It Was Pretty Boss

Mom: Well to be honest, being an AP is the best and hardest thing I have ever done. It streches my faith,patience,charity,and basically everything. I am exhausted ALL the time. Before my mission I felt like I was never tired but I can fall asleep standing up without even trying. My calling is really just to serve the missionaries. The hard thing is though is that right when I came in President changed his mind and also wants us to have a really good area as well which in the past the AP's never really did so it is a lot to juggle. I guess to share about my calling. It is a lot of office work which is pretty hard as a 19 year old to stay in an office but I'm getting used to it. We go on exchanges with zone leaders who are spread across Minnesota and we help out struggling missionaries. We meet with the mission president and talk about transfers a lot and what we need to do to help the mission. Lots of fun. Bye love ya. Thanks for setting up housing. Please let me know about classes and the exact deadline for when I need to be signed up.

Family:

Crazy stuff goin down in Bloomington that's for sure. I love this place. It turns out that our area is a really big hub for a bunch of immagrants from Africa so we teach Egyptians, Liberians, and a lot of Somalians. It is just like being back with the Hmong people because most of them don't have a Christian background. It has been fun to get to know there cultures but not quite as fun to get to know their foods. 

     Had a really neat miracle this Saturday night. We had found an eternigator(Long Timer) in our area book that was married to a less active but hadn't been seen for super long. So on Saturday night Elder King and another missionary (We were on exchanges) went to visit him. Right as they got there he pulled up and he was super excited to see them. He came to church yesterday with his wife and quit smoking today. He says he wants to get baptized within the next month or so. He is one of the most prepared people I have seen on my mission. I am really excited to teach him too because he is a 6' 4" guy and he loves basketball. 

     Things for Elder King and I were good this week and we spent a lot of time driving all over the mission. Last night we drove north about an hour and stayed the night with some Elders to help them out. We wanted to help them have joy so we're taking them golfing today, should be pretty fun.

     The last person to talk about is this super sweet guy named Ryan. He is a former marine and left the church for about 10 years while he was on tour. He has traveled all over the world and has the coolest stories. One of the first things that he said to me was, "Do you wanna see all my guns?" Dream come true. He has come from such a dark place and is now putting every ounce of energy into the church. It is neat to see those people who come from a rough background and then find the light of the Gospel. They really do have such a strong conviction. 

     On Tuesday we had MLC (Mission Leadership Council) and our former 1st counselor in the mission presidency who was just called to be an Area Seventy Elder Stacey, came to speak to us. He had just gotten off a flight from Salt Lake the night before and so we were the first group of people other than his wife that he had talk to about the call. He told us the whole process of what it was like to get the call and he told us of some of the meetings that he had with the 12 Apostles. He said that it was amazing to see the process in real life of how they direct the church. Then he looked at all of us and said, "If you don't know that this is true from the top of your head to the bottom of your feat, than fix it, and fix it fast." and sat down. It was pretty boss. It for sure gave me a renewed desire to strengthen my testimony and it has been a blessing. Thanks so much and have a good week.