGE. And yes it does help to have Burlington 10 minutes away. We cover Essex, Essex jct, Jericho, and like 3 other small town. The polls really only teach classes so they don’t do much actual proselyting. Over in the Burlington ward they have a set of elders and sisters. Fletcher Allan med school is over in Burlington so that’s why we have all of the med students.

I must say i love this ward. They are so good at doing missionary work. We had 9 non members at church yesterday, and all but two of them were brought by the members. Things are really going to start to take off here in Essex, I’m super excited for it. its really cool having the polls right across the hall, and it was so funny you called right when we walked into their apartment, ha what a treat. Elder poll gives us sports updates and other necessary things like that.

Elder Simkins and i get along great. He is doing really well at not being trunky so that makes things really nice.

well i am sorry this is so short, but i really gotta run and get other stuff done before we have to leave to Manchester.

Love you guys

 Elder Zilles

Hold to the rod

Week 45: Essex Vermont

Hey my family, 

Mosiah 8:18

Oh where oh where is your son at? Oh where oh where is he at? Hmmmmm Should i wait to tell you and make you suffer or should i tell ya now? ok fine ill tell ya!

 

Well i did make it out of the North East Kingdom, but not by much. I am zone leader in Essex vermont. Its super cool here, if you remember clear back to the start of my mission i was on exchange here twice with the zone leaders back when lyndon was in the montpelier zone. So dad you were really close to correct im not in montpelier but i am the zone leader over the montpelier zone. The best part about this area so far... Guess who is my next door neighbors?? Elder and Sister Poll. Its so great being so close to them. Im already super good friends with them but now we will be even better friends! The ward here is amazing as well. I love it so much! Its made up of almost all college medical students, and they are all pretty much from out west. Its like serving in a married student ward, but there are a few who are not students. I havent met a whole lot of the members yet, but i have met some awesome ones. 

 

Two members of the bishoprick have family in preston. One of them is a fellows so we talked all about the fellows that we know! The Bennets just moved here a few weeks ago, sister bennet is related to the whites. Her mom is cindy whites cousin so thats pretty cool. Ha Sister Bennet face book stalked me the other day and found my blog and was trying to see if i had said anything about the ward, but i hadnt updated it since transfers. All in all though it is just a great ward. A member does our laundry for us. She is so nice. 

This area is great but it sure is going to be an adjustment. Its the first time im serving in an actual city. We have literally everything in our area. Any store you can think of we most likely have it, so that will be kinda sweet, will finally have something we can do on Pday. Oh i dont think i told you who my companion is. Elder Simkins. We know each other quite well from different meeting and stuff. He actually was Elder Hales trainer, so we have been swapping elder hales stories all week. This is Elder Simkins last transfer, and then he will be heading back to Enterprise Utah. 

So i thought i was busy as a district leader, ha i thought wrong i am 10X more busy now as a zone leader. It seems like all we do is solve problems with other missionaries. We have had issues already with a few elders in the zone who seem to think they dont need to listen to me cause they have been on their missions longer than i have, so i think i might have to be smackin down here soon. Wish me luck with that.  When you are a zone leader you have to balance the zone leader work and regular missionary work, and that has not been done very well in this area for a long time. They have been doing like 75% zone work and 15% mish work, that is gonna have to change cause we only have like 3 people in the teaching pool and all 3 of them will probably be out of the teaching pool by the end of this week. No worries though we will get things rolling here its just gonna take some time to get things re built. 

Winter is knocking at the door here in vermont. Its been no warmer than like 42 all week and today is 38, so its gonna be getting really cold here soon. So i was wondering if you could PLEASE send me my rabit fur hat with the ear flaps. I have no idea where it is but i would love ya to send it to me. 

 

i have a wicked nasty cold today. We taught sharing time in primary yesterday and a few kids were sick so i think i probably picked it up from them. No worries though sister Poll already has me all medicated up. Its gonna be like having a mom right across the hall from me. 

