Week 61 8/24/15

8.24.15 Oh the Blessings!

Hey Yall!

well, this week has just flown by! With transfers and trying to learn a new area, ive been a bit overwhelmed. in the best way haha.

As i said before, my new companion is Elder Littleford, he is an awesome elder from south jordan utah. We are serving together in whats called the Bessemer East Zone (Beast Zone) as Zone Leaders. So, as i said, ive been learning A LOT!! The work isnt neccesarily different, but its a lot of stuff you never thought about! We do a lot more administrative things and planning, working with members, etc. As well as going on exchanges at least once if not twice a week! We plan Zone trainings, collect numbers, run conference calls, and due to the fact that the Assistants are in our zone, we also assist them with anything they need.

For example, This last Thursday Elder Littleford and i got up at 430am to help the assistants get all of the missionaries returning home to the airport. We had to drive one of the mission vans with them and then drive the vans around while the missionaries went to check in in order to avoid paying for parking. Then, we had to help them park the luggage trailer and get the vans parked back where they should be. It was, however, an amazing experience! This transfer we had 9 of the spanish Elders Leave. 3 of which were my former companions and most of the others i had served around. It was sad and happy to see them go, but it was a really cool expirience to have Elders gunther and Mayer come out and hug us right before they  went through security. I wont forget that soon!

So, those are just some of the types of things im doing now. Its a blast because it allows me to spend so much time serving the other missionaries around me, as well as the people in Alabama!

Now lets see.... The ward i am in is called the inverness ward, but technically it is the southern part of birmingham. it was once a seperate city called inverness but has been annexed by Birmingham. It is a very wealthy area as well! We basically live in the center of business and commerce. So, the traffic is crazy! We are always finding ourselves stuck in traffic and so we make a lot of calls and do our planning while driving to make the most effective use of our time. This area is beautiful though! 

We are teaching a few different people as well! A hispanic family (part member) That we are helping get into the spanish branch once again, a few younger couples, and a family from hawaii that are awesome!! We also had a cool expirience where on saturday we ran into a girl named Rayshaun who investigated the church 6 months ago. After talking to her she really wanted to come back and we were able to get her to church on sunday! she is pretty cool and we are excited to work with her. We dont really know her story yet but we are praying for greta things this transfer!

Lastly, The stake President of this stake is absolutely the best stake president ive ever talked to! We had a stake priesthood meeting this sunday and he (President Johnson) gave one of the most phenomenal talks on missionary work i have ever heard! he talked about the 4 O's of missionary work.

Objective

Obedience

Oppurtunity

and

Oh the blessings!

I really hope that it inspired the preisthood of this stake to take the extra step! to invite the missionaries over to teach and then have faith to be able to bring someone into their home for the missionarys to teach. missionary work is so much more effective with all of you! all the members of the church! and oh the blessings!

Well, thats all the time i have, love you all!

-- 

-Elder Steele

ps. heres a website to check out:)

https://www.lds.org/training/wwlt/2013/hastening/members-and-missionaries?lang=eng#media=