Email from James - January 30, 2012

Dear Dad,

So already being the most humble of all missionaries that I am and finishing an assignemnt right as I get it, I had already sent that letter for grandma and grandpa to mom's email. But I took the liberty of sending it to your email for more confisciensy ( I have no idea how to spell that word lol.) Hahaha wow that was so me writing that with a sarcastic british stuck up voice so don't take that seriously. I am not that prideful haha :D It just made me laugh writing it.

Ah yes, transfers. Well I thankfully spoke in church on sunday in Šiauliai before I left. I met with a lot of members before I left and I saw so many tears and you would think we were having a funeral for me. I kept telling them I wasn't dying and that we would still keep in touch. :D It touched my heart at how loved I was there. Every president chomskis said he was way said I was leaving. He tells all newer missionaries to the city that he will forget their name way quick once they have transfered. haha. I am now serving in the large and spacious city of Vilnius. I am in the capital of lithuania and it has been great. I love the big city. :D I am serving with Elder Rich and he is just the coolest guy ever. We are going to have a lot of fun and I am pretty sure he will be the one sending me home. Gross, did I just say that. I meant to say the one I will be serving with these next two transfers. I love Vilnius. My whole mission I really wanted to serve here in the summer because I went on a lot of exchanges and I loved being outside and there were a lot of people out all of the time and it was so much fun. Now, oh my goodness, it is so flipping cold. I left those cool 180 earmuffs at home and that was a dumb decision, I got sick all last week and today it is finally going away. It was no fun. Elder Rich gave me a really great blessing and that helped a ton because I wasn't sleeping good with all of the junk in my nose, head, and throat. I took those cool orangey pills and they seemed to help a little. I just drank lots of tea and we stayed inside for most of the week. I feel so spoiled in the apt. we live in. It is so big and we are way up high so we have a great view. I sleep in a big bed. The kitchen is way nice and really big. The bathroom floors are heated, crazy huh? I thanked heavenly father so much when I found out where I was going to be for these tranfers. The branch is so great. I knew most of them pretty well from conferences and all of the activites so there were way excited I get to serve here now. The youth are so great and I love them a ton. We are already becoming way good friends. On sunday, oh it was so cute, they had a primary program. I haven't seen one in 2 years. They were so cute, singing and giving their little talks in their adorable little lithuanian voices. I loved every minute of it. Church here is three hours. It was really weird not worrying about who is speaking or the money stuff and all of the things that ran through my head while being a first counselor. Now I get to be just a great missionary. I am so excited to be serving here. There are a lot of teenagers here so that made me so happy to be serving here because I love talking to the youth. They were way nice to me and accepted me right away. They are hillarious. There are also 4 american girls here who are teaching english. It was weird to talk to them and it was really akward for me because I don't know how to have a normal conversation in english lol. :D I love speaking lithuanian. So before I forget, my mail address is:

A/D 3438

LT-01011

Lithuania

So haha, talk about last moment, I can't believe you and katherine and mom painted the wall right before her surgery. It looks really good and I love the temple pic. AH temples. I can't wait. It will be really cool to see. :D

That is way crazy that parker's birthday is way close. Hahah is he left handed? That is so funny. I remember he kept switching hands. That made me laugh way hard.

I laughed at what president homer told you when you mentioned he promised you would be the bishop when I came home. That is totally a mission president thing to say. It's great when the Lord turns the table and you didn't know what to expect.

Keep me updated on how mom is doing. I have been keeping her in my prayers all week and I will especially tonight when it is morning there. I hope everything works out ok and that she will have the courage to go through it. Just remember the scriptures where the Lord promises His children, fear not, for the Lord thy God is with thee. and also the prayers of your family and friends and your frozen son on the other side of the world. :D

I love you all so much. Stay safe and know that You are always in my prayers,

James

This is some of my thoughts that I wrote to president boswell and I thought you might like them.
AS for the question that we have to answer weekly, there was a verse in the book of mormon that really stood out ot me in my studies. I tried finding it through lds.org but it couldn't find it but I will look it up when I am at home and report it to you because it was a very good verse. But it said in the verse towards the end, "the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of His people". That really stood out to me because I feel sometimes, as missionaries, we get in a mindset that there are just a few things we can do to find and teach people. We harvest, we contact, we walk on the streets. etc. We feel, at least I can say for me, that these are the only things that we can do to find people. I felt really impressed when I read this because I feelt the Lord wants us to use many means to find people. Elder Rich and I are very creative and I feel that we can think of even more creative ideas on how to find people. We are very excited for putting this English Club idea to the test. I feel we will be able to find a lot of people through this.

One of my goals is to increase my courage in finding people. I was already caught with guile from the knowledge that the Lord works in many ways to bring salvation to his children but I also found another verse in 1 samuel that I really liked. It says, "When thou goest out to abattle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and bchariots, and a people more than thou, be not cafraid of them: for the dLord thy God is with thee." I liked this because I changed some of the wording and put, "when thou goest out to contact amongst thine enemies and my children and seest roughened men and hoolies of all kind, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee." That became more personal to me. I personally am not very comfortable with bus contacting. I have done it in the past but I feel I can improve on it and as we learned from president lawrence, we need to contact everyone everywhere. I noticed when I came here, it was very common not to have a lot of lessons or investigators. When I heared the calls from the other elders, they were pretty down about not having a lot of numbers and just kinda laughed it off. I felt way bad. In Šiauliai we had a lot of success and if we only got 5 lessons a week, I knew it was time for us to really pick it up. I feel that if we and myself included, pick up our faith and press forward harder in every finding tool and use the Lord's many ways of finding to bring salvation to His children, I know we will have great success. I am very excited.