Missionary Work Down Under: Week 49 - Gosnells, Southern River Zone, Western Australia - July 21, 2016

HELLO Family:) It was good to hear from all of you:) Sorry I didn't email on Monday we went to the temple this morning so we took p day today! I was just at the mission office and I saw I had a letter so I ripped it open and guess who I saw beaming back at me.....RIO MANNING (Mitch's cousin who got married last week sent him an announcement) dressed in a suit looking like an absolute SKUX! (stud) man could that guy get any better looking? and lets be honest he must have borrowed one of Trey's shirts or something because his arms are not thattttttt big.....haha Rio I love you and congrats:)

SO YES!!! K got baptized! it was so awesome and it was a super good turn out about fifty members of the ward came! K had an awesome experience and she said she mostly just felt a massive relief from a load she has been carrying for so long. It was such a testimony builder to me to see Kelly sooooooooo changed. When we found her a couple months ago she was an alcoholic and had really bad depression. She felt no purpose in life. She now knows for herself that she is a daughter of God and that God has a plan for her, Nothing but the true Gospel of Jesus Christ could have brought about this change. J, her son, still wants to be baptized but is gonna hold off for a few more weeks because he wants to learn more....fair enough.

We are teaching quite a few people at the moment...just slow progressing. A lot of them need to quit smoking. Everyone smokes in WA. Especially where I live, all the young kids smoke. It is such an issue..... Elder Daniel leaves in less than 2 weeks so now it is my task to keep him focused.....that's been fun. It's been raining buckets. It's funny- people think it is sooooo cold here in the winter when it hits like 70 degrees fairenheit every afternoon. Haha! They think if they go out at night they will immediately catch a cold or the flu or something.

I have been deeply studying the New Testament along with Jesus the Christ and my understanding of who the Savior is and what he did has improved. I love learning about Jesus Christ. I want to be like him more than anything! I know he expects much more devoted disciples out of us than modernized Christianity seems to think. This life is about what we become. It's possible to go through the motions of the gospel and become NOTHING. The whole purpose of this life is to change. We already lived with God before life on earth so why did we ever leave? Why couldn't we just stay in his presence where we were safe and things were easier????? Our Heavenly Father loves us too much to be overly concerned with our present state of comfort or our current amount of temporary joy. His Plan for us includes more change from who we currently are than we as mortals can even begin to comprehend and because he loves us HE will give us opportunities to change who we are every single day. It is up to us whether or not we are really going to start living the kind of life that the Savior lived, start doing similar things that the Savior did, beginning to put aside our present comfort and Change! Jesus Christ is our Greatest Example. He was perfect and so if we are to change and fulfill the purpose of our existence we should consider asking ourselves more often "Am I striving to follow the example of Jesus Christ today? in where I go, what I say and what I do?" My love for our Master increases every day as I serve him to the best of my ability:)