Hey everyone! I didn’t know how else to start this email, except by just saying how much I love and appreciate you all for wishing me a “Happy Birthday” this week! I was just filled with gratitude to God for blessing me with such great friends, family, and supporters, while I’m here serving my mission.
So,”Thank you, Thank you” for all the birthday wishes!
This week was pretty solid so I’ll just hop straight in.
Tuesday: We had our follow-up zone conference in the morning and that was really good! President talked a lot about humility and how we need to be studying the /Christlike attributes and applying them. I loved it and have seen lots of blessings from doing that every day.
We had a great lesson with our friend Andrea and she is great. She always texts us her favorite scriptures she is reading in the BOM and then asks great detailed questions. She is the best! We had dinner with the Elders Q president and it was super cool. His son was the 2001 AL rookie of the year for the A’s. Pretty swag.
Wednesday: I was on exchanges in the Springdale area with Elder Ryu. He is super cool. We got some Subway for lunch and boy was it trash. L employee for sure. Bro was hesitant about the sauce. Anyway, later in the day a member clutched up a member meal and I kid you not it might’ve been the best one on the mission. She made these ribs and they fell right off the bone. It was heaven for real.
We found a cool guy named Jacob and I hope he does well for the Elders!
Thursday: The big 20th bday! It honestly was a great day. I was really nervous that I was going to be homesick and just dead, but I was actually really stoked. I have always been a bit selfish about my birthday in the past now that I’m on my mission, my eyes have been opened and it really is just any other day. I was so happy to be spending it just serving the Lord. It was great. We got some goated tacos for lunch and then you know me we had to go hit Jamba Juice. I spent the evening calling and talking to my family! It was the bestttt!
Friday: We got asked by this old lady to help her move some boxes and, by the way, it sounded, it was going to take a while. Well, after 15 minutes she was packing us up cookies and sending us on our way.
Good times. Elder Ryu volunteered our entire district to sing at the follow-up Zone Conference. And, because of complications, we couldn’t sing at ours and got asked to sing at a couple of other zones in the mission. If you know me, I do not sing unless I’m jamming in the car with Josie. So, I was hiding my voice, and it was just so embarrassing. We spent the rest of the day doing some visits and had a great lesson with Karl! He is a champ.
Saturday: Back with my guyyy! I was able to be on exchanges with my old companion and current ZL Elder Connel! It was a great time! We just got to catch up and just talk about our old area. Which, there was a part member family we were working with and apparently 3 of them got baptized that day!!! It was so cool to hear that. We had a couple of good lessons with some of their friends, so overall it was just a really good day.
Sunday: I love Sundays in this area. We had our church service and our friend Karl was able to make it! He is an old dude who explores different churches. We knocked on his door about a week ago and he is already here are Church! Let’s go! We had a chill afternoon of visits and I definitely have a favorite. We stopped by this dude’s house and he let us in and he was a chatter!! He is a member but lowkey bashed us. BUTTTT he gave us ice cream and he had the TV on. And guess what was on… CHARGERS VS RAIDERS!! I was like “Crap, I cannot watch this.” Let’s just say I fell into temptation fast. After about 30-45 minutes we left and I am not going to lie, I cannot remember much about what he said. Chargers won tho,
LET’S GOOOO! Anyway, we had a good member meal with Sister Cooper and she is super kind.
Well, that’s about the week! I didn’t mention but Socal is having a horrible heat wave run, and the past couple of days have been 100 degrees or more! So, that had been horrible. Quick shout out to water!
My spiritual thought is quite simple. Make your prayers more meaningful. God wants to hear what we really have to say and how we really feel. Don’t do the same old grocery list prayer. Trust me when I say, that just switching up the wording of your prayers shows a lot to our Heavenly Father. So, pray. When you do, pray earnestly. And, pray always. Anyway, go read Alma 37:37 and you’ll know why.
Love you all so much!!!
Also! Happy Birthday to Pres. Nelson!
