Happiness Can Last Forever, But Bread Apparently Can't

Well, once again we find ourselves on a Monday. Whoever you are, whether you are a family member, a friend, and I guess that's it just family members and friends, but whichever of the two categories you fall under, it doesn't matter, because you all have something in common: you're about to read the most recent update in the life of Elder Oswald. And so from the screen of my electronic device to yours, here is yet another email. Enjoy.

T'was a good week we had. Full of teaching people, and talking to people, and burritos, and a digestive system that reacted poorly to the burritos and other such adventures. 

Also, the other day I got out my bread to make a sandwich to find that my bread was exceedingly moldy. I've attached a picture for your enjoyment. 

So I'm short on time today, but I did want to share a recent experience. So one night we had an hour left in the night. We were trying to decide whether to try and find a couple new people we could start teaching by contacting a family who seemed to really be interested or to try contacting a member who we've been trying for weeks to find home and who hasn't been to Church in a long time, whose name is Rolland. We had first decided to just try visiting the member since it'd been so long since we've visited with him, and we sort of doubted he'd be home anyway since he hasn't been home all of the other times we've tried. Which was wrong of us to do. But we soon changed our minds however and decided to try the family first, thinking that the worst that happens is that the family doesn't answer and then we could go try Rolland. So that was the new plan, but then sort of to my surprise Elder Bess asked which we should do first. I was just feeling super indecisive, because we'd been back and forth about it already and in my mind I was sort of thinking it didn't matter because if the one didn't answer then we could just try the other person, and if one did answer then we'd just visit with them and we would try the other person another time, and so I didn't see why to try and switch up our plan. And this all happened in my brain in like an instant, and when he asked me I was about to say the family, sticking to our plan, but then the members name, Rolland, came to my mind seemingly like that was the conclusion I came to. But it was different than just me having my own indecisive thoughts like before. Because I somehow felt confident enough in that decision to say it, and I hardly ever am that confident in decisions like that because I tend to just way over think things. But we went to Rolland. And he was home. And we were able to have a nice visit with him. He's an amazing guy and has had incredible experiences and seemed to benefit from the visit. Immediately I realized that it wasn't a coincidence that I had the last second thought to go to Rolland rather than the family. The way it worked out was just so perfect. But it was a while later, a couple days later actually, that I realized a seemingly small detail. That Rolland's fiance was there, and that she was just about to leave for work when we got there. But she joined in the conversation for the first part and we got to know her and stuff and she also has had amazing experiences. But right before she left she requested a spiritual/uplifting message. So we did our best and we had a nice short discussion about it and she left for work. And I didn't think much of it until much later, like I said. And what I realized is that it did actually matter which order we tried visiting people that night. Because if we had tried the family first, sure we would've been able to still visit Rolland, but his fiance would have already left for work. And we never know what people are going through. But the fact that she requested an uplifting message makes it seem that it was something she at the very least wanted, if not something that she needed to hear. I wish I could adequately describe to you my feelings. We plan for all sorts of things as missionaries, and as human beings as well. But things don't always go as planned. And that is because we don't always know everything, and the Lord does, and sometimes He puts us in the paths of people we can help. There was no possible way for us to know that Rolland would be home that night, that his fiance would be as well, that at 8:14 pm she would be about to leave for work, but that there was something she needed to hear. We were one indecisive, second guessed, moment away from going to the family first. Which would've been great I'm sure, again, even if they didn't answer we would've made it to Rolland in time to visit him. But we would've missed his fiance. So I don't believe that was a coincidence. I absolutely do not. 

I can't express this any more than I have. So I just will leave my personal testimony and witness that the little things in our lives matter. And they matter because there is a God who knows us and loves us and cares about the details of our lives. He knows what we need and will put people into our paths that will help us with what we need, whether that be comfort, peace, or love, all things that have been made available to us by Jesus Christ. We've been blessed with families, and with joy and happiness in our lives. And we've been blessed by our Savior who makes it possible for that happiness to last forever. It's true. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, it's been restored to the earth with all of its original clarity, authority, and power found in Christ's original Church, and when we live this Gospel, the way Jesus wants us to live, we will draw nearer to God and to Jesus Christ, and we can access that peace, comfort, joy, and love, and all other blessings that our Savior makes possible for us. I know that God is our Heavenly Father and that He knows us and He knows what we need and He has a plan for us. I know that. I know that Jesus Christ is His Son, that He lives, and that He is our Savior. And I know, and I promise, that as we have and exercise faith in Him, we will come to know Him. And I leave this testimony in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Til next time.

