September 29

Mom,

My week has been pretty good! Glad to hear the Phillipps did make it safely, but that's crazy they had such a big trailer full of stuff! I'm glad to hear the General Women's meeting was good! I'm jealous that you women get to hear from the leaders a week earlier than I do, because I'm very excited for this upcoming weekend! This is a pretty crazy week for me. We have MLC tomorrow which is an all day meeting with President Batt, it starts at 7 and goes until about 3 or 4 usually and then Thursday is zone conference which is also all day and then General Conference all day Saturday and Sunday! A lot of spiritual uplifting events this week, hopefully I can soak it all in! 

That's awesome that Ashley had a good mission experience even though it was cut a little shorter than she would have hoped. It's true, missions are invaluable experiences and even if I went home right now it would all be worth it definitely. When we heard from Elder Holland a few weeks ago Elder Robbins of the Presidency of the Seventy spoke with him and spoke of the mission as a "graduate-level schooling experience on Christlike attributes" and I definitely think that is true. He said that we learn some introductory life skills like "Housekeeping 101" and "Cooking 101" and whatnot, but we go through rigorous courses such as "Charity 501" and "Obedience 501," etc. He said there is no other school as rigorous in these attributes as the mission-field is. I'm so grateful for the mission because I have had the opportunity to study and become close to the Savior like I never would have in any other way if I hadn't come out here. It has definitely helped me try to become as Christ desires us to become in John chapter 17 as he encourages us to be "not of the world, even as I am not of the world." I know that happiness and peace can only be founded upon living the Gospel and that happiness found through anything else, whether it be money or prestige or any other worldly pursuit, because each of those things come and go. I think before my mission I would have agreed with that, but I wouldn't of had any genuine idea of what that entails. 

Yes, Elder Aguilera did get his visa for Brazil. He left at the beginning of this transfer right after Elder Holland came, so luckily he got to stay for that. But he is now in Brazil! I just emailed him and I hope to hear from him soon!

We had a really awesome experience this week. We were driving around the south end of our area near the stateline and we were turning onto a dirt road and as we were turning I looked over to a house on the other side of the road that I had never knocked before and Elder V and I determined to go knock it on our way back out a few hours later. We went over there and there was an old lady (probably about 85+) sitting on the floor of her hogan in pain barely being able to sit up straight because of the pains in her leg and back and her grandson came out from the house next door and we asked her if she would like a Priesthood blessing. She accepted, and she doesn't speak too much English, but we blessed her as she sat on the floor because she couldn't get up onto her chair. We had told them we would come back the next day to see them again and we came back and we saw her sitting up on her chair smiling looking much better than she had before and she was so kind to us and you could tell that she knew that we had the true power of God! It was truly amazing! We taught them a little about the Book of Mormon and we are hoping to see them again soon. This week might be a little crazy, we'll probably have a hard time getting into peoples homes because we have such limited time to proselyte with all the meetings going on, but I hope we can see them again soon! She is the nicest and funniest old Navajo lady. 

I love you all and I hope that things are going great back at home! 

Love,

Elder Schaelling