To my friends and family,
Miracle #2 of the mission: learning the benefit of
diligence.
6:28 AM… 6:29 AM… 6:30 AM…beep…beep…beep. It’s 6:30 AM, the
alarm is blaring and I’m already jumping out of bed, saying my morning prayers,
and starting 30 minutes of exercise. There is no time to waste because we have
something scheduled to do every minute of every day.
Sometimes I feel a little sluggish in the mornings…my body
is tired and I know I won’t be returning to my no-pillow, no-blanket bed for a
long 16 hours. This is when I most feel the greatest temptation of “oh, just a
few minutes more” and “oh, it is just so early.” It is in these moments that I
have to remind myself of the “why.” And that is miracle #2 of my mission: I
have learned the why. The answer is diligence. Diligence is the pathway to
overcoming laziness and a lack of progress and finding success and satisfaction
through hard work. For me, diligence is what makes hard work worth it.
For a time, Elder Chavez and I went running in the mornings.
I enjoyed it a lot in the beginning but after five or six weeks we missed a day or two due to rain and we really lost our groove. We were working
really hard every time we would leave the house to run but without the
diligence of “every day” we didn’t notice any important progress.
I’ve noticed it’s the same way with almost every task we
perform. I have to apply diligence every day to my studies if I want my
knowledge to grow and build. I have to diligently speak with everyone we meet
to be able to find Bladimír this past week. I have to diligently keep a good
attitude about the humidity every hour of every day for it to not wear me down.
Almost always it’s when we’re feeling most discouraged and lazy that we need to
be the most diligent.
That is what it is really all about for me. If I continue to
do things like studying, working, trying to forgive, trying to be a better
missionary, son, and person then I only need to be diligent in my efforts to
improve. I can’t give up and be discouraged. And even if I feel like not
being diligent, I can just fake a good attitude until it becomes a real part of
me. It’s interesting how the mind works like that. I love you all.
- EE
Other tidbits:
- Next Friday we have our zone conference and I’m super excited for that. Then I travel to Quito on Monday the 4th for mission Council on the 5th. I spent 6 months in Quito and it almost feels like home when I get off the bus there. The air is so clean and fresh air! I’m super excited about it.
- I’ve been on a constant battle to keep my things clean because mold is attacking really badly. It grows on everything. I’m praying that my clothes can make it another ten weeks! If we don’t wash things regularly, they get moldy quick. Two days ago I spilled a drop of Coke on my desk and wiped it up and today mold had grown over the spot. Does anyone have any hints about that?
- Every week I look forward to your letters. Reading emails is one of my favorite parts of the week for sure. Allison, I thought a lot about you this week because of your birthday and everything. I haven’t felt sad about missing something or an event back home since you all went to New York…I kind of detached after that so that I didn’t feel sad. Well this week I don’t know why but I felt really sad about missing your 18th birthday, it was a feeling I haven’t had any longtime. I hope everything was really great!
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