June 18, 2012

The weeks tend to be going by faster now. This week especially since
we had a lot of meetings this past week. While two meetings were the
regular training meetings, the other meeting was a special one because
our guest speaker was Elder Ballard! It was cool because Elder Scott
was suppose to come but got sick so Elder Ballard came in his place.
He talked a lot about dealing with hardships through the mission. He
gave us some advice on what he usually does when times get tough for
him. He remembers the atonement of Christ, His suffering in the
garden, and the pain He went through on the cross. He mentioned that
doing so always gives him strength and he promised it would help us
during our missions/lives too. Another subject he talked about was
missionaries being called to Utah. He told us how missions started
here. It all started when nobody could answer President Kimball's
question as to why there weren't any missionaries here in Utah! Haha
so yeah with the new missions forming here in a few weeks there will
be 800 missionaries in the Salt Lake City area. Elder Ballard told us
that were are special missionaries because we have to bring a lot of
inactives back into the Church in order to strengthen Zion in Salt
Lake. Our mission president also said that while Elder Ballard was
walking out, he wouldn't stop talking about how well and obedient we
looked so our mission president was very proud of us.
  With this week being filled with meetings, we didn't exactly find
many new people to teach. However, with this young couple we are
teaching, the divorce papers are finally coming through! We are
helping them prepare for their wedding and baptism this coming
weekend!
  I gave my first talk in sacrament meeting yesterday in spanish! I
went for about 8 minutes talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Everyone told me that I have very good pronunciation and many say that
I don't even have an american accent in spanish (for me that is a HUGE
accomplishment!).

Elder Parks