New Year- New Area

Hey everyone, hope everyone had a fantastic New Year! Well, this week was a pretty crazy week. On Monday night I found out I was being transferred to the Roy Midland area. My new companions name is Elder Policarpio, he is from Grand Prarie Texas and has been out 3 months. On Tuesday I packed up all my stuff, which took a while because I had been in the Clearfield apartment for 3 months! On Wednesday we did the transfers. 

With Elder Policarpio

My new house is a lot nicer than my old one, a lot more room, and not as old which an upside, on the downside the area is way bigger than Clearfield was so we walk 7-8 hours a day and needless to say it is not fun especially when it has been snowing and below 20 degrees for most of the week.

 New Apartment- Pool Table only allowed to be used on Mondays

Nice basement apartment!

On my first day in the area we put a girl on date which was awesome, she is super excited and we actually put her on date to be baptized on January 14th which is my birthday so that would be a great birthday gift and she showed up to church and stayed for all three hours! The work is tough here in Roy, there are a lot of members in the area but many of them are very less active or don't want anything to do with the church. From what I noticed a lot of people around here are so comfortable with their lives they don't see the need for the gospel which is sad, but that's why we are here so we can change that. 

On Saturday we had a New Year's Mission get together. It was casual dress and it was a lot of fun. It started with testimonies, then we played speedball and Dodge ball and we were going to watch the ball drop but due to some technical difficulties we couldn't.

New Year's Eve activity

Ogden Utah Mission- Connor is in the middle down from the N in New Year

On Sunday, we gave talks about the Christlike attribute of hope and I got a chance to meet some of the members in my new area. On Monday for P-day we lifted, went grocery shopping, played speedball for a couple hours, and then went bowling up at Fat Cats. Me and Elder Conrad's investigator, Darrin Festus, got baptized last night. It was quite the interesting baptism, he has severe ADHD and a form of autism, which made it difficult, he loved kicking his legs up and it took three times to get him under and then he was jumping around and hitting his hands on the glass of the font which was strange, but hey, he got baptized!

On a spiritual thought, I am going to talk about hope, The word hope is sometimes misunderstood. For instance we might hope the weather changes, or we might hope our favorite team wins, but with that hope there is that hint of uncertainty, we are not exactly positive the weather is going to change or that are favorite team will win, we just hope they do. But I didn't even know this myself until I read it from a gospel standpoint that hope is- " sure, unwavering, and active"! So something that I thought about for this new year is not hoping we change or better or self but having a sure unwavering confidence we will, and part of that change means we need to be active and doing what we can to change. And I personally have a hope that I will become more knowledgeable and have my faith grow this year in the gospel! When I wrote my talk, in studying,  I noticed that hope usually led back to one thing and that's the atonement! Mormon taught us that such hope comes only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He said “What is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise” (Moroni 7:41). What a great promise given that if we make the right choices, follow the commandments, pray, read, attend church, and endure to the end that we will return to live with our Heavenly Father again.


In closing I am so thankful for the Christlike attribute of hope. I am so grateful to know and have an understanding that we will one day return to live with our Heavenly Father again in the Celestial Kingdom. One of my favorite things I love so far about my mission is when we teach people who have never heard this message before. The look on there face when we tell them death is not the end and that they can see beloved family members they have lost says it all. I am so grateful for the knowledge of the plan of salvation. Something we do as as missionary is we always invite. So I would like to invite each and everyone of you to look for opportunities to develop this attribute of hope as well as share it with others. I can promise you that if you sincerely seek for opportunities to do that, the Lord will bless you, in the name of Jesus Christ,amen.