We're not the missionaries Baltimore deserves but we are the ones it needs

Hey everyone,

This was a pretty awesome week. I really don't know what to write about, so this will probably be all over the place.

Zone Conference was awesome, even though it ended up being 11 hours long. We talked a lot about repentance and how we can teach it more clearly as well as apply it better as missionaries. one of the best moments was when we were walking back from a break and Elder Christensen, one of my zone leaders, looks at me and says, "watch this." He was conducting so he gets up and continues the meeting, then bears a brief testimony, in which he says, "We're not the missionaries Baltimore deserves, but we're the ones it needs." (Which is a Batman quote for those who didn't get it) By that point we'd all been there for so long we just cracked up. 

We met this guy who was sitting down on his porch, which is what a lot of people do here, and so we started talking to him. He had been drinking a bit and I just plugged into the Spirit and lovingly rebuked him (is that the right word?). We talked about how Christ can help us overcome our weaknesses by sharing Ether 12:27, it was amazing. I asked him if I could take his bottle so he wouldn't drink anymore, but he said if he gave it to me, he'd just go buy a new one, so I asked him to not go below a certain point on the bottle, which he agreed to. We ended up in his area the next day so we knocked on his door to see how he did, and he said he didn't end up touching the bottle for the rest of the night. We have a return appointment this Thursday, so that'll be awesome. 

We went on Exchanges this week with the Zone Leaders so I went up to the upper Chesapeake ward with Elder Christensen and we had a good time. But while Elder Nelson and Elder Patterson were down in the city, they talked to a guy named Chris. When we went back for our return appointment, we sat down with him, and his aunt was in the room so she listened in. Then his sister came in and joined in, then his grandma came home and jumped in. Interesting thing about this family, all four of them are different Christian Religions. At one point of the lesson we started losing control of the situation because they started arguing different doctrinal points. And because Elder Patterson is awesome, he totally brought it all back in by sharing how Joseph Smith was like them because he was confused at all the differing doctrines and it went from everyone arguing to absolute quiet as Elder Patterson shared the First Vision. It was amazing to watch the Spirit work, especially on the Grandma, who went from not being interested at all, to having really good questions.

We were at Zone Conference when we got the news that we were now allowed to call our parents on Preparation Days, so there was a huge buzz about that and President was on the phone with the Mission Department for a while in the afternoon so we could ask all our clarifying questions right then. But while I was talking to them, I mentioned a story that they told me to put in here. Elder Patterson and I were walking around the city one night last week and we looked at each other and said that it was a pretty quiet night. Then we paused and listened to the nearby freeway and all the cars bustling around, and just the general background noise of a large city. Then we chuckled and said that A, it was quiet because there were no gunshots or sirens at that moment, and B, we're gonna go crazy when we get home and it's actually silent.

This city is crazytown in a bottle, but it's home and I love it,

Elder Howell