Hey! Guys!
So I don´t know if you all realized it, but the 3rd of March marked the one year mark from when I opened my call! How nuts is that! I spent the day Thursday thinking about how crazy that day was and how excited I was! So many emotions were going on that day and so many phone calls were made. It was a crazy day. It was cool to think about this past year and everything I have gone through since I received my call. So much has changed. It was kind of weird. This week I spent a lot of time just reflecting when I had an extra minute or writing in my journal about my life and you guys. I´m not homesick or anything. It was just a really reflective week and my testimony of the Lord´s plan for me has definitely grown. I was thinking about all the seemingly little things have brought me here with the friends I have and the knowledge I have gained. Maybe it hasn´t been the easiest journey and I know it hasn´t been the hardest journey, but I do know that the Lord has his plans and I will be forever grateful for all the things that He has brought to me in my life... good or bad, I´ve learned from each experience and I have grown into who I am now and I will continue to do so. Every choice we make really makes a difference. I was reading a talk and it basically says that who we are in this instant is the sum of everything we´ve seen, heard, done, thought, and said and that we will always be changing and evolving. I will be forever grateful for those things that have brought me to this point in my life. Even the small things or the dumb decisions have brought me to this point and I have explicit trust in the Lord that He will guide me and shape me into the man I need to be. With that being said, it´s been a pretty cool week. haha
Anyway, this Wednesday, we had another one of those leadership counsels that all the Zone Leaders go to which was way cool. We learned a bunch about the things we need to do to boost up our district leaders and help our zone succeed. It was pretty sweet and the best part above all was that we had a Thanksgiving dinner! Sister Clark made turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and all that good stuff and we ate our little hearts out. It was pretty funny. There ended up being like 6 Americans at the table in the kitchen celebrating the Thanksgiving we never had in the mission. It was a good time!
Something else pretty cool is that Elder Larsen and I have gotten to know each other a lot better because we did exchanges where Elder Chatu went with a priest from the ward and I headed with Elder Larsen. He´s a really good kid and I´m glad he´s with us. I´ve learned from him a lot in this week we´ve been together and I hope he´s learned a bit from me. He was really wanting to speak english because we never do so for a few hours, we were talking back and forth in english and it was just a cool experience. That hasn´t happened since my first change with Elder Layland so it was fun.
Other than that, it was a pretty normal week. We didn´t have a ton of success. All the people we were teaching didn´t come to church so we´re gonna have to start over this week with a clean sheet of paper. This week is kind of the key because with how things work out, this week is the last chance Elder Chatu is going to have to find people to baptize because the investigators have to go to church 3 times before they get baptized so be praying for us that we can find someone this week who can get baptized the 27th of March. It would be really cool.
Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! I know it´s a few days from now, but still, enjoy it! I love you all tons and I will talk to you in about 2 months!
Love you!
Elder Alexander
