March 2, 2010

Hello,

I hope that this email finds everyone doing well. It's been quite the week for me. Early this past week I got a call from the Assistants to the President. They invited me to attend a Leadership Training that would be held on Thursday, Feb.25th. I didn't say this to them on the phone, but I was thinking to myself, 'Why do they want me to come to a leadership training for all the leaders in the mission? I'm not in a leadership position.' I accepted and said that I would be there. It was a 4 hour training in Ogden for all of the leaders and a few select others...one of them being me (They told me to leave my companion in Brigham City with another missionary while I attended the meeting). I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot. I thanked President Olson for inviting me...and while we were talking, we were kinda joking around about why he would have invited me, and he told me that he had his reasons. Hmm. Since then, I have been able to attend a District Leader Training with our zone leaders and the 2 district leaders in our zone. We all talked about the training we recieved in Ogden, and talked about what to train missionaries on in the future. I went on an exchange yesterday with my district leader Elder Marion and during our exchange we planned a training for the district that we will be giving together tomorrow. It's gonna be sweet. I'm interested to see what will happen this coming transfer. President told me that I would only be with Elder Onon for one transfer so we'll see what happens.
I got a blessing earlier this week from my zone leaders. It was interesting because in the blessing it said that if I worked hard and was obedient, that I would be healed. So guess what I'm doing? Haha. Working hard and being obedient! Not that I wasn't doing that already but ya know. :) I went to the Chiropractor and he told me to do some stretches at home and that it should help. He told me to get a work out/body ball to use so I got one yesterday. Bro. & Sis. Parsons bought it for me. :) She is the Relief Society President and that are way cool. She even fixed one of my suit jackets for me. The liner of the jacket was wearing and coming apart so she fixed it up for me. I'll send you the part of the liner that she replaced for me so that you can see it.
We committed 2 people in one day this week to keep the Word of Wisdom. It was way cool because one of the guys that we committed you could tell had a hard time doing it, but after the lesson, we walked out of his apartment with 2 big bags full of a coffee maker, coffee, tea, ciggarettes, and an ash tray. It's awesome to see people make steps like that in their lives to come closer to the Savior. We started teaching a few new people this week and picked up a new date last night. The work is going well and I am enjoying my mission.
President Olson called us this week and told us that we had been invited to a luncheon by the Mongolian Delegation who is coming to Brigham City today. They are coming to look into opening some kind of branch associated with Utah State, and are having a luncheon at Maddox. A group of people are coming from Mongolia and they want my companion Elder Onon to be there. We are going there in about an hour and I think Elder Onon is pretty excited. We'll try to get pics and send them to you. It should be interesting for me since I don't speak the language at all.
We have 2 baptisms coming up this weekend for two little 9 year olds. One is named Bridger Eddings and his baptism is on Saturday, and then the other is Lily Pickett, and her baptism will be on sunday. I'm excited...we haven't had a baptism since I've been here so it will be nice. We have 6 set up for this month so hopefully everything will go well for the people that we are teaching so that they can make their baptismal dates.
Well I better go. I love you guys and miss ya a lot. I hope that everything is going well. Your in my thoughts and prayers daily. We went to the Ogden Temple this morning and did a session. It was nice to be inside the Temple and feel the Spirit that is there. It had seemed like it had been forever since we had been to the Temple, but it had only been 2 weeks. You guys should go to the Temple as often as you can!!! How is the missionary work going in the ward? Pray for missionary experiences, not just opportunities! Remember that you must prepare yourselves to do missionary work, which includes daily prayer and scripture study, and weekly church attendance. God is preparing people for the Gospel all over the place, but God isn't going to put someone that is prepared for the Gospel in the hands of someone that isn't prepared to share it. Do what you need to do to get prepared so that you can be a part of this great work, bring people unto Christ!!! I love you all and hope to hear from you soon. The church is true!!!

~Elder Micheal Watts