Missionary Newsletter

What is up homestead ward! I miss you all and hope you're all doing well!

Some quick updates for those who don't know! But my original assignment is in Zimbabwe but my visa hasn't come yet, so I'm reassigned to the Washington DC South Mission for the time being!

1. The last week of MTC was great! The spirit was truly amazing at the mtc and I miss having it in my life as much as I did there. All the devotionals there were always so amazing! And everyone on campus truly wanted the best for you and had so much love for you, so I thought that was always super cool. And lastly I had an amazing district that I loved hanging out with. They all had very amazing testimonys and I was super grateful I got to meet them and spend the 2.5 weeks with them! Love and miss you district 29-E

2. First few weeks into the feild we just had 2 lessons fall through and were sitting inside most of the day because the rain and I honestly was feeling a little homesick. I decided to pray and ask my heavenly father to help me not focus on myself and focus on the work and helping others and staying distracted. Me and Elder Simpson went to the church shortly after because we wanted to study somewhere else but so we decided to go to the church. We were sitting kind of near the doors of the church and while we were studying a man walked up to the glass door and knocked on it. We let him in and he asked if we had any water. We gave him water and he asked if we by chance had any shoes he could borrow. We looked and most of his souls of his shoes were gone (photo of the shoes in the google photos link). But I told him if he could wait there for 30 minutes we could run back and I could grab some of my shoes from our apartment. He started to smile and said "really that would be so amazing" so we hurry and road back to our apartment and grabbed my tennis shoes and went back and he was still there. We walked inside and he tried them on and they fit perfectly! I asked what his name was and he told us his name was Branden. I then went on to introduce myself and then told branden that he could have my shoes. His face lit up and there was so much joy in the room. He thanked us and continued to tell us he doesn't have much so he's very grateful. He continued to explain he had been looking for a church and so we gave him a small lesson and gave him a book of mormon and he was so happy. We invited him to church with us and he said he would love to join us.

Overall Braden was a huge inspiration to me. He had been walking in wet soaking shoes with no souls on the bottoms for who knows how long, and yet he was still so happy and had a love that I don't see very often before we gave him anything. 

3.Honestly the past 2 months have been great. I have been starting to get more used to the mission life style. The slower but also more busy lifestyle. It was definitely weird and hard at first, and I can already imagine its gonna be the same thing all over again when I get to zimbabwe. But I'm starting to really like it on the mission. Me and my comp are pretty different and he is pretty up tight but its been good for me. I know I need it and it's been teaching me a lot, so I have been super grateful for him, even though sometimes its been a struggle. Besides that Utah I love you with my whole heart but its been so good to see what the real worlds like out of the Utah bubble. There is some wild people here in DC but I love it. Out here its definitely not like utah where 80% of the people you see are members. It's kind of just you and your comp against the world but I love it. The friends we have made the past few weeks have been so amazing, and 2 of them are thinking about getting baptized and I am so excited for them. I have never been so proud to be a member of this amazing church and all the blessings that come with it. Having the opportunity to share the gospel is such a blessing and I'm grateful to wear Christs name on my chest every day, and get the opportunity to gather Israel 1 person at a time :)

That's a little bit about the past 2 1/2 months! If any of you would like to hear more details about the journey more often just email me at Coleman.childs@missionary.org and I can throw you on my email list!

Love and miss you all,

Elder Childs