 

Well i think that is about all ive got hope you all have  a wonderful week this week. Love you guys

 

Elder Zilles 

Hold to the rod

 

PS my address is 169 west St. apt 1B Essex JCT  Vermont  05452

 

PPS i bought a brand new suite at salvation army for 8 dollars

week 44: Come what may and love it! Transfers!

Hello Family,

 

Ill give you the scripture of the week in just a second, cause i want to expound on it quite a bit this week. Transfer Information.... DUN DUN DUN! "ring ring ring" Me "Elder its president" Elder V "hurry throw it out the window so we dont have to get the transfer call"! Yeah that plan didnt work the call still came! Me "hello president this is elder zilles" Pres "hello elder zilles this is pres stoker" me "president the phone is dying we cant accept a transfer call" yeah that tactic didnt work either. President "Elder Zilles i am calling to inform you that you are being transferred and are being called as a ZONE LEADER. Elder Vanderholm will be staying in newport and will be made sr companion"!!!!

WOAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

 

We have to leave our apartment at 415 tomorrow morning to travel to get our new companions. It will be so great. I will really miss Elder Vanderholm, but there is a time for everything, and where ever i go is where i am meant to be. Elder Vanderholm is slightly freaking out about being sr comp, but i have no doubt he will just do amazing!

 

 

So since i am being transferred sister deters and myself were asked to speak in sacrament yesterday (she is leaving too). So i was up there and of course hadnt prepared anything cause they told us from the pulpit. I was thinking of a scripture i wanted to use but then opened my BofM and knew this was the scripture i was supposed to base my talk off of. Alma 56: 22-29. This is part of the story of the strippling warriors and i think you will really like the insight that i recieved while speaking yesterday! In verses 22-23 is talks about the nephites guarding the places that were the weakest! In 27 we read of the provisions the fathers of the stripplings brought to them. And in 29 we read " And the lamanites thus seeing our forces increase daily and provisions arrive for our support they began to be fearful and began to rally forth if it were possible to put an end to our recieving provisions"!

Now lets think about these verses and apply it to our lives. What do we need to do in our lives to keep satan away? We need to guard our weakest points. We know what our weaknesses are, but unfortunately so does the adversary! So first we need to guard our weakest points continually.
 

Second, like the nephites who recieved provisions, we need to recieve provisions as well! How do we do that? well its actually prettty easy. The primary answers! as we go to church, pray read the scriptures, those are the provisions we need to recieve strength against the adversary.

As we do these things, the adversary will become "fearful" just as the lamanites did. Now you may ask how these few small and simple things can help us withstand the "fiery darts of the adversary" well lets look at it this way.... How did the 2000 stripplings have any effect on the huge lamanite army? they were young small and inexperienced, they had never fought before. I am sure they at times felt insignificant. Just as at times we may find the simple primary answers insignificant. But just think about it, because if the 2000 the battles were totally rocked by the nephites!

It is my testimony that as we do the simple things in life, read our scriptures DAILY, pray at least twice a day(on our knees), and go to church to partake of the sacrament, we will be provided with the "provisions" that we need to make satan "fearful"!

I hope all that made sense, sometimes my thoughts sound better in my head than when i put them on paper!

 

 

So yup lots of changes are happening in the district this week. I am leaving, Sister Deters is leaving and Sister Vanderhoef is leaving littleton. Actually in our zone half the missionaries are leaving! Every companionship got a transfer call but one set of sisters. Pretty crazy stuff! i will really miss my lyndon district but am very excited for my next adventure.

 

Our song went very well in sacrament yesterday the spirit was very very strong.

 

I am so happy for josh and that is very cool about hannah! Gods army truly does keep growing! When i got to the mission we had about 115 missionaries, we now have over 200!

 

Well one last Funny story, we were sitting at a picnic table out side an apartment building talking with a less active. right next door is a bar so a pretty rough crowd hangs there. A man came up to us and said "my names kevin, im the drummer for the band nickleback, can i sign your bible?" it was funny. No it was not really the drummer for nickleback. The things drunk people do haha!

