04/04/2016

Dear Family,

To answer your questions...

The pipe moving boots felt pretty awesome, actually. 21 months of being in a shirt and tie can do that. haha. Yes. Longview has way more Spanish people than Astoria. There is a pretty strong branch here. 

Elder Trotter and I are getting along well. We are getting to know the Mint Valley ward and the Cathlamet branch better. We got a referral from some other elders. They are a couple named Kenny and Takia. They were on date and they moved to our area so they are pretty promising. We put them on date for April 23rd. Takia's dad is a returning to activity member so he has set all this up. We are pretty excited for them. 

We watched the Saturday afternoon session with the Y family. They are a cool family. Sister Y has 10 children. Her husband just walked out on her a little while ago. I have a lot of respect for Sister Y. She does all she can to raise her kids in the gospel. It was good to watch a session with them. We watched the last session with Ed.It was good to watch it with him.

Here are some of my thoughts from General conference. The general theme that I got was eternal families. It really stuck out to me as a missionary. For the most part, we are focused on baptizing people and sometimes we neglect the ultimate goal, which is getting sealed in the temple as a family. I was reminded again how important that is. One of the coolest moments was in the last session. There was the talk about the refugees. I was honestly zoning out because I didn't think it applied to me. Then President Uchtdorf got up there to announce the rest of the program and he was in tears. He was a refugee so I"m sure that talk hit him extra hard. It was a good reminder that different talks relate to different people and their situations.

I have been studying all of the parables that Christ taught in the New Testament. I have been taking quite a bit of notes and taking my time on them. I probably have another week left. It is crazy to me how the parables that Christ taught 2000 years ago relate to today. There are a lot on preparation for he second coming. Are we prepared? 

Thanks for the updates form home! I'm glad you ahd a good spring break. That's crazy about March Madness. I'm bummed about Oklahoma. It should be a good championship game.

Thanks again for the great email. I love you all and I hope you have a great week.

Love: Jaxon