September 6, 2016

Well I don't think this week's email is as spiritual or uplifting as
last week's, I shouldn't have set the bar so high for myself. But I
will say this, I have learned so much this week that I choose not to
share it because it goes past the point of being spiritual and into
being just mind blowing. It won't really help anyone become closer to
Christ just because I will make it confusing and hard to understand.
But that brings me into my topic of choice this week.

We often look at other people and think it is never possible to get to
that level. But it is. If you look at a large mountain and aim to get
to the top, you may want to get there now. That is the natural man.
You simply can't get there now, that's now how it works. You can't
jump to the top of the mountain, it all starts with one step after
another. It will take hundreds, probably thousands of small steps to
get to the top, but if you look at it and give up because you can't
jump to the top, then you won't go anywhere. You'll just stand there
at the bottom. The same applies to life, if you want something, you
have to go get it. The more you want the more you'll have to work, but
you will never go anywhere if you expect it to come easy.

The Lord works in that exact way, he knows we can't just jump to the
top. So he builds us "line upon line, precept upon precept" (2 Nephi
28:30). So as we take the actions to learn more and build our
testimony, he will build us up. Do you think the prophets had it all
figured out as 12 year old deacons? I'll bet they barely knew why they
were even passing the sacrament. But as we take those steps, he will
help us grow. I have been studying a lot more obviously and because of
it I can look back and say I've grown to know more than I thought I
ever would in such a short time, and it's because I'm being helped by
the spirit and relying on the Lord to help me grow as I put forth the
effort to learn more. So let rely on him, "you will only make of
yourself a smudge, he will make of you a masterpiece.

Monday:
Today I emailed, but it wasn't super hot, it was kind of a rough day
afterwards. But it's ok. Jason is going through a lot of the same
things I was emotionally so it was awesome being able to tell him it
gets better and see how far I've come in the time I was in his shoes.
I'm excited to see where his mission takes him.

Tuesday:
Today we went on exchange again and I led the area for the first time.
I lead the way, planned, talked to everyone first on our bikes,
started discussions since only I knew the people, etc. it was a great
learning experience and I did a lot better than I thought I would. I
was really nervous but now I'm much more confident. So that's great.
And for my mother, I want you to know that we are taken care of.
Someone stopped by on the side of the road from another road offering
us dinner at her place right now, but we couldn't, we had an
appointment (that fell through), but we also were getting pizza
brought to us. Members like us a lot and I love it!

Wednesday:
I learned today that salt lake said that this mission has the most
missionaries sent home for emotional and mental stress. This is one of
the most emotionally bashing missions. Crazy! I woulda never thought.
I'm feeling fine though. From what I understand, salt lake is
questioning whether or not we need this many rules. I got this from
someone who knew someone in salt lake or something. It's because we
have more rules than just about any other mission  (no sporting
equipment, no white watches, no eating past 6:00, long pants and
sleeves if you're doing any kind of service whatsoever, an hour of
email, not everyone has a car, can't go to the local gym, etc). Other
missions don't have those and they think it may just be causing people
to snap on top of the stress of being in the Bible Belt.

Thursday:
Well today was hot. We biked about three miles to an appointment only
to find out he left 15 minutes earlier and told his brother he'd be
back in an hour. Phhhhhh. We're on the lords time, not his time. So we
started off to our next appointment which is 5 miles in the opposite
direction. We went and about half way elder May's tire popped. So
people in your area with cars are able to pick you up and if they
can't, the zone leaders can. But, the the sisters have the cars and
the only pair of elders that have a car is the zone leaders, so we
called and asked for a ride. However, they happen to be far away, so
we had to walk back to our apartment with our bikes. And all of our
appointments fell through.  We also walked for almost two hours to
teach a lesson. But it's all a matter of how you choose to look at
your trials, like I said in last week's email. And I wasn't too upset
at all, I'm getting better at that since I've been out. We also had a
big ol' cockroach in the apartment. Also on Thursday night I was
laying in bed when I hear it start pouring rain outside, it took all
my will power to not ruin my slumber by getting up and looking at it.
I just sat there thinking, "it's just water, you don't need to look at
it, just stay in bed and sleep before you can think too much about
it." Then I saw a bright flash of lightning and thought, "ok I'm
getting up." And I stayed up way too late watching the dumb thing on
the porch outside. And the funny thing is, I went back to bed and got
back up again. But the road was a river and there was plenty of purple
lightning. I'm glad I stayed up to watch it.

Friday:
I'm not glad I stayed up to watch that storm. But there was a fetching
hurricane just south of us!! And as I type this now it is just barely
missing us. So I'm very upset. We got to go to a Muslim service today
though with the Islams I was speaking of earlier. It was cool, I now
know what people feel like when they come to church for the first
time. They are very friendly like we are. Other than that, we did
nothing today productive because everything fell through. So lots of
walking around.

Saturday:
All our lessons fell through AGAIN. So we went tracting and the
neighborhood we knocked up sent a mass email to everyone in the
community saying that the missionaries were there so they were being
very very rude to us. I just wanna mmgaahhhh!!!! You know? But alas, I
kept my cool and didn't get the last word in. The only nice ones were
a Presbyterian and a Mormon we tracked into by accident.

Sunday:
Yet again, all our plans fell through, except church. So other than
church, nothing happened, just biking around knocking on doors with no
success.  But I fell on my bike again. While Elder May and I were
riding our bikes to an appointment, I asked a dumb question (as usual)
and he replied with a sarcastic response. I just looked at him and
said "I'm just not gonna talk anymore." And kept peddling away. I was
just joking around. He started trying to get me to talk but I ignored
him. Then he started making up a song about how when he gets home he's
going to steal Kayli. It was actually a pretty good song, it flowed
really well. After He finished singing he got on the grass and road up
next to me and asked if I liked it. I said no and tried cornering him
so he'd have to get behind me, then our peddles hooked each others and
we both went crashing down on the side walk 😂. Then we laid there for
a good 30 seconds just laughing hysterically. The only thing that hurt
was my dignity.

Monday:
We made a lemon stand with free lemonade and walked around to pass
lemonade out and did contacting through that. We passed out around
100ish cards with our numbers so it was successful. We figured there'd
be lots of people at the park since its Labor Day, so that's where we
went. It was great! On the downside, we had someone on date to be
baptized who said he didn't want to anymore because the people in the
other church are nice to him. But he never even tried our church
except for once and he was on his phone😑 There's just so many things
like that on a mission it's ridiculous. I need to learn patience big
time because sometimes I just wanna grab people by the face and throw
up piles and piles of information as to why they're wrong and I'm
right (to put it bluntly). But that's not the right thing to do, Jesus
never did that, he looked for those who were ready, he didn't waste
time on people with the most ridiculous arguments known to man. so I
just bear testimony, even though a lot of times they look at that as
they won and I had nothing to back me up. It's aggravating!!! But
alas.