I'm glad everything's going well at home even if they're super busy. It's kind of sad that I'll miss Katherine, but tell her I miss her, and I'm sure she'll have a wonderful time in the MTC. Is Dad going to Shanghai for his new job? Also tell Katherine to watch the District if she has time, because it's really good. I've had the chance to finish it here, but I've had six weeks and she only has two haha. Thanks for the story about the Sisters in Tennessee. It's pretty amazing that they're able to do that. I actually heard one of the Elders in Tennessee actually got his visa already too. Oh and by the way do you know what the ecclesiastical cards emails that I'm getting are about? I'm kind of confused by them. Oh and also I don't know if you need to tell the bank that I'm going to be using my debit card in the US for right now or not, but if so could you call them, and just make sure enough money stays on my card, because tomorrow I need to pay for my bags that I check. Oh and by the way, thanks for the package you sent! I really enjoyed it, and the gummy peppers where hilarious. I actually kind of liked them haha, but one of the sisters in my district about died when she tried one and thought it was insanely spicy haha. I loved the walrus picture from Laurel too haha. It's really cool to hear that you've gotten letters from Kathleen about my mission too. Oh and by the way, if you find any good scarves on sale, I've heard from our teachers that scarves are kind of like ties over there in the winter and the more you have the better. I'm so excited to get to Denmark though it's ridiculous. We've heard some amazing stories from over there.
Everything's going great for me right now, and honestly, I
can't wait to get to Oregon and start serving the people there. I kind
of had a negative attitude when I first found out where I was going, but
I've been able to get over that and I'm just super excited to get into
the mission field. I figure I'll get to meet a lot of interesting people
in Eugene too haha. We got up at about 3:30am this morning to say
goodbye to most of the Danish sisters before they headed off to St.
Louis Missouri. I also said goodbye to my companion Elder Walch, and
Elder Wawro as they headed off to Carlsbad, California, so now there
aren't too many of us left. I'm excited to go tomorrow though, and you
can expect a phone call bright and early in the morning from me. So as
for cool things that have happened this week, Elder Nelson of the Quorum
of the Twelve came! That was really cool. We've had two separate
apostles while we were here. Lots of people don't even have any, so I
feel pretty lucky. A cool thing Elder Nelsons wife said to us was, there
are people on the other side of the veil, eager to help us find their
family members, so that there work can be done. If we pray for their
help, they will be around us helping us to find those that are ready for
the gospel. Elder Nelson said a lot of great things too. He said,
obedience brings success, and exact obedience brings miracles. I think
that's something I'm striving towards, exact obedience, even if I don't
understand all the mission rules I know I'll be blessed if I keep all
the rules and am faithful to my calling. Another thing I liked that he
talked about is that we have to be happy. We have so much to be happy
and grateful for in this life and we need to show it. No ones going to
want to listen or believe us when we talk about the great plan of
happiness if we look like we've never been happy in our lives. If we're
diligent and do our very best, we will have success. Believe you will
have success and it will come. I've been told over and over here at the
MTC, believe you can bring people to the gospel and baptize them into
the church, and you will. Everyone seems to have a misconception that
it's impossible to baptize and find people that will accept the gospel,
but it really isn't. If you believe you will baptize, you will, because
nothing is impossible with Gods help.
We also had another great story from brother Stacey, our
teacher, this week. He's seriously amazing, and I think the best
spiritual experiences I've had here were when he was teaching. Here's his
story: In one of his areas there was an old widow member of the church
that would feed the missionaries every single week on Monday. She always
made a huge meal and spent a lot of money on them. During Christmas
there are about 5 days of Christmas where people celebrate, and all the
members invite the missionaries for all those days. This widow who had
previously fed them that week signed up to feed them on Christmas eve.
Bror Stacey was kind of disturbed by this, because she always spent so
much money on them, and he offered to help pay for the food or help cook
multiple times, but she always refused. He even called his mission
president to ask him about it, but his mission president just told him
"go to her house and eat all her food and have a good time with her." So
they went, and she had cooked a huge meal, and had even gotten them
gifts. finally before they left Bror Stacey pulled her aside, and just
asked her, "why do you do this for us?" She said "Elder Stacey, you have
a lot to learn. I don't invite you over because I think you'll starve
or not have enough food if I don't. I invite you over, because when I
do, I not only invite you, but I invite Christ into my home." As
missionaries we truly are representatives of Christ, and if we honor and
respect his name, and don' t do anything to disrespect him or our
calling, his presence will be with us and others will feel his presence
as well. I hope that I can be the type of missionary that can truly
invite Christ into the homes I'm invited into. I would just like to bear
my testimony to all of you, that I know the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, is Christs church restored on the earth today. I know
it's true, and I know the Book of Mormon is true. I love that book, and
I know that anyone that reads and prays about it sincerely, seeking to
know of it's truth, that they will receive a witness of its truth. I
love being a missionary and I'm excited to finally go out and help
people in any way that I can. I love you all and I'll keep all of you in
my prayers. Jeg Elsker Dig!
-Ældste Redd
So I decided I should send you a funny story also, because I
haven't done that in a while. So there's this thing in the MTC some
people do called the tower challenge, where you eat one of the entire
containers full of cereal that they have in the cafeteria. They're these
huge containers that are probably quite a few boxes of cereal. So Elder
Swan, one of the elders going to Oregon with me, and I decided to try
to eat the whole tower ourselves, when normally it takes more like 6
people to eat it. We went for the Captain Crunch. So we both ended up
eating 10 bowls of cereal, and we got some help from two other people,
but we only got about three quarters of the container down before we had
to be somewhere. By the end my mouth was bleeding from the sharp
corners of the captain crunch, and we all felt disgusting haha. So never
try to eat a whole ton of captain crunch, you will be miserable. I've
been feeling the after affects for the past three days haha. Luckily the
cuts all over my mouth from that razor sharp captain crunch are mostly
healed haha. That's my funny story for now haha :D.
Love,
Elder Redd
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