~Elder Oswald

Untitled

Depending on what time of the day you happen to be reading this, good morning/good afternoon/good evening/good night.

This has been a pretty good week.

Much has changed with our large teaching pool. It's still pretty large, except for we've stopped working with a lot of the people the Sisters were working with/trying to work with. We've also been finding a lot of new people as well. There are these two brothers we found. Robby had been taught be missionaries at one point so we tried knocking on his door to talk to him, and his brother Reuben answered. He said he was interested though. So we went back a few days later to try and see Reuben, and Robby answered this time and he is interested as well. It was confusing too because they're identical even though they're 2 years apart in age. 

It's been really busy. Which is really good. Unfortunately many of our scheduled appointments fall through. So that's always really disappointing. I mean I get it, people have lives. They're busy. It's understandable. It just stinks. 

We had a super awesome lesson with a lady named Kathleen this week. She didn't cancel, which was one of the things that made it awesome. But also it was just a great discussion about God's plan of happiness. She had great questions and she has such a strong desire to gain more faith. We invited her to be baptized as well and she said she would, she just didn't want to set a specific date yet. It was cool.

Oh yeah I also wrecked on my bike this week. I sprained my wrist. At least we think it's sprained. I did see a Doctor, luckily there is a member of the Eldorado Ward who is a Doctor. However he's an anesthesiologist and so doesn't really specialize in wrists at all. He did do a pretty good job wrapping the off-brand ace bandage on my wrist though. 

Well, we've got a busy day ahead of us, and we don't want a repeat of 3 weeks ago when I ran out of time to email, or of 2 weeks ago when I also ran out of time to email, so we'd better make like my off-brand ace bandage and wrap things up. 

A scripture I really love in the Book of Mormon is in Alma chapter 36 verses 18-21. This is when a man named Alma is telling his amazing conversion story. And these verses is how he describes his experiencing the Savior's Atonement, His grace and mercy. 

18 Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.

19 And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more.

20 And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!

21 Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.

One reason why I love this passage is how he talks about light. Jesus Christ really is the Light in our lives. And just as light dispels darkness, Jesus Christ can completely dispel the darkness we have in our lives. And we can have the kind of miraculous joy and peace that Alma experienced. I know this is true. I know that Jesus Christ really is our Savior. That He lives. That He knows the pain and struggles we feel. And He is waiting for us to come unto Him in faith so He can provide the peace and joy He wants to give to us. I love Him and I love His Gospel and I'm so thankful for the blessings I have in my life because of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. 

Well, I'll talk to you next week.

With an appropriate amount of affection,

~Elder Oswald

Heather's baptism

Cacti: A Real Pain in the Butt Sometimes

Hello Everyone!

If you are reading this, and if you are as invested in these emails as I know you are, then you might be asking yourself some questions. And it is for this reason that I have taken the liberty of preparing the following Q&A thing:

Q) I really love these emails, literally they are the highlight of my week, how come I didn't receive an email last week, or the week before?

A) Well, I could come up with many excuses, for example, "I ran out of time" or "we were just so busy" or "there's a long/funny/embarrassing story in this email that took so long to write that by the time I finished writing it last week there was no time to send it." I could say many things like that, but I won't of course. Instead, I will say an apology. And so it is with that preface, that I say, most sincerely, I'm sorry. 

Q) How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? 

A) A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

Q) What did that have to do with anything?

A) Absolutely nothing, I hope you enjoy the following email.

We had a good couple of weeks though. To catch you guys up, actual transfers happened. Elder Bess and I both are staying, thankfully. The interesting thing is that the Sisters with whom we were sharing the Eldorado Ward, both of them got moved out. So now Elder Bess and I cover the whole ward, which includes everyone they were teaching. So to do some math, if Elder Bess and Elder Oswald were teaching 10 people, and the Sisters were teaching 12 people, when the Sisters leave, that makes 22 people that Elder Bess and Elder Oswald are teaching. 

So it's been busy with teaching and scheduling and trying to contact people. 

