Late Email

Hello everyone!


Yesterday all of the libraries were closed due to Martin Luther King day, so I get to write you a day late.


I am really confused with Missouri. When it comes to weather, it has some major, and I mean MAJOR bipolar issues. It is more bipolar than Utah, if you can imagine that. Yesterday was up in the 60's! The 60's in January?! I forgot it was winter; we didn't even have Jackets on it was so nice. But this morning it was -4 with the windchill and the high today is supposed to be 21. It's just so weird how the weather can change so much is so little time. So yeah. There's my spill on weather. Hope you enjoyed that.


Everything has pretty much crashed and burned this week. We struggled with the amount of lessons taught. We had 6 lessons cancel on us in a row. It was just horrible. I always psych myself up before a lesson and convince myself that it is going to be the best lesson ever and then to have the person not even show up really dampens my spirits. But oh well. We carry on.


I've found that it is dangerously easy to waste time on your mission. Even if you are tracting, or planning, or studying or even in a lesson you can still be wasting time. A missionary wastes time when they don't have their head in the work. I've found that if I'm not personally fully invested in what I am doing at any given time then that time is wasted. A mission is one of the greatest opportunities to grow and develop as a person and we only benefit personally from a mission if we are fully invested in it. I could spend all my time doing exactly what I should be doing while my head could be somewhere else; thinking about something else; not necessarily anything bad, just something else other than the task at hand.
That's something I've been trying to do lately, is focus on my purpose, full time. I've noticed that I have been much happier when I do this and I enjoy the work even more, even when facing rejection and disappointment.
I think this is a principle that applies to everything; especially living the gospel. The more we allow ourselves to be consumed by things other than the gospel the less happy we are. It's silly how often we don't do the things Christ expects of us or if we just do them less than fullheartedly and still we expect a great outcome. When will we learn that only following Christ will bring us complete and full happiness? When I think like this I can't help but imagine how frustrated Heavenly Father must get with us. This is a major thing I struggle with still and probably always will, but I sure will try to improve as time goes on because that's what the plan of salvation says this life is for right? I love Heavenly Fathers plan so much. :)


I feel like my emails are not really what they should be. I feel like instead of telling you about how I'm doing and what I'm doing and how I like it I give sermons. Maybe I'll work on that too, or maybe I'll just keep doing what I do and if you really want to know what's going on over here then you can write me a letter and hope that I have time to write you back, or you can hold your questions until the end of my mission and take me out to lunch and ask me all about it then. Yeah. That sounds good.


Until then I hope you all have a fantastic week and that you all recognize the Lords hand in your life. Always look for ways to serve everyone around you!
I love you all!


-Elder Curtis :D

Hello

Hi everybody!!! 

It's a beautiful day in Jeff City. It's clear and warm. A complete turnaround from last week where it was -7 by now. That was miserable. But yesterday it was in the 60's all day. This place is weirder than Utah.

It's been a great week. We picked up another new investigator: James. 

We are also in the process of setting three baptismal dates. By the end of this week we should have dates with Zainu, Diane, and Barbara. All three of them have declared that they know the Book of Mormon is true. The only problem they all face is coming  to church. So that's a little frustrating but we are working hard with all of our  investigators to help them keep their commitments. 

Zainu is awesome. He has never been a good reader and could never wrap his head around any book his whole life, therefore he hates reading. But he is reading the Book of Mormon and he's doing it very well. He understands what's going on and he is able to stay focus. He loves it. He told us that "Nobody could make this stuff up. This is the real deal." and that was without knowing Joseph Smith only  had a 3rd grade level education. He is awesome. :)

I can't believe I've almost been out six months. I can't believe Jen is half way done with her mission. That's crazy!!! Time is going by much too fast for me. But it motivates  me to work harder. 

I'm glad to hear that everyone is doing well. Tell Andrew and Mitch to work on their shots and maybe they'll win a game. ;) 

I hope everyone has a super week and stays warm and safe. Always remember how much Christ loves you! That's all for this week.

Love, Elder Curtis :)

Happy New Years!!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


New years wasn't the same, that's for sure. I can't remember the last time I went to bed at 10:30 on New Years Eve. I probably never have before. But it was great. We had the evening off starting at 6. We had dinner with the Nelsons who are the same members who had us over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. That was awesome! I love that family. We had a air-hockey tournament and you may be pleased hear that I represented the Curtis family very well by going undefeated! I had to play a lot of rematches too but I held on victorious in every one.
That honestly seems like it was forever ago. It has been a loooong week. Ever single appointment we had cancelled except one. However, we were able to spend some time on finding efforts, and as a result we picked up three new investigators: Zainu, Christina, and Diane!!! They all are awesome. Zainu actually has a cousin who became LDS a couple years ago so that is what hooked him when we met him. Diane has a son who is in prison for murdering her father, so that's intense. But she's an awesome example of forgiveness and having a positive perspective on life even though she has had a lot more hard things to get through. Christina was actually a referral from our stake presidents wife who met her at the hospital. They were only able to talk for about two minutes but she got an address for us so we have been trying to contact her for about a month now. Whenever we tried to go see her there was never an answer. For some reason we didn't stop trying even though we've tried her probably 50 times or more. We thought she msut have given a false address or something. Well we decided to try her one more time. We went up to the door to find it already open. There were some men in there doing some work on the walls. The apartment was obviously vacant. We asked them if they knew if a Christina used to live there. One of them said "No, but there's a Christina in apartment D." All this time we were knocking on apartment E! So we knocked on D and lo and behold we found Christina! We told her who we were and what we do. She was very interested. Earlier that morning she had been earnestly praying to God for something to come her way to show her where to go with her life, to give her the help she needs spiritually. We were the answer to that prayer and she knew it. She automatically had a testimony that God is her loving Father and He loves her and knows her. She is excited to learn more about the restoration of the gospel and we are excited to see her come closer to Christ. Gods timing really is perfect. I love seeing the many miracles of missionary work every day. I love sharing the gospel.

That's all for this week. I hope you all have a great week and stay safe and warm. I love you!!!!!


-Elder Curtis