 

Im gonna end with a quote i rediscovered while studying pmg this morning.

 

"Those who have read the book of mormon, PRAYERFULLY, be they rich or poor, learned or unlearned, have grown under its power. Without reservation i promise you that if you will prayerfully read the book of mormon regardless of how many times you have previously read it there will come into your hearts the spirit of the lord. There will come strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to the commandments, and there will come a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God"

-President Hinckley-

 

Love you all so much let ya know next week where my new home is

Elder Zilles

 

Week 43: Come Follow Me

Hello Family, 

Hymn 116 verse 5.

 

Some weeks i dont even remember what happened during the week. this is one of those weeks. One day i do remember is sunday, i guess thats cause it was only yesterday. We had stake conference here in the Montpelier Vermont Stake, and it was magnificent. Two hour drive to get to the stake center but it was 100% worth it. Our stake presidency is awesome two of them are originally from idaho. President and sister Stoker spoke at conference as well, it was very good.

 I got to see many of my lyndon family so that was great. Sister Jablonski is going to have her baby in a week or two so that should be fun for them. Who knows where i will be by the time it is born. Maybe president will take pitty on me and have me work in the office for the winter... ha fat chance of that.  

The District and their "Titles of Liberty"

I was in lyndon for a day on exchange this week that was fun. Each time i go to lyndon i always feel that it is my mission home, but this time was different. I of course will always love lyndon, but newport has finally become my home. They say that once that happens you are going to get transferred. Almost 100% sure elder v or i will be leaving newport next week, so tune in next week for exciting transfer information. 

i really dont feel like much else happened this week. We helped the branch pres build a deck, helped some other members stake some fire wood and i almost lost my finger, but it is still attached. We have decided splitting and stacking wood is the main reason we were called to new england we are pretty beast mode when you give the two of us a splitting mall and a pile of wood. Its a great workout too so i love that. Our new healthy eating and exercising is really going well. Elder Vanderholm has lost 8 pounds and i have lost 5 pounds it feels really good to be gettting back into shape. I have much more energy thoughout the day thanks to it as well. 

Really not much else happened this week though. Sounds like all is well on the home front. Bum deal about chuckie blowing out his knee. Very cool west side is rocking it this season. How is stuff going with the basement? my dogs? and my cows? 

Love you guys. 

Hold to the rod

Elder QJ Zilles

Week 42: Spiritual High

FAMILIES ARE FOREVER,

scripture of the week: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

 

CONGRATULATIONS Elder Birky! That is so cool spanish speaking would be wonderful. There are times i really wish i had learned a language, but then i think about it and i have learned a new language... vermontish is about as foreign as it gets sometimes! That is a bit of a wait, hmmm so some advice i would give him.... As you all know i struggled with my long wait for well the whole 4 months of the wait, but i now know the lord knows exactly when we are supposed to enter our mission and our first area. The time till you leave will go really slow right up till your last few weeks and then you may find yourself wanting some of that time back. So make the best of it. If i were able to go back in time i would take my last 4 months and spend much more time with my family than i did. As great as girls are... family is really who we should be with before we leave to serve the lord they will truly be your greatest support when you are in the field. Also spend as much time as you possibly can studying the scriptures and preach my gospel especially PMG chapter 4. And most importantly do like was talked about alot in conference strengthen your testimony as much as you possibly can! You will be a fantastic missionary and it will be exciting to see the miracles the lord makes happen through you!

 

This week has been a great one and once again it has gone by sooo stinkin fast. Im to the point in my mission now that MOST days dont seem like weeks any more. The weeks seems like hours and the days seem like minutes. So that is something elder nash will have to look forward to. 

