Back in Black

I apologize for the rareness of an email from me now-of-days! I hope you are well. I wanted to write an update to fill you in on my life and the last few weeks of my mission! We've reached the end of a transfer! Wow!

What a wonderful transfer this has been. Elder Zanni and I have worked together the last 12 weeks at it's been a lot of fun. I feel like we've been become good friends :) We joke and laugh and have fun! We've met a bunch of very cool families! :) One of them came to church. Vitor, Patrícia and Leonor. Leonor is eight and adorable. She's one of those adult children and looks just like Patrícia haha. Vitor works for the alarm company and has been to several of our chapels because of the alarms haha. Patrícia wasn't able to come because she works on Sundays but Leonor and Vítor had a great time. It was great. Leonor leaned over to me after the first hymn and asked, "when are we going to sing again?" haha then the wife of one of the members of the stake presidency was sitting with her 4 daughters while he had to be on the stand, 3 super young and she was having trouble keeping them reverent and at one point she put her head in her hands, Leonor leans over and whispers, "It must be hard having 4 daughters." haha!! I was like, how old are you again? :)

This week we had the privilege to have a missionary meetings with Elder G. Craig Zwick and his wife. Elder Zwick is one of the Presidents of the Quorum of the Seventy and the Head of the missionary department. It was a very spiritual meeting :) I learned that obedience is the first law of EVERYthing. When we follow the commandments of God, everything else is secondary but will all fall into place. When I explain that to people we teach I explain it like I learned from a young men's leader: The commandments of God are like various golf balls, and everything else in our life, like a bunch of sand. The golf balls are fewer but larger, because they are more important. The sand is small, but there are lots of them. If we imagine a jar as our life, if we fill the jar with sand, there's no space left for the golf balls. You can't jam 'em in. But if you put the golf balls in first, all of the sand will take its place around them and it will all fit. Obedience to God's laws bring innumerous blessings.
When we put God first, he puts us first. I know because I know he is our
Heavenly Father. and He loves us.

That was really what was taught with Elder Zwick, but it's one of the small things I learned expanded. I learned a lot :)