Email from Elder Lofthouse 9/1/14 New Companion!

This has been a really long week. It feels like a month ago that Elder Herrera was my companion.  Wednesday I went up to Fresno with Elder Kane (my new district leader) to go pick up our new companions.  We went to the temple, had some trainings and then went and worked in an area in Fresno that night.  The next morning we got assigned to our new companions.  Mine is named Elder Mora, he's from Arkansas, but was born in Mexico.  He moved to the states when he was two so he speaks perfect English and great Spanish.  He got baptized a year and a half ago and is the only member in his family.  

I love Elder Mora! He is so diligent and has such good desires. He wants to talk with everyone and being a convert of only a year and a half what he wants out of a mission is a super strong testimony. He acknowledges that he has doubts at times, but his faith and hope is that in two years he will be able to say that he KNOWS this is true and will have a solid, firm testimony. I am absolutely certain that he will get there. Like most missionaries he doesn't like to role-play, but you wouldn't know it because he's so willing to do it. He asks great questions and based on his teaching, someone who didn't know him would probably guess he's been out quite some time. He is going to be a fantastic missionary.

I am quickly learning that I will not be a perfect trainer, that I'll make mistakes, but that that's okay as long as I am trying to follow the Spirit and serve my companion. My most embarrassing mistake this week was when I miscalculated our miles and we ended up going 15 over our limit. I honestly felt so stupid and I stressed about it for awhile, but Elder Mora helped me to let it go, not worry about it and just focus on continuing to work. I'm really thankful he's my companion.

We got up at 4 in the morning on Saturday to go to the vineyard and pick grapes.  Surprisingly I wasn't that tired and it was a lot of fun.  We had thirty or forty people from our ward show up and we got our assignment done pretty quick.  We have a great ward!

We're hoping to get T and A married and baptized this weekend.  They've been to church nine times now.  We're going to be seeing them tonight and we're going to get everything taken care of so we can make certain it happens this Saturday.  C's been coming to church, I wants to start doing Family Home Evening, most of our recent converts are doing great, and I just feel so blessed to be in Farmersville.

It's resting more and more heavily on my mind how little time I have left. I feel more and more of a sense of urgency every day. I just want to become everything I can be and accomplish everything I possibly can while I'm here. There is so much to do and so much to learn. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I was given to serve a mission.

I hope you all have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Lofthouse