Hey Dad,
Things are going well. Teaching is getting slightly better, but it's still hard. I can tell that probably the hardest thing for me is going to be simplifying my teaching so that anyone could understand it. It's hard, but I know with the Lord's help I'll get it. The biggest thing is just relying on the Spirit. Sometimes you will have prepared an entire lesson and spent a lot of time working on it and then you start teaching and the investigator needs something different. But because you prepared and put forth the effort, the spirit will tell you what to say. Just like D&C 100 says.
Ha ha and I'm glad I was able to get mom such an touching and tender gift. That really warms my heart. Ha ha. Yeah I did fine on Mother's Day actually. I'm not having a very hard time anymore. Sure, I miss home and I miss doing the things I was able to do before, but I'm getting used to it and I know that you guys and the piano and my guitars and my room and everything will still be there when I get back. And I know time is going to fly by. It's pretty crazy.
About the hymn, I thought I told you this before, but that is my favorite hymn. Lead, Kindly Light. Hymn #97. It used to be If You Could Hie To Kolob, but it changed with the prospect of the mission. I have definitely sung that song many a time since I've been here. I think it is the most comforting hymn that a missionary could know. And it is beautiful musically as well. Oh! By the way, Voice Male does a rendition of it I believe so if you could maybe possibly get your hands on a Voice Male hymns CD that would be nice. =) And that Mo-Tab CD and
Todd McCabe and April Moriarty CD would be great too. ha ha those I already have, but not the Voice Male one.
Well it sounds like you're doing okay. It's definitely getting hotter so I'm sure the hill will be undergoing renovation soon =). Good luck with that! Anyway, I love you and miss you. But I'll see you soon! Oh and I don't know if I mentioned this, but I think I get to call when I leave on July 7th so don't go anywhere! ha ha See ya!
-Elder Erik Swenson
Hey mom!
Happy Mother's Day!! So I'm sending your mother's day "present" tonight in the mail. I'm sorry it's late, but know that I was thinking of you and yes I knew it was mother's day. But your present is really lame as you can imagine what with me being at the MTC and all. Well I'll just tell you. It's my SD card. So it has some pictures on it. But not a ton. There's not a ton of time to take pictures, but I try. So I'm sending them to you! Okay by the way if you could send me a calendar that would be fantastic! Ha ha I sound so needy. I swear I ask for something every week. Sorry! Thank you so much again for the backpack and starch! I love it! I iron my shirts every night and I love the starch. So thank you again.
I'm glad you got to get out in the yard again! Yeah it's definitely stressful. I hated it. Obviously. But that's good. It does become a lot easier when you just do it a little at a time. Set realistic goals and plan for them. That's what we do!
It sounds like that mother's day dinner would have been a blast! I wish I could have been there. Tell the family hi for me whenever you see them. Especially Grandma and Grandpa. I miss 'em. And it sounds like you got some pretty good loot for mother's day ha ha. A box of sham wow's? Really? I'm guessing that was from dad from me? Ha ha but that is awesome. It's actually probably better than your real present ha ha.
Man the ward is just changing isn't it?! Crazy sauce. Braden will be awesome in that class. That is like his thing. He is way comfortable doing that. But he's only going to teach for like 2 weeks so that's kinda lame. But I am SO EXCITED for when he comes here! Tell him to find me! The english speakers in our district that just left were going to Florida Tallahassee so he COULD even be in our district. It's a stretch, but yeah. We'll definitely see each other. It will be awesome. Except for he gets to leave before I do! Ugh. That's lame. The MTC is weird because it's just like. . . .fake. Everybody you teach is fake and it's hard to actually try to get to know them and find out what they're really worried about. I can't wait to get to Albania and fall in love with the people. It's going to be awesome.
Okay, tell all of the guys that I love them! I can't believe I have 4 friends leaving in the next 3 weeks. They're going to be awesome. Tell them that Erik says to trust God with everything. They're going to need his help more than ever, but they're also going to feel his spirit and his power more than ever. It will be a great experience. make sure to send me their addresses so I can write them. It will be cool to hear from them. I wrote Tim last week, but it takes forever for letters to get there so I don't expect to hear from him for a while. I can't wait till "the newsletter" comes out. =) I loved the pictures of Tim. Keep sending 'em! ha ha well if you can I mean. But I have one pinned up on my picture board in my room.
Mom, thanks again for everything. I love you so much! Happy Mother's Day!
Te dua,
Elder Erik Swenson
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