Monday, August 8, 2011

Week 3 In Billings


Well Hello there Everyone,

Week 3 in Billings has come and gone. Man how time flies! We had a good week this week both in preparing for zone conferences and in finding and teaching. We started teaching two new families this week. One of them was the ones that just showed up to church last week and the other showed up after church and talked to the Bishop. I really hope they progress because you see how the Lord is leading them.

The crazy story of the week has to be on Wed. we came into the office early to study and then jump right on the computers at 10. Well we come in and Sis.Karlinsey who is one of the senior missionaries says oh I was just about to call you. Listen to this message. We listen and it's a member who called into the mission home late last night and said that there was one of our mission blogs with porn on it. He assured us on the message that it wasn't the elders who had posted it but that because of something called a hotlink it had been changed. So at this point in time we are really lost and confused. So Pres. has us jump on his computer and we call the elders whose blog it was and get their info so we can get on and get rid of it ASAP. Pres then called the man who had left the message and we found out more of the story. So if you take a picture from online and don't save it to your computer but just put it on your blog there is a hotlink attached to it that shows where it originally came from. Well if the person who originally posted it doesn't like that you put it on there they can change the picture while keeping the same address and all of a sudden your picture can be changed because they are hosting the picture and its link. So there was a man who these elders took a picture from and he didn't like it so he went on and changed it to a bad picture and then posted it on this website called reddit where people just post funny things or things they find interesting. This is where the member saw it. The sad thing is it received 60,000 views. The good thing was the man who posted it didn't mention anything about the church so most people probably didn't even connect the blog with missionaries or the church. What a headache though. So we learned all about hotlinks and how we need to not do them anymore and yeah. End of story this is a pilot program and this is what we have to do is learn from mistakes some times and correct them and move on with the work!

We had a good lesson with the Ms this week. We watched the Restoration with them. they said that they really enjoyed church so that is a plus but then they weren't there yesterday. :( . We did have Bro.W there though and he's a less active member who is just starting to come back to church and he's been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy and just finished yesterday! We met with him last night and he's doing great. Hopefully we can get his wife on the same page as him.

Sadly enough I've got to get going. There is a man in the hospital who is dying who wants a blessing before he passes. Maybe if I get some time I could get back on here since I didn't get much time. I hope all of you have a great week. I love you all. God bless!

-Elder Davis