August 8

Hope you liked the pictures. There is more of course, but they take a while to load.

So we had an exciting past week here in Perm. I got to see my old companion off on the train and that meant of course free junk! ha-ha Whooo!   It was different changing companions and hope all is well with Elder H!   So now I am with the former zone leader, Elder F who is my trainer until he goes home after this transfer. I am super excited because he knows the area pretty well and wants to help my language skills become better. I am retaining words, it was just difficult to find an effective system at first, because hearing the word in context in Russian is hard due to the word jumping into a case into a puzzle. But all is well I am picking five words a day and trying to use them in my conversations to master them. We bought a scale and we have been working out even harder everyday running through the forest and up steep hills and say goodbye to all that MTC weight! hahaha 

So my companion and I have been finding, finding, and finding new investigators. We accomplished to stop by and visit one investigator and have a vague first lesson due to her son being there, contradicting every word, even though she was accepting. We did come away with another meeting for next week!  

So a ton is starting to change here for me! There is something I wish to share from my studies on the mission and it is based off the talk given by Elder Wirthlin called, "Come What May and Love It." Change constantly causes a path or paths to be placed before us in life. At many times we are scared of change, whether that be leaving high school and starting college, new teacher for science, or your tire blew out!  I consider all these levels of change, and when the moment presents itself you need to ask yourself, are you ready? It is unavoidable. You either react to the moment or act in the moment, you choose. One only leads us to become battered, torn, beaten, and dizzy. Because you have simply chosen before the choice was laid to be passive. "Do not be a doormat"

Serving in this area has been tough and the language will come, I have no doubt and I dare not doubt my Heavenly Father.  He has sent me here for a reason and it is my job to fulfill my duty and work through the tough times ahead.  Life isn't supposed to be easy. A mission is not supposed to be easy.  I turned to my Father in Heaven in sincere prayer everyday and ask for strength and recognize my weaknesses to allow me opportunities to strengthen me in those areas. Don’t underestimate the comfort we can receive through prayer, and knowing who we are! There have been times where I allowed myself to react to the situation given and not act. When we allow these things to happen we think to ourselves later “hmm what could have been the better outcome if I did do that." Now I am saying basically what Elder Bednar and Bishop Horlacher have said, "Be that good boy or that good girl and don’t worry about it!" and "Be where you are supposed to be and do what you are supposed to do and the Lord will bless you." By doing good deeds and acting through love, the Lord will guide you down the path were we need to be. I relate it to when you first ride a bicycle and your dad has the hand and is helping you then you realize wow I am going. The hardest thing is to focus and not allow your self to fall. Act and don’t react. Because if you react then you are going to crash. It requires us to be humble and when you try to react then when you do fall, I promise it’ll be a humbling experience. Learn and press forward, and take lessons of the past and don't repeat the mistakes. Ether 12:27 (Basically the whole chapter is good!) 

Love you all and I am implementing our mission script everyday D&C 12:8

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