March 16, 2020

Hey everyone this week was great and pretty weird and different too. First of all like the Corona Virus thing I haven’t heard a bunch but it sounds kinda crazy. Our mission president told us that we can’t shake hands anymore. We've been using a foot tap thing instead of shaking hands and it’s kinda funny.  We went to HEB to get food today and like a lot of stuff is gone. Everyone has been joking about the toilet paper and water and it's pretty funny because it’s true. Our mission president also told everyone last night that we should try and get food stocked up for at least 2 weeks in case of an emergency. Yesterday for church it was pretty different because there was no church. My district decided to have our own sacrament because our bishop gave permission so we ended up doing the sacrament for ourselves which was super cool. And after we had a little “Come Follow Me” study together. Later through the day we went around the ward helping a couple families who needed help with the sacrament also. I know that this virus thing will pass and all we need to have is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. He will protect us if we do our part and follow him.

Sorry that was long. Now for my week haha.

This week was good, we had zone conference on Thursday which is like the main thing I can remember for this week haha. It was super good. We had trainings on using Facebook and Messager and using them more effectively, and we had one on driving better, we had a cool training video about being more aware in our teaching and finding from mission portal with president Uchtdorf. We had Jason's deli for lunch, mainly because that's president Tvetens first name and he likes it haha.

On Tuesday, for dinner we had Bill Miller's with some members. Bill Miller's is basically the McDonald's of BBQ so it was good at the moment but after, not so much haha. The Family we ate with asked if they could have a blessing of health and comfort so we gave them both one. It was really cool and spiritual. 

On Wednesday we made Prayer Rocks again with this family we are teaching. It was super fun and they loved it. The mom is a less active member and she was really touched by the spirit from us being there and teaching about prayer and she began going off on telling her kids about baptism and how it's their choice and stuff which we were surprised. It was really cool and we have set lessons every Wednesday now. It was really hot also and we had our lesson outside so me and Elder Corry were sweating a ton haha.

On Friday, we had ward council and we were just listening to what the bishop wanted to do about church and the sacrament on Sunday and stuff. We left early and went to a lesson with another family. Our main message was going to be on coming to church and stuff but we had to change that haha. We decided to focus it on prayer and scripture study as a family every day. It was a great lesson and super fun. 

On Saturday we just did a ton of finding. We found 4 new people to teach that day and from this whole week we found a total of 12 new people. So were basically champions at finding haha. 

I hope that everyone is doing great and I hope you all have a great week. I know that our Heavenly Father loves us all and we can find comfort and peace in The Book of Mormon and prayer. I know that our Heavenly Father has a plan for us and we just need to act in faith and follow his commandments. 

See y'all next week!!

,Elder Portlock

Pictures for this week.

1. We found this paper of the Corona Virus and thought it was funny.

2. We got super bored during lunch and decided to organize this pool table ball set.

3. Me and my companion got a plate of fruit from one of the families we were teaching this week. 

4. Me in front of our church sign, like a boss!

5. Our church put this on our church

6. HEB today with like everything empty.