Letter 52

July 2, 2012

Hola Todos!

Wow it sounds like you all had a pretty great week! That is SO amazing that Grandpa Garner is 93 years old! Tell him Happy Birthday for me! I borrowed the Gordon B. Hinckley movie from a Senior Missionary down here and watched it. It was good to see my ‘lil old Grandpa walk through that graveyard. He's such a talented actor! hahaha.

The house looks pretty darn good! I would have put the porch on the other side personally... but that’s just me! I hope everything goes well and you'll get a cabinet guy soon so you wont fall behind schedule. haha I'm surprised you even have walls up to be honest. This might be the fastest "Gary Stewart Project" yet. haha.

Its too bad your going to be home all by your lonesome this week mom. I would be there with you if I could... playing candyland BUT…you know... I'm in Texas. It warms my soul though to hear you and Auntie Tye are still hanging out. I love that woman to death. Actually... her whole family is pretty great. Except Tanner... hahaha Nah I'm just kidding. I mean Caiden. hahaha.

This week was great! Elder Curletti and I went on exchanges with our Zone Leaders, Elder Chick and Elder Vance (my old comp), on Wednesday and we both learned a lot! They had decided to blitz our area and so I went with Elder Chick and Elder Curletti went with Elder Vance. First we had a comp study and they trained us on how we should do our Weekly Planning. Elder Chick took us to Preach My Gospel ch.8 and took us through the Weekly Planning Section. The challenged us to stop each time that it told us to do something and then do it, even if it was like grabbing a pencil and having the area book next to you. They had done this with the other Elders in who were struggling with their area and their goals, and now they are consistently hitting the Standard of Excellence! Elder Chick promised us that if we will do this every week the Standard of Excellence would be a limitation. It brought me back to something President Trayner told me back in my interview up in Corpus Christi about Preparation. He read Ephesians 6 and told me about putting on the whole Armor of God…especially "having your feet shod with preparation". I imagined in my mind a strong valiant warrior preparing for battle, but instead of looking for his boots he decided he would just wear his flip-flops. It doesn’t matter how pure your testimony is or how good you are at talking to people, if you don’t have every needful thing prepared beforehand you'll fall down. Even if you are doing the right thing and being exactly obedient (wearing your boots) you need to constantly be striving to get all the "kinks" out of your efforts. Its not the mountain that is before you that will wear you down, it is the people in your shoes. I'm grateful for our Zone Leaders taking the time to teach us this important lesson of preparation and I am definitely willing to let it change my whole mission.

Elder Curletti and I are finding a lot of really great people and we are inviting them all to be baptized, but we need to help them accept. This week we're going to be trouble shooting with some of the people that we found this week and see what they need to commit to be baptized on a specific date.

Our investigator, Hno. Rodriguez is doing amazing! He said that church last week was a little long, but this week it went by a lot shorter. He's making leaps and bounds! LEAPS AND BOUNDS! I love that man so much. Honestly he is the most prepared person that I have met on my mission. Like Elder Duke says, "A dog with a Book of Mormon in his mouth could baptize him!" haha I really have no idea how the Elders before us didn’t have success with him. I guess there is a time and a season for everything. He is looking great for his BD on the 22nd of July.

We also found a really cool girl yesterday who is really humble and has lots of potential.

Jesse and Krystal are doing well, except Jesse got a job that makes him work on Sundays... Boooooo.... but Krystal has been reading the Children's Book of Mormon with her girls Jolynn and Jayda. Still no word from Maxine. I don’t think she really wants to talk to us... oh well.

I can’t believe Elder Curletti only has one more week of training left. It felt like yesterday I was picking him up at the chapel... but now he has become such a great missionary and I love him so much. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have had to be his trainer. We've grown a ton together.

About transfers... I don’t know anything. If I am supposed to be transferred I would rather be mid-transferred so I could be here for Hno. Rodriguez's baptism. But I will go when and where the Lord wants me to go.
I love you all so much and I'm thankful for all of your prayers. Have a great week!

Con amor, Elder Jordan Stewart
PS- You can send me whatever you want haha that sketchbook sounds great.