September 26, 2022

Hello everybody:) sorry I have not been able to send out an email these past few weeks. I've either been to busy or to lazy to do so ahaha. I'll let you decide which one😂 

Anyway in this email, I would like to exhort the concept of time. While I have been here in the Carolinas I have come to the realization that time works differently based off of your mental experience, capacity, and the mental state that you are in.. For instance, when I had first started In the mission field I was witnessing time in a different way then I am today. At the beginning of my mission, time was going tremendously slower then what I was expecting previously before my mission. I quickly learned then when you are having a hard time realizing that you are going to be out here for 2 years, it seems that it is going to take 10 years instead. For an 18 year old boy that was something that was frustrating and difficult for myself to overcome. Know you all know my story of how I was released as a missionary because of physical alignments on my knee that where not allowing myself to perform at the proper rate. So moving on from that I was able to come home and spend 8 months at home. During these 8 months, I learned a lot about myself but more importantly, I learned what the Savior could make out of an 18 year old boy. Finally I was able to come back out into the mission field and witness again how time can move so slowly with a negative and timid attitude. Eventually, I was able to gain some experience and get comfortable with missionary work which made myself think a lot less about how much time I had left or how much I missed my Mom. When I was going through this time period of my mission, I was witnessing that the idea of time for myself was changing a lot. In fact, I was seeing time going a lot faster and this made it a lot easier for myself to stay out here and go to work and for that I am forever grateful. 

Moral of the story; when we get comfortable in situations, whatever we may be going through will be lightened and easier to get through. When we grow to enjoy the things we used to hate, all aspects of that thing are becoming increasingly more comfortable. 

Now you may have had this thought before. "What is the purpose of myself being here on earth?" We'll let me tell ya. The reason is not to become comfortable with where we are at. We are here to constantly grow and learn. Before I I started this journey of a mission, this question was something that was in the back of my mind always. So, my dad would later share an analogy that would correlate with this question. The analogy is, "when we are in a school class we are always taking tests and quizzes. Many people see this life as one of this tests or quizzes. When in fact this life is the whole year long class. Because, we have many opportunities to be tested and quizzed on our knowledge while we are here on earth." - Steve Adams 

When we fall on one of these little stumbling blocks, we will not be judged solely for this one mistake but, on our final grade of the class or in other words our final grade of our life. There is so many opportunities that we are given to do good. So, when we do mess up, we just need to repent and change and then move on with that knowledge. If we can do that, then we will have all the reason to rejoice:)