Friends and family,
It has been another fantastic week as a missionary serving in God's kingdom! I love this so much and as hard as it is to be away from you all, this has been the best 3 months of my life!
I love D&C 15:6 where it says that if we're looking for something that will be the greatest worth to us, we should help bring souls unto Christ. Even though it's getting colder, and we're coming in at night more and more tired, I've never felt so excited and happy in my whole life.
OK, enough with the cheese; a lot happened this week!
Tuesday started off with transfers and it turns out that I'm staying with the English Elders until Elder Fong gets back. I'm still with Elder Boetcher but we have a new companion, Elder Royce. He is so awesome! I love him so much. Our time together has already included lighting the microwave on fire and driving half an hour home without using turn signals because "the blinker fluid was low". As a normal person, that seems like stupid little things, but as a missionary, you need something to break the monotony.
It started getting real cold here (like 20 degrees cold) and so we had to break out the thermals and scarves and coats and gloves and hats and yea, it's really cold. It's not even the temperature so much as its the wind! The wind cuts through you like a knife, but it is so much fun! One night, in fact, we were doing service for this family and we all thought that we'd be inside their garage moving boxes. Yea...no. we were outside the whole time in light jackets, tennis shoes and jeans. The second we were done and they closed the door, we sprinted to the car, booked it home and threw on like 6 layers of clothes. Finally, later that night at dinner, we warmed up again, but boy was that an experience!
Luckily I was able to have a lot of Spanish practice this week. I realized that my Spanish studies have been really lacking (even more than just not having a Spanish companion) and so I decided to change that; and I can testify that the gift of tongues is so real! As soon as I started to put effort into my studies and I started to pray for the gift of tongues, not only was I able to understand and communicate in Spanish but I was also given so many opportunities to do so. We found an entire complex of apartments full of Latinos and with only my limited vocabulary, and the spirit, we were able to not only find someone, but we were able to set up an appointment to teach someone! The Spirit truly is incredible!
I hope you all have a fantastic week and that you know how much I love and pray for every single one of you. My heart has been full this whole week of both love and gratitude for all that you have done for me; for the advice, the support both physically and spiritually, for all of the love you have shown me. I am a better person because of it.
With much love,
Elder Arkoudas
I love these two so much! Braydeen and Willie, I'm going to try to get them to sing some black gospel music with me... "swing low, sweet chariot..."
Elder Boetcher turned 20!
Chicago deep dish pizza.
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