5/21/2012

Hey Everyone, So it sounds like you all had somewhat of a boring week hehe, other than the softball game. How is the weather out there? is it warming up pretty well? No, I have not gotten the letter from you yet, I was wondering what happened, if it was stolen or not, but I will still keep a eye out for it :). I'm in the process of making a Mormon.org profile, President Merkley gave us the okay to make them now, all tho, he doesn't want us posting any pictures of us in our missionary clothing or saying that we are currently serving a mission, there are a lot of profiles that have that and we don't want people to think that the only people that have them are missionaries, so when you read it, there is stuff in there that says that I recently served a mission and so forth. Mom, I think that is awesome that you are going to read the Book of Mormon again! You should totally do it! In a way, I agree with you, scriptures can get pretty boring to read sometimes. I don't know if I'm used to it or not, but I am enjoying it now. What I do is that I pray before I read it, to invite the spirit in so I may have a better understanding of what I am reading so I can take it in and apply it easier through out my life. Maybe what I'll do with you when I come home is read it with you every night and as we read I explain it to you so It will make more sense. But don't wait for me to come home to read it, start now and get a head start!! Yes, I did get a new companion, his name is Elder Ashby and he is from Weston, Idaho. Woot!!! Finally! not a Utard! Get this, Weston is "West" of Preston, funny huh? He has been out for 4 1/2 months and is pretty homesick. Honestly, I truly believe that that may be the one of the only reasons why President Merkley put me with him, because I was super homesick when I first came out too. He misses a lot of things. He is kind of a cowboy so he misses a lot of that type of stuff that he did back at home. He also misses mountains like I do, people say that we have mountains here but no, these are NOT mountains, they are hills, don't tell them that tho, they'll get angry. President called me Tuesday afternoon and wanted to tell me that he wants me to train Elder Ashby again, but not in a way to where I flat out tell him that I'm retraining him, that might make him feel bad. Missionaries are trained for 12 weeks so I asked President if I am going to be with him for that 12 weeks and he said that he would like that, so I asked him since I have one more transfer after that, will I be here for the rest of my mission and he said that that might happen. So, odds are, I'll stay here and die.... as a missionary. But I've been told that before and President has spiced things up a bit and thrown me into a different area. I'm kind of going to miss Elder Young, but there would be sometimes where he would annoy me a lot, so It was really good that he left. On Thursday, we went to transfer point in Mt. Vernon to drop off Elder Young and wait for Elder Ashby to get here, we got there at about 10:30 and waited there until almost 1:00! in the mean time, I hung out with other missionaries that I haven't seen since I was in Owasso and so forth. We also played woofle ball base ball, that was pretty fun, When Elder Ashby finally came, he was with Elder Denton! My first companion in Mountain Home! I literally flipped when I saw him. He was my favorite companion to serve with!! We spent time catching up and what not, he was serving with Elder Ashby and he told me a bit about him. He is quiet, real quiet, he doesn't talk much to people. So I will have to work on that... For most of the week, we went around town introducing Elder Ashby to members and others. It was pretty good, I've been explaining to him who everyone is, it will take a while for him to get a grasp on it, but he will get it. After we got back in town from Mt. Vernon, we immediately went to our set appointment with a less-active and a member, Brother Price took us there. It was the same less-active lady that we had a lesson with the other week, remember her? Well she was wanting to know about partiarchal blessings and what is the point pf them and so on, so we talked to her about it. Her kids were being somewhat of a distraction to her, so Brother Price entertained them and sort of played with them to keep them quiet. So since Elder Ashby doesn't talk much....yet, it was pretty much up to me to teach her. Guys, I'm not kidding when I tell you this, that was probably one of the best lessons that I have had on my mission yet! The Spirit was so strong there, she started to cry again. She had all of these side questions that didn't really pertain to our lesson, but I was fine with it, every question that she had, I was able to answer. She said to me: "Wow, you know a lot! I need to pick at your brain for a while". Surprisingly, I don't know a whole lot but enough to know what I'm talking about. She told us that she can feel the Spirit every time we come over and teach her and she wants it to stay with her. She also told us that whenever she does stuff that she is not supposed to do, she can feel the Spirit start to leave her and feels really bad. I testified to her that that is the Spirit telling her and warning her of danger and to stay away from those bad things. She understands that she needs to make some serious changes in her life in order to live the way she is supposed to live. At the end, Brother Price offered to give her a blessing of comfort and she agreed so we stood in and as he gave it, the spirit was even stronger, which caused her to cry some more. At the end of the blessing, she gave him and hug and said said some stuff to him and after that she gave me one as well and said thank you. I wasn't expecting it, but I didn't want to seem rude and push her off, so if didn't bother me much. Funny story, we were getting ready to bike to one of our investigators' house to introduce him to Elder Ashby and we biked maybe 200 yards and his bike chain broke! That was the first time that I ever saw that happen, it was a used bike tho, he got it from the mission office. The bike looked really familiar and I asked him if he remember who's bike it used to be and he said that he think it belonged to Elder Gordon. I flipped out! I said I served with him in Owasso almost a year ago! I knew I recognized that bike. So we had a member that was nice enough to take us to the store so Elder Ashby could get a new chain. Well he is still having bike troubles. He can bike, but not very well, we had another member take a look at it and he said that there are certain parts on it that are really worn out and he may have some spare parts. Hopefully he does, bikes don't come cheep. That is about it for the week, everything is going good, I really appreciate all of the support that you give me through letters. I wish more people would write me. It can get lonley out here sometimes. Please tell people to write me!!! Thanks for all that you do Mom. Have a great week!! I love you all!! The church is true! Elder Daniel Stuart