Make the Green Grow

From Elder Gleaves, a zone leader in Phoenix

"This week has just been amazing! We have seen so many miracles come from working hard and diligently especially with the "making the green grow" project. We have seen an elevated level of excitement in the Elders, and I really feel like it has unified us as a zone. It reminded me a lot of this past Christmas when we were all excited to hear about baptisms, where we were at and how many more we coming. It's the same thing now, but just with the TTI's (TTI is an acronym for Teach, Testify, and Invite. We use it to refer to street contacting). The Elders are excited to get feedback, and they worked harder than ever. Not only did we reach our goal, but we soared past it making a new recod in the zone of 1790 TTI's. And now that everyone did it, we all reached the goal of 140 TTI's per companionship, we know that we can do it every week. 

It was something really cool to see that the number of lessons didn't decrease, it actually continued to go up. We are teaching more, and seeing more people come to sacrament meeting. I believe that it is due to our efforts of talking to EVERYONE that we see. We were definetly able to see how God was able to prepare the way for us in giving us enough time to do everything. Just a quick example, yesterday we actually had the chance to have Elder Isom with us, and in that day we only had 2 lessons planned. So in the begining we were just trying to make contacts and visits, and not too much worked out. We we continued to work diligently even when we weren't teaching and the Lord did bless us. We ended up that night with 6 lessons, and 30 TTI's. Looking back, I dont even know how we did it with only 2 lessons planned. But the Lord prepared his children to be there in their homes at the right time so that we could visit them. And a lot of the people that we visited yesterday are on their way towards baptism in the next couple of weeks. We have been so blessed here to find those prepared to accept the gospel."

The Livingston's

The office staff went to The Godd Egg for breakfast just before the Livingston's finished their assignment. It was an opportunity to poke fun at Elder Livingston one last time. Although he loves chocolate, he doesn't eat it EVER (willpower!). The enjoyment on their faces is when they realized that book was a chocolate gone crazy type cookbook. The second prank was a plate full of bananas-something he refuses to eat on purpose. Who would be crazy enough to eat a banan on purpose?

We love you both. We hope you make it home...eventually, but remember part of you will always stay here with us. We love you!

Some things should never change!

AMM Sisters are the best in the world! Full field or VC, it doesn't matter. Beautiful. Virtuous. Faithful. Diligent. Focused. Strong. Everything Sister Beck encouraged women to be during General Conference. They're fantastic, and we love them all.

Look for the photo of two sisters talking to a young man sitting on the lawn outside the temple. Sister Fonbuena and Sister Bustillo were heading to the Udall building for a prepartory meeting with the elders. Their role was to give a few reminders to the missionaries and encourage them to fill their hearts with faith. On the way, I saw as they stopped to talk with this young man. I took a picture and went on to the building. When they caught up with me, they were excited to let me know they'd just had a top box...in Spanish. Sister Fonbuena is an English speaking missionary and only knew the little bit of spanish she had scribbled on a card. It was enough and then some. They were so happy when I told them I thought I had a picture of them in action. (See, sometimes having the camera around is a good thing!)