Week 5

 I've been out for a little over a month now and it's been a blast. The mission is the best and I'm learning a ton, and hopefully getting better at teaching too. To all of my family and friends, which is all of you, I want you to know that I love you, even if you don't read the whole email. I understand, I've been in your shoes before, and more importantly so has Jesus. He has felt all of your trials and I know that if you turn towards Him, He can help you in your everyday life and in reading this email too. Enjoy 

Locked Door, again - I don't know if you guys remember this, but my first week in the MTC my room locked ourselves out by accident. Well... Elder Herbst forgot the car keys which also had the apartment key and I had just locked the door. After a small panic, we remembered that the window by my bed is cracked open and so we broke into our own house. Hopefully it was for the last time.

Exchanges - As the companion to the district leader this will happen a bit more than usual, but they are pretty fun. I went into the bike area and found out how out of shape I am. The old bike didn't make it easy either. But one of the members we visited had two dogs, one super old and the other young. And she did not pick up after their droppings, it smelled terrible 

Adam - We met with him, probably for the last time since he is moving, and talked about the baptismal questions and how he really did have a testimony and that the Holy Ghost testifies by making things make sense, and not just from a "burning bosom." It went really well and he is going to his family once they are done moving. Please pray for him to have the courage.

Collin - We met him through service and every time we come over he has a new question to ask us. He even told us before we left that he wanted to talk about tattoos so that we could study it and then come back to him. He's kinda blunt like that, but I think it is only with us, so that is kinda funny. The other day he called me out on being the less experienced and less confident one and said I needed to watch Elder Herbst and learn from him , I said I would.

Tammy - She dropped us with a four screen long text, she basically just doesn't have time right now and isn't making it a priority. But we are still keeping in touch so maybe once her life calms down she will start meeting with us again.

Secret Mission - The Hermanas gave us a secret mission, so you can't tell anybody else about this. But there is this guy in our area who ghosted them, so our job was to "tract randomly" into his house. Sadly the address is off or something because we couldn't find it. So instead we called him and it was a bit awkward explaining how and why we got his number from the Hermanas, but hopefully it worked out because I had no clue what he was saying in Spanish.

Baking Blunders - Some of you might know of this already from my story, but we wanted to make some pumpkin banana bread with chocolate chips. It actually tastes really good. So we made it, and then forgot about it. We pulled the first two loafs out and they were burnt, so we put the rest of the batter into a pie tin and also burnt that one. It was a pretty sad night, until we realized that only the outside was burnt and the inside was still good. So it still worked out. 

Elder Herbst - my companion gave a talk yesterday and one of the things he said was the Parable of the Trumpet: He was playing the trumpet when the mouthpiece fell out and got dented. He tried putting it back in but it could no longer play sound. So he had to get another one for his trumpet to work again. The mouthpiece of God is the Prophet, because of him we are able to receive guidance from God for the Church. But when we had misguided people in the apostasy they were the dented mouthpiece and they weren't able to play the song of the true church. That is why the Restoration was necessary and why heeding the true Prophet is so important. Doctrine and Covenants 24:12 says, "And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night. And I will give unto him strength such as is not known among men."

So in other words, listen to the prophets. They are awesome, and the things they tell us are for our benefit. 2 Nephi 26:24, "He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world." Jesus loves each one of you so much, He suffered and died for each of us. I love all of you, but I don't have the capacity to love you as much as He does, yet. I hope the best for all of you this next week and that you will be able to see God's love in your life. Bye for now!

Pictures - not much today. My companion cutting my hair, a videoof the burnt bread, the philly cheesesteaks I made-and with fries, and my phone who can't tell my twin apart from me, granted my mom struggles too sometimes so...