I GOT MY PANTS!

Hey Mom! 

I finally got my pants! It took forever but they are finally here, and I'm not gonna lie they look pretty good. 

Jonny and his new pants!

I'm glad Mr. I liked the email! How was the reaction from the class? I hope that they continue to have fun, and it makes me happy that the concert went well. That choir is just so good. I hope I can hear some of their new music, maybe if I send my iPod home and get the new music? I want to hear those songs! And we never did an exchange with Gonzaga! How was that? It makes me happy that Spencer Martin is still singing! Tell him I said hello too if you ever get the chance!  I wish I could see how the concert went. 

It's alright that you didn't get it in the mail, I understand that things get busy! Especially around concert time, you are always so busy, I never understood how you did it! 

How is Grandpa doing? It makes me happy that he keeps on going! Tell him and Grandma that I love them. 

And I don't know if we are ever getting iPads... We may sometime in the future! But we always joke about how much easier everything would be if we had one! But as of right now, you don't need to send any money!

This week was a little tough. It seemed like we had so many lessons just fall through, and I was starting to get a little frustrated at myself. I went on two exchanges this week, and the first was on Tuesday with Elder Weber in the other Newport News area. Elder Weber is on his first transfer too, so to be honest we were a little nervous. And EVERY single plan fell through that day. We met a lot of new people and talked to a ton of people, but no one was home for their scheduled appointment. And we even were supposed to have this lesson with this family who is getting baptized in a few weeks, and that one fell through! I was really excited to teach them, cause they are awesome and super excited about everything, but it didn't work out that night. 

Then Thursday I went on another exchange, this time with Elder Coltrin in my area, who is going home after this transfer. 

Elder Colton going home!

Crazy shift of experience in those two days, but pretty much the same outcome. A lot of our appointments fell through, including one that I was super excited about! We had run into him one day and ended up teaching him the Restoration on the spot and he was super excited about church and baptism and prayer and everything! Then while I was on the exchange on Tuesday Elder Nutter introduced the Book of Mormon to him and he was super excited! And I was supposed to see him on Thursday, and we had brought a priest from our ward with us because the guy that we met was 18. Then we knocked on the door and the people inside said that he had moved out. I was shocked. We tried to call him and his phone is turned off. We have no way of contacting him and it makes me really sad. But right after that we were able to bring the priest that we brought, Nick, with us to see a less active member. We were able to teach her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and emphasize the importance of the sacrament and coming to church! It went really well, and then after the lesson when we were driving Nick home Elder Coltrin and I were able to talk to him about serving a mission because he was kind of on the fence about it. And I hope that that helped him and gave him a greater desire to go, because a mission is awesome, no matter how hard it gets.

Crazy story about the end of the exchange, that next morning Elder Coltrin and I decided to go run, and then we wanted to make a smoothie afterward. Well when we were using the blender, it blended about halfway and then there was a flash, and then smoke starting rising from the blender. It just exploded for no reason! So now our blender is broken... haha! Oh and our dishwasher broke too but that's a different story, that one also wasn't our fault! But the apartment complex is hopefully going to fix it soon!

I read a great article in the September 2015 ensign called, "Don't Run Away," and it talks about not running away from fear. The girl in the article has a heart problem, so she has had to run throughout her life in order to keep her heart rate up so that it doesn't slow down! At first she was scared, but she talks a lot about how fear is the opposite of faith. And when we are afraid, we can't have that faith that everything is going to be alright. It just really stuck out to me this week and if you get a chance you should go read it! 

On Thursday we also got to be on a conference call with all the new missionaries and their trainers! It was pretty cool, we all just shared faith promoting experiences that we have had. It was nice to hear from the missionaries that I new when I was in the MTC!

Saturday was the toughest day. We got yelled at a couple times, people were angry at us, all our lesson fell through, our dishwasher broke. But through  it all I felt happy at the end of the day because I KNOW that the church is true. I am going to keep my head up and work hard. The Lord has asked me to work in this area for a purpose and he will provide a way for me to do so. My ponderizing scripture is 1 Nephi 3:7: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." I'm working hard and trying my best and that's what the Lord expects of me! I'm still trying to get over my homesickness every once and a while, but I can do this! 

Thanks so much for everything Mom, and I can't wait to hear from you soon!

Elder Collier

P-day!