February 3rd Letter

me with our zone title of liberty. do i look like the picture of capt Moroni?

Wow this week has been unreal. SO spirit PACKED. We had zone conference Thursday where a new mission slogan was presented, "My Mission Belongs to the Lord." Its cool. We each got a picture of Christ and it has that on a sticker at the bottom. It was a good zone conference where i felt there were some things i could do to be better. THEN we had an awesome zone leader council this last Friday where President Archibald talked a lot about covenants and the importance of them. Then after that, the APs presented our baptismal goal for march. 100. That's almost 5 times what we normally get. Normally i would be skeptical and be like, wha? To be honest, i was not excited for ZLC one bit because i just saw it as a second day in a row where we just sat for 8 hours and were trained on stuff. but IMMEDIATELY the Spirit hit me like crazy like an adrenaline rush and i knew it was possible. My heart was swiftly changed. So we had an intense meeting after that talking about what we had to do. SO what we came to was that we needed to make a covenant with the Lord to give everything to him. To devote ourselves 100% to the work and everything. We all made a list of things that we were doing that we aren't supposed to and someone said, emailing friends. I was like, oh yeah, that's a rule. So yeah. That's kinda where were at now. Then we put it to an actual vote of who supported this. 26 out of 26 yes' were read and as they were being read i looked over at President Archibald and saw that his eyes were red and tearing up a bit. It really showed how much he cares for us, for the work, and for the Lord. That was a cool experience. We were given the responsibility to take this to ours zones and present it powerfully. I was so nervous for that and felt really inadequate. We all fasted on Sunday for the strength for everyone to be in the right mindset to achieve it and i felt strengthened by that. Monday morning we did the training and i talked about covenants a lot, and it was cool, because these were the notes i went into it with. "PMG baptism (cuz it talks about covenants), D&C 33:7-10, notes from ZLC, and D&C 76:5-7" I talked for at least 45 minutes. The Spirit totally took over and helped me out. It was awesome. And the good thing was i wasn't just rambling. Good things were being said and good discussion came up. Then we presented the goal and everything to the zone, and we did this thing where we had a white shirt, wrote on it,"My Mission Belongs to the Lord" (our new mission slogan) and had squares that people could tear off and write the same thing on them and keep them. Its like everyone got their own personal title of liberty! Then everyone signed the shirt. It was awesome and a lot of people liked it. we do have a few party poopers in out zone. So after we said all of our stuff, we talked about how we all need to make our own personal covenant, and to go to a different room of the chapel and do it. I then said, "well, I'm going to make mine," and walked out of the room into another one. Then i heard and saw people walk by the door of the room i was in and it felt so good to see that. Then, after praying, we went back in the room, where we had put a shredder, and have everyone make a list of their weaknesses. Then like the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, we buried/shredded our sins away, and signed the shirt and tore off a piece. It was cool. Then we made a covenant as a zone. It was an awesome experience. I've really seen that its HARD to focus on everything, and be 100%. But i know its possible. It just take effort. Afterwards we had a few missionaries come up to us and thank us for everything. It felt good to be that instrument in the hands of the Lord. WOW. On Sunday we met with Lana, the Jewish girl, and afterwards, she asked us if we would be ok with her advertising our church tours. We said yes. Her boyfriend later dropped off this paper that they were putting on a lot of bulletin boards and stuff in the UNIVERSITY!!!! Its LEGIT! wow it was cool to see that. Our INVESTIGATOR is doing that. She's awesome. I hope some good comes from it. We told her we could get the phone numbers from the other missionaries in the city for her so they could all be in the prospective areas, but she goes,"No, no, only my elders." it was funny. But as you can see life is going really good. I'm excited to play some bball today. It seems like i can never get enough of it. I'm out of shape though. Its embarrassing. haha I love you all! ELder Crippen