Hello beautiful people,

For those who know me, I love being innovative when it comes to gifts and this week I was able to. I have been organizing a birthday present for Sister Fernandez. She is turning 24 on Friday 16th September and as her companion, somehow I have managed to create a surprise for her. With the limited time and constant presence of Sister Fernandez, I bought a ‘wedding book’ which is usually for the guests of a wedding to say congratulations and what not, and I have turned it into a Mission Birthday Book. How ? Well, whether you care or not, I am going to tell you as I am so proud of this idea.

We had a mission tour on Thursday with the three zones of the Southern Zone of the mission, and therefore I was able to get a lot of her missionary friends to sign this book. There wasn’t a lot of time for everyone to sign, but because our zone leaders are Elder Van Dyken and Elder Roth, they were so helpful and took the book to be signed at another meeting the following day. I sneakily copied all of her photos from her mission thus far, and our district leader, Elder Helske has printed them out and we will place them in the book. It makes me so happy how well executed this has gone. Also, the members are into birthdays as well and so we are celebrating her birthday with various families throughout the week, so it should be fun !

Moreover, I really enjoyed Mission Tour. It was truly uplifting and motivational. I loved how Elder Leimer ‘kept it real’, and I appreciated the many wise words in which he spoke. There was a great point he made about the difference between being bold and overbearing is love. That is so true. As representatives of Christ, the difference between us and other organisations that preach is that we are ordained with the authority and power to do so, however, it is also that we love everyone that we come into contact with. It also aligns with the counsel to pray for charity. It is just so important ! I have been praying for charity to be able to see everyone as children of God. I want to see them for how God sees them. They have been promised this gospel and the blessings in the pre-earth life and as preach my Gospel reads ‘they want ”peace in the world, and eternal life in the world to come” (D&C 59:23), but they are kept from the truth because they know not where to find it (D&C 123:12)’.

However, now I am so exhausted. For the mission tour, we had to wake up at 4am, to be on a train at 5:45am, to arrive at9am. Then, we didn’t get back to our flat until 10pm. It’s so great being in the most southern area of the mission. So attached are photos of my district in Wolverhampton (England Birmingham Mission), at the train station in the darkness of the morning, on the train and also with our most beautiful friend Dovi.