One girl we're teaching now, named Heather, is actually getting baptized next week. We've met with her a couple times and she's really awesome. So that's exciting. 

So that was our week, then Saturday happened. And Saturday was a lot like a bowl of Cocoa Krispies. It started out really awesome but then pretty soon it kind of turned to mush.

We had a great day planned. We went out right after planning to contact all of the people we haven't been able to contact yet, including a bunch of people with potential interest and people who were previously taught. It was gonna be so good. Right as we were leaving though I started getting a migraine, so I took some medicine, and I was just not in the mood for a migraine, I was so ready to have a great day and I wasn't going to let a migraine ruin that. So I insisted we keep going. So we bike around contacting a ton of people. We knocked on one apartment looking for someone named Yomi. A man answered and we said something clever like, "are you Yomi?" He said no, so we asked "Does Yomi live here?" And the man sort of paused, and then from somewhere inside the apartment we here a voice loudly whisper "No!" The man then informed us that Yomi doesn't live there. It was pretty funny though because the man at the door started laughing and was like, "Yeah I know y'all probably heard that." 

Anyway though, so we kept trying to find people. One guy said it wasn't a good time and we should come back later. When we asked when, he said "never."

Meanwhile, my migraine was getting worse and several times I thought I was going to throw up. And Elder Bess frequently asked if we needed to go back. I still insisted to keep going. And I was glad I did.

The next complex we went to, we were looking for a family that the Sisters were teaching, we had texted the mom and called a couple times but no answer to either. So we knocked on her door, and she was excited to see us! Like it almost caught me off guard how positively she responded to us and to the idea of meeting with us. So that will be an awesome family we will hopefully start teaching soon. The only tricky thing is that they're super busy from the looks of it. But yeah that right there made it all worth it. 

Then we went across the street to the next complex. A complex to which I hope to never return. First of all, it's literally a maze. The buildings were all one story, and they were separated by narrow cement walkways. And they also had cacti placed here and there along the buildings. And so we are biking through this maze of apartments and we come to the apartment we are looking for, and as usual we get off of our bikes before we go up to the door. Now, to paint a picture, I was on this walkway, on my bike. The apartment is to our right. And so I was intending to put my bike just next to the apartment wall. Well as I said, we get off of our bikes, but I get off of my bike on the right side of my bike. So my bike is now to my left, the apartment wall to my right, I walk my bike up a little ways closer to where the doorway is, but still along the wall. Then, thinking it better to have my bike closer to the wall, I, my back now facing the wall, my bike in front of me, proceed to pull my bike towards me, sandwiching me in between me and what I thought was the wall. What I soon found out however, was that there was a little something in between me and the wall. And that something was a lovely little cactus. A cactus, that I actually saw earlier, made a mental note of, and for some reason promptly forgot about when I walked my bike over to it. However, the cactus was sure to make its presence known once more, by sending friendly little reminders all up the back of my legs and rear end. 

When I first realized what happened however, I actually laughed. "Oh how funny," I thought. "I just backed into a cactus." And from looking at the cactus, all I saw were the long big spikes, and I assumed that I had been poked by those, and that although it was painful, it was over with. Well I tried walking, and suddenly I wasn't laughing anymore. And I realized that every time I moved my legs, I was being re-stabbed by  tiny cactus spikes. It turns out that what I didn't see were the thousands of tiny invisible hairlike spikes that were actually stuck onto me and my pants. And they hurt so bad. I just want to make that clear. I am just so amazed at how something so small can be so painful. I don't even know how to describe it. 

But anyway, at that point Elder Bess concluded that it was time to go home, with which I agreed. So we walked our bikes, or rather Elder Bess walked, I hobbled, out front and waited for our Zone Leaders, who we live with, to pick us up. Then I had to get into the car, which is a different story.

Once we got to the apartment, I hobbled some more until I came to the stairs. And since bending my knees felt like, well, a thousand tiny cactus spikes in my skin, I used my considerable upper body strength and the stair rails to lift myself from one step to another without bending my knees. And finally I was safe in my apartment, except for the cactus spikes that I didn't know how to get rid of. 

