I have really been thinking alot about the purpose of this life and what gives me the motivation to live. there is a difference between 'being alive' and 'living life'. there are two words that often come to mind when I ponder upon this subject - Eternal Life - if we truly believe there is life after this, if we really understand the plan of salvation we will recognize that - This Life Matters - living life means that we recognize we are Gods children, we know where we came from, we know where we are going, and we know how to get there.

Christ said 'Take no thought, saying what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewith shall we be clothed? For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you'

I am motivated by a firm belief that I have made sacred promises with God. I know that I will live with Him someday if I am willing to uphold those promises to the best of my ability. As members of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ we all have that choice. We make mistakes, we break promises, and that is one of the hardest things to accept. but God loves us and our Savior and Redeemer has paid the price. - They want us to be happy - I know in my life I must accept the Atonement. we can't rewind time, we cant take back our actions. But we can follow Christ. 'Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not you heart be troubled neither let it be afraid

have a wonderful week!!

Love Elder Blandon

Meeting with a General Authority

well the mission is going really well, I got to interview with Elder Edwards from the quorum of the 70 this last week! it was such a spiritual experience, he was so intune with the Spirit! so I asked him about the eternity's and what I can do in this life to prepare myself to have everlasting life - he told me the most important thing that I could do in this life would be to get married in the temple. he told me that the purpose of this life is to prepare to be husbands and fathers in eternal families. so meeting with him is something I will never forget, esspecialy the feeling of the spirit I had as we visited.

Yesterday one of my recent converts (myrna berry) spoke in a fireside for new members of the church, she got to bare her testimony about her faith in the Savior, it was such a wonderful thing for me to see because I got to watch sis.berry make changes in her life that made her closer to Christ and made her happy.I feel so blessed that I got to be a part of that. there really is nothing greater than to see someone find happiness in life.

The work is supper busy not time to stop, tons of paper work and lots of meetings especially around the first of the month and transfers. but I really love helping the zone progress and teaching the new missionaries how to do missionary work.

An Interview with a 70

This week has been crazy!! in a good way tho.. so we have been working really hard in this area for the last two transfers and its been hard to really see the fruits of our labors, I was getting really frustrated for a while but just kept working through the trials. SO this week there was alot of faith building experiences, we found 4 new people to teach, one of them is super awesome!! her name is Brianna we were street contacting at the state university, it was really awesome because we only had 15 min. before we had a another appointment so we thought we would use our 15min as effectively as possible. we talked to one person Nate and the second person we talked to was Brianna, we got her information and after that it was off to the meeting! she came to church the following Sunday and we had a wonderful lesson afterwords. the Spirit really guided us and we were in the right place at the right time! we have another investigator, her name is mindy. she really has a desire to know if the church is true. it has been really stressful for us because she is doing everything we are asking her but she hasnt received an answer. she is a really special person and I know God has a plan for her. it has really built my faith to see the effort and desire people put into the gospel and finding Christ in there lives..

So im pretty sure im having an interview with a general authority tomorrow.. if you had personal time with a general authority for 15min what would you ask him???
his name is Elder Edwards from the 70. he has requested to interview all of the zone leaders in the mission, so i get the opportunity to sit down and talk with him. its really awesome.

My companion is pretty awesome, elder shipley.. we are working really hard. san francisco is CRAZY but i love it.

I really love missionary work!! its the best..

Love, Elder Blandon

Zone Conference

Things are going well. My companion and I only have two or three people to teach right now so we are in super finding mode. We are doing everything we can to find new people to teach. It's really nice when you have lots of people to teach because then you can spend most of the day in peoples home sharing the gospel.. when we dont have people to teach it's all out on the streets talking with people and knocking those doors. I really love missionary work tho - also all the responsibility of being zone leader keeps us really busy. Part of our responsibility is to train the missionaries how to be effective and help them develop their skills.. so I really enjoy the training aspect as well.

Nothing too much to report on this week. I'm just really working hard and trying to stay focused, I'm in the book of Alma now reading in ch.10 and 12.ish.. my studies are going really well. We have a zone conference and a mini zone meeting coming up that I'm preparing for, we have a general authority for the 70 coming to tour our mission.. and guess what! I GET TO HAVE AN INTERVIEW with a general authority, so I'm really looking forward to that experience. Then for the mini zone meeting my companion and I are training on 'revelation through the Book of Mormon' so we are just doing preparation for that for the next few weeks.

Thank you for your testimony. I also have come to really know for my self how important this gospel is in my life.. I'm really grateful for the knowledge that I have.
have a wonderful week.

It's Foggy in San Francisco

I really love scouts. After my mission, I really want to get more involved with scouting. Camping sounds really fun right now!! The lightning storm sounds fun, too. For me it's the fog!! San Francisco is SUPER FOGGY! I thought is was just the season.. nope it's foggy all the time. I had no idea. I'm pretty used to it now. It's perfect temp. mostly all the time.

This weekend we had Myrna Berry's baptism! She is such a wonderful woman!! I have been so blessed to be a part of her life. She asked me to perform the baptism, so that was the first baptism I actually performed. The Spirit was so strong!! Everything turned out really nice! Anyways, I'm sure you will have the chance to meet Sister Berry some day.

Can you believe I have been out almost a year now.. my half way mark is this week.. (not that I'm counting) really most of the time I have no idea what month I'm in or how long I have left :) Just focus on working hard, the best I can.

I have a new companion, his name is Elder Shipley from New Mexico. He is a super cool missionary. We get along well. This transfer we are really looking forward to seeing the success of the zone! Transfers just happened and we have alot of great new missionaries in the zone so we are looking at a great transfer.