It was soo good to hear from you all today! I'm happy to hear that all is well! that's crazy that Kyle is going to college!! WHAT?! Time flies. This week was so great! To start things off, I'm no longer in a THREESOME!! YAY! Its so nice and a ton less stressful. My really young companion left us and well, I'm still in the same area which is completely fine b/c I LOVE this area. The Elliots from the ward wrote me and sent me a picture and I was so pumped to hear from them, they are super cool. Tell them thank you for me! So we now have sisters in our area and they absolutely rock. One is from Russia and the other is a greenie from Armenia. Its been going great and we will see some major transformations here in this area. THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE! Of Course I already opened it and read the letter :) but don't worry b/c I'll read it again when its actually my Birthday! We made fajitas yesterday and they were so good! You would all be so proud of the cook I've become. I'm having the best time with my comp, we are actually friends...in the sense where I feel like I'm not trying to work on our relationship, its just there. Its been so much fun and I'm pretty sure this is the happiest I've been on my mission. So now for the good news. I don't know if you remember me telling you about the PMG I tried starting for the youth not too long ago, but it worked out and a some youth came almost every week, well, this is the First time I've seen the fruits of my labors on my mission, from something that I have personally started...2 of the youth from our class are now on "short term missions" in there own mission, The Donetsk Ukraine. They have name tags and everything and are companions with missionaries. One is a girl named Alyona, and the other is a boy named Kostya. They are both 17 years old and have such solid testimonies. I can't imagine myself at 17 years old taking 3 months of my summer vacation to go be a full time missionary...these kids blow me away. Its been so nice seeing this place transform. Ok, so here is why this place frustrates me a little. The people have a mentality of "as long as I'M comfortable". We started this youth night things every week that is basically mutual that was HUGE. We had the first one my first week in this area back in Jan. It had a great turn out and everyone loved it. Now it is no longer our responsibility, we had to turn it over to the branch which is good so that they can give callings and get things going. Well, as soon as we did that, nothing happened. Its very different here than at home b/c here, if the missionaries don't put it together...no one puts it together. They rely so much on the missionaries that they are not letting themselves as a branch grow. So at district meeting with the new sisters, we brainstormed. We created a plan of all these things that we could do to help this place out and it was so nice to have a sister the spoke their language literally and figuratively. A lot of it was rejected b/c change would make it so these people would have to get out of their routine and leave their comfort zone. Well, we cant do our presidents job for him but everyone needs a calling and everyone needs at least home teachers!! In branch council they brought less actives and asked about a woman that i met with not to long ago. They started telling me all about how she's worse than an investigator and that she needs to be taught all the lessons over again. They gave me the task...I of course accepted but completely grudgingly b/c when i asked if she has home teachers they said no...and they didn't seem to want to do anything about it. AHH!!! We cant be doing everything for everyone and I think that the most frustrating part is that I'm a MISSIONARY not the Branch president, and Its not with in my stewardship to tell him how to do his job. I cant do that so we are in a dilemma in that we have a district full of Zealous missionaries and the leaders of the branch kind of reject our ideas...but, its part of the process and I understand that. God has a plan and one way or another this land will be scattered with temples. I'm honored to be a part of it. I love my Savior and I'm grateful for this opportunity to be humbled over and over and over and over.......again :) B/c my edges are being smoothed (I don't even know how to say that?..) and I'm grateful for everything I've learned and I will continue to learn till the day I die b/c its SO AWESOME! I love you all
- Sean
oh and I played a ukulele the other day (a real one) I almost died I miss it so much haha
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