April 23, 2013 Hey family! This week was pretty awesome. I didn´t write yesterday because we had our conference with Elder Zwick from the First Qurum of the Seventy. It was pretty awesome... Oh but I did something SO stupid! At the beginning, he wanted to shake all of our hands, and so we got in the line and it was like a quick, hand shake, nice to meet you kind of thing.... very much so wedding reception style, but way quicker and a little bit more nerve racking haha. Anyways, I get up there and shake his hand and he holds on to mine (oh nooo) and says, "Elder Daybell, where are you from?" and without thinking I say "New York" "Oh hey! what stake?" "..... (blank stare)" "in the city? "yes" " Manhattan stake?" "...mhmm (no idea)" "Oh President Buckner! I love that man!" " Uh huh..." He noticed my confused look and then said, "oh you must have come directly from byu or somethin like that huh..." "yep!" And that was that. I am glad that the Seventy with the most time in that qourum thinks that I am a few crayons short of a full pack haha. The thing is, I got impatient with telling people that I am from utah, but we moved to virginia and then I will live in New York after the mission. So I have just started to tell people that ask that I am a New Yorker haha. But that was the first time I had met anyone in my whole mission that knows anything more about NY than I do haha. I later learned in the introduction that Elder Zwick was in the American Northeast Area Presidency at one point haha. Dang...besides that, I have not put my foot in my mouth any other time recently. In fact it was quite the opposite. I had to give 2 talks in church last sunday because we have two branches in our area and it was interesting. In one I talked about waiting eagerly on the Lord, and the other one was a Plan of Salvation talk. It was good and I felt like my message mostly arrived to the members over the shrieking children and snoring ancianos haha. We have seen some serious help here in the zone. Lots of people are going to get baptized next month and I am excited to do some interviews and have some done in my area. In our conference we talked a lot of establishing zion. We have been called more to do that than anything else. I am starting to understand that a little more because really its so much more important than going to any area and baptizing a hundred nine year old kids (happens a lot here) alone because their parents aren´t going to get married and so they can´t be baptized. That is why we focus on trying to teach complete families, or people who are going to be supported in their new religion. Anyone can establish Zion though. To start, you should start with establishing yourself. There are tons of ways to do that, but I feel like a testimony of the Book of Mormon is one of the best ways to start. Than you can really help extend the stakes and contribute in a worthwhile way to the work of God. Anyway, I heard about the Boston thing a little bit. Nothing besides a bomb though. I hope everyone is okay though. I love you guys. Have yourself a merry like week. Elder Daybell