Monday, January 28, 2013

January 28th, 2013


Hey Everybody!

Glad to hear that everybody is doing good! We are having fun down here in the south. We don't have tons of time so I'm just going to dive right into this letter!

Yeah that was a fast switch. President has a method to hjs madness though, there are lots of changes happening all over the mission right now, especially with all the new missionaries coming in. We weren't given any specific reason why they whitewashed the area, it's happening a lot in the mission right now. There were other companionships in the zone who whitewashed but the entire zone was not, thank goodness. We are the zone leaders, in fact we had to give some training on Friday at skills and interviews with NO idea what the strengths and weaknesses of the zone are, that was fun.

YSA is really great. I was sad to leave my last area so soon, it was an amazing place but that is life and I wasn't sad to come here, just sad to leave, if that makes sense. The city is a bit bigger with a bit more Toronto feel to it, people are a little crazy here. YSA is nice because more so than in other missionary work you can kind of be yourself, just be super real with the investigators. You can also relate closely with their challenges because you have either just gone through those same doubts/problems, or you are going through something similar, or in the near future you will face those challenges. You do need to be more careful to stay with your companion at all times and keep a focused mind for obvious reasons but so far so good.

Elder D is simply amazing. He was called to Portuguese work and was one of my district leaders in Ossington for a few transfers, really great missionary. He went through a TON to get on his mission, super smart, super humble, super obedient, super spiritual, and he brings tons of blessings. We do practice Spanish a bit together and there is a Spanish ward attending in the same building as us so we get to hear and speak. Haha, it totally confuses the Spanish members though because they're like "wait, did you move to the ward, weren't the other elders just here!?"

As for why I'm extending: for some strange reason they can't send me home on the day I'm supposed to. The computer system will let me leave on the 26th of May and the transfer is the 23rd or something like that. So instead of sending me home partway through a transfer they just said "it would be easier to do it all at once, so do you just want to stay an extra transfer?". I was fine with that so I said yes, I love missionary work, I love testifying to people and I love having a badge saying Jesus Christ on my chest everyday and so I figure another month and a half would be an honor.

Other than that it was a great week. Two investigators came to church, one of them is pretty cool she's named Esther; she's Cantonese and has a million fellow shippers already, which is really nice. Our first lesson with her 3 members were there too, and they were the ones who brought her to church. Our branch has some super great return missionaries who still have the "baptize the world and perfectly magnify my calling" attitude, which is sweet.

I know you asked for more of my feelings on things, so before I log off let me recount how I've felt this week: "first nervous, then tired, after that excited, optimistic, tired, anxious, hungry, tired, excited, tired, happy, goofy, hungry, tired, hungry, anxious, peaceful, tired, content" ;)

Love you all! I love this work, it's the best thing that ever happened to me besides ending up in such a great family! The gospel's true, have a great week! 

Tyler

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