August 29, 2024: I'm going back to the start

 Life has been crazy! My son Elder Haws us crushing it. I hope that I can raise him in the ways of truth and righteousness. 


We've been suuper busy. There's a lot of meetings we have to attend as well as extra studies we do in order to support the new missionaries, so it definitely has been harder to find time to get out there and go. The time that we do have to go is great! From the git-go Elder Haws has been confident enough to talk to people and invite them to church, something I would dread every day at the start of the mission. He's also already grasping the language really well. It's so fun to see the world through his eyes because everything is so new and cool and every little thing is significant. 

On Friday we were able to do a little mini mission with an American boy named Eli. He's a 300lb offensive linebacker and is super chill. We brought him to our district council, it was fun to have him there. We were also able to make a new friend named Amjad that day.

On Saturday Harry got baptized!! It was the best baptismal service I've ever attended. The words spoken were beautiful and although the setup was a little stressful, it all worked out and nobody noticed anything had happened. He also brought a number of friends with him, and we got to speak with and make friends with all of them. I think we had more attendance there than we do on our normal Sundays, it was amazing to see all the support. 

We also got a random call later that day and one of our friends who moved away a month ago was getting baptized as well! We got to witness it through video call which was really cool.

Sunday was great, just a lot of planning and catchup on things we had been needing to do.

We had a big mission zoom meeting on Monday and my son got to introduce himself. After that I had to give training to all the newbies and that was scary. I chose to speak on what a successful missionary is according to Preach My Gospel, our guidebook as missionaries. There are so many examples of missionaries in the scriptures who, from a worldly sense, had no success at all. Abinadi was brutally martyred, and only converted one soul, after he died. Nephi (from 3rd Nephi) received incredible power from God and "did go forth in the Spirit, from multitude to multitude, declaring the word of God, even until he had declared it unto them all, or sent it forth among all the people." And yet we read later that because of the people's hard heartedness, his preaching only caused contention and warfare. These are missionaries who are still praised among others who converted thousands of souls. Not because they were able to do the same, but because they fulfilled their purpose to the absolute fullest in every situation they were given, and invited others to come unto Christ at every opportunity. That is what defines a successful missionary, and that is the missionary that I strive to be.

We had a super early zone conference on Tuesday, which was hype as always. Always very spiritual and very insightful. That followed by an exchange with our Zone Leaders which was good. Apparently the ZL Elder Haws was with already had him go split contacting (where you split up (within sight and sound of one another ideally) and then talk to people). I didn't do that till like my 4th transfer so kudos to him for toughing it out. It's scary sometimes.

Other than that, we went hiking for Pday today. It was great to spend time with the district!

Tschüss!
Elder Tage Rex

Lots of good pictures for you mom :)











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