Elder Paddock's Adventures in Omaha: The Promised Land

The Zone

Now I'm beginning to remember why this area is really called the Promised Land of the mission. There's been so many miracles this week that have just reminded me that when we work our hardest the Lord blesses us with his prepared children to teach.

This week we've been doing a lot of knocking and there's been two lessons with people that we found and taught just this week that I'm so excited about.

The first is Helmer. Elder Peters and I found him while we were on exchanges and knocking doors. He was just hanging out in his hammock with his kid blasting some kind of hispanic music. As we were walking up to his house, he turned the music down and got really excited to see us. He said he'd never seen missionaries here nor in Guatemala and he was excited to learn more. Elder Peters and I just taught him a quick message about the Book of Mormon and left him with the Introduction to read before we stopped by again later in the week. When Elder Neuenswander and I came back, not only had he read the Introduction, but he saw that it cited Moroni 10:3-5, so he found that and read it too, then he moved on to just starting in 1 Nefi 1! And he loved everything he read! He said he felt so good about it and wanted to learn more. Then we had an amazing Restoration lesson with him, which he just soaked up.

The second amazing lesson was with Otilio and Maria. Elder Swan found them on his exchange and when we went back to teach them this week, Maria had read the entire Restoration pamphlet twice. She said right when she read it the first time that she felt a sincere desire to want to learn more. The Spirit was already testifying to her of the truthfulness of these things! Otilio and her both said that recently they've been trying to bring themselves and their family closer to God because they knew that they would need his help in all things. When we told them that the Book of Mormon would help them do just that, they promised us that as they went on their trip to Texas this week that they'd read and pray about it. I'm excited to follow up on that with them!

On top of all those, its been a great week! We had Zone Training this week, which is always fun. President Weston surprised all of us by showing up, so it was great to see him again and to learn from his counsel. Our Zone is great. I love being with these Elders and Sisters. They're so much fun and their faith is so strong! I'm excited for our back-to-back exchanges with the elders in Yankton and Vermillion, SD this week. Its going to be a lot of fun!

I hope you had a great week!

I love you!

Lots of love,

Elder Zack Paddock