December 5, 2011

Dear Family,

Well it was really great to hear from you as usual. It sounds and looks like the Christmas season is sneaking its way into regular life. I love Christmas time, it really just feels different. As missionaries we don't really do anything differently around Christmas we still have the same schedule, but something in the air just feels a little special. That is really cool what Frank's mission called him to encourage him to get out there. I know that when new missionaries come its just a huge party for everyone in the mission. I know that Frank will be a really great addition to the Armenian mission. I've been looking at some Armenian Books of Mormon and that language is nutso, but I think Frank will get it really fast. If you're diligent then even learning a foreign language is pretty easy.

This week was really awesome in the life of a missionary. We were able to have a little more time that usual to work in our area so that was nice. We also went to Daugavpils (I feel like I go there all the time these days) again this week in order to conduct a baptismal interview with a lady that just got baptized this last Saturday. I love conducting baptismal interviews! It's so cool to see people that are so close to baptism and there testimony is big enough for six people. This lady I did the interview with told me about her journey to baptism, how she had ran into the missionaries multiple times and as she had gotten closer to the church it just flipped her life over and made her such a better person. We were talking together a little bit about the persecution that she has been getting from friends, and she said something to me that was really cool that strengthened my testimony. She said "it doesn't matter what those other people say, something that does so much good can't possibly be false" It made me think a little bit. This Gospel really does so much good for everyone that lets it, the only people that have negative views are the ones that won't let it into their lives and thoughts. Elder Froelich and I also had a good week of finding. We were to find a couple new people from our new English club that we started and give them baptismal dates. I've really learned a lot about planning as a missionary. I've learned that if you really plan well and you work in order to achieve higher goals, not just work for that one day, you can really accomplish amazing things. I've been realizing a lot how ineffective I was before my mission. I would just live day to day, it made it really easy to talk myself out of important things, but if we have that higher goal and plans of how to reach it then everyday is so much more meaningful, and we can progress so much faster (random thought from Elder Pack haha :).

Thank you so much for all that you do for me I really appreciate it. I hope that you all have a great week. I did get your Christmas package by the way, I didn't really even consider the thought of waiting until Christmas to open it haha, I'm sorry if I ruined the surprise. It really made me happy. Thank you so much for all the treats, and the cds. I've already enjoyed the Josh Groban cd multiple times for the last few days.


With love,
Elder Pack