April 15, 2013

Hello everybody!!!

Hope you are all doing well!! I can't believe Shane and Brenten are already leaving on their missions, please send them congrats for me! In a weird way I'm pretty jealous! I did get that package by the way, THANK YOU!!!! I appreciate everything; I won't open anything but the shoes before my birthday. One problem, the pants don't match the suit I have. The pants are black and the suit is navy.  Should I take a picture to send back? 

One other concern. My knee has been giving me some trouble. I thought it would heal on my mission but it still isn't 100%. The mission nurse recommended that since I'll be in Calgary in a few months it would make sense to schedule a visit with an orthopedic doctor when I get back. How do we set that up? 

Weird moment; I'm now living with Elder D, Elder K’s trainer, he's a very good missionary.

There were some ups and downs this week. Our most solid investigator decided she no longer wanted to meet with us, due to a few reasons but mainly because her family told her she could not be baptized, ARGHH!! It is really hard to watch people exercise unrighteous dominion. It's also very hard to see someone give up the one thing that can help them more than anything else! But we found a few new people and had a great lesson with one investigator. Jordan, I mentioned him to you a while back, has been progressing a lot slower than we thought he would. This week we taught him twice, and the second time we felt like we needed to focus on repentance. We taught for an hour only about repentance, and he let us know about a concern he had. He thought that since the steps of the gospel are faith, repentance and then baptism it meant that you could no longer repent after baptism, so you had to be perfect! Haha, so funny how as missionaries and members we sometimes assume things are so obvious when they are so new to the people we teach. We resolved his concern and he is doing a lot better now. It was very cool to see how the Lord guided us to teach him what he needed, I know that He will do the same for all of us as we seek to help others.

You asked what I've learned on my mission. Maybe I can share a few thoughts (no particular order), some of the things I've learned(or am trying to learn;) :

1) How the Spirit works with you as an individual

2) How to courageously follow those promptings

3) Greater understanding of God's nature and how He really feels about us

4) How to work hard

5) How to create a good, clean, spiritual environment

6) How to be optimistic when everything points to the contrary

7) How to love others unconditionally(still working on this one)

8) How to get along with others

9) How to work with others

10) Why I am here in this world

11) What I need to do to have the Spirit

12) How to be obedient

13) How to endure

14) How to be humble

15) How to study

16) Self control

17) How to administrate

18) How to manage time

19) How to prioritize

20) How to change

21) How to be loving and bold at the same time

22) How to not take offense

23) Patience

24) What the Gospel really is, and how is really works

25) How to share

26) How to set and accomplish goals

27) How to apply principles to life

28) What I'm looking for in my family

29) What my role needs to be in that family

30) How to have fun and be focused

31) How to work smart

Those are some of the ones that jump out at me off the bat. I'm so grateful for God, that He is willing to let a bunch of whiny teens work with Him for the salvation of souls, how amazing is that. I don't know why or how He trusts us so much but He does. Gotta go, I love you all, hope you make it a fantastic week!! I hope you know how grateful I am for all of you, keep being awesome!

Elder G