Weeks feel like days

August 30th 2010

Well, yet again, another week has come and gone within a blink of an eye! Time is really funny how it works out here on the mission. Days feel like weeks, and weeks feel like days. I try to keep up on everything that happens daily, whether by my journal or talking on those tapes I send home, but it seems to be an impossible task. From the morning that the alarm goes off at 6:30 am to the time we lay our heads to rest at 10:30pm, it is work, work, work, and more.................work. Life as a missionary is hard and it is exhausting, but it is worth every minute because we are saving souls out here! Literally, I cannot adequately describe my feelings in reguards to how I feel about my mission, but I love it. Even though some days are hard, and it literally takes all the strength I have in me to press forward, serving a mission has been and will continue to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my lifetime!

My faith has really been tested this past week. Through many different experiences, it has been harder to endure through the trials that have come. But I have not given up, and that is what is most important. My companion and I have been experiencing similar battles against the advesary and so we have been helping one another through. We have been blessed enough to be able to recognize when the advesary is working on us and trying to bring us down. We have spent many hours in prayer and have received strength from the Lord. It has been a good learning and growing experience. And despite how difficult trials can be at times, especially when you are in the furnace of the fire, I know that there are blessings just waiting around the corner. We are working hard to continue to have faith in every footstep, and to more fully rely on the Lord in this great cause of saving souls.

Unfortunately I do not have much to write today, but I wanted to let each of you know I love you and I miss you. Some days I miss home, but I have really begun to establish a home away from home out here in the beautiful valley of Wenatchee, which has been such a blessing. The members of the Mission Ridge ward are just amazing, and I honestly feel that a big reason why I am serving in this ward is to be able to lift and strengthen them. Of course there are some amazing people we are teaching too, but we are called to serve and love all of those within the realm of our influence. I especially look forward to the day that I will be able to come back and visit the people here. I truly have grown to love them in ways I'd never quite experienced before.

We are now officially half way through the transfer! Crazy! Like I said, time is flying by. The latest updates with investigators, Rafael will not be getting baptized this coming Friday because he wasn't there in church on Sunday. So we are going to work with him and hopefully set another date in the near future. Please keep him in your prayers; he is an amazing guy but last time we met with him he mentioned to us that he could feel Satan was working on him and trying to discourage him from getting baptized. So hopefully he is ok. He is very difficult to get ahold of so we are hoping he will be there at his appointment tmrw in the park. Other than that, we are trying hard to find new people to teach. We are pressing forward in faith, that the Lord will place those whom He has prepared in our paths. We are anxiously engaged in the great cause, and so I know that in the Lord's due time He will pour out His blessings upon us. Please keep us in your prayers. They are greatly needed and appreciated. Thanks.