Hello Everybody!
Louisa is doing well, my companion and I are still alive, and the Work is moving on. There have been quite a bit of craziness going on the past couple weeks but they make for good stories.
So, to all those getting ready to go on a mission - start studying your scriptures and Preach My Gospel immediately. Despite popular belief, the MTC is not a place where you will magically learn all the scriptures you need to know and that you'll come out the "Golden Missionary". With that being said, they're actually going to be cutting down the time missionaries stay in the MTC and send them out in the field with a different training program. I wouldn't be surprised to see the time they stop sending missionaries to the MTC and send them straight into the field. Start preparing NOW. If you don't, well, you're going to be a pain for your trainer and you'll have a more difficult time adjusting and gaining the Spirit of missionary work. Go out with the missionaries in your home area as often as you can. Ask them questions, and maybe even set up times to where you can role play with the missionaries to better your teaching and contacting skills. Trust me. Why this sense of urgency I feel? In a few weeks my mission is going to receive its first wave of 18/19 year old Elders and Sisters and things are going to be different. At this point in time, the Lord AND the people YOU will teach will need a better prepared representative of Christ to stand by their sides. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get out here but for now take my word for it and start preparing NOW.
It's easy to get wrapped up in trying to cram in all the fun you can before you leave but that is a total waste of time. Believe me...I know first hand. Future Elders and Sisters of the Lord, I would invite you to study NOW Alma 26. That is the Spirit of Missionary Work. That is how you will feel if you are a prepared servant of the Lord. There is nothing that can replace those feelings.
"Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.
Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land." - Alma 26:12&36
