My Homecoming Talk

My dad was kind enough to record and upload my homecoming talk. In case you missed it and would like to hear it, check it out:

http://bcitestsite.com/

Thanks again to everyone who supported me throughout the best 2 years of my life. I love you all!

I Leave You With My Testimony....

Well this is it. This will be my final email as a full time missionary. It's been a busy week. As you know President has been out of town all week. On Tuesday my companion and I were talking and decided we wanted to do a mission fast for everyone who was on date for baptism. That night we arranged a conference call with all the zone leaders. It was so powerful! Its like a huge brotherhood out here, I love it. Everyone is excited to do missionary work and to help these people get baptized. The spirit was strong as we all pondered ideas to help each other out. It was fun. This morning for P-day we headed up to the Temple. We went with our roommates ( The office elders) and Elder Doyle who is the car czar took us up there. It was such a blast. I love being in the temple. I am blessed that I have had an opportunity to go a few times in the last month. I saw one of my former bishops from the Annandale ward so that was fun.

The next few days are going to be hectic as ever. President gets home tomorrow so we will come by the office and probably work on the transfer board some more. Then on Monday we will work on the transfer board all day and finalize everything. Make sure everyone has a place to live, a bed, a bike to ride or a car to drive and all that fun stuff. On Monday we will call the new assistant and go pick him up. Then on Tuesday we will continue to finalize everything. That night we will call out to the zone leaders who is staying and who is getting transferred. Then on Wednesday we will go pick up the new missionaries at noon from the airport and have dinner and training the rest of the night. Thursday morning we will wake up bright and early and go make them breakfast at the mission home. Then we will do some more training and take them over to George Mason University to do some street contacting. Then we will head over to transfer meeting for a couple hours. After that the departing missionary group will head back to the mission home for a dinner and testimony meeting. Then President will take us into DC to see it at night when its all lit up. Then friday morning I will wake up at 5 and get ready to come home. There will be no time to take a break! Is this really happening? Did I really leave 2 years ago? Am I really coming home? Why does it feel surreal? Am I ready to come home? Ahh so many feelings and emotions.

I leave you guys with my testimony. This has been the greatest 2 years of my life. I think all the time about the road I took to get out here. Ya I might of had a few detours here and there, but the lord was only preparing me. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. I know this for it has changed my life forever. I have felt its healing powers in my life. The Book of Mormon is true. Ive read it, I've studied it, ive prayed about it and I've taught about it. I always think about a quote from Elder Holland in conference a while back ....concerning The Book of Mormon he said " A wicked man couldn't write such a book as this and a good man wouldn't, except it were true!" Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God and ushered in the restoration in these days. I have had countless spiritual experiences and impressions while teaching about this that it can't be denied. My mission has brought so much happiness into my life. Now I must come back and continue immersing myself in these things. I know its easier said than done, but I know if I want to live a good life it can only be through living the gospel. I love you guys! Thanks for never giving up on me and giving me this opportunity to find who I am. I will never forget these moments I've had. I love you!!

Elder Davie

2 More Weeks!

How are you all doing? How was the week? How is the weather in Utah/Texas/Oregon? How are all the kids doing? When are you guys flying into Utah? Can you believe 13 days? What??!! Crazy. I will be so happy to see you all again.
 
It was a good week for us. This past week we met a guy named Lawrence. He is from Nigeria. He writes books. He is awesome. We tracted into him and taught him for about 45 minutes then he said "Is there anyway to schedule a time to have you come teach more?" Ofcourse were like yes! We went back this past thursday and had a pretty good lesson with him. We showed him the restoration movie. He agrees with most things but were trying to help him with a couple concerns. Keep him in your prayers! We also met a Ghanain guy yesterday named Kwabina. He was so funny. He was dying laughing when I started speaking Twi to him. He agreed to let us come back and teach him a little and he will teach me some Twi. It will be fun. Wednesday was an awesome day. We had our departing Temple Trip. Basically all the missionaries going home meet at the mission office in the morning and we all drive up to the temple to do a session. Before the session we are able to meet with the Temple President and he talks to us for a little bit then opens it up to any questions. Something he said struck me. Regarding our mission calls he said " Its not as important where you get called as to who you get called to serve under. " I have felt like that. Yes I know I was called to Dc South for a reason and ive met people that have changed my life. But I know even more that I was supposed to serve under President Albright. He is amazing and has helped me so much. The temple trip was awesome. I was able to do a session in one of the most beautifull temples in the world with some of my closest friends who ive spent the last 2 years with. Afterwards we all went to fuddruckers and enjoyed some lunch :) Last night I had the chance to go on exchange with Elder Peterson. He is the kid I trained a little over a year ago. He is awesome! We have become good friends. We were tracting last night and we ended on this one apartment complex. It was about 8:15. The second door we knocked on we met these amazing people. They are from the assemblies of god church. They are actually planning on serving a mission to India in the next little bit. It was amazing to meet such good people. They let us in and we spent about an hour in their home talking about life in general. It humbled me to meet a family who is so close to Heavenly Father and who strive every day to make life better for people around them. Wether memebrs of the church or not there are some good people out there! They aren't interested in our church but we were still able to have a great conversation and share feelings of what has brought us happiness in life. It was fun!
 
Well I am going to try and send a couple pictures. I hope to hear back from you soon! Love you guys!
 