So we called Sister Robinson, the Mission President's wife who is also like the Mission nurse, and she said she'd Google it and get back to us. So meanwhile we ate lunch. It was grilled cheese. That's beside the point though. Soon we heard back from Sister Robinson and she said that according to various credible sources on the internet, such as people who have internet access and have happened to post things on the internet, apparently if one rubs Elmer's glue on the area with the cactus spike in it and lets it dry and then pulls it off, the cactus spike comes with it. And the only other option is tweezers, which is pretty much impossible because they were tiny, invisible, and on areas of my body which made it quite difficult to use tweezers with any degree of accuracy. 

Anyway, we didn't have any Elmer's glue so we texted some members and they said they'd bring some over. So that was really nice of them.

While waiting for them to get there I decided to shower, in hopes that the water might magically convince the spikes to leave. That didn't work too well. A couple may have fallen out, but I'm not sure.

Then the member came with the Elmer's glue. And there's not really much detail to go into other than that I followed the process I described above. It was definitely not something I ever expected I'd do on my mission, or in my life, that's for sure. Also, I guess I imagined it would be like in elementary school when you put the Elmer's glue on your hands and peel it off for fun. It was a lot more painful than in elementary school. It actually worked though. So yeah that happened. 

It was a really great lesson to me. Because I think before this experience I had an attitude of, "I want cool/funny stories no matter how I get them." And now I have an attitude of "Be careful what you wish for because before you know it you're gonna be finding out some previously unimaginable uses for Elmer's glue." 

Well, after that I really feel like I need to share a spiritual message. 

2 Nephi 31:20, in the Book of Mormon says,

"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." 

I just love that scripture. I know that as we continually seek Jesus Christ, we can come to know Him and our testimony of Him will be strengthened continually. And something that stood out to me especially this last time I read this, is the very last part. That our Heavenly Father says, as an eternal declaration, that if we do those things, pray, study the scriptures, strive diligently and humbly to come closer to Him, we will have eternal life. And I just want to leave that testimony with you. That as we continually, every day, continually, build our faith in Christ, we will eventually have Eternal Life.

Til next week, and I actually mean next week!

~Elder Oswald

Goodbye Paradise Valley

Well, this week is proof that you truly never know what is going to happen in life. 

As I have described in previous emails, every six weeks we have what is called "transfers" in which missionaries are subject to be transferred from the area in which the serve to another area. Well transfers is still about two weeks away. So I thought I was at least safe until then. As I said in the first sentence of this email however, you truly never know what is going to happen. 

I received a surprise phone call on Wednesday that I was leaving the Granite Reef and Shadow Mountain Wards in Paradise Valley and I'd be going to the Eldorado Ward in Scottsdale. Even though it wasn't the usual transfer week. I was super surprised and sad to leave my area. I've just come to love the people there so much. I will miss everyone so much. 

My new companion is Elder Bess and he's awesome. The Eldorado Ward is really cool too. Also, this is a bike area. Which means that our only mode of transportation is a bike. Just in time for the summer too. 

Well, with it having been Easter yesterday, I thought I'd share something related to that. To keep it short and simple, I'll share one of my favorite scriptures. It's Corinthians 15:20-21. 

"21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Because of Jesus Christ we all will live again one day after we die. And because of Jesus Christ we all can be made alive spiritually as well if we have faith in Him and turn to Him continually. We can be forgiven, no matter what we've done. We can overcome any weakness we have and it can be made into a strength. And because of Jesus Christ we can find so much joy and peace and happiness in our lives. And Because of Jesus Christ that joy and peace and happiness never has to end. 

I hope you all had a really great Easter and I hope you all can remember our Savior every day of the year including Easter. 

Til next week,

~Elder Oswald

Kendall sent this picture just to make me jealous! Eegee's (as it was spelled when we lived in Arizona) was our favorite way to cool off on a hot Tucson day. Apparently some members in the Granite Reef ward in Paradise Valley had just returned from Tucson right before Kendall and his companion stopped by and they had brought back eg's to share! 

Elder Oswald in an old VW Bug.

Cupcakes that Kendall and his companion made with Doug--a guy they're teaching. Kendall says they turned out great "except the frosting looks like poop."

P-day golfing in Scottsdale.

As Short as Short Can Be

In case you are wondering, this title refers to the length of the email and not the height of its author. You see, it has been what many might consider a busy day, and so it is for this reason that I will keep this email short, and therefore it is for this reason that I titled this email what I titled it. 

So most importantly this week, Ron, the person that we've been teaching, was baptized on Saturday. 

