Pass the Ball!

Mom

     Our mission conference was wayyy good, Elder Wilson (of the Seventy) is amazing. He loves basketball--just like me! The coolest thing was that he attended our zone leader meeting!! He is a very interesting guy and he shared a lot of leadership skills and techniques with us.  He talked to us in our meeting about the importance of trust. He told the story of how back in the day he was playing in the competitive Church basketball league.  One of the players on his team would always find random amazing players to play on their team so that they could win. One year he got Nate Thurman on their team!! (Thurman is a retired NBA player, and at one point, an All Star—one of the best 10 players in the NBA ((This explanation was of course for Mike's own mother who has the sport IQ of a pea.))  So, Elder Wilson said he instantly thought that with Nate Thurman on their team they would kill everyone. BUT, that season they did terrible because Thurman would never trust anyone with the ball!! He said that all the players on their team had played high school basketball and were pretty good, but Thurman didn’t trust anyone and therefore would never pass the ball--so they LOST!! It was a very cool story. Quite a predicament!

     This week has been very good actually; we’ve been really focusing on getting members out to ALL lessons, whether they are less active members or investigators. We’ve had a lot of success!  We had 74 people at church yesterday, the highest we’ve had in a looooong time! We got a LA family to come to church that hasn't been in several years and another family that hasn't been in a year! The Branch President was so pumped!  He ran up to us and said, "YES, they are finally coming, thanks Elders!!" It was the best feeling ever.

     My companion goes home on Wednesday, so that is pretty insane. We are now the oldest group in the mission; it is wayy weird!  I don’t have any friends anymore. I went to zone conference and saw all these young missionaries and I didn’t know any of them!! But, I still love life. Thanks for all the prayers!! Love you and miss you!

Elder Madsen