“The New World”

It's hard to get my thoughts straight to tell you all what's going on. It's all good. All good things. I am very happy these days. I’m in Snohomish and I have a great companion.

My new zone is pretty perfect. Not perfect... but perfect for me. The very next day after transfers I had to teach Zone Meeting ha and didn't have anytime to prepare so we stayed up till twelve trying to put it all together. It went pretty well. My best bud from my last district, just got transferred into my zone too so that's pretty lucky. We all love each other.

This new area is just like what I thought a mission would be like. Lessons all the time. Tons of investigators. It's crazy. We're teaching a lot and I'm loving it. The spirit has never been stronger and I've never been busier. The ward I'm in is really missionary minded and are always looking for ways to help. I love this area, now the question remains, will it love me back? Only time will tell. A guy in the ward came up to me yesterday and said, "Hey Elder, you know we've had some pretty good Elders here before you. You have some big shoes to fill." That was quite comforting. I'm not going to try to be anything I'm not. I'm not a perfect missionary. I'm just striving for it. I guess I don't have anything else to give.

One of the districts in my zone is on a huge "get buff" kick. So we're doing a competition right now and I am starting to drink more than a gallon of water a day and I've been peeing like crazy. It's a good time. I don't recommend it...

So a couple nights ago we visited a less active family who wasn't reading or praying or coming to church. We invited them to start having daily prayer and scripture study and they hesitantly agreed. We kept talking and joking and got on the subject of weird food. So I asked if I could try some.. they brought in a Korean Fish Cheese Stick? and handed it to us.. I gagged at the sight of it. I told them if I tried it they would have to read and pray everyday this week and the next week I'd try something else. They agreed and I threw up in my mouth. That may be a gray area of commitments but hey... it worked. I'm trusting the spirit will make up the rest after they put in the effort.

Lesson I've learned this week.... and every week it seems: I am inadequate. I am not the guy for the job here... and I don't have to be. I just need to be able to follow the spirit and the rules and all that's all I can do. Keep my chin up when the world is trying to push it down.

Thurgoods. They were pretty funny we always had a good time. 

Hey that's my old district. Me, E. Adams, E. Eckman, E. Fortuna, (Behind him is E. Schwinger), E. Bullock. 

Never give up,


Elder Trent Jay Merrill