Week 19 - Yo.

Alright alright alright. Week 19. It feels more like i've been here for like 2 weeks...

So this is my new companion, Anziano Ostergar. He's from California. He's super cool. He surfed and ran track and stuff. He's awesome. He's weird. But I love him. We do work.




Let's see... other things from this week.

Juan, our investigator from Peru, is totally going to be baptized on October 18. He has a couple problems now but he is doing everything he can to become worthy and a great person. He is totally going to be ready by his baptism and I love this guy so much.

Real quick. So we just got a phone call 14 seconds ago. An investigator named Yilmaz, he's from Turkey. He called and just said, "Hey, I'm not done with the book yet, but I know it's true." ... So yeah. Take that as you will...

I don't know. I don't have a ton to say about missionary work this week, just about something i've been thinking about. Faith is the basis of everything. There are so many scriptures about faith and the things we can do through faith. I'm just gonna quote one scripture and then say what I want to say.

Alma 32:26-27
26 Now, as I said concerning faith—that it was not a perfect knowledge—even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge.
27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

So here's kind of what I wanted to say. This life is hard. We have difficult times, and I can promise you that you're going to have more. We are here to find joy, and I believe to do so, we have to find pain too. But when you experience that pain, don't you dare lose faith. Faith is what brings happiness. If you immediately throw away that faith when times get hard, you're making it way harder than it should be.

Faith is the key. And you have to act on it. Faith is power from God. Through faith we can do anything. I love you all. I'm telling you this because I care about you enough to say so. Life is hard. Cool. Don't blame anyone. Keep you head up, looking forward, loving everyone. I know without a doubt that this life is hard, but faith will keep you going. I don't know, I just felt to say that. Just keep swimming. It's just not worth it to stop. I don't know but yeah.

Thanks for everything you all do for me, for you prayers and everything.

You're all amazing and you've all played a very important role in my life to get me to where I am now.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart,
Anziano Guthrie