Surprise Talk

Elder Walker's family received a letter from his mission president informing them of his call to serve as a District Leader. He began his service as District Leader when he was transferred to Orangeburg.

I'm glad you opened your letter to me about giving talks. Guess who gave a talk yesterday? I was asked 5 minutes before sacrament meeting if I would give a talk. Among greeting people and being excited for many of our investigators that ended up showing up these were my notes by the time I reached the pulpit that I wrote down on a sticky note:


Temptation
Amalickiah story
Alma 47:18
1 Ne 4:31 vs 1 Ne 2:16
1 Ne 4:6
overcoming temptation
Hel 3:29
Alma 17:11 -> Alma 26:16
Alma 57:21
Hel 10:4-5 -> 3 Ne 7:18
3 Ne 17:3

I also ended up reading part of Matt chapter 4 right before 3 Ne 17:3 and I announced my talk title at the beginning of my talk as "temptation and trials and how we can overcome them". I ended up giving about a 20 min talk... it was a little sketchy and would have been loads better had I had 30 min preparation, but it was still pretty good.

Bishop Ross is our bishop. He is a very busy bishop but found time to come out with us to two lessons Saturday night (both of which came to Sacrament meeting). The lessons went great and one of them is half on date to be baptized and the other will be baptized. B– is someone we met Thursday and is the person on date to be baptized. The day before he lost his job and drove out to Orangeburg to live with his parents for a little while, the week before he got separated and his 2 year old daughter is stuck in the middle of it. We talked to him Thursday and spoke to him for about 10-15 min standing outside by his truck. When we first saw him he was depressed, when we left he was uplifted and thinks, "This might be the thing I am looking for." He told us Saturday night with Bishop that immediately after we left he "got very very emotional" and "knows that God does care about him" and no longer, if he ever did, believe in coincidences.

Bishop, then at church, found two other people he didn't recognize at church, one of which came on her own from a recommendation from her co-worker from the Aiken ward and ended up knowing the Relief Society president 40 years ago. The other person was Lee: Lee is a newspaper journalist writer and our investigator. Bishop was so hyped up on the Spirit because of the great missionary work he took part in from the night before that after we introduced him to Lee at church he took it upon himself to give him a church tour during the Sunday School hour. A good number of less-active members came too! If we keep up this rate of progression, then we'll end up being really good servants of the Lord by the end of the transfer: the day Joshua leaves.

Well, I brought my journal, so I'll continue my other entree that has been a draft for a long time now about Elder Bedner, just remember, don't quote me quoting Elder Bednar, in case I didn't quote him verbatim or in the context he intended it to be in.