March 10th, 2016

Dear Family,

In zone training meeting, I learned I need to set daily and weekly
goals for Book of Mormon reading, study habits, and other things I
want to accomplish. President Daines gave some advice to break tasks
down and set a pace so we don't miss our mark. Elder Bauman, our zone
leader, asked us to ponder what the Lord is waiting on us to do to
come unto Him. This has really got me thinking about what more I can
do in my service to the Lord. God is ready and willing to bless us, we
have to take the action and show God we want those blessings.

This week we had the opportunity to bring the commissary orders to MLC
(missionary leadership council where all the zone leaders and sister
training leaders are taught by President in preparation for zone
training meetings). It was a fun experience. We had a lot to do that
day and I am surprised we were able to fit everything. We sent out a
survey looking for extra commissary and made a spreadsheet from the
responses. There is a lot of extra commissary out in the mission that
could be redistributed instead of ordering more. There is a lot even
with only a quarter of the mission responding. We noticed a lot of
areas have extra foreign language items that have been left over for
months. We have found that most missionaries don't know that they
should send back extra commissary they don't need.

We were able to send the old phones back to sprint as part of the
their buyback program. The box of phones and ended up being 48lbs.
with all the Chargers and batteries. Luckily, Sprint pays for the
shipping. We also sent some of the excess loaner iPads back to the
missionary department. Last, we shipped iPads back to a couple
missionaries that went home early because they are paid for and reset
now. We had to take three trips to Fedex because we kept forgetting
some piece of information for sending the packages.

This week we were able to participate in a JustServe project.
JustServe is a program the church is doing that allows non-profit
organizations to reach out to church members that are looking for
opportunities to serve in their area. We went to the Smoky Row Food
Pantry. We were mostly sorting clothes and food and it was a good
experience to show members of another faith that we want to be
involved in helping the community. When we showed up to serve, there
were already the Lewis Center and Polaris elders serving. There are
not many projects in our area. We may need to coordinate with each
other who is serving where so that we don't overwhelm the people we
serve with too many missionaries.

Most of the office couples have been sick this week. I think most of
them are over it now though. We have been trying to contact a lot of
potentials and referrals to invite to church Sunday, but haven't had
much success. We keep getting referrals, but none of them are
answering, so they are stacking up. Saturday was really dead for
contacting, it was like Powell was a ghost town. We have heard similar
experiences from other missionaries near us.

I really enjoyed the chance we have had to join together and
participate in a mission-wide fast. This experience has definitely
increased my faith and given me a greater testimony of the power of
fasting. The Savior is able to work on us more when we give place in
our hearts for the seed to grow as we learn in Alma 32.

We were able to have exchanges with our district leader, Elder
Johnson. He is really funny and is great at motivating others. He
really cares for those in his district. Elder Marvin went to Polaris
with Elder Peterson, a newer trainee, while Elder Winkler and I stayed
in Powell with Elder Johnson. Elder Johnson said he had a lot of fun
on the exchange. He is kind of jealous of the trio companionship we
have since we get along really well and make the work fun.

After we got done with the exchange, we had non-stop work that we had
to do. We were able to call the missionary department in Salt Lake
City and we were on a thirty minute tech support call trying to figure
out why the report numbers from IMOS were inconsistent. We were
waiting for their engineers to figure out the problem, but we still
had the stake reports due that evening. We ended up working late
entering the key indicator numbers from all the areas. By the time we
finished it was 11:30pm and we got to bed around midnight because we
had to pack for an exchange with the zone leaders the next day.

We had to get up early for the exchange with the zone leaders, Elders
Bauman and Brown. We have had a recent change to exchanges where we go
to the zone leader's area and we all work their area instead on one
companionship staying in our area. I learned a lot from the exchange.
Elder Marvin and I were with Elder Bauman and Elder Winkler went with
Elder Brown.

I am glad we got to the temple today; we just got back. A ward member
told us that in his mission they didn't even get to go to the temple.
President Packer visited his mission and said that their mission is a
time to focus on helping the living, all the rest of their lives will
be focused on helping the dead. Although that may be true, I
appreciate and am grateful for the opportunity to fell the spirit and
the rest from the world that the temple provides.

--
Elder Aaron King
Ohio Columbus Mission

-Elder Winkler deactivating some of the old Sprint phones before we
sent them back.

-Elder Marvin sleeping on President Daines' desk in the office. This
was when we were in the office late and we took turns have two people
at a time work on the numbers.

-When we had the mission-wide fast, Elder Marvin put this up to block
the kitchen.