Holy cow it's been like three years since I've written home...well it
hasn't actually been three years but it certainly felt like it!
Geeze!! This has been a crazy week and my brain is totally fried..
Blah! Thank goodness it's pday today! pday last week feels like an
eternity! I hit my 7 month mark last week so that's pretty cool I
guess! On Tuesday of Last week I went on exchanges with a Spanish
elder that is struggling with being obedient on his mission so it was
pretty interesting. We are good friends but he just doesn't want to be
obedient. We spent a lot of time at this families house and he kept
flirting with this girl in Spanish...I was like DANGIT! It was pretty
cool though cause when the family was around I could kinda follow
their conversation in Spanish! I guess I really did remember some of
the stuff I learned almost three years ago in highschool! Hahaha so
the last Tuesday of every transfer we have this thing called transfer
doctrine where it shows everyone who is getting moved and they opened
up another area in the tall cedars Ward...I was so ticked!! We have to
share an area now and house! But I was only ticked for a short time.
On Wednesday of last week we didn't have much just district meeting
and office runs! It was good and then this less active family
invited us to come to Red Robin with them! I was pretty pumped about
that!! It was a good time and we were building trust with them so
another good part of that too! That night we moved the house around so
that the other guys could transfer in and have their beds set up. It
was weird. Thursday was a pretty hard day for me... I had to say bye
to a lot of people that were going home... It totally was awful. I had
to say bye to Elder Adair. It was really rough. I looked up to that
kid a lot and I'm going to miss him. He was a great example to me and
taught me a lot. But I'll see him when I go home and he has still
been my favorite companion! That night after transfers took one of my
favorite Ward members out on splits his name is Brother Batty and he
is such a genuine guy! We taught Anmol and Indy about the importance
of the Book of Mormon and Anmol got pretty confrontational... And once
confrontation starts the spirit leaves right away. But by the end of
the lesson and the sharing of our testimonies of the Book of Mormon we
invited the spirit back and had a great rest of the lesson. Friday was
an alright day I guess we had leadership meeting and the Ashburn zone
also did at the same time and afterward there were like 20 of us that
went out to eat afterwards so that was pretty funny we as a huge pack
of missionaries walk into fudruckers it's a burger place and they were
just like oh crap there are so many of them! Hahah it was pretty
funny. After lunch we had to drive some elders to the office to get a
phone set up and we got to hangout there for a little and say bye to
Elder Egli who was going home! It sucks saying bye to all these super
awesome missionaries!! DANGIT! While at the offer Elder Rice told us
that Elder Holdaway and I have to give a training in missionary
leadership council in front of a general authority... DANGIT! Saturday
was Halloween and it was pretty fun! We didn't do much of anything we
actually helped the Oakton Ward set up their Halloween party and then
we went to a members house to watch this movie called the Cokeville
Miracle. It's about a bombing at an elementary school. Its actually a
pretty incredible movie if you pay attention to the messages taught in
it. The acting was pretty bad though...but hey it's the only movie
I've seen basically in the last 8 months. Hahah. Sunday was church and
we got a new Ward mission leader and our investigator Morgan was there
again and we are teaching her soon!
So after last week we had a general authority come into the mission.
Elder Anthony Perkins of the first quorum of the 70! We had the
opportunity to listen to him this past Monday (that's why pday is
today.) we were all in the Centerville stake center and when Elder
Perkins walked in the spirit confirmed to me that he is called of God
and represents the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He
talked to us about the importance of preach my gospel and the power
that it has in missionary work and in conversion to the gospel of
Jesus Christ. I can't wait to go back and study my notes from his
presentations they were so darn awesome! During lunch on Monday Elder
Perkins sat at my table and I got to have a conversation with him
about the life of a member of the 70 so that was pretty cool! He is a
busy guy and works hard to represent the church throughout the entire
world. He also is in charge of the missions on the east coast so he
sees all the work that we do here! Tuesday was a pretty stressful day
because we were told that one of the missionaries living with us was
thinking about going home. We spent the whole day with him trying to
help him feel better we played games with him and we felt like he was
doing better. We also planned for our presentation for Mlc in front of
Elder Perkins. Yesterday was such a stressful and emotional day for
me. We spent most of the day in meetings and presentations were spent
alt least 7 hours in meetings yesterday.We presented to Mlc and to
Elder Perkins and we did a pretty good job I think! We had a stake
young men's meeting that night and talked about this huge missionary
activity the Ashburn stake is going to do with their youth and the
full time missionaries! It's going to be so cool! That night we came
home and Elder holdaway really wanted some Chinese food so we bought
him some Hunan village cause we always drive past it and he always
makes fun of it haha but he finally got it! Right as I was going to
bed that night I got a call from President Huntsman telling me that
the elder was going home the next morning...I was so shocked and
so sad. That night I sat down with him and talked to him
and he felt so embarrassed and sad but I told him he would be okay. So
now we are in a trio with Elder Vasilyev who is from Russiak. So it will be an interesting 5
weeks...haha yay! That was basically my last week or so. Lots of stuff
going on haha lots of emotions too! I hope that everything is going
good back home and you all are doing well! I worry about each of you
and pray for each of you every night. Don't worry about me I'll be
fine here in Virginia. The mission is hard but the church and the
gospel are true. I am so thankful to know that my Heavenly Father
loves me and knows me and I can still speak to him. I'm grateful for
the Savior and for His atoning sacrifice so that my imperfections can
be made whole. My brother Keith sends me this quote all the time
"everything was beautiful and nothing hurt" life can be hard most of
the time but if we rely on the Savior we can truly see the beauty in
life and know that there is a plan for each of us to return to our
Heavenly Father. Love you all so much!
Elder Routsong
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