I love member missionary work!!!

So I forgot to mention a couple of things last week - we've had a couple of CRAZY storms out here. Like, close to hurricane status. It was absolutely insane, and it reminded me of monsoon season back home. The summer weather here really varies...some days, it will rain all day, other days it will be blisteringly hot, other days it's cloudy and overcast, but really really humid. It makes life interesting, I suppose. And the other thing was that on my birthday, Elder Langford went behind my back and told our dinner appointment that it was my birthday. After dinner, they surprised me with cake, candles, and ice cream. It was so great - my companion is legit. Just saying.

I woke up on Tuesday and realized it was July 24th - Pioneer Day! I got excited and wondered what was going to be going on that day...I then realized that I'm in Massachusetts, and Pioneer Day is only a Utah state holiday that sometimes people in Arizona take part in. Oops.

Trainings and interviews with Pres. Packard were AWESOME this last week. He's an incredible, divinely-inspired man. He's got some really great visions for this mission, and I'm excited for it all! He's putting a huge front on working with the members to help them do missionary work (I'll come back to this topic in a moment) and he also wants us to become a "Book of Mormon mission" and to be "Book of Mormon missionaries" - we've been applying the principles he shared, and we've already noticed a difference! It's amazing. As I walked out of my interview with him, he gave me a very short piece of personalized advice that didn't really have anything to do with what we had talked about together. I'm convinced that he's been called by God and is inspired of Him in everything he does as our mission president.

We had a little phone conference with all the Cambodian-speaking missionaries in the mission this last weekend...all 6 of us. The reason being that the Water Festival is coming up next month! It's a HUGE Cambodian event, and Cambodians from across the country come to Lowell, MA for it. Every year, the Cambodian missionaries have a booth, and we get to basically proselyte there the whole day. It's going to be so awesome! So we're doing our best to coordinate efforts and make this all work!

Yesterday, our ward focused sacrament meeting as well as the combined 3rd hour on sharing the gospel with others. I was asked by the bishopric to speak in sacrament meeting, and then Elder Langford and I taught the 3rd hour, using principles from the Member Missionary Lessons, which were designed by Clayton Christensen (a member of our stake and the former Dean of the Harvard Business School) to help members in their missionary efforts. Both my talk and our lesson went very, very well, and now Elder Langford and I have a bunch of appointments in the next few weeks with members to teach more of the lessons! I love the push that has come from our ward mission leader, as well as our mission president, to focus on member missionary work. I'm so excited to see our ward progress and share the gospel with others!

Frank baptized his son David yesterday! It was unbelievable. I loved being there to see my most recent convert, worthily exercising the Aaronic Priesthood to baptize his son, who just turned 8 last week. It was really, really special to see. It's funny how the people you share the gospel with seem to work their way into your heart. I feel like this whole new compartment of my heart opened up that I didn't know was there, and I love these people and their families all the more. As I've helped them come closer to Christ, I've come closer to Him as well. This whole mission is a life-changing experience, and I'm so grateful, honored, humbled, and downright happy to be a part of it.

Elder DeLong