September 18, 2006

Hey Mom,

good to hear from you. sounds liek you guys are having a great time.

Well, responsibilities of the ZL? We are supposed to lead the zone in
work; be a model area. we are struggling with that right now. we taught
100 lessons last week and no new progressing investigators, nor any
investigators at all from that! We dont know any members because the
school year move ins are alll new, so we are trying to rebuild member trust.
We are in charge of permission for various things such as temple
attendance for those in our zone. We help to plan mission goals, we set zone
goals and plan Zone conferences. we train teh district leaders. We
collect numbers for the week from the DLs. We plan zone activities etc. We
have been told by Elder Mikelson from the presidency of the seventy,
that we are like the "stake presidents" (of the zone) in the mission
world.

Its tough, but im getting a hang of it a little more every day.

I heard about Brother Gibbs. it has been a rough week for things like
that. Mike Gagne (a part member i taught back in N.Adams) passed away
suddenly. 2 weeks prior Elder Egbert and I tried to commit him to a
priesthood blessing, but it never happend. He will be missed. This past week
Ken Demer's Son, Don, passed away from complications of his kidney
surgery 1 month ago. he was in his 30s... its amazing how much i love the
people i taught. We also were prompted to offer Don a blessing, but he
turned it down... i should have pushed it more. the effects of it on Ken
have been completely destructive. I fear for his health, both
spiriutualy and physicaly. Elder Egbert says hes "back to stage 1".

Death is somthing so sacred, that God makes it somthing mysterious and
unknown (there is scriptural referances). However, death is a great
step in life. As in creation, there is a certain ammount of destruction.
All matter desires to be broken apart into chaos, or be "destroyed" from
form. This however allows further creation, and improvements. Very
similar to an artist erasing a part of a drawing to fix its imperfections.
Death is a necessary part in order for our bodies to become perfected;
we must shed off and pass away from the imperfections we gain/make in
mortality.

This next week will be exciting. We have Zone conferance in which we
have to train the Zone is what Elder Mikelson has taught the ZLs about
missionary work. We are expected 2 baptisms a week per zone, and 1
baptismal commitment a week. As well as 1 new investigator at church every
sunday. its a lot, but he has given us the tools to do it. he taught us
how we need to teach, and how we need to find. im excited, and have
faith that we will dobule baptisms in 6 months. the spirit is such a
powerful teacher; it is so real, its truely miraculous.

We also have a Zone Development Meeting in which Brother Bokovoy will
be teaching us. its exciting. it will be truely amazing.

Well. thats about it i guess... i miss you and love ya. take care. have
fun. talk to you later.

Elder Onken
elderonken.blogspot.com