My interview with President Stoker was wonderful, i love that man. Being a District leader i am lucky and get to spend a little extra time with him i felt pretty spoiled. We had a great talk about the missionaries in my district and it was just all in all a wonderful opportunity. My part of the training that i got to do with the zone leaders went well. They asked me to pick my own topic to train on and i felt very impressed to teach about giving and recieving constructive feedback from mission leaders. It went really well i used the example in john 21 of the risen lord telling peter that he must never go fishing he is now and forever an apostle of the lord. Can you imagine receiving constructive feedback from the savior himself? that would be awesome as well is wicked over whelming. 

 

So before i start into conference i have one more miraculous miracle to share with you. As you know with the time difference here conference didnt start till 12 so we had a few hours to do some work before we headed to the church. We were walking to see a less active and saw a guy walking away from us and it looked like dana. So we half chased him half stalked him to his house. He was in much better form than when we had last seen him. He all by himself offered to say the prayer and in it thanked HF for sending us to him. Its a testimony to me that as we pray to know where the lord wants us he will direct us in that direction if we heed the promptings of his spirit. 

CONFERENCE WAS INCREDIBLE! I cant decide if its really the best one ive ever seen or if thats just because i am in the stage of my life that i am in right now. I have so many things that i liked about it so just prepare for a really long email, hopefully it doesnt bore you to death!

In President Monsons opening remarks saturday morning he said "Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together, to work together" i loved that because its so true. There can no longer be the missionaries over here and the members over there we must be united in the same great cause. I loved Elder Hales talk as well i found it very cool that he said they are not given topics. Favorite quotes from him... "What is said is not as important as what we hear and feel through the spirit". "The only safety we have as members of the church is to give heed to the prophets word". "We will not always be so that we are free from the persecutions the early saints faced". There were a few remarks that eluded to that. and last from his talk "Put on your shield of faith to thwart the fiery darts of the adversary"

There were many good things throughout conference said about the importance of making. keeping and renewing our sacred covenants. Carole Stephens said "when we worthily partake of the sacrament we dont only renew our baptismal covenants but all of the covenants we have made". I really enjoyed the talk given by Edward Dube of the seventy, favorite quote from his was "look ahead and believe". Elder Bednar gave a wonderful talk on tithing i feel it was written just for a certain person here in newport. He said "put your faith into practice roll up your sleaves and join this great cause". President Uchtdorf "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith". I loved Elder Christophersons on the role of women. There were several great things said about that. I am so grateful for the righteous women in my life. 

S. Gifford Nelson gave a great talk on missionary work so if you want to get pumped listen to it!!

There was also much said about "Inviting the atonement into our lives" "Lay down your weapons of rebellion and invite the atonement into our lives". The atonement is such an amazing incredible gift i would not be here without it. 

Elder Hollands was great as always. It made me think of many whom i love, Its hard stuff to deal with but with the atonement we can do hard things. He said "If the bitter cup does not pass, Drink it". And also "cherish every day you are given".

Elder Ballard gave a great missionary work talk in it were included many great promises i would like you to all listen to it again. "fear will be replaced as we kneel in prayer" 

Priesthood session was great so many good talks once again. Randy Funk of the seventy who was a mission president spoke about real growth in missionaries which really hit me hard and made me do a self evaluation. President Uchtdorf nailed it oout of the park with "you can do it now" and "our destiny is not determined by the number of times we fall but by the number of times we get back up". 

President monson gave a great talk that i know dad probably loved on hometeaching. 

My favorite talks on sunday were president eyrings and president monsons. 

A theme that really stood out to me is how me must put our love of god first in our lives that is so important. Our love for heavenly father is imperative in the crazy world we live in. To close conference President Monson said "Constantly nourish your testimony and it will protect you from the adversary". 

 

To watch, read or listen to conference click here:)

My testimony to end conference is that of many of the things we were told by our leaders. We must have a strong testimony to spiritually survive these times. I have so many weaknesses and imperfections i need to overcome, but with the power of the atonement all things can be overcome. Weak things can truly be made strong through the power and love of our savior. 

I love you so much family

Hold to the rod

"look ahead and believe" we have so much to live for and believe in!

Elder QJ Zilles