Every Soul is Great!

 Georgia Temple

We had our Zone/Phone Conference last Wednesday along with a Temple Trip. Basically the whole conference was based around 'not being stupid on the phones.' It's going to be a bit rough trying to figure out our planner app, it seems really confusing but I know when we do that it will be a blessing. Pres. Austin (Counselor in the Mission Presidency) was talking about how the phones right now will mostly be used for planting seeds rather than gathering the wheat...right now. There are a lot of tools that we use right now that will help all the missionaries that will be coming into the area, but again it is just hard to get around that learning curve. We'll figure that out. 

The Temple was obviously the best part of the conference. It was so good to be in that Temple in the beautiful Celestial room with all the other missionaries and the mission President. What a blessing it is to have a House of the Lord here on the earth. It is amazing!!

When we were heading back from zc Elder Bay wanted to visit some of his families that he loved in his area that was close by. So because he is leaving in a month we decided to do it. It was so cool, one of the little kids that we met was named Liam, and I think he actually looks quite a lot like my brother. That was pretty funny!! I got a picture of him so that I could send it...

After that we had dinner with the Shaffers who work with the mission as well. Holy cow, Brother Shaffer is one of the funniest people I have ever met. It's like a weird mix of my dad and one of his friends Todd Hinckley. It is so great!! 

On Friday we spent the day checking up on people through the area book so that we could add them into the new phones. One family that we met had a couple little kids that I played some football with. They are some cool kids. Man I am so grateful for where I live now. I mean they were living in some bad conditions but that wasn't even considered the inner slums of Atlanta. Man, I am so blessed...

A lesson that I learned this week was that you can never judge someone from what they look like on the outside. When me and Elder Lusko were tracting late into the night we found a guy named Daina. It was kinda awkward because we were in a slummish area at night and when we were walking up to his door we saw him standing outside of his garage smoking. Now this guy is a bigger guy, got a big white scruffy beard...I honestly thought he was gonna start cussing at us, maybe even throw something at us. But when we walked up he invited us over and we had a nice talk for probably 20 minutes. We talked about his work, his beliefs,etc. At the end we asked if he would like to meet with us and he agreed. Holy Crap!! Who knows what would've happened if we just decided to move along. I am so happy that the Lord challenges us in these ways. Challenges our faith and our courage. I was literally changed as we walked away from his door that night!

This weeks scripture is in Alma 18. Ammon just barely saved the King's flock and now the King wants to praise him for being the Great Spirit. One really small thing that I had never noticed before was that as soon as Ammon walked in the room, he knew Lamoni was just going to praise him so he "was about to return out of His presence." Ammon being filled with the spirit "could perceive the thoughts of the King" and because of his great humility he tried to get himself out of being glorified. I think that is so incredible. Even just the smallest of scriptures can mean so much to us/me. I love the scriptures. 

Keep reading the Book of Mormon, it will give you power to speak "with the tongue of Angels." (2 Nephi 32:2-3)

Love yall, have a great week!!!

Elder Northrup

PS: From Karter's Facebook page, read the following post by Chelsey Clark

I was so blessed today by strangers. With all the sadness in our world lately it lifts your spirits to see random acts of kindness.

We arrived back to our bus after 22 hrs of flights and layovers from Hawaii. It’s been a crazy nonstop day of unpacking and reorganizing and getting the bus ready for a our next several days of the End The Trend tour. Plus keeping 6 children fed and alive. 😜 In all the hustle I must have set my new iphone 8 plus on the car hood while Josh and I hitched it up to tow then later having to unhitch because of a jam. Somewhere along the road to our event it fell on the street. These amazing young men found it and right at that time Josh was calling me and they answered in hopes to find the owner! I didn’t even realize I had lost it!!! 

No scratches and still in perfect condition!

They kindly met me after the event even though it was extremely late! Thank you Elder Nick Bay

and Elder Karter Golden Northrup for blessing me with your act of kindness. You saved the day as well as tons of time and money for me! The world needs more honest young men like you. It was such a pleasure to meet you both. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

Liam of Georgia

So Yeah!

Kinda Genius!