AWESOMENESS

Greetings AWESOME family!

HEIDI! Congrats! Wow, you're going to do AWESOME! Sounds like a weird play, FREAK?but I bet it will be amazing. When will it be? March? hehe, if so I can go! (weird, I can say things like that now???) What does your character do? At this point I'm picturing like a clown or something so enlighten me.... you'll do GREAT! and hopefully the choir auditions went well!

Fam, sorry I didnt write on Tuesday, once again we had a training to be at in Ogden, but it was really sweet! A member of the Quorum of the Seventy, Elder Robbins, came and trained us for like 4 hours straight, and will train all the missionaries at zone conference on Friday. Man, he is awesome. Really called of God, you can feel it when he teaches. More about him later.

HOLLY! Got your package! THats sooo cool that you are on We-he tv, the tradition lives on! What did you do on it? Was it scary? or fun? YOU GOTTA GET BETTER KIDDO, good thing you got to go back to school (well, depends on how you look at it, huh?) I LOVED the pictures, they were REALLY good, and I'm not just saying that, you do super horses, I can't draw them at ALL, so yours are better! I'm jealous. I liked all the other ones too! Family of artists!

AMY sounds like she had the COOLEST birthday party of ALL TIME, I WANT A RE-DO next year of it. Hopefully nothing blew up or anything.

Isn't it Grandma's birthday about now? HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!!

We DO have an awesome family, good stuff! I'm glad we're awesome.

Ha, sounds like mom, you've got a lot of free time on your hands. Hopefully there are valuable lessons that you learn from all the hooplah, dont go crazy. Dad too. Just try to remember to breathe every once in a while.

You would have liked Elder Robbins' training. He talked about gaining 100% control of our lives (he was co-founder of the Steven Covey company, you know, about time management and life skills, etc.) He talked about how the root of losing control is avoiding responsibility. We all love our agency, the ability to choose things, but if we avoid the companion of agency, which is responsibility, we lose control. For example, we avoid responsibility by blaming things on other people (example, "THEY didnt set THEIR part up well, so MY part failed"), ignoring ("I need to do this, but I'll forget about it and let it go"), self-pity >("I have so many problems! Its not fair!") etc. We made a long list. Then, we talked about just swallowing pride and assuming responsibility for all things in our life. Even if we are right, and someone is arguing saying THEY are right, its better to just take responsibility and say, "ok, I'm sorry" even if we have nothing to be sorry about. Cool story, a wife and husband were arguing, the wife went and prayed for her husband to see the light and apologize. she felt impressed to say sorry to him. She pointed out to the Lord that she hadn't done anything wrong. These words came to her head: "Would you rather be right, or would you rather be married?" Sweet.

If a missionary area is going bad, we cant blame a companion, or the members, or lack of a car - they are all good excuses, but if we accept that we have 100% responsibility, we gain control. Its hard to explain, but it was really good. I love being close to general authorities of the church. My friend is serving in the southernmost part of the mission, in a stake that has President Eyring, President Uchtdorf, Elder Bednar, and Elder Christofferson I believe. Imagine a sacrament meeting like that! They have eaten dinner with President Uchtdorf. Also a lady here we met is a personal friend of President Monson, and might invite us to dinner next time her comes up to see her. She also knows all of the current 12 Apostles and many of the Seventy personally. Incredible. We're trying to go to all 5 sessions of conference live this time.... the Elder in the Apostles' stake might have some leverage...hah, did I ever tell you that we called President Uchtdorf once?

Pray for our baptism on Sunday, I told Jeffrey about it. We're excited! A lot of good things are happening here! Gospel is true. The Spirit gives real specific guidance. When I came here I had trouble finding it, and didn't understand, and for a while wasn't sure if inspiration really would come or not. It definitely does. The Spirit of God is the key always, and we're just the instruments! We just have to have faith, and then it comes, and you can see it touch people to the core. Sweet!

Love you all, take care! Talk next week! Elder Thelin