Talmage Mission

Good Morning! There are now two dedicated temples in the Utah, St. George Mission! The Red Cliffs Temple Dedication yesterday makes St. George the only city to ever have the oldest and newest active temples in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I love that little fact.  I had the privilege of attending the Manti Temple Open House on Tuesday. It was a beautiful temple, I loved the murals and all the intricacies in the design. It was a beautiful place to be, and I got to go through with all the Elders in the mission! That made it even more special.  One thing our guide shared at the start of the tour stood out to me. He said that "Today, we are only presenting the box. What really matters is how the ordinances inside bring us closer to Christ." That's a loose quote, but I loved the ideas behind it. I love the architecture of the Manti Temple. Yet I was informed that the ordinances inside are more personal than other temples because of the time it takes to tran...

Good Morning!  True to form there's a ton that's happening as a missionary and almost enough time to accomplish it all. This week is shaping up to be a very good one, I hope it continues that way.  We ran into some interesting unexpected difficulties this week. I was asked to film a goofy video for the Zone. I don't know exactly what our Zone Leaders were expecting, but this is one of the first times I haven't wanted to do something for them. We have also struggled in getting members to our lessons this week. And don't forget we might break our mile limit soon!  In all of these difficulties, things tend to work out. God had his hand in our work. The video worked out and the Spanish Elders helped me relax. We've recommitted to having members at lessons. We're working to find some rides between the towns and some people are becoming available!  Other completely unrelated tender mercies: - we got to chastise (encourage with love) a ward - despite lots of walkin...

Good Morning! Elders, Sisters, and Brothers; my missionary service is far spent, but it has been well spent. Tomorrow marks the beginning of my final transfer as a missionary, and it will be a 5 week transfer on top of that. I am staying in Minersville with Elder Dale, so nothing much is changing over here. We have some good momentum, hopefully we can capitalize on some of that over the next few weeks!  We had the baptisms of Journie & Tyne, as well as Joshua this last Saturday. They were all confirmed on Sunday, at the same time, in completely different towns! So we definitely were late to Journie & Tyne's confirmations, but that's okay. I had the privilege of performing them, so they couldn't start without me. I'll be honest, the joy of helping them prepare for and be baptized was completely overshadowed by what happened later that day . . .  We had a Mission Conference with Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He visited our mission bri...

Good Morning! It is safe to say that this has been one of the weirdest weeks of my missionary service. Nothing necessarily went wrong, but everything happened differently than I'd anticipated.  I would like to focus on some positives. I learned more about the spiritual progress of two of my friends who I helped baptize. First, Tori (from back in Salina) is sealed and has already started her little family! Her and McCoy moved back to Beaver to be closer to home, so I got the opportunity to drop in and see how they're doing. Second, Aaliyah (from Utah Tech campus) is heading to the San Antonio, Texas Mission! She has been endowed and chose to serve a mission, and I am so proud of her decision. And I'm especially proud that she gets to go to the second best mission in the world!  As a note regarding successes, we found a new friend named Richard last week. He told us he wanted to be baptized, then got sick, but after a week we were able to meet again! Now we have consistent le...