9/18/2012 LAST LETTER!!!

Hey Everyone! Well, this is weird... It's hard to believe that this will be the last time I will email everyone on my mission. Let me start off by saying that serving a mission is the best decision that I have ever made in my life! I have loved every second of it! I have never been so physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually drained in my whole life until I have been on a mission! But, I have loved it all, because I know that through it all, I have been blessed tremendously. I am so grateful for this! College can wait. My week was pretty good, the weather here has been really helpful, It's been raining a lot here. If not raining, then it's just been really cloudy, so that knocks the temperature down by like 20 or 30 degrees. This week, we had the zone leaders come to town to go on exchanges with us, well I went with Elder Urban again, I figured that it was a nice day that day, that we just walked around town. Well we had some pretty good success! We street contacted a man named Kyle who was getting some stuff out of his truck. We just said hello and started talking to him about random stuff, well turns out that we were out there talking to him for about a hour and he had a few questions about why there are so many churches all over the place ( By the way, there are 132 churches in this area, not just in Lebanon alone ) and he also asked what happened to the church that Christ made while he was on the earth. That was a excellent set of questions! We gladly answered them without any hesitation. We asked him if we could come back and talk to him more about our beliefs and he said that he never knows when he is home because of work, but he agreed!! It was really weird when we were out and when we saw him, because when we left the apartment, a member who lives right down the road from us was also leaving and he offered to drive us to where we needed to go, which was about a mile away. When he dropped us off, we stopped by a investigator and talked with him for about 20 minutes, then we started to walk up the road to see another investigator and as we were walking, that is when we saw Kyle, when we saw him, he just walked out of his house to grab a pack of cigarettes and a bag of melted gummy bears. So doing all of that stuff before literally bought us a 30 second window to talk to him. If we denied the ride to go a mile up the road, or if we talked to the investigator a little bit longer, we wouldn't of seen him!! Pretty cool huh?!?! It's amazing how the Lord sets people in our path at a specific time. He defiantly works in amazing ways. Well, 6 plus miles later, my feet were super sore!!! That was a great day. Elder Ashby and I are doing pretty good, we get along really well, I'm going to be sad when I leave, turns out that his new companion that is coming in is Elder Chriss. If you remember when I was in Owasso, I served with Elder Chriss so that's pretty cool that I know him. This will make Elder Ashby's second companion that I have already served with, and I am his second!! His first was Elder Denton, He's awesome!!! I miss serving with him. Our talks Yesterday went really well, I spoke on the Atonement and Elder Ashby told a story that he read one day. It was about not giving up, it was really good!! It was really weird that that was my last Sunday on my mission. But it was a good one. Well, I thought that this day would never come. Not because I thought I would go home early, but because I didn't want it to come. As my mission is coming to a close, I have learned a lot! I have changed a lot too, in many good ways tho. I know that this church is true and I will never change that. I know that Christ once walked that earth and set up His church with Apostles and Prophets to run it under his direction! I know that after a long period of apostasy, it was restored through Joseph Smith and it will never leave again. I know how important missionary work is and how it needs to continue for the work to spread and I am so grateful that I have been able to go on in this cause. I love you all and I will see you in a few days!! Love always, Elder Daniel Stuart

