Um, not to make you
feel bad or anything, Mom, but I'm surprised to open my inbox this week
and not find something from you. I don't know if you wrote one that
didn't send or if you were just really, really busy this week. I don't
want you to feel bad if it's the latter reason, but if it's the former,
then you should know I got no e-mail from you.
But anyway,
it was an interesting week with a lot to think about. I dunno, I just
noticed this week that when people talk about my strengths, they always
say it's really cool that I can be myself and relate to people while
still being a missionary. But when the same people talk about my
weaknesses, they say I'm too unrestrained or unprofessional, and I don't
really know yet how to find that balance between being myself and
recognizing my faults and changing them. Anyway, that's been my concern
this past week. Well... I've been thinking about it longer than that,
but it seemed to escalate this week. Chad pulled me aside last P-day and
told me he and Elder Knight are concerned about how I'll be in my next
area if I don't tone myself down. But he also told me he loves my
personality and the work I've done here. So... I dunno. What he said is
the exact same thing every elder tells me when talking about my
strengths and weakness. That they love how I'm myself, but to stop being
myself. I dunno, I'm going to talk to President about it in interviews
on Wednesday.
It was a pretty decent week otherwise. I
mean, I had my first baptism on Saturday! Brandon Ballejos entered the
waters of baptism on Saturday and then received both the Holy Ghost AND
the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday. Our bishop felt he was that ready, and
boy, is he. The guy is absolutely on fire with the gospel. And it's
weird for me that after laboring for 5 months in St. Johns, my first
baptism is a guy that came out of nowhere and who was so ready, I barely
had to do any work. But, hey, it's awesome too.
Louie,
unfortunately, had a pretty sad week. On Monday, he was diagnosed with
prostate cancer. He was sent down to the valley on Thursday for surgery,
and he went into it still prepared to be baptized on Saturday, but his
recovery isn't as easy as he thought it would be, so the baptism
understandably postponed. We're hoping to get it done this Thursday
night. We'll see.
Another big event this week was getting
to go to baptisms for the dead on Friday night with our friends, the
Pages: Tanner and Jamie! Elder Knight and I didn't get to go into the
water, but we gave the Holy Ghost to a lot of people waiting on the
other side. And the Pages are the coolest, hippest people in St. Johns,
so it was super fun. They're moving this Saturday to the valley since
Tanner enlisted in the army, which is sad, but I'm probably being
transferred anyway.
On Sunday, at 6:45 AM, I received a
text from one of our bishops asking me to speak in church at 9:00 AM!
Lucky for me, I did speech and debate, where I was always preparing 5
minute speeches in 2 minutes, so to write a 20 minute talk in 2 hours is
kid's stuff. My topic was on how knowing I'm a child of God helps my
self-esteem, and I think I did pretty good. I of course used the
Lego Movie
quote about "You are the most special, most interesting, most
extraordinary person in the world" and pulled out my new Emmett
mini-figure that Tanner page gave me as a visual aid. The 2nd counselor
in the bishopric said he appreciated my testimony on how great
The Lego Movie is, so I guess I succeeded.
And
then in another ward, we ordained not only Brandon to the priesthood,
but one of our less-actives, Brother Ken Martin, and I got to be the one
to ordain him.
So yeah, it was a good week. I'm glad
Brandon could have a good birthday. And Dad, I'm absolutely positive
we'll all talk about you the same way people talk about Grandpa Arvo.
You're right up there with him. And I love the pictures you send and
encourage more.
I love you all soooooooo much. I'll talk to you next Wednesday, maybe, probably in a different area!
<3 Sam
P.S. Here's a picture of (from left to right) me, Brandon, Chad, and Elder Knight at the baptism.
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