Dear Family and Friends,
This week was pretty packed with lots of stuff! On Tuesday we had interviews with President Crawford. Mine was pretty dang weird. He started it off with the words, “Well, Elder, it’s been a great ride.” That just hit me right in the heart. I don’t want it to be over. Then he went off about how proud he was of me and how I am one of the elders he trusts most and all this stuff. It really felt good to know that President Crawford thinks that about me. I really love him and sister Crawford. I’m glad they are moving to Utah after their missions so that we can see each other! We talked about the future, and I told him that lately I have been having the impression that I shouldn’t live my life and raise my family in Utah. I don’t know why, but I just think that I need to help build the church and my family somewhere else. Somewhere that will actually be a challenge. He then told me that he had the same feeling on his mission, and he has never lived in Utah. He lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans haha his exact words were, “I loved being a light in the middle of all that crap.” That’s what I want. I want to share the gospel with others and it’s just hard to do that in Utah. Anyway, it was a good conversation.
Blood, Sweat, and Tears
When we came to the church for our interviews, Sister Crawford commented on how grey my shirts were. haha she made me go back to the apartment and bring them all for her so she could bleach them for a few days. She is so sweet. Too bad the lighting stinks in this picture and they look perfectly white haha. but they are pretty dang grey. She gave them back to me yesterday and they look a lot better but she kept one of them and she is going to frame it and keep it in the mission home with some plaque that says, "blood, sweat, and tears." haha I thought that was pretty cool!
Miracle
The rest of the week was filled with other normal missionary activities such as #knockingfordays. One part of the week that really got me worked up was our nightly planning on Wednesday night. We didn’t have much to do the next day and we need something to get our area going so I said, “why don’t we try something that will be a little bit gutsy. We can plan for a miracle at four o clock. It will take faith, but we’ll just put ‘miracle.’ and we will pray so that the Lord will place us where we need to be for it to happen.” I didn’t know what else to put other than just knocking so I thought it was a good idea and you never know what will happen. Elder Tatom just looked at me and said, “man, you sounded so stupid just now.” And he just walked off into the room and started getting ready for bed. I have never wanted to punch someone so hard on my mission!!! Well, I didn’t care. I just bit my tongue. He didn’t want to do it so I did. I prayed for it and we got one. At exactly four o clock. A solid investigator who actually keeps commitments.
Stake Conference
Saturday and Sunday we had stake conference and the entire thing was based around missionary work. We have over 70 missionaries just in the Houston East Stake alone! Insane!! We have 204 missionaries in the mission compared to just 98 when I first got here. We have grown a lot!
Old Mission Companions
Another huge highlight of the week was four missionaries I know who have finished their missions came back to visit the mission and go to the BYU – U of H game. Apparently, it was a legit game! But it was awesome to see those guys, especially Elder Bruneel who trained me. What was really exciting is that they are all going to BYU so I will see them again really soon!!!
Anyway that’s pretty much all I’ve got. Yesterday we had a sweet dinner at Hna. Mercedes’ house with Elder Bruneel and I had 25 tacos. I paid for it. On that note….
Love y’all!
Elder Viitanen
Great done in Texas! I love you.I am proud of you, too!Have a nice Halloween!