Tucson-- #2

Hey family!

First week in the mission has been so amazing! I neglected to mention my companion's name in my last email. His name is Elder McKenna and he is from Utah. My first night in my area was so weird. Went to a dinner appointment and then my first lesson. The lesson was with an investigator named
Bradley. We read Mark 5 with him because he is trying to stop smoking and I told him that when you have faith in Jesus Christ you can overcome any problem. At the end of the lesson I committed him to baptism (he has already had all the lessons) and he said YES! Funny story actually haha. I committed him to August 29th by accident instead of September 29th and he still said yes. The Lord is preparing people in my area to hear the Gospel. We ran into a lady while tracting. She had just moved to Tucson and was looking for a church that she could attend. She saw the LDS Church on the
corner of the street and wanted to go inside but did not know if they would allow non-members to come inside. I chuckled inside and we told her that she could indeed come and we invited her to church and set up an appointment to meet with her. We were following up on a referral from a member in going to see a part member family. The husband is less-active and his new wife is not a member. We talked with her wife in the driveway and she mentioned that she was real interested in learning about the Church and her husband really wants to start going back to church. She wanted to wait for her husband to get home before she made an appointment, we are going to call them today and set up and appointment. Just talking to her, she seemed really interested in taking the missionary lessons and learning about the Church.

After Church yesterday some members came back into the building to tell us that someone outside wanted to talk to us. His name is Joel and he is currently homeless. As we were talking with him he said that he wanted to change his life around and saw the church so he just waited outside so he could meet with someone. He was so grateful for the love, concern, and care that the members had shown him because he is so used to people ignoring him because he is homeless and not like a "normal" person. We gave him a number to contact about finding housing, and a mormon.org card with our number on it along with a Restoration pamphlet. We have an appointment to meet with him tomorrow in the morning. There is a missionary in my zone that has Crohn's too. In fact he just got back out into the field after having surgery. I talked to him for a little bit during lunch after our
District Meeting.

So Elder Ballard came and vistited us last Friday. It was so cool! The meeting was set to start at 10:30AM but Elder Ballard showed up at 9:40ish, shook all of the missionaries hands and the meeting started no later than 10. There is no such thing as mormon standard time to Apostles. He was accompanied by Elder Gay of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy and Elder Pickard, an Area seventy. Elder Ballard was so funny. He talked about the Book of Mormon and the importance of knowing all of the missionary lessons so you can better teach them and apply them to the needs of investigators. I was "starstruck" while listening to him. I was no more than 20 feet away from an Apostle! He ended with a q&a session but I couldn't think of a good and appropriate question to ask him in that setting. He closed the meeting with his testimony. It was one strong testimony! The Spirit was so strong as he spoke and he indeed was speaking by the Spirit. He had no notes and spoke for a good 45 minutes.

At church I ran into Josh Hawkins, whom I had not seen since I went to EFY at BYU two years ago. Its pretty funny that my first area is the same ward of someone that I know. It was good to see him after not seeing him for two years. I saw a Chuze Fitness gym and the first I thought of was Brother  and  Sister Huff. They have to be close. Maybe in my next area?

Love,

Elder Urry
LiveStrong