Back to Monday P-days...

Well... as I just had a p-day on friday, not enough has really happened for me to write out my traditional long email -- I hope that's alright. Today I mostly just want to worry about fixing our skype plans! I think that honestly, about 7:30 would be best for me. Elder Villacreses and I are going to be in Mariano on Sunday, but we need to travel to the office Sunday night to prepare to go on another trip to Santa Rosa to get Elder Villacreses his license on Monday. So, what I'm trying to get to is that Sunday night at 7:30 my time (4:30 your time) is when I'll plan on getting on to communicate with you guys! I'm so excited! I can't believe the time has finally come for my last skype call...

But now I kind of feel bad for not sending any sort of update... so here are a few points from my week:

On Saturday Elder Villacreses and I had a big meeting with President where we planned the monthly mission council meeting with the zone leaders and where we planned for the zone conferences as well. He gave us a ton of things to do and a long list of people to call, but I'm really excited about the change. We're only going to have to go on two trips, so we'll even be able to spend the majority of our time in our area!

Sunday was just a regular Sunday in our area. We went to church, listened to the lessons and testimony meetings there, went to lunch and then did some visits. One funny story though is what happened in our lunch. We were eating with the branch president's wife's family (they're pretty well-off) and halfway through the lunch (that stuffed us both so full that we thought we were going to throw up on the way home), the whole family got in a semi-heated discussion about whether or not Wolverine got his metal claws back in the second movie or not. The best part? The 50-60-ish year-old mother was one of the most enthusiastic participants in the chat. It's been a while since I've seen anyone get so excited about movies!

This morning we had the mission council meeting. Normally we do it in the mission office, but this time we did it in President's house so that it could be a more intimate setting for everyone in an attempt to help them all feel comfortable enough to open up. It was a fantastic meeting where President talked about leadership, we taught a little part on helping investigators keep the commitments they make with us, and all sorts of great stuff. My favorite part though was a small discussion on the doctrine of the fall of Adam and Eve. He opened up talking about how when Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit they became mortals, and that as part of being mortals, their hearts started to pump blood. He talked about how blood is part of what makes us mortals and how, thanks to our mortal bodies, someday we'll die. After opening up that way, he started talking about another type of blood: the symbolic "blood" of sin that stains us. His focus was the doctrine taught in Jacob 1:19 "Wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day." Then, continuing, he spoke about how Christ shed his blood so that we can all repent of our sins and be clean. So we talked about blood a lot, which is sort of weird for a mission conference type deal, but I loved the comparisons he made. The question he asked that hit me the hardest was: "How is it fair that the sins of others can 'stain our garments'? Why do we have to preach repentance so that 'their blood might not come upon our garments'?" The answer: because Christ took all our sins upon him even though he wasn't responsible for us. I don't know if the way I explained that makes any sense, but basically what I got from it is that we need to follow the example of Jesus Christ in every way possible, and sometimes that means taking upon ourselves the responsibility for the mistakes of others. We'll never have to or be able to suffer like he suffered, but we can do our best in our own little ways to lift others up and help them on their paths the way Christ helped us all.

I hope that makes a little bit of sense -- It's a thought I loved!

But yeah, in a nutshell, that's been my last three days! See you guys on Sunday!!!

Love,
Elder Fairbanks