HELLOOOOO!!!!!
Mom I can't believe you're in Hawaii and Dad I can't believe you're in Georgia. Have fun, and take lots of pictures!!!
It was so good to get your letters like always. I miss you guys tons. I'll start off with the bad news which is that my anxiety has been bad this week. I haven't felt this anxious in a long time, probably not since the beginning of my mission. So that was kinda stressful, but to make a long story short I asked my companion for a blessing and afterwards I had this deep sense of peace come over me that stuck with me (that was on Wednesday) and I feel much better now. I think I've been blessed to overcome that particular hurdle which is great. It wasn't pleasant but like Yolanda I'm cool.
Mom this paragraph in your email literally made me burst into tears. I didn't think I was capable of doing that but I was literally not crying one moment and the next moment I was full-on crying. It was different:
"It's been really fun to read your last few letters. You're learning such good things. Sometimes I think that the Lord is withholding opportunities for you to baptize because he wanted you to learn the things you've been learning. It reminds me of the mission president's seminar talk when (I can't remember who) said that missionaries will only have baptisms if the Lord blesses them with baptisms and that it isn't based on obedience, it's subject to the will of the Lord. Just think if he had blessed you with lots of baptisms, you wouldn't have struggled and probably wouldn't have reached out to him so fervently. And you wouldn't have grown so much. He's really good at knowing exactly what we need."
I've been feeling down about my small number of baptisms and that's exactly what I needed to hear. The Lord really knows us and what we need. Just wanted to thank you for reminding me of that.
I also (Mom) really enjoyed what you said at the very beginning. [From my letter: I'm so excited to share this with you! I shared the part of your last letter where you talk about the Face2Face with a lady I work with who is in charge of Face2Face and she is meeting with Elder Renlund next week and asked if she could share your comments with him. I told her yes. I thought you'd like to hear that. It was fun to hear how much it touched you. I'm sure he'll also be glad to hear it.] I think it's awesome that she's gonna share what I said. I really feel like the face2face events are inspired. I've watched 3 or 4 and they are always really spiritual and (in my opinion) inspiring. I also just thought it was neat to see the love that the Renlunds have for the culture there, like he was naming different countries and cities in Africa and afterwards I saw a church report where he answered questions afterwards in French (the native language I guess) and stuff like that. I just think it's so neat the way the church goes to lengths to reach out to members in far places. It really seems to show the love that the Lord has for these people and that he would extend personally if He were there.
I also loved general conference. I felt really inspired by the whole thing actually. Like you said Dad I felt the desire to be a better person which I feel like means a lot. I had a lot of little ideas and some spiritual impressions too. It was overall a really good and inspirational experience. (I think I'm using the word "inspired" a lot today -- it's accurate though!!) Good times had by all.
We've been SUPER BUSY this week. We had a mission conference on Tuesday that we had to get all ready for, and I had a bunch of stuff to do the other days, so it's been pretty NUTS!!!!! You would not believe the way some people fill out baptismal forms. For example: leaving off the address, phone number, and confirmation date is pretty impossible right? Wrong! That's ok though, at least there are people getting baptized hahahaha.
It's hot here but we have air conditioning!!!
Me with a frog (fun fact: my companion is afraid of frogs). We saw it on the side of the street last night and I thought it was cool.
LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
