November 12, 2018

Hi Jon.

Your letters are getting really short! I know you are short on time but we don't really know what's going on with you and your investigators, etc. 

The weather has been getting really cold. We had snow on the ground yesterday when I woke up - maybe just frost but still it was white everywhere. We had elections on Tuesday and not all of the votes have been counted yet. A lot of issues were so close that they are like 50 votes apart with 50,000 left to be counted. I voted by mail this year which was super easy and lots of other people had to stand in line for 4 hours. The polls closed at 8p but anyone in line at that time could vote and the last person to finish was at like 1:30am which is crazy. 

Javi had a band concert last week and Chance had performances of Into the Woods. I went to see the play on Friday night and it was super long - like 3 hours. And I don't like the music. But I wanted to see Chance and it was cool to see him on stage. Javi played the xylophone in the concert and made me take him to the BYU Creamery afterwards. 

I took Aimar to crossfit on Saturday morning and he did okay but didn't lift very much weight. We did a ton of front squats and sprinted 800 meters a couple of times. He was so sore the next day! I have been going to crossfit regularly for a whole year now and I thought by now I'd look like John Cena but instead I just look like Homer Simpson. No bueno.

I've been helping out more with Maddy's wedding. This week I worked on getting her wedding invitations printed, mailing lists finalized, etc. It's a lot of work. Mom had us help her cut some wood for some kind of decoration but we didn't make much progress on it.

I want to share some thoughts about "not being good enough" that some missionaries deal with (maybe your companions?) but not you. Either way it’s good to know. You will surely teach some others that will have to deal with this.

Do you know how good Captain Moroni was? He was awesome! I have read super cool talks about his leadership qualities. The list is long and distinguished. He is really getting a brag session in Alma 48:17 where it says that the very foundations of hell would shake at his presence. Now that's cool. 

Alma 48:18 says that Captain Moroni was even like another group of absolute stalwarts in the Book of Mormon. That would be Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah. These guys were total studs as well. Think about the stories of them and the miracles they performed. Think about the thousands of lives that were changed by them. Think of the volume of pages in the Book of Mormon that were dedicated to them. Could anyone be any better? 

All of this is great, except there is one little problem. They were not perfect before they left on their missions either. See Mosiah 27:8-10. Not only were they not perfect, but at one point they were downright rotten. Let's review. One was a wayward missionary who had some sort of issues with women that I won’t get into. The others at one point were so bad the Prophet had to go to them and say you guys are acting like animals that have set out to deliberately destroy the Lord's work. You are so bad that people won't even listen to what I have to say and I am THE Prophet. You are not only being bad for the sake of being bad, but you have made some sort of pact to intentionally destroy the church! 

I am not harping on these guys for nothing. What I am saying is that if in the end, Moroni was compared to the greatest that have ever walked the earth – and they were not perfect – then don’t you get caught up on what things you had to learn and grow from before your mission. It’s not Heavenly Father that wants you to dwell on those things from your past or let them get in the way of your future. But someone else does.

I don’t think that you could have been as bad as the sons of Mosiah, but whatever you did in the past is gone. If you don’t feel good enough, think of your repentance process and know the Lord says, "I will remember them no more". He cannot lie. When he says that he cannot remember, he cannot remember. So just like the sons of Mosiah, know that you can become as greatest missionary ever no matter what your past is. Know that the Lord can bless you and forget whatever you did before your mission. Don’t wish you could be as good as Elder X. He likely has his own problems. You can be as good as anyone.

I hope everything is going well for you and that all your investigators are coming to church.

Love,

Dad