Hey Mom!
I'm glad you liked the email last week, and I'm doing pretty well. Every once and a while I may get a little homesick but I always think about what you told me, (and I actually put it on a sticky note on the wall in front of my desk) "I love you, but I don't want to see you for two years." I know that I'm supposed to be out here and now I get that reassurance every day. I also put a quote from Dad on there, "Always remember to look on the bright side and don't for get to laugh." That's something I think that I had been struggling with, I just hadn't really taken time out of some of my days to have fun. But I can say that I've been doing a better job of that recently and I have seen the improvement of seeing the Spirit in my life. Laughing can honestly really help in lessons! If you are too serious the people my not want to keep talking to you, but if you can make them laugh and let them know that you can still have fun and are a normal person, it really helps you to gain a better relationship with them!
I'm glad to hear that Skyla is doing better. I have been praying for them every night, and for you guys as well, and for Harrison and Jenni. I hope she will continue to get better! And I also got a package from Zach and Skyla! It had a green notebook that said, "Hey there Greeny!" and then everything in the package was green. Washcloths, a toothbrush, silly string, giant sunglasses, candy, a water bottle, you know the basic essentials. Haha! And they also wrote their testimonies in the notebook and that really was awesome.
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| Great glasses from Zach and Skyla |
And I'm so excited for the concert! I'm gonna write Mr. I and I hope he reads it to the class. I know the Stars Stand up in the Air, and Papa Loko! Those are such cool songs. I'm excited to hear them! If I send my iPod home could you put the recordings on there? And also some more music too?
But as for this week, it's been awesome. According to my MTC teacher Brother Depperman, "The days are long but the weeks are short." It is so true, and weird! The days feel so jam packed and long and hard, but before you know it, it's P-Day again. It's crazy how that works. But last Monday we played Monopoly again, it's becoming addicting. I won this time for real, like we finished the whole game! I ended up with so much money.
We also had our interviews with President Baker this week! That was really cool. It's crazy how he can know us all so well, even though there are almost 200 missionaries in the mission! But I really feel loved by him. We are actually going to have a conference call with him and every other training companionship this week and I'll let you know what that is like!
We did this stress test thing that every missionary has to do during training, and apparently I was in the Orange level... (Green is the lowest, then Yellow, then Orange, and then Red is the most stressed.) But I don't feel stressed! I think that's just how I am. I'm pretty sure that I don't work hard unless I feel stressed, so that's probably good that I'm there!
Crazy story, we now have like hundreds of Ensigns. We were given them by this Less- Active sister that we went to see. It is really nice to have something to read!
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| Tons of Ensigns! |
The craziest day I think was Friday. We went on another exchange, and this time it was my turn to stay in our area and run it! I was really nervous, especially because the other missionary that was coming down is also being trained. So I definitely had to trust in the Spirit! It did not start off very well... After the exchange happened, which was up in Williamsburg about 25 minutes from our apartment, Elder Nutter left, but he didn't give us the phone, or the keys to the car. We were stranded there for a while. Luckily there are 2 sets of missionaries in our area or we would have not been able to do anything! So they called Elder Nutter and they had to turn around to give us the keys and the phone. We did have something to do while we waited for them though... One of the Elders, Elder Bullinger pulled out this helicopter right after District Meeting and he got it stuck in a tree in the church parking lot. So as we were waiting for Elder Nutter to get back, we were throwing rocks trying to get the helicopter down, probably not the best activity... haha! But it was fun. We didn't get the toy down though!
So my companion for the day Elder Cole and I were heading back down to Newport News, and so many of my plans fell through. There was a time when we had an hour and a half with nothing to do because our backups all fell through, and so did our backups backups. But we were able to meet some new people as we were tracting and we also helped give some service to some people! We also knocked on one door and a guy came out with a shotgun, that was a little crazy. Then the next morning still on the exchange, we went to check on one of our investigator's Rosemarry. She had just had surgery. She said that we had "Shown up just at the right time!" I know that wasn't a coincidence. We helped her move a TV and some other boxes and talked about Faith with her! That exchange really let me know how planning is super important because not everything is going to work out, but if we listen to the Spirit, things will work out!
My ponderizing scripture for this week is all of Psalm 100. I just love the message it has about serving the Lord and how He will always love us, but whenever I read it I can only hear the song Psalm 100 that the Women's Ensemble sang that one year, and then I can't get it out of my head haha!
Thanks for all your prayers! I'm glad that you are sending some music, I was going to ask if you could! Just some songs that I've sang before like, "Never Be the Same," "I know that my Redeemer Lives," "One Voice," And could you also send "Consider the Lilies," and "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul," ? And anything else that you think would sound good! Thanks so much Mom.
I love you so much! The church is so true and we can really have a two way communication to God through prayer. It really works!
Talk to you next week,
Elder Collier
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