Zone conference and Elder Ballard

This week has been pretty crazy. So on Tuesday we had our zone conference. We learned a lot about owning your area. There was a bunch of different people that talked to us and it was just a really good day. On Wednesday we had district meetings. Thursday we went to lunch with the zone leaders from another zone and another set of elders. We had 5 guys, I didn't realize how expensive that place is. But that's alright it was still a lot of fun. We have a couple of investigators now so that is good. One of them is a part member, and another is a guy that lives way out in the middle of no where. It is right by a members home so it will be really good for fellowshipping. 

As you know on Saturday we had the elder Ballard conference up in d.c.  There was a lot of really good information given to us. I did get to talk to Kaden McDonald for a while. So it is a really bad deal over in Ukraine. He is hoping that they will reopen the mission so he can go back, but he says that more than likely there is going to be a war there so they won't do that. It was really good to talk to him. He said that one of the first things that president asked him to do was message Jared and try to get him back out. 

Sorry that I don't have a ton to report on. Maybe when we start teaching it will get better!

Love you all!

A great new area, and a great new Companion!

So as you know on Thursday we had transfers.So i told you last night that i am now in Warrenton. We cover the furthest west of the mission. It is about 25 miles west of Centreville i believe. So we were sitting in transfers and i am always anxious to know where i would be going to. So a little bit before the meeting started i was in the bathroom with elder Alofipo, (the Samoan in the picture with me that i sent to you) and President Riggs walked in and hugged us both and he told me that i should be excite because i am getting an awesome companion and an awesome area. So when he said that it made me even more nervous because i am pretty sure we have different vies on whats awesome.

I was absolutely shocked to learn that i would be companions with Elder Tolle. He has been my zone leader for the past 2 transfers, and he is also going home at the end of this one. So i never thought that i would be companions with him, but here i am. So if you look on the map, Warrenton is more out in the middle of no where. So it kinda takes me back to Roosevelt. We cover a lot of farmland so we are going to try to start doing a lot of service to try to get into peoples homes. We cant do much Tracting because where we cover, houses are really spread out.

On Saturday we helped with a wedding reception. That was another one of those things that i thought i would never do. So we served the food and helped with a little bit of the clean up. During the dancing we sat against the wall just tapping our foot and wishing we could be part of the slow dancing. But missionaries cant do that. So that was really interesting. Also that night i met someone that i have talked to before back in American Fork. The Mayne family is in our ward out here in Warrenton. I went to school with their son who is currently on his mission in Germany. We were actually in the same year of school so that was pretty cool. She actually worked at the front office on both the Junior high and the high school so i remember her from that. It is really weird that connections you make out here.

We don't have anything planned this week. We think that we are going to be doing a lot of service here. From all the service that we have done in the past 4 days we have gotten about 135 dollars from doing things. We try not to take it but people insist so we do. We are going to use it to buy groceries for the apartment. We have a grill on our porch so we are going to get some steaks and grill those up. 

I love you all thanks for your support and Write me a letter!!
blake.laing@myldsmail.net
or my new address in Warrenton is:  762B Cedar Crest Dr. Warrenton,  VA 20186