Change is Good!

Hey Mom!

I'm glad you got that picture! The Whaley's are awesome. They have 4 boys too!

So looking at the subject title, you'd probably never ever think I would say that... haha! But some big changes are happening in the mission, for me, and for all the missionaries! And I actually am SUPER excited for the changes. 

This week was really good. Elder Ward just went home today, so that was sad, but he's pretty excited to see his family again. Elder Ward went home a week early, so I'm going to be in a trio with Elders Oldroyd and Davis (the other elders in our ward) until transfer day on Feb 8th! so I don't know who my new companion will be yet, but this week will be fun! I'm excited. 

They put up a hammock in their apartment!

Jonny and his companion Elder Ward

We had a worldwide Missionary broadcast this past week and it was SO cool. They just filmed a meeting of the Missionary Executive Council about them discussing missionary work and how to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ more and to help others live it. I got a lot of good things to work on, one of them being to focus more on helping others understand what Real Intent is! But the big change is that they changed the missionary schedule! And also the key indicators that we track. But for the schedule, what they did was instead of having a structured schedule in the morning, they just told us that from 6:30 to 10, we have to wake up, Exercise, have 60 minutes of Personal study, 30 minutes to plan our day, and get ready to proselyte by 10. We can plan when we want to do those things and how we want to use our time! I think it's super cool. Then from 10am -9 pm we proselyte with 30-60 minutes of Companion Study, 30 min of lunch, and 1 hour for dinner thrown in when we best think it can be used. Then we don't plan at night any more. IT's going to be hard to get used to, but essentially, they are giving us more agency to use our time better! I want to try a bunch of different things to see what will actually be the best use of the Lord's time. 

I just want to say, it is so true what it says in Doctrine and Covenants when the Spirit will give us in the very moment what ye shall say. I was on an exchange with one of the district leaders in our Zone, Elder Staheli (who I was in the MTC with so it was so cool to go with him!) But we had a GREAT lesson. There was this couple that I met last week that allowed us to teach them and we had a great lesson, one of the greatest of my mission. Elder Staheli did such a good job, and I KNOW that the Spirit was working through us. There were so many things that I know I couldn't have come up with without the Lord's help. It was just so cool, and we are going to see them again tonight! I'm so excited, I'll keep you posted on them. 

We found a Less-active member that's not on our roster! It's so cool to be apart of that, especially when they are looking for the church again. We haven't been able to see him since then, but we have his information to find his records so that was cool! 

Please tell Grandma and Grandpa again that I love them.I'm glad that he's still fighting. I'm praying for them both every night. Grandpa is just a stud doing missionary work! 

But yeah things are going great here. I am excited for the change. Elder Ward was awesome, but he was definitely ready to go home, so I hope I get a companion who's not going home for a while... haha! But I'm excited for this week! 

My ponderizing scripture for this week is Doctrine and Covenants 88:63 "Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I know that we can draw close to the Lord. We do that by keeping the commandments and seeking after Him in our life through prayer and scripture study and partaking of the Sacrament. Everything in the Gospel of Jesus Christ roles into one, and it's just so amazing to be apart of helping people receive this. I love this gospel! 

I hope you have a great week mom! I can't believe Sammy will be 18 this week... he's so old! It's so weird to think that he can be an adult... 

But you sound like things are going awesome and I love to hear from you. Thanks for being amazing. I love you so much! 

Love,

Elder Collier