August 20

Mother,

Mom how are you doing? How are school preparations going? How is traveling the world without me? I am doing well, things are going good.   I always play Come Thou Fount on my music player Sue sent me, I love that song. I am happy that you were able to go to Elder Briggs homecoming, He is a sweet guy. It was funny Elder Smith emailed me this week. He sent two pictures. One was with him hugging a white girl, the other one was of a plate with steak and mash potatoes and stuff. I was laughing pretty hard. Elder Hernandez is definitely the funniest guy on my mission. He didn’t tell you any of the funny stories we had together? My area is about 2 to 2 and half hours away from the mission home. It’s the second farthest area away.  So I am training a Ghanaian. He is awesome his name is Elder Appiah. He is a nice and humble guy.  It’s funny he lives like 2 hours from the area we are in now. He has already seen one of his friends and he saw his mother. She was riding away in a car but he got to say hi to her. So I got the packages from you and Cindy! They were all really nice and loved them and appreciate them. Tell Cindy thanks.   So things are still going, some are tough some are sweet. One thing I know that is very true though, is when you are going through trials and hard times it’s when you are closest to our Heavenly Father. He doesn’t just leave me alone. All though sometimes I just have to get through things by myself to test my faith, but at the end it strengthens me and helps me to grow. One other thing I was thinking about a lot this week too is, in order to be extra ordinary in anything you do, you have to do something extra ordinary. When you see missionaries come back home some have changed a lot and some changed small and some not at all. I thought when I came that mission was just going to change me and my life. But as a song says, change doesn’t start with the letter C it starts with me. Anyway in order for me to grow up and be extra ordinary it starts with me to do something extra ordinary. I have to work at it all I can to change, change just won’t happen. Anyway I am working on becoming the best missionary, man, and future father I can be. It’s going to be me, and how dedicated I am will be what I am. I thank you for everything. I love you mom. Have an awesome week!!!

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