Hey family,
Scripture of the week: 3 Nephi 20:19- keeping our covenants keeps us safe. Not just keeping them, but valiantly keeping our covenants will bring more happiness, joy, and peace than any other thing in this life. I have felt that in my life and i know it to be true!
So i hope you all had a marvelous time at the ocean. I am pretty jealous you all got to go there without me once again. But i still hope you had a great time.
With this new assistant deal, my schedule is pretty wild, so i will be emailng at 6:00 monday mornings for the duration of this calling
So the low down on the assistant thing... We attend church in the Manchester ward. We live in an apartment in the manchester ward, but we spend most of our time in the office, which is of course located in Bedford. As for an address to send stuff too, just send everything to the mission office. I will get it more often if you do that than if you send it to the apartment, plus im not even sure what the address to the apartment is yet. As far as do we proselyte in our own area... yes we do, but it is just very minimal. In the past assistants do ALOT of work in the office, preparing trainings and all of that good stuff, so that keeps them plenty busy. so we knew we would be busy, but had no idea we would be as busy as we are going to be.
On Wednesday we had a meeting with president, and he told us he wants us to do things a bit different than assistants in the past. He told us he called us here to serve together so we could travel the mission and work with lots of missionaries in their own areas. So we will be on the road alot. When we are not on the road we will either be preparing for meetings, in meetings, and when time allows we will be teaching a few lessons in our own area. So this whole thing is a bit over whelming, but ive made it through the first week in almost one piece so i think i will be ok.
The real craziness starts this week. In fact it starts today. At 8 we start mission reporting, and do that till 1030, 1030 we have mission staff meeting, 12 mission staff lunch, and at 130 we have to head to pick up missionaries for leadership meeting which is tomorrow. I will be driving to maine in our mini van to pick up the maine side missionaries, and elder wells will head to vermont to pick up the vermont side. (yes you heard correctly we drive a mini van, and her name is skye). tomorrow is leadership meeting, this will be my 10th one, but ill be doing the training this time instead of being trained. After the meeting Elder wells and i will drive missionaries back to maine, and then we will stay the night in Bangor Maine, where we will work with those elders the next day (elder Guinn and his comp). the next day we will work in Belfast maine. And then friday we will drive back to manchester for a meeting with president. Hopefully have a few days to do some work in our own area, and then next week it will all start over again. So you said i seemed a bit quiet about it all. Yes i am very humbled and a little overwhelmed. But i do know the lord has called me here for a reason, and that it will prepare me greatly for future callings in the church.
A midst all the crazy biz this week, we were able to teach one lesson to one lady. The cool thing about her, is i found her a few months ago when i was on exchange with the assistants. She is super cool. Just an awesome lady. She came to church yesterday too. 100% success rate, one lesson taught one person at church. Wow what great numbers.
Sunday was such a nice break. It felt so good to just sit in church and feel the spirit for those 3 hours. it was a much needed brake from the hustle and bustle of assistantness. Being fast sunday, i took the opportunity to share my testimony with my new ward. It just felt really good. There is no greater way to strengthen your testimony than to share it. So my invitation this week is for yall to share your testimony the next chance you get. President Monson said "Regarding ones testimony, remember that which one willingly shares he keeps, while that which he selfishly keeps he loses". We have been blessed to have a knowledge of the gospel, we must share it with those around us. So i know we live in the "mormon belt" but there are still people who need the gospel. It could be a nonmember or a less active. I dont know who it will be, but i know heavenly father is preparing someone for each of you to share the gospel with. so will you please pray to know who that is, and when the spirit prompts you to who it is, will you please follow those prompting? great happiness comes as we share the gospel. Trust me ive experienced it!
Well i hope all this talk about my new life hasnt bored yall to death. But i hope you know how much i love you. Cant wait to hear all about your oregon trip, remember i expect pictures.
Send things to the mission office address.
Love you guys
your favorite missionary
Elder Q.J. Zilles
Hold to the rod
PS…
-Forgot to say that the coolest part of this new calling is serving with elder Wells. Everyone in the mission is calling it the dream team companionship
-greatest news of the whole week... Elder Vanderholm got made a zone leader! so proud of him!
-the call to be an assistant is kind of like being made a bishop, its a great honor to be trusted with it. But everyone is congratulating you when they really should be giving you condolences.
