October 9, 2013 - Faith is an expression of agency.

Greetings Mother from this side of the country!  Things are ummm, interesting, here in DC lately but the road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.  I love that the Standard of Truth has been erected and that 183 General Conferences later, we are still standing on the truth that makes us strong.  We are a peculiar people we Latter Day Saints, but we are as the heroes of old, we do not doubt that God will deliver us and we know in whom we have trusted.  My favorite two talks were President Uchtdorf's Saturday morning talk and Elder Hollands talk.  President Uchtdorf's I have decided to make my "battle cry" for the rest of my mission, and maybe for the rest of my life.  Elder Hollands talk will be important for me to study so that I can fulfill my divine callings.  All the talks were amazing.  One weird theme that I noticed was... windows.  Lots of talks included windows in them... maybe the Lord is telling us to pay attention to receiving inspiration, for as a window let's in light, we must to be able to let in the Spirit.  Clean your windows, open the curtains, buy new windows if you have to, but feel the light of the Lord on your face and know that He is God.

To Codie, happy birthday this week!  Hope it's a good one brother!

Temple today was very good, as always.  I understand now that even when Satan tells us to do something that may not be "wrong" it is still wrong but Satan is telling us to do it.  Don't listen to Satan.  He tells truth after truth after truth just to fit in the one little lie at the end and he wants to see you crushed and dead dead dead.  Listen to God, for He loves you and he has a gift of eternity to give you, life.  

Really good quote this week from my ward mission leader, "Faith is an expression of agency."

J's baptismal date has moved from the 26th to the 25th so we're still excited for that.  He loved Conference, especially Edward Dube because he loved the part about not looking back.  He is looking forward with so much faith and we're all so excited.  R is still on for the 2nd, so we're pumped for that too!  He has read all of 1 Nephi now and all he needs to do is hear it, then he'll believe it and keep moving forward.  We have so much good things going on in this area right now, we have C and M who actually went to the Church building this past Sunday and no one was there!  So that was sad but cool too!  Fall has brought an abundance of miracles.  We were going through a summer drought but the hard work the Lord wanted paid off and now we're rolling.  

Wellllll, I LOVE YOU BIG AS THE UNIVERSE! to the edge! Elder Schoemig