Elder Jonathan Collier: No Title This Week...

Hey Mom!

I'm doing really well. The mission is seriously the best thing ever. It's not getting any easier, but as I rely on the Lord more, the burden feels lighter (if that makes sense) haha! The weather is getting warmer!! Like really warm. It got super humid a couple of days ago, but there was a storm that came in that dried up everything so now it's like high 70's with low humidity which feels GREAT! It was close to 100 with high humidity for a while though. I've gotten a little sunburned... haha. I'm being better about putting sun screen on! There are a lot of bugs everywhere though! Mosquitos, huge hornets and flies, and gnats! There are like millions of them. We wear a lot of bug spray! And I have seen Fireflies! They are so cool! I honestly didn't think they were real until I saw them out here! why don't we have any one the west coast??

The Greene's are doing great! We lost contact with them for a few days, but 2 of them came to church (the mom was working and 3 of the kids were at their grandparents) but Joshua and Malachi came and they loved it as normal! We decided to move their date back to July 16th, but they are going to work toward it! We have a few more lessons to go and they are just getting more and more excited! Their kids are sometimes the ones that help them keep their commitments! It's awesome haha!

So our branch has a LOT of members on the roster, but we only have about 50 at sacrament meeting every week! And there are 4 young men (2 priests, a teacher and a deacon) and 3 young women (1 mia maid, and 2 beehives) who are active! THey are so cool! The primary has about 15 kids. The only kids in seminary this past year were the 3 oldest young men, and they all got their certificates on Sunday! None of them are seniors, so no one graduated. THey just attend at our little branch building in the morning. It's really cool to see that seminary is still essentially the same out here!

It sounds like you had a lot of fun this week! Sammy will do a great job as the first Assistant!

Cole looks so good! Tell him that I'm proud of him and I can't wait to see him! And that's so exciting for Brandon! He's going to do great.

There isn't much else to report on this week. We've been going out and tracting a lot because our teaching pool is low besides the Greene's. But I really do believe that the effort we put in is helping out our other missionary work. I'm just going to keep working hard!

It's weird... this is our last week with President Baker! We had a zone conference last week and he told us the upcoming schedule and how it's going to work out. President Weed arrives on Monday the 27th, and as soon as he touches the Virginia soil, he presides. Crazy right? I'm excited for the change but I'm going to miss the Baker's. After our Zone conference we all got a chance to walk up and give them a hug and a hand shake, and I just love them so much. And it'samazing how well they know each one of the missionaries, and how much they love them. It's going to be a crazy couple of weeks as the transfer comes to a close and we get a new mission president! I'm excited to see what will happen!

My ponderizing scripture for this week is D&C 80:4 "Therefore, declare the things which ye have heard, and verily believe, and know to be true."It's pretty simple and straight forward. I am called of God to go and declare what I believe and have come to know. I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that our message is true! The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in it's fulness today, and the Book of Mormon is the proof of it! This is the Lord's work and I have a big responsibility to bring souls unto Him. I'm loving it.

Thank you so much Mom! I got the shirts! I haven't gotten the garments yet, but I'll probably get them soon! Thank you for helping me out with that! It's kinda crazy how not white my shirts are now in comparison to the new ones... haha!

anyway, I love you so much! I can't wait to hear from you soon. I hope you have a great start to summer!

Love you so so much,

Elder Collier

"We brought dinner on the road with us one night because we didn't have time to go back home! Just hanging out in the car doing missionary work and eating dinner!"