I can´t believe that Andrew is a dad. Katie sent me a picture of him holding Olivia and his smile was just great to see. I am so excited for him.

 Things are going good in the mission and I am learning so much out here.

   Ever since I was called to be one of the assistants I have began to lose the excitement, energy, and smile I had before. I know about all the problems in the mission, it is all on my plate, and the success or failure of the mission is depending on me and the other three assistants. So that was my state of mind. I felt that I couldn´t be happy unless everything was going the way I felt it needed to go.

    Being that everything nearly never goes the way you want it to, consequently, I just wasn´t very happy. I couldn´t just be happy like I was before.

    This week I went on a division with my ex-comp Elder Fa in his area in Pouso Alegre. While I was there we worked hard and had a good time.

    The next morning as my comp and I were walking to the city bus station, I started to do something that I had never done in my mission. I began to say hello, good morning, or how are you to every single person that I passed. Me and my comp did so with a smile the whole walk and we didn´t miss one person.

     It had an amazing result. I was happy. Really excited and happy for the first time in a while. The smile truly has a power to bring the spirit of the Lord.

       As I pondered about this in my personal study, more truths came to me on the matter.

   ´´Adam fell that men might be, and men are; that they might have joy``

    or even shorter

   ´´Adam fell that men... might have joy``

  Interesting I thought. How could we have joy in a fall. Whenever we sin, go through a difficult time, or suffer to do our acts or the acts of others we ´´fall``.

   We too fall that we might have joy. But the joy doesn´t come in the fall. The joy comes when we you use our God given agency to get ourselves up. We weren´t made to be happy fallen on the ground, we were made to be happy standing up and looking back to where we were on the ground. This brings joy.

   Being happy doesn´t have to do with your health, your social status, your financial situation or anything of the sort. Being happy is a personal choice made with our agency and our faith in God.

    Being happy a smiling a midst deep trial is the sign of true faith and hope in God.  Enduring trials is good, but joyfully learning in trails is celestial.

   I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for this mission that he has given me, the great opportunities to learn and grow have brought purpose and happiness to my life. I have learned how to serve and how to love. I have much more that I hope to learn in these last months.

   I love you too so much and I hope that you too seek the lord through fervent scripture study. Pondering, reading, and prayer will make you see the Lord in you life, instead of just expecting His presence.

 

I love you both,

    Elder Nothum

Hey Mom and Dad,

The transfer blew by. It seemed like Elder Farías and I didn´t get much time together, but we built a pretty good friendship. He was transferred to an area super far away in another state, he was really excited to get there. My new companion is Elder Lembranzi. He is a brazilian from a state way up north called Rondônia. He is a really nice guy. He has been in the mission for about seven months or so. He has had some rough companions inn the past that made it hard for him to progress in the start of his mission, but he has a lot of desire and I think a little lack of confidence.
Apparently, he hasn´t baptized yet in his mission. Which in Brazil, is a big deal. I think that has been a little hard on him and he feels that maybe he is not a good missionary, at least that is what president Tanner told me.
Therefore, my goals this transfer are to help him become a humble and confident leader, baptize as much as we can together, and to get the work going better here with the members here in the ward. They are great and more than willing to help, I just need to be more connected with them.
I had a great interview with President Tanner the other day. As we talked about the mission and other things I had an interesting realization. The gospel of Jesus Christ is extremely practical. There is no hocus pocus faith, or magic success with out effort, or life making changes from one simple prayer. We simply use are agency to become more like our Savior by following Him, or we choose to make mistakes that take us out of His presence. We choose to take all the proper steps to repent, or we choose to stay the same. We choose to happy or we choose to be sad. According to the choices we make, the effort we give, and the motive we have the Lord will give the promised blessings found in the scriptures, in the temple, and in our patriachal blessing. We just have to DO our part.
I could use some more old spice deodorant if you could send some, and sweets are always good. Tell gran that the shoes she sent me never came, I´m sad about that. But another Elder gave me some so it´s all good.
I love the work mom and Dad.
I had recently been thinking about being a college professor for my future work. But, then it just keeps staying in me the idea of making films. There are so many red flags like how to start, how to have a family and make films, and things of that nature, but I really want to do it. I figure that I could get a degree in teaching and if all goes to bad, I could teach at BYU. I would want to teach religion I think, I here that is hard to do at BYU, must be competitive, but we will see. Pray for me, that Heavenly Father will reveal what He wants me to do, so That I can do it. You can send this to direct family if you want, but I am not sending out the big broad one to everybody anymore, I much prefere giving more attention to the most important ones.
Hey Natalie!!!!! I am so proud that you gave a Book of Mormon to your friend, you are such a brave smart girl. Read your Book of Mormon everyday and always pray to Heavenly Father. You are the best little sister in the world and I will be seeing you in just about eight months!!! Did you see those pictures of me on the big rock? That was pretty cool huh?
I love you Noodle!!!!!
I love you all and have a good week,
Elder Nothum