Days for the eternities...Mesa Week 41

Hey! Another week flew by already! I loved this last week and everything that happened! As far as the new area goes I really like it! We don't have too much work going on but we have a blast. I absolutely love being in car because Elder Nuttal doesn't like to drive so I get to do all the driving. I forgot how much I missed it 😆The members in this area are really great to us. For the most part we meet with members and help them with their missionary work. I'm still trying to meet as much of them as I can before Elder Nuttal goes home.

On Tuesday I went on exchanges with my district leader Elder Empey. He is a pretty cool dude, we actually came out together. We visited some people in his area in the morning and then went to do some service for a food bank called Manna. It is run by a Christian church group and they love us missionaries so its pretty awesome. We slip some gospel
talk into it whenever we can 😊 After dinner that night we had the opportunity to give a member a blessing. He was getting back surgery in a few days and was feeing super stressed out about it, even to the point of being really sick. We left there to Elder Empeys ward mission leaders home for a meeting. The work in their area is a little more fruitful than ours but they are having a tough time too. We then visited some people in the ward and even one of their former investigators who is now an investigator again! It was great, plus he
was watching the Warriors and Spurs game so I heard some of the game. Tender mercies are a real thing 😂

We had zone conference on Wednesday and it was a real eye opener for me. There were a lot of things discussed. One of the things talked about was the topic of living up to our potential. Sister Townsend gave a bomb training on it. She is seriously the best! She said we who are in the mission field right now have already accomplished the biggest part of our missions. That big part is being worthy and prepared to come on a mission. That means living worthily, exercising
our faith, and preparing ourselves to proclaim the restored gospel for the Lord. For some missionaries that is enough for them. They don't live up to the potential that God knows they have. They go home and go back to being the same person that they were before their mission. They don't live up to their potential. I'm not going to let that happen to me, I don't want to go home and be the same person. I mean my personality will probably still be the same. I will
still love sports and cars and all of that, but I want to be changed in Christ. I want to say that I lived up to my potential on my mission and was changed by it. That's one thing that I took from this week, I want to make sure I live up to it.

I finally got to go to my first district meeting in this area! My
district is pretty chill but two of the missionaries in it are going home at the end of this transfer. So change is definitely going to be happening in the next 4 weeks. The weather this last week was super super nice so we decided to bike some of our area and it was honestly really great! It kind of felt good to get on a bike again. The weather was perfect and Elder Nuttall was dying because he has been in a car his
whole mission except for 1 transfer😂 I found out that I had some flats before we biked so I had to buy some new bike tubes. 

That night we had dinner with Brother Bowers and he is sooo funny! This guy is a crack up! Anyways he is an super talented artist. He's sculpted and painted a lot of things for the church. He sculpted the 3 big statues of the young men who carried people across the river at Martins Cove. He's
got some great pictures of it and it's neat. He also does a lot of drawings and I don't know how we came to this question but he asked us "Now is your chance to ask me any question have at it" . So I asked him "have you ever drawn missionaries before?" Haha I was kind of joking but he got up and got his sketch book and drew little pictures of us😂 They are the best! haha...Elder Nuttall loves them so much. They are one of a kind👍

This weekend was really special because I was able to go to the baptisms of a family I taught in my first area, the Venegas fam! It was so great to see all the people from Salt River ward again! I seriously love that ward so much. It was definitely one of the happiest moments on my mission. I've seen tremendous change in their family, the most out of anyone I've known. Now I'm looking forward to going to the temple with them in a year!😁 oh and also that night we ran into some Havalina. Not sure if that's how you spell it. They are
wild boars in the desert haha, they are actually like pretty
dangerous. Apparently they try to charge you and bite you. Luckily we were in a car so that didn't happen😂 Watch the video...

Yesterday Elder Nuttal was sick and so we weren't able to go to church. We just stayed home all day and it was okay but at the end of the night I was going crazy😂 I needed to get out! But it was kind of nice, I was able to organize all of my stuff and study things that I haven't had time to study. Oh and we live downstairs and there is a TV so we watched pretty much all of the approved missionary films😂 It was great to rest but I'm ready to get out again!

I learned a lot about myself this week and I had a really great time! You seriously learn so much as a missionary. Thanks for the email Mom! I loved it! Your words of motivation help me a ton and it makes me even more happy to be out here! I love you so so much! Bye!

Arizona sunsets are the best

The Venegas family and my boy Elder G

The sketches that Brother Bowers drew of us in 5 minutes!