Week One with a "Greenie"

Hello Everybody!

     

  Phew! What. A. Week! So many changes, so many new things, but it's been easy how God has helped us and allowed everything to work out for our good. 

        First of all... My new companion! Elder Butterfield from St. George, Utah. I love him so much - he was a great swimmer back home and has a lot of love for the people around him, especially his family back home. He just came, last Tuesday, from the Missionary Training Center to the mission, so I have the privilege of helping him learn the many, many, many ropes of being a missionary. It's so fulfilling but also super hard! Just by virtue of how new he is, he doesn't know a lot of the kings that seem "obvious" to me know (planning, teaching, working with members, etc.) so it's been fun trying to explain everything that we're doing, in super simple terms. If anybody on earth needs to work on simplifying, it's me (i.e. my mom telling me to remove six pages of useless "fluff", as she rightfully calls it, from a seven page essay) so this is perfect!

Elder Butterfield and myself

Eating after meeting my new companion

          We are both new to this congregation and don't know the members too well, so it's been a big adjustment. Usually, one of the missionaries will stay and get a new companion, then he will leave and the other missionary will stay and get a. We companion, and the cycle continues. That makes it so that at least one missionary in the area knows the members and the people there that we teach. It's a fun transition! We've felt the Spirit helping us in so many ways - we've been working harder than ever before and God definitely strengthens us. We've been able to actually remember peoples' names. Surprisingly, we haven't gotten lost a single time. This week's poem is about "strength" - the scriptural strength, the kind that God grants us when we seek help getting through a trial.

When the end is far away, 

And dawn's hope is far from sight,

We may look down at the ground,

We may shut all from our sight.

If our burdens feel too much,

Far too great for us to bear,

We must lift our heads and think,

"There's another one who cares."

Christ will give us strength unknown,

Power we can't comprehend,

He will shape and lift our lives,

Far beyond our journey's end.

We must ask Him for this help,

We must seek and show our faith,

Knowing that throughout our lives

He will carry us with grace.

Love you all!!! Hope that you have a great week!