The Brother of Jared

Hey bro!! Yeah man, my addiction was bad (to ice cream), but I'm fine without someone feeding my addiction!!! Rush and Eryn Alger always encouraged me eating large amounts of ice cream often. How could I say no to free ice cream?!?! But that's how I started to get my chin, but I've actually worked most of it back off with healthy eating and biking around, so I'm all good. I'm back down to about 190-195. So anyways, hurry and get those dang papers in man!! You have no idea how much fun you're going to have on your mission and how much you will appreciate mail and how much you'll miss me!! ;) But seriously... Nothing new going on? I hear you and Tyler are having some pretty intense battles on Super smash bros!

Ham, take it easy, and keep on yo toes too!

Love ya man. buh-bye

Well, it sounds like things are going just fine a la casa! I'm doing great here in the field! I'm actually exited for winter cause that's when our mission gets the most converts because people are always home, inside, no where to run, muhahaha!!! So yeah, I'm exited for that! Actually, we just found 3 FAMILIES that said we can come back and teach them!!! It was a 40 minute bike ride all the way out there, but a member gave us someone to stop by, and we tracted about 5 houses, and the family the member gave said we could come back, and another one said she used to have sister missionaries over!!! Whoo hoo!!! But the family the member gave us are the Stones. Chris Stone, the father is the head music director for this huge Baptist church in town. When we talked to him, he discussed about faith and works, making sure we didn't rely on our works... ugh. But I wondered if it would be like that when we went back to his house on Wednesday and what we would do if it was. Then I read D&C 19:31 and it helped me realize that no matter what, we shouldn't talk about the small things like that as missionaries, but instead focus on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because we will have power when we teach and testify of those things, for that is what we were called to do!! I love the scriptures!

Well mom, it sounds like you had a busy but rewarding weekend. I find I feel a lot better when I'm busy doing something. :)

One thing that I studied this morning was about revelation and making decisions. I read about the Brother of Jared and how the Brother of Jared asked the Lord what they would do for light and the Lord turned it around and said, “What do YOU think we should do?” I applied that to my own life, and how I often feel that I'm not prompted by the Holy ghost all the time and I haven't had all these huge spiritual experiences, and maybe I'm wrong, but the conclusion that I came to was that the Lord feels that I have a great capacity to make good decisions on my own, and only sometimes will he need to prompt me to do certain things (which doesn't feel like very often at all to me...) I'm still trying to learn to recognize the Spirit too. The brother of Jared had the opportunity to choose for himself. The Lord trusted that the Brother of Jared was wise enough not to use fires or windows in the boats. I am trying to respect that trust the Lord has given me to make good decisions and I believe that I will know when I'm not making the best choice. Please correct me if I'm wrong or if you have additional advice. This seems to be one of my greatest struggles, understanding the Spirit and things like that. I'll send Brad some encouragement though, I love that guy, definitely love him like my bro.

CHECK THIS OUT. This is someone’s backyard that we found... Right in the middle of town too!!!! The story is that the guy who built this thought that he and his family were going to be reincarnated as birds, so he built a bird sanctuary... and it sure is, it's full of blue jays and things like that! I couldn't believe this when I saw it... It's pretty incredible, the pictures don't even do it justice!!!