Happy Easter and General Conference and Left the Mission - 4/6/18

Hey y'all! 

Tuesday, we did our laundry and went shopping. Then we went to get a car wash and came back to the flat to change and email. Then we went out to lunch with the zone leaders and played basketball at the church building. And the YSA Sisters came too. We got a call from a member to come over for dinner at the end of the p-day. So we went to have dinner with the McBrides and they are super cool, chill people. Then we exchanged with the zone leaders. Wednesday, we did our studies and went out to lunch. Then we had a really good lesson with our investigator Chloe who has a baptismal date for the 14th and helped a women packed her car because someone told her to leave California and NEVER come back since she testified against her cousin's ex-husband for a restraining order and restraining order against his son and is now going to kill her for testifying against him. Anyways the whole thing is just a big mess and crazy legal stuff. We went to help a member in the Mandarin Group bring her big tv into her tiny car which by the way it barely fit, I was surprised. And she took us out to Costco for dinner and wanted us to shop for her. Then we tried a few people and exchanged back and had call-ins. Thursday, the zone leaders came to our place and we drove up together to Zone Conference at Camp Wild Wood where we did a service project, team building activities, a hike to the cross on top of the hill and some training from President and Sister Stubbs. While we did the activities, we did them as a district which I loved because it helped me to understand as a district leader what they can do as a team and it brought us closer together and showing more love and appreciation for each other. We're the only district in the whole mission that has 4 compaionships of Sisters and 3 out of 4 companionships are MOBAT Sisters which I don't mind but can be crazy but anyways, the activities we did today helped me appreciate the Sisters more with love and gratitude as a district leader. Then we drove back to the flat to change and have dinner with the Ostlers and did some finding. Friday, we did our studies and had service for "Grandma" and Linner. Then we helped sister Trimble to move another tv and she took us out to dinner. Then she wanted us to shop for her so we did and then did some weekly planning. Saturday, we went to pick up the UC 1st Elders and went to the stake centre to watch the Saturday morning general conference and it was awesome to hear our beloved general authorities and to watch the Solemn Assembly. It was cool to hear from Brian Taylor, I remembered when he was the stake president of the Mueller Park stake. Then we had lunch and gave a blessing to one of the sisters in my district since she was feeling sick. Then we watched the afternoon session and went to Mira Mesa to do some finding until dinner with our Chinese WML and a correlation meeting. Then we went back to the church to watch the Priesthood Session and helped a member in the Mandarin Group for some service. I loved in Elder Lynn G. Robbins talk, he talks about failures will be accomplished daily but because of Jesus Christ and God made it possible for us to have as many chances as we need to stay on the straight and narrow path. In life, we all make mistakes but through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, the Savior of the World and Redeemer, we can overcome those sins and become clean again and become closer to our Heavenly Father. Sunday, Happy Easter and Gotcha Day(for me)!! Today marks the 19th anniversary that the Newman family adopted me from Tianjin, China. We went over to a members home from the Mandarin Group to have breakfast and watch conference. The member is from Shanghai and grew up in Puxi and married an American girl. When they go back to Shanghai they visit the Jinqiao branch which is the one that I went to before the original Pudong branch. At the end of the morning session when President Nelson spoke, he talked about get a personal revelation and during his whole talk, I was thinking about the relationship between the church and China. And how I was think that I it will open up soon when he was talking about before Christ comes again, every nation on this earth will have a chance to hear the gospel and for some reason China kept popping in my mind. And at the end of the afternoon session when they announced the new temples, one very special temple was in the "talking" in Russia. Now I don't think that it was a coincidence that God decided to put another temple in Russia for no reason especially with the relations between the church and Russia right now. I am certain that God has a very special plan for hastening his work and it's faster than we know it. And also having another temple in Utah, of all places it's in Layton, kinda crazy. Then we went over to the Pilkingtons from the UC 1st ward to have lunch and watch general conference with them and it was fun as we played conference bingo and eat food. Then we had a pass-off-lesson with the Mandarin Sisters up in Carlsbad and by the way, that's out of our mission, it's the Carlsbad Mission, hint hint. The Carlsbad Mission is part of my area since there isn't any Chinese speaking missionaries in the Carlsbad Mission so we cover up there too but still have to get permission to leave the mission boundaries. We had dinner with the Nelsons and helped someone moved into the ward and had call-ins. Monday, we did some service at the food bank and they gave us a lot of food. Then we went to the church building to do stake packets and Elder Chen did MyPlan and have lunch. Then we did our studies and did some finding until we had a really good lesson with Chloe and she is so prepared. Then we went over to our English WML to have correlation and his wife fed us dinner. We did some finding and got a carwash. 

-Elder Luke Newman (黎夏碧)