Mother,
Thank you! I thought that would be an appropriate phrase to start off
this email with. As we have been visiting members and talking about
gratitude I have had ample time to ponder what I am thankful for. Here
are just a few, because the list could go on forever:
1. My family. I love everything about our family. It's funny how being
twelve hours apart for two years can bring you so much closer to
someone. I love my family so much.
2. The Gospel (The Atonement). I mentioned this a little bit to Elyse
when I emailed her today but I am so grateful for the simplicity of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the infinite power of the Atonement.
It provides progress, it allows me to change who I am. The Gospel, or
the Savior in general gives me a perfect "island" (or goal) of who I
need to be. What I need to do to be happy. And if I'm not happy I can
repent! It's not always easy but it's worth it.
3. My Mission. For obvious reasons I am grateful that I have been able
to tell people about the truths of the gospel. One specific thing I am
grateful for is the fact that Heavenly Father allows us to learn from
experience. I love studying a lot, but the biggest lessons I have
learned haven't been at my desk. They have been knocking on a
strangers door, or inviting someone I've only known for 30 minutes to
be baptized. It's been in the hard days where I want to just go home
but push through to a miracle. God lets us grow and learn for
ourselves. He is always watching, as a love Father would. Always ready
to correct but letting us make the decision.
Thank you for your great Thanksgiving thoughts as well. :)
This week was great! We spent a lot of our time solidifying the
investigators we recently found but we were still able to find a few
more.
We went to see J----- Monday night and he asked us if he could get
baptized. He set a date for December 13th and came to church with us
yesterday, he is a great kid. He brought his cousin E----- (who is a
bit of a troublemaker) and taught him all about getting Sacrament as
it was passed. He is solid.
C----- is doing great. He is getting it really well, which makes sense
since he has been coming to church for the past 7 months and his
watched two sessions of General Conference. We were able to take him
to F---- and D------'s baptism on Saturday (which was incredible) and
he already has his baptism all planned out.
M-----, who we started teaching last week, also accepted a baptism date.
He will be preparing for Dec 20th. Exciting things are happening
here. The Ward hasn't had a baptism in about 10 months so everyone
seems to be pretty excited. We had nine investigators at church
yesterday, it was really cool. One of those investigators was B------!
It was pretty sweet. He is going to be a process but he is a really
good guy.
We ran our mission 5k this morning, did I tell you about that? Well
the whole mission got together and ran a 5k! I have never been the
biggest fan of running but we have been training for a couple months.
Me and Elder Meng ran a 5k on Saturday during exercise and did it in
about 28 minutes. Today my goal was to beat President (who is in
pretty good shape) and I just barely did! I passed him on the final
stretch, but he forgave me after. I ran it in 24:50 today. I'm
surprisingly not as dead as I though I would be though!
As for Thanksgiving thus far we have an 'eating appointment' at 12, 2,
3, 5, & 6. With one more to be scheduled today. Three of them are
actually with non members which will be awesome. Missionary
Thanksgivings are great in Mesa.
That is awesome about Uncle Allen and Aunt Denise! They're the
greatest. Tell them if they need someone to stay in their house while
they're gone then I will be around haha. I will be sure to ask
President Jenkins what advice he has for Uncle Allen. Dad sent me an
email and said that President Eyring said that the missionaries are
called to the Mission President, and I can tell you that that is true.
President Jenkins once told me that President Uchtdorf told him the
same thing. Uncle Allen is going to bless a lot of lives!
Well... I think that's all this week. Don't have too much fun without
me on Thursday. :) Oh yeah! And Brother Carroll will be bringing a
duffle bad up full of some stuff of mine sometime this week. Most of
it is shoes... I promise I have done more than shop while I have been
down here haha. Love you!
Love, Elder Alexander
Sent from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment