Called to Serve: April 7, 2014 ~ Week 37

Well everyone, this week has been exciting, and great in Reading but I have come to an important conclusion... Conference really isn't JUST for me. It really isn't. I came to this conclusion on Saturday evening during priesthood session. Throughout the day I had been watching conference, taking notes, and feeling the spirit so strongly, but not once did I ever have a moment where I thought, "hey I really needed that!" But I will tell you one thing, and that is that as I was sitting there I kept having all of these names popping into my head, of people who needed to hear what the speaker was teaching. It made me think about all the things I will need to make sure I teach my kids when they start showing up. It made me think about all the ways that the prophet, and apostles, and other speakers were preparing everyone in the church for the battles to come. If you didn't watch conference, then that makes me sad. Mostly because there was something from conference that you were meant to share with another, but were unable to. Now this little bit of my email didn't turn out nearly as well as I had planned out in my head, but yeah. The only way you can come to Christ is by helping others come unto Him... And reading your scriptures and saying your prayers, and being an example and stuff. That's good too. But yeah! Conference was great! We didn't have any investigators watching, but it was good nonetheless.

Missionary work in this area is kind of overwhelming sometimes... Well a lot of the time. We are working with 40-50 different people right now. In the last 2 weeks we have 31 new investigators, but most of them didn't keep their return appointment so that is the real struggle here.....Getting people to take this seriously. I'm honestly doing so great though. With the way things are, I get to teach people all day everyday, which means the spirit is fully with me all day... every day... That may not make sense to people who haven't had the experience to teach the gospel, but it is amazing. The Morales family that I mentioned last week, had to cancel an appointment, and with them not having a phone, it's been real hard to get in contact with them, so not much has changed there, but besides that I just have so many names and people I want to talk about, without enough patience, or time to talk about them! So I will talk maybe just about one experience I particularly enjoyed. We were walking down the streets of Reading and there were all these kids playing in the streets and a mom and a grandma sitting there watching them. We started talking to them, as missionaries do, and mind you this is right after a zone training that talked a lot about family history work in missionary work, they said their names. The kid's names were: Jesus, Jade, Jelexa, Jared, and Jess. I was able to bring up my families ever lasting problem of being Cody, Kylie, Cayden, and Kiera. {I think it's funny Elder J included our cat as a kid name in our family.} They laughed when I told them that and then I bore my testimony about families, and God's eternal plan for them. It was one of the most solid, personal street contacts I've had in a while. It was way cool! But yeah!

Transfer calls come on Friday, so I will let you all know what my fate is next week! Know that this Gospel is true, and that conference is the best, and that there is absolutely no reason for any of us to not be strictly following the commandments of God. Bye!!!

~Elder Jorgensen

{Luncheon between conference sessions...Thanks for the pictures Sharon!}