9/10/2012

**CHECK OUT 2 LETTERS I POSTED** Hey Everyone!! Thanks for writing me again, it's weird to think that I only have one more full week to serve and only one more preparation day left until I head home. It's starting to finally sink in that I am going home, and I am okay with that. I think what really made it happen is when I saw that letter in the mail from the mission office that had my flight plans on it. I read it all carefully and it finally hit me, "This is it, I'm going home. No sense on complaining and wishing I could of done better, because I can't change the past, I minus well keep going forward and not look back". I also got a letter from President Shumway, he told me about how proud he is of me and my dedication to serve the Lord, it was a great letter. Tell President Nicoles that I said hello and I can't wait to talk to him again. It's weird that I will be released, I'm not looking forward to that! Do you know when I will give my welcome home talk? I'm looking forward to Kaelyn's birthday party coming up!! Especially the fire juggling!! I think that it would be awesome if Joey and Lauren or you could score some tickets to General Conference!!!! I've been wanting to go for a long time now! especially since I have served a mission. I hope they can get some!!! I think it would also be a great idea to see my Dad then, I really want to be there when Garrett comes home and when he and Adam give their talks on the 14th. That member has not sent off my bike yet, he is actually going to give me my bike and the box today so I can break it down and put it in and anything else that I may want to put in, then he will pick it up and ship it off. I sent off a box on Tuesday, so you may get it today, don't bother opening it, I'll deal with it when I get home. I was wondering if you could do me a favor?! Could you please send me some money for when I go to the airport? The Mission Office is already going to give each returning missionary $70.00 for their luggage, but we are responsible for anything that costs more. So, I was wondering if you send me maybe $50.00? Just in case, I'll be sure to give you whatever money I have left over. I don't think I will need it, but since my card no longer works, it would be great if I could have that money. That's why I'm sending so many heavy boxes home, I want to travel as light as possible. So my week went pretty well, on Wednesday, we had Elder Yoon Hwan Choi of the Seventy come and speak to us. He spoke on a lot of things, mainly the Atonement and obedience. He is a really great guy and is funny. Also very spiritual and positive. In case you were wondering, (because I know you are) He is Korean. It was great being there, I was able to see a LOT of missionaries that I haven't seen in a long time. There were two that I haven't seen since they were in my district in Owasso!! One of them was a Sister Missionary and we became good friends when I was on Oklahoma, so when I saw her, she looked up at me and flipped out!! It was hysterical!! I even saw a few missionaries there that I don't even know and they came up to me as if they knew me. They were like, "Hey Elder Stuart!! How's it going?! I've heard so much about you! It's good to meet you!" Hopefully it's all good stuff! That was the main highlight of my week tho. Oh, one other thing that happened is that we were walking home from a appointment on Friday and it started to rain, well when we got home, it rained harder and harder, then it poured really hard and the wind blew insanely!!! Then all of the sudden, the tornado alarm went off... We didn't really go anywhere for safety, but maybe 20 minutes later, it stopped and a few hours later, the rain stopped. Very weird, but the rain was needed. Well, I better get going, I love you all and I hope you have a great week!! Love, Elder Daniel Stuart

9/4/2012

Hey Everyone!! That's great to hear that fall is coming... for you!!! It's still pretty warm here. All tho, we did have a awesome rainfall for a few days last week. Elder Ashby is doing better, I think he can bike for a little bit. The member that lent me his bike needed it for this weekend, but I found a spare back tire for my bike and I gave it to him. I told him that he can give me my bike back now, so I can send it home, he said "Don't worry about it, I'll send it home for you, think if it as a going away present" Score!!! Ah man, that took a lot of stress off of my shoulders... So I just sent a package out right before I got here, it's just a lot of stuff that I bought while serving. Don't worry about opening it when I go home, I'll deal with it when I get back. Thanks!! It should be there by next week sometime. That's a awesome testimony that Kaelyn said! So, to answer your question again about my flight plans, no, I haven't gotten the, yet, but I did call the mission office and asked when I would get them and she said that she was actually looking at them right now! So you should get a copy and I should get the real deal soon. She told me that I will be flying from Tulsa, to Dallas, to Seattle, to Spokane. So I'll be in the air a lot that day! My guess is that I won't get home until late, but I guess we will officially know it all soon. Tell Dwight that I am really excited to go hunting with him! And fishing too. I plan on finding a job as soon as possible when I get home. I got a busy life ahead!! My week was okay, we were able to see a few people this week, but it wasn't a very effective week. Tomorrow, we get to go to Springfield for most of the day, we are going to be having a mission tour and Elder Yoon Hwan Choi of the Seventy will be there, I'm so pumped!!! I'm really curious on what he will be instructing on. I love it when we have these. It's a real honor to be in the presence of a General Authority, even if it is a Seventy, but I don't care!! So, how is everyone? How are Tyler and Tysen doing? Be sure to tell everyone I said hello. I got to get going, but I hope that you all have a great week! Love, Elder Daniel Stuart