Sister Naomi Koyle: I got to shake President Nelson's hand

So this week was wonderful, we had zone training meeting, which never ceases to amaze me, I think that it is a pure miracle when 30 young adults from ages 18-22 gather together and we have a very organized, very uplifting, and spiritual meeting all together for 3 hours, and discuss goals and how to reach them together as a zone and how we can be better missionaries. I have no idea where else you would see that happen, especially without any supervision of any sort, but it is because we are accountable to our mission president and to the Lord. Also this week we had an exchange with the Spanish sisters and we blitzed with the Marquette sisters, so that is always a great joy.

On Friday night we drove down to Waukesha and we slept at the sisters apartment there, then Saturday morning we drove over to Madison, for our mission conference with President Nelson. The first thing that he said was good morning, you look beautiful and handsome, then he told us to thank our parents. So thank you Mom and Dad, for raising me in this gospel and for teaching me all that I need to do, and for supporting me on a mission, and for always loving me, and for loving each other, and especially for loving the Lord. Then President Nelson said, "I know we aren't supposed to talk about marriage while you are on your missions, but I'm going to talk about marriage while you are on your mission. Your mission is very temporary, marriage is forever. You sisters when your prince charming is down on his knee and asks you to marry him, say wait a minute, and then ask yourself, does he love the Lord more than he loves me? and if the answer is yes, if he loves to serve the Lord and to keep the Lord's commandments, then his capacity to love you will be infinitely greater." (this isn't a direct quote, but it is pretty close) He also talked about how repentance and conversion are synonyms and how repentance means change and if we aren't always changing for the better then we aren't fully converted to the Lord. We got to ask him some questions and one of them was how do you prepare for a conference talk? and his response was "on an airplane!" for this upcoming conference he is on draft 14, and he says it isn't good enough yet. Oh yeah he also showed us the new Easter video, which is really great, it almost brought me to tears. It was so cool to be in his presence, I thought that it would feel like I was basking in all of his glory, but it didn't, it felt like he was one of us, it felt like I already knew him before, he is so humble, and loving and kind, and not to mention very spry, he seems way younger than he is, he is 92, but he gets around like he is a healthy 70 year old.

It has been a wonderful week, and now this coming week transfers are here and I am killing my companion, Sister Hansen, she flies into Salt Lake this Thursday. Green Bay will miss her greatly, and so will I. My new companion will be Sister Hess, who used to be my STL in Milwaukee North! I wish you all a fantastic week.

Love,

Sister Koyle

P.S. thanks again for everyone that sent me Birthday wishes! they are much appreciated!

P.P.S. We were tracting and it was cold and this guy said "either go get in your car, or come in and have a beer!" so we did neither and kept on tracting :) hahha gotta love Wisconsin.