Elder Davie

Cowboy BBQ

Hey Everyone,

How have you guys been? Hopefully its been a good week. I have had a really good week. Its been busy as usual. On Thursday we had our Return and Report meeting. This is where all the new missionaries come back together and we have a testimony meeting with them and do a little bit of training. I had the opportunity to talk about obedience for a few minutes. It was an awesome spirit filled meeting. Its fun to see how much the missionaries grow in such a short time. Then today we had so much fun! Me and 4 other missionaries went up to Elder Marriott's ranch in Hume, VA. Every year he has this bbq event. Ambassadors and diplomats from all around the world come and have a good time. Its a western theme. We had a station set up where we were teaching people how to rope. My companion is pretty good at it so for the past week during the day we get out and practice roping some fire hydrants haha. I'm no good at it but it was fun. This was such a fun experience for me to meet all these people from every where around the world and talk to them. We got there at about 10 and left at 3. They had a catered lunch which was awesome. I saw a few people from some of my previous wards so that was fun. And it was great to see the mccoys! They are the sweetest family. I wasn't expecting them to be there and then all the sudden I turned around and was like hey! I know them! My companion let me borrow his boots and then I had to go buy a pair of pants and a shirt. Then president had an extra cowboy hat I borrowed. It was interesting to get all dressed up like that haha! I think that was definitely a first for me. I had an awesome time though!! Definitely something I will always remember. I got to meet Elder Nash of the 70. Elder Carlson was also there. Well I love you guys so much!! I hope you're all doing well!!!

Busy Week!

Hey Everyone,

It's been a busy day! Conference was great as usual. I really loved the Priesthood session. It has been a good week for us. We had zone conferences all week so its nice to have it over with. They all went pretty well. Next week will be a little slower so it will be nice to get out in our area and knock on some doors! We have a return and report meeting on Thursday.....that's where all the new missionaries that came in come to the mission home and we do some training and then have a testimony meeting. Its fun. Then on Saturday me and my comp and a couple missionaries and President and Sister Albright are going to the Marriott ranch. Bill Marriott is the guy who owns all the Marriott hotels. He was an area seventy but recently got released. Every year he has this huge thing at his ranch where all these ambassadors and their family's from all around the world come for a bbq and stuff. We have to dress up in cowboy gear haha. I gotta go buy some wranglers and a plaid shirt! i found some boots in our apartment so i can wear those haha. It will be interesting! Well its late so I better go...I will try to write more tomorrow if we have time. Love you all!

Traffic Court

Hey!

How has your week been?! Things have been going well here! So on Thursday I had my traffic court thing. Man it was pretty intense. Not what I was expecting. We walked into the courtroom and there were like 100 people in there sitting in the pues and the judge walks in and does his little thing. I was like what the heck am I doing here?! Luckily I had this guy with me who helped me out. I was the second person the Judge called out so me and the attorney walked up to the little pulpit thing haha and the attorney said a few things and then I was good to go! It was such a relief to have it all over with. I only had to end up paying like $80 so it was perfect! Besides that we have spent the week getting ready for Zone Conferences next week. This past Tuesday we had Zone Leader Council. It was my last one! I have been to 11 of them over the past year and a half. It was so weird to be there for the last time. There is 3 others from my group who were there. At the end all the departing misionaries get the opportunity to bare their testimony. The first kid got up and everyone just lost it. I was crying like a little kid! By the time I got up I was done for haha. It was the hardest thing I have done. The feelings and emotions of going home hit harder than ever and it was difficult! It made me realize how much I love my mission and love being out here. Its going to be so difficult to leave this place. Virginia is amazing. I couldn't imagine serving a mission at any other time in any other place. Things all worked out exactly how they were supposed to.

Elder Bell is out here visiting! I was his companion back in December. He is awesome! He came out with last night and visited a couple people and taught some lessons. Today were both going down to Garrisonville to hit up lunch with the Randalls. Then after that we will come back and head over to the Baptism for Russel! Elder Bell & I were the first ones to start teaching him. Im so excited! Its going to be awesome. I will make sure to take some pics and email them next week.

Well I love you guys! I can't believe the time keeps getting shorter and shorter.

Crazy Busy!

Hey!

How are you guys doing? I am sorry to hear about Addison. That is no fun at all! Hopefully everyone else is doing ok!

We had a pretty good week. It was busy with transfers! We spent monday and tuesday finalizing the transfer board and making sure everyone had cars, apartments, and phones. Its quite the process. Then on Tuesday night we called it all out to the zone leaders.Wednesday we went and picked up the new missionaries and took them back to the mission home for dinner and a testimony meeting! Thursday we went back bright and early and made breakfast for them then had some training. Then Thursday afternoon we have the transfer meeting. It went well. We made this movie that turned out pretty good, everyone seemed to really like it! I will have to get you guys a copy and see what you think. Then Friday was busy trying to take things to people like beds and what not. Luckily today things are settled down a little bit. Now the transfer begins. Its time to get ready for all the meetings ahead. We have a mission home fireside on Sunday then zone leader council on Tuesday. We will take the next day or so and prepare for that.

Well there isn't anything to crazy going on out here. We are just going to be working hard to find some more people to teach and baptize! I cant believe my last transfer has begun. Its not just two of us in the office here. Elder Doman went out ino the field for his last transfer. Now im here with Elder Jacobson. Hes one of my favorite comps. We get a long great and have a blast! Well I love you guys!!

Elder Davie