"Not I" said the zone leader. I don't have much time to email today because we only have 5 hours today for p-day because we're keeping ourselves too busy. And most of that 5 hours is going to be spent preparing a stop smoking program for an investigator that we're teaching at 4 today and starting the program with. And we didn't leave the flat til 11 today studying it. I'm really praying hard that it goes well. I've never run the stop smoking program before but I've heard a lot of really good reviews on it. I talked to Shay Preedy yesterday at church and he said that he did the program when he was quitting when he was coming back to church and he said that it was amazing, that no other program works as well as that one does. The investigator that we're doing it with today is named Jeff Tangaroa. He's related to the Tuaanas and the Tregos in our ward and he asked us if he could do it. For those of you that don't know about the program, it's very full on. It takes a lot of preparation on our part and a lot of hard work on his part. There's 15 steps to follow that include drinking unsweetened grapefruit juice after every meal and brushing and using mouthwash after every meal. It's not about using will power to quit (although I'm sure that does play a role in it), but it's more about turning off the bells that make people want to smoke. Lots of people can quite for short periods of time by will power alone, but if they want to make it permanent, they have to turn off those bells, which is where the program comes in. So we're stoke for it.
I went on two exchange this week, which doesn't quite seem possible because of how fast the week has gone. I went on one with Elder Narhwold on Tuesday and then Elder Ariki on Saturday. They were both really good exchanges. The amount of exchanges that we do as zone leaders is kind of crazy though, one last week, two this week, and one next week. Back in the day I'd be lucky to do two exchanges in the one transfer. Sometimes you just really want to stay in your own area and work with your own companion too because you have so much good stuff happening that you both want to be there for, but then again sometimes it's good to have a bit of difference in your life. Change it up every now and then. Elder Ariki and I hit the bikes hard on Saturday and come Sunday I was dead. We had to go to two sacrament meetings as well because Elder Hodgkiss had to go talk to somebody down in Mandurah ward. By about 6:30 in the evening last night, I was ready for a sleep. But Sunday night means correlating which means I knew it was going to be a late night. We ended up correlating until about 11:45, well, Elder Hodgkiss correlated until about 11:45. I was out by about 11. I tried though.
This coming week we have a mission conference with Elder Evans of the Seventy who is going to be the new director of the missionary department. He's coming just for a short visit so we're getting the mission together on Wednesday and having a conference with him from 9-12, lunch from 12-1, and Leadership meeting from 1-3 or 4. Knowing meetings, they always run over time, but it's supposed to get done at 3. We had a Zone Conference this past week which is just our zone and Southern River Zone combined and we got to listen to President talk to us for a good amount of time about the doctrine of Christ. Very simple topic, but yet so deep. It was a great spiritual feast. The assistants did a training on the new commitment pattern which is so inspired and it's amazing that we didn't think of it sooner because it just makes so much more sense. They got the idea for it from the Elder Robbins talk from General conference about the Be's and Do's. The commitment pattern used to be "Will you [action]?", and now it's "Will you be [attribute] by [action]?" It's all about helping people see that they are changing by keeping the commitment which we leave with them. So far it's been a much more effective way of getting people to understand why we're committing them to certain things. I just couldn't believe it took me 18 months of my mission to figure out this new and improved commitment pattern. It's amazing the things you learn from conference and inspiration combined.
Well that's about it for this week. I'm attaching a couple of pictures. The two dealing with food are just funny ones. Hope you all have a good week! My p-day is wearing thin! Love you all!
Much Love,
Elder Tanner
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