There was an extremely long and crazy adventure leading up to it, but for the sake of time and my sanity I will spare those details in this particular email and save that story for another time.

I just wish you all could have witnessed what I witnessed during the process of teaching Ron. And I wish I had witnessed what others witnessed during the years leading up to us teaching him to see even more of the change that has happened in his life.

Ron has been through so much in his life and has such a powerful testimony of God and how absolutely important He is for our happiness. Even after beginning to grow that faith however, he wasn't all of a sudden ready to be baptized. Just a year ago, he wouldn't even let missionaries in his house, and neither would his wife Nanci who is a member who hadn't been to Church in many years. 

But the thing that I learned is that things take time. In just that year, after a lot of love from a couple members of the congregation, not being pushy or annoying or things like that, just showing that family that they were there for them, they finally accepted an invitation to come to the Christmas party this last December and they were just overwhelmed with the love the members of the congregation showed for them. Then it was soon after that they decided that Ron was ready to learn from the missionaries and that his wife was ready to start coming back to Church and to really gain her own testimony of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. And that is what happened. But it didn't all happen in just the 4-ish months we've been teaching them. It took their entire lives! And it took so many small little things for them to grow their faith into what it is now. They shared their testimonies in front of the congregation  yesterday and it was one of the most powerful things I've ever heard. I wish you all could have been there.

I'm out of time today, but before I go I just want to share that I know how powerful the Gospel of Jesus Christ is. And I know He can change our lives when we live His Gospel. I've seen it happen with Ron and Nanci. I've watched their faith in Jesus Christ grow and I've been able to watch my own faith in Jesus Christ grow as well. I want you all to know how much happiness I am blessed with as I strive to strengthen my faith and my testimony of the Savior. He lives and He loves us so much. And I don't fully understand everything, but I believe it is true. And I have seen so much good and so many blessings and so many miracles and so much joy and peace come into mine and others lives, all of which testify that we have a Father who lives in heaven who loves us and cares about us and the small little details of our lives so much that He has put families and friendships and so many wonderful things in our lives. And because He loves us He doesn't ever want those wonderful things to end for us, and so He sent His Son Jesus Christ to come here to earth to make it possible for us to have forgiveness and peace and joy and strength in our lives and also never-ending happiness and Eternal Life with our families and with God in the next life. I have no reason not to believe these things. In fact I have every reason to believe them.

So before I go, I would just invite you to think about your own personal faith in Jesus Christ. Whether you've been Christian your whole life, for only a little bit, or if you have no faith in Jesus Christ whatsoever, just think about it. What you chose to do is completely up to you of course. But I can promise that if you do things to develop your own faith in the Savior, your faith in Him will grow. 

Have a great week everyone, til I write again next week!

~Elder Oswald

Ron's baptism.

Yet Another Email with Yet Another Lame Title

Well everyone, another week has come to pass. Full of all kinds of exciting twists and turns and adventures.

We went on exchanges this week with our Zone Leaders. And Zone Leaders, are the missionaries who are appointed as leaders of a Zone. Our Zone consists of two Districts, one of which Elder Ellis and I belong to, it being our District, of which Elder Ellis is the leader, or District Leader as he is formally referred to as. 

So anyway, exchanges is when one missionary in a companionship is exchanged for one missionary in another companionship. So one of the Zone Leaders was my companion for a day. That was fun. We found a really cool lady we'll be able to teach. She was a referral from some other missionaries, and the only information that was sent to us was that she was from Canada. And so we used that information the best we could and we said something clever like, "So you're from Canada?" And she was actually really touched that we knew that. So it just goes to show that you never know how much the little things might mean to people, even if we think it's useless information at first. 

General Conference was also this weekend. And General Conference, for those of you who may not know, is where all of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all around the world are invited to listen to the words of the current Apostles and Prophets which God has called to lead His Church. Listening to their words this weekend has strengthened my personal testimony that those men really have been called of God. And that the words they have for us are the words that God wants us to hear right now. And I know how true that is because of the comfort and the knowledge and the insight that I gained and also the peace and the truth which I felt while listening to them. Because of that my testimony has also been strengthened that Jesus Christ's Church really has been restored to the earth, with the same organization that was used when Christ first established His Church while he was on the Earth. Ephesians 4:11-14 says:

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

That same authority and blessings and miracles and doctrines and organization and everything is on the earth today just as it was before. God truly is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so it makes so much sense to me that He would call prophets today to guide us and keep us spiritually protected in today's world of spiritually destructive influences all around us. Verse 14 up there is really accurate. We're surrounded by "cunning craftiness" and "the sleight of men" and it can be overwhelming to think about "every wind of doctrine" without knowing what is true and what isn't true. That is why I am so grateful that we have a living Prophet and living Apostles to help us.

