2 interesting things happened this last week.
Interesting point number 1. Elder Bruce Carlson of the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy came to our mission for our annual mission conference with a General Authority. Super cool guy, we talked a lot about consecration, as well as the difference between Justification (coming into alignment with a standard), and Sanctification (he wanted us to come up with our own definition of sanctified, but gave us some scriptural points to prove that there is a difference between the two.) I also had the first time on my mission where a general authority addressed the missionaries to tell us that we need to get married QUICKLY after our missions. His advice was to write down a list of attributes of our mission president's wife, (or president for sisters), and set those as the goal attributes of the person we are looking for to marry. He then said to make sure that you get married before you can forget what those attributes were. It was kind of odd to listen to him talk about getting married really fast after your mission, since I still feel like a younger missionary, but then I thought about it and realized that I'm almost exactly 2 transfers away from reaching my year mark. Before next cycle ends, I'll have passed the 1 year mark of getting my mission call. Time flies when you're having fun. One thing that he mentioned was that you can't just "hang out" and expect to effectively discover which of the girls in your social group actually portray the attributes you want. And he also talked about setting a 5 year plan of what you want your life to look like after you get back from your mission. I don't know if you did that or not, Wes, but I would certainly encourage both you and Ethan (once he gets back) to discuss setting 5 year plans that start at roughly the same time as 2014. You won't set the same goals, because you are 2 very different people, but bouncing ideas off of someone else is, in my experience, one of the best ways to decide what is the best option/solution.
Interesting point number 2 was no where near as spiritually important/uplifting, but still really nice. I got to have JDawgs sauce. We went to a member family lunch appointment, and their daughter at BYU ships them out JDawgs sauce, so that was a nice little taste of home right there.
I got the letter you sent mom, so the address is right, you can send the suit straight to me. I just ask that if you do so, you send it today or tomorrow, because now that I'm upstate, I have no guarantee that I'll be staying in this area past next Wednesday. (how did that cycle go for speed?) The Birth-Certificate can be sent if you want, but I'm probably going to wait for the passport papers until I'm back down in Chinatown, It's a lot easier to get to the post office there, up here I would have to take a much longer portion of the Preparation Day to do it, and I don't think that it's that urgent. I have no idea if I'm going to go back down to Chinatown or not, but I personally think based on the recent record for other Chinese missionaries, I've probably got at least 1 more cycle in the English program before I go back to Chinatown. I did bring my heavy coat up with me, the only thing I left behind was the comforter.
Cameron has lasted 6 weeks with his first reed? I'll tell you what the difference was. I had just barely gotten my braces on before school started 7th grade, and I was playing the Oboe, not the Bassoon. Oboe reeds are a lot easier to break.
Oh, could you send me a picture of Dad without hair? I'd love to use that as the back of one of my planner covers. More pictures of the Cabin would be nice too. I promise I'll send some of my own once I get the chance to back stuff up onto my Flash Drive from a computer that isn't in the public library.
Is Robin having friend issues in terms of just high school drama, or is it that she has some friends who are making bad choices? If the former, she'll survive, and, in the words of Calvin and Hobbes "it builds character." If the latter, then she just needs to make the decision of if they are pressuring her in any way to violate her own standards. If so, then they are not friends worthy of having a super meaningful relationship with. That's about all the help I can give on that topic. High school felt not that dramatic while I was there, but now that I'm out looking back, it was really bad actually.
Xxxxx is still doing fine, he comes to church every week, he's going to go back to China for a few months in late October or November probably, but he does that every year, he has a green card in the US, so he can't leave for more than 6 months. We also got him to tell us his concern about getting baptized. Put simply, he's got some barriers to overcome, not in that he isn't keeping the commandments or doesn't believe the gospel is true or anything like that, just some stuff he will have to figure out for himself before it will happen.
If you're having a hard time enjoying scripture study mom, might I suggest reviewing Chapter 2 of Preach My Gospel (Effective Study)?
In other news, tracting is really good at saving your car miles. And meeting people who aren't interested. On the plus side though, I haven't had the cops called on me for soliciting yet (that's happend to my district leader 4 times over the course of his mission. He doesn't get in any trouble, because we aren't actually selling anything, it's just a serious annoyance according to him.).
Love you all, having a wonderful time here in Peekskill,
Your son/sibling in service,
Elder Christensen
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