October 2015 General Conference!!!

Here was the most recent blood moon!
(pic received from another Elder)

Hello hello everyone!

I hope you all enjoyed General Conference this weekend! I truly love general conference and as a missionary, it was like 10x better! We are finishing up the afternoon session today for pday and then we got basketball and futbol lined up after. But there were a lot of things to take away from general conference this weekend and I hope we all had received answers to the questions that you had
in your heart.

Pre-Conference Photo!
(Elder Baum, Me, Elder Richins, Alas,
Elder Redd, Elder Phelps, Elder Johnson,
Elder Wagaman, and Elder De Wilde)

Tuesday: September 29th, 2015
We got to go on exchanges with the Didcot elders today and it was good, besides the point of being in the car for nearly seven hours of the
exchange due to traveling left and right and up and down and all around. We had youth night for the exchange so we got to teach some of
the youth what it was like to be a missionary and the way the schedule was and then they practiced contacting and knocking! It was funny to watch and I was amazed at how creative some of their approaches were.

Wednesday: September 30th, 2015
I woke up today and realized that it was already the end of September and I was just like... what? We didn't do much today due to traveling and then we just had a couple of short lessons and then accounting. But I did finish the Book of Mormon again for the 3rd time (twice on the mish) This time around as I read it again, I made a vow to read it a lot slower and find the connections that the Book of Mormon has to my current life and I even found a new study technique that I am going along with this time around so I hope to learn so much more on this read.

Thursday: October 1st, 2015
Elder Richins had his driving lessons toady so that was fun to watch. One year without being behind the wheel and then jumping on the wrong side of the road and car... he looked like me my first day. He just kept looking at me through the mirror and smiling because of how much the driving instructor was chewing him out and just making him feel like he didn't know anything about driving. He was a member though and was just totally pulling his leg but it was still funny.

Friday: October 2nd, 2015
Traveling... traveling, and more traveling... today we had to drive all the way to Basingstoke and then to the mission office to drop off one of the sisters because she was being emergency transferred to

This is the wonderful Sophia!
She is our Babushka (Grandma in Russian)

become a trainer for a new sister that just came in because her visa hasn't cleared yet. When we got back to Basingstoke to drop off the sisters, Sister Steeb had made avocado ice cream and dared us to try some. umm... yeah, it sounds delicious right? Well, lets just say I won't be doing that food challenge ever again. I nearly puked! Everyone just laughed and Elder Richins just swallowed the thing whole and thought it tasted like banana... what??? But we then went on exchanges with Reading and Elder Redd and I started by visiting the greatest convert ever, Tanya. But after that, we went to this lake to contact and we started chasing people around in the pitch black. We had some fun with Tanya though (see video).

Saturday: October 3rd, 2015
Elder Redd and I got to do some service for Sophia. People in England have the nicest gardens ever and they are HUGE. But she had us do a routine cleanup basically and there were so many leaves everywhere and I had to sweep ALL of them up! It was the best! She fed us a nice chicken curry after and it was completely delicious. We then prepared for general conference and headed to the chapel to watch it. Of course, so many answers to questions I had during the first session. I couldn't believe how many notes I took as well. (thats a first) But conference was just completely amazing. For today we only got to watch the morning session though and then we finish up the rest of it on Sunday and Monday.

So here is a little story to cap off Saturday night. Ready?

Pizza Express!!

So we got home after having pizza for dinner at a restaurant and Elder Richins forgot his bag in the car so we went into the garage to get it and when we went into the garage we heard someone screaming for help. Background story first though of course, Elder Baum and I went and bought food for the morning and went back to the flat and tried getting in but we forgot the key so we knocked on the door and this guy that saw us looked at us, flipped us off and then stormed out of the ground floor where we needed to get in. We were like, okay... what is that guys problem. So we went to dinner and got back so here we pick up from the beginning. Elder Richins and I walk in and that exact same guy was totalling attacking a guy with a hammer and the guy managed to grab a hold of the hammer and they were in a little mexican stand off for a bit. I walked up and Elder Richins is calling me telling me to stay back and I walked up and started asking questions. You know, "what is going on? What is the problem?" Typical questions you ask I suppose. But so the reason the guy attacked the other is because his kids (mind they are four years old) jumped around the flat to much and made to much noise and the guy couldn't sleep. However, the father defended his kids saying that they were at school so he didn't know how they made so much noise during the day (as the other guy said) But then two by two, more of us missionaries kept coming into the situation and again, there were 10 of us in the flat because of conference. So imagine 10 missionaries at a scene and this guy who is super mad already (he smashed the guys cars and broke the tail lights) but pair by pair we all come out and this guy just goes, "you beeping

The squad rocking our comp ties!

joking me? How many of you Jesus freaks are there?"

But long story short, he got arrested and we totally saved a guys life because Elder Richins forgot his bag. Coincidence? I think not! There
is no such thing! But the guy that we helped kindly left a letter at our flat door thanking us and it made my day. It was quite the way to end the night but it was a good way, no body got hurt, the guy that got attacked just had a couple of bruises from the hammer hitting him
in the arms and such from defending himself. So yeah, England was bumping!

Sunday: October 4th, 2015
By far the greatest session ever. Again, I was able to learn so much and I was personally rebuked by Elder Holland but you know, it opened my eyes to some things I need to work on when I get home. But other than that, I look forward to seeing these three new Apostles of the Lord fulfil the great work he has for them to do as His Apostles. We finish up conference on P-day so can't wait!

Verse of the Week and I'll add a quote from conference as well because there were so many good ones but I'll put my favorite.

Verse: 1 Nephi 19:23
"And I did read many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning."

Quote: "Exaltation is our goal; discipleship is our journey"- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Locked and Loaded....

I hope each of you can go back and learn from conference as the talks were just so brilliant and full of wonderful teaching and guidance. I also wish each and every one of you to have a great week and to ponder about what you learned from conference because those 10 hours you sat and watched conference, everything you heard and learned must continuously be in your thoughts for the next six months.

Have a great week and I love you all!!!

~Elder Rivera!