My Dear Family,
My heart is full this week as I can feel my service as one of the Lord’s missionaries coming to a close. I really appreciated your words of advice and your insights. It gave me some good things to think about, and I can feel the Spirit of your conversions and love for the Lord, His Gospel, and me. That means a lot.
It is my biggest desire to finish as strong as I can. To keep my faith, maintain my virtue, and hold strong to my integrity. I do love this Gospel. It has been hard not finishing as strong as I imagined I would. I have heard my whole mission that usually once you hit your 18 month mark or so you're at peak performance and can really be most effective as a servant of God. I feel that for me that peak came around my year mark, at that time nothing could stop me. We had a lot of success with baptisms and I just felt locked into the work of the Lord. Right now I feel that my heart is still in this work, and my Spirit wants to keep pressing forward but I cannot because of my body. Last week we taught 7 lessons, all to less active members... I have felt very strongly there is something important for me to learn in these last few weeks. Will you pray that I will be able to finish my mission in a way that is pleasing to God? If I can do that my soul will be happy. I hope you all know that I have come to terms with the current situation and I am not having a little pity party for the next 3 weeks over here - lol.
... I believe there are going to be opportunities to share the gospel back home that perhaps I need to be there for.
The lesson with Deena and her family fell through and we're trying to reschedule. The other referral’s address was bad, but we called the number and left a message. We are staying optimistic with them though.
I got a text from President last week asking me which airport I wanted to fly in at and I told him the Spokane, Washington airport and shortly after he sent me my flight info. I've never flown alone before but it doesn't seem to hard - haha... I get to go on an adventure! lol
Oregon sounds fun! I would love to just relax on the beach and watch the tide come in. I love the ocean. I look forward to talking with the family on Mother’s day... I don't think this phone call will be 4 hours though - lol. It will be good to talk with everyone:)
I still need to shoot President a quick email and feel I need to write Kylie a bit today. I hope you each know how special you are to me. I miss you guys and look forward to seeing each of you. Thank you for everything.
Optimistically,
Elder W. Marks
My heart is full this week as I can feel my service as one of the Lord’s missionaries coming to a close. I really appreciated your words of advice and your insights. It gave me some good things to think about, and I can feel the Spirit of your conversions and love for the Lord, His Gospel, and me. That means a lot.
It is my biggest desire to finish as strong as I can. To keep my faith, maintain my virtue, and hold strong to my integrity. I do love this Gospel. It has been hard not finishing as strong as I imagined I would. I have heard my whole mission that usually once you hit your 18 month mark or so you're at peak performance and can really be most effective as a servant of God. I feel that for me that peak came around my year mark, at that time nothing could stop me. We had a lot of success with baptisms and I just felt locked into the work of the Lord. Right now I feel that my heart is still in this work, and my Spirit wants to keep pressing forward but I cannot because of my body. Last week we taught 7 lessons, all to less active members... I have felt very strongly there is something important for me to learn in these last few weeks. Will you pray that I will be able to finish my mission in a way that is pleasing to God? If I can do that my soul will be happy. I hope you all know that I have come to terms with the current situation and I am not having a little pity party for the next 3 weeks over here - lol.
... I believe there are going to be opportunities to share the gospel back home that perhaps I need to be there for.
The lesson with Deena and her family fell through and we're trying to reschedule. The other referral’s address was bad, but we called the number and left a message. We are staying optimistic with them though.
I got a text from President last week asking me which airport I wanted to fly in at and I told him the Spokane, Washington airport and shortly after he sent me my flight info. I've never flown alone before but it doesn't seem to hard - haha... I get to go on an adventure! lol
Oregon sounds fun! I would love to just relax on the beach and watch the tide come in. I love the ocean. I look forward to talking with the family on Mother’s day... I don't think this phone call will be 4 hours though - lol. It will be good to talk with everyone:)
I still need to shoot President a quick email and feel I need to write Kylie a bit today. I hope you each know how special you are to me. I miss you guys and look forward to seeing each of you. Thank you for everything.
Optimistically,
Elder W. Marks