Love Everyone

Hi, everyone! 

I hope you are all doing well. I love hearing from you each week. It is very gratifying to hear about how well you are all doing and I feel so happy. 

I am also excited to hear that Charlie is playing well in football and I hope he has an awesome season. He is always a champion in my book. Charlie, you are the man and I expect you to be the hardest working player on the team. Please do it for me, you have no idea how lucky you are to be playing football. Enjoy every game and every moment. I would like a schedule and a game report each week. 

I am excited for Claire and Emma to be starting back up at high school soon and I want to give them some counsel. LOVE EVERYONE. I feel like I have really learned a lot of sympathy for others here in the mission. I have come to learn that everybody is struggling with something and that they are fighting their own battle. I know that high school is a very difficult and also a very critical time for many teenagers and that everybody just wants to be loved. You two can give that love to them in a very healthy and uplifting way. You two have incredible potential to be powerful influences in the lives of many. You can come to love absolutely anybody once you understand their problems and their trials. As you serve them, you will come to love them. Please reach out and lift others. When you two are righteous examples and have the courage to stand up and do what is right you will give others the courage they need to do the same and it will spread like wild fire. Look for the kids in the corners, the kids sitting alone, the awkward kids and reach out to lift them. You can have an incredible impact on the lives of others. Please lose yourselves and build others. I promise that if you work hard all of the bad test days, late nights, friend drama, grumpy teachers, and whatever other junk there is in high school will all work out. If you reach out to others you will find greater joy than you have ever known. Please do it for me. Don´t ever judge anybody. You don´t know their side of the story. Please look beyond the surface. I love you both and I know I am preaching to the choir. But you don’t realize the powerful influence you have. I want you each to read or listen to a talk Elder Holland gave at BYU called, “Come Follow Me”. I have been touched several times as I have thought about the girl who didn’t feel like she could come to their 20-year high school reunion. Please reach out and lift others. 

I am doing well. It has been kind of an interesting week. I had a great experience with Elder M as we visited some of his converts. It is absolutely incredible to see the power of the atonement and how it changes people. I am so grateful for this time as a missionary and I am learning to treasure every minute of it.  

I am so grateful for my Savior. I want to come to know Him more and more. He is incredible. I hope that I can come to understand His love more and more every day. I know the Church is true. I know this is all right. Sometimes we just have to hang on and literally hang on and trust in Christ. I am so grateful for my challenges, my struggles and my pain because I know they bring me closer to Him. He loves us!