On my mission I've been able to see how true it is that Jesus Christ's Church and His Gospel have been restored to the Earth. I've seen Christ's Gospel change people's lives and their families lives. And I've seen how Jesus Christ and His teachings have blessed and shaped me and my family's life. 

If I had more time I would explain things a little better and I could go into more detail about what it really means that Christ's Church has been "restored." But unfortunately time is something that I don't have in abundance. And so if you have any questions you can email them to me and I'll do my best to answer them. Or you can ask someone else you know who is a member of the Church. You can also browse around on the website "comeuntochrist.org" and learn more about various questions you might have. But my invitation for you is, if you haven't watched it already, to get on the handy dandy internet and find General Conference and watch it. Or at least some of it. The messages that they shared are just really inspiring and uplifting, which is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is. It's a message of hope and peace and of the blessings that we get when we follow Jesus Christ. 

But anyway, that's what I've got for you this week. 

It's been a pleasure as always.

~Elder Oswald

No Food, No Money, No Miles

So this has been one interesting week.

Interesting because on top of recovering from being sick, as this week's catchy title suggests, we ran out of food, and money to buy more food with. And we also ran out of our allotted miles for the month and so we were on bike all week. It's also been like 90 degrees and sunny. And so I learned quickly the importance of being hydrated while biking. Especially when trying to recover from being sick. I do like to think I am getting a nice tan though. It's probably more like a burn cause it's kind of got a red tint to it and it doesn't feel super great, but I'm gonna say it's a tan. That's the other thing, sunscreen is also important.

So yeah. Many good lessons learned.

It was a good week though. We didn't teach a ton of people this week unfortunately, but we did meet with Ron a couple of times. Ron is just so great. He always has these really funny and surprisingly profound comments. We might be the ones teaching him the principles and the doctrine and stuff. But he has so much wisdom just from life experience that he's constantly teaching us almost as much as we're teaching him. He gets baptized in about two weeks now, so that's really exciting. He's super excited about it.

A lot of our week was spent biking and trying to contact people to set up lessons. There are a couple of mystery people we have as well, for example James and Maria, who seem like super solid people, but their address doesn't exist. Fun stuff like that.

Well, as I mentioned, I learned many valuable lessons about budgeting and planning and being prepared. Last month I wasn't prepared and I didn't plan grocery lists or anything which led to impulse buys like cheese balls and a box of 56 taquitos, which came in really handy this week actually. Similarly with our miles, we really just didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it, and so we went over.

Well as I thought of this, I figured that there is probably a spiritual lesson in here too. And I think you can look at that kind of planning and preparation in a spiritual sense. We need to be spiritually prepared for the trials and hardships that come our way in life. And we do that by building ourselves on a strong foundation. And the only truly strong foundation we can have is Jesus Christ. In the Book of Mormon, in Helaman chapter 5 verse 11 it says, "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

This scripture also reminds me of the story in the New Testament when Peter goes out onto the water towards the Savior. It's because of his faith in Christ that he is able to walk on the water. But it's when he takes his focus off of the Savior and he starts worrying about the storm around him that he begins to sink.

We all have our own winds and storms in life that come at us. And they could be things like fears, doubts, worldly things, heartache, and other challenges we face. But no matter what it is that the devil sends forth at us, if we have our faith firmly centered on Jesus Christ, not on anyone or on anything else but Him, then "we cannot fall." No matter what happens, we cannot fall if our faith is in Jesus Christ.

I promise you that that is true. And that you can find out it is true for yourself if you really put it to the test. If you honestly seek to develop your own faith in the Savior, and you do what is necessary to help that faith grow, then it will grow. I've been able to see that in people that I've taught and also in myself as I am constantly trying to strengthen my faith in Jesus Christ.

I hope you all have another fantastic week,

~Elder Oswald