Hey! How are you? Thanks for reading my email and for thoughts you have and would like to share in response. I miss you, and hope to hear how your life is going. I have a lot to report from this week.
Skim this or read the full email on your own time and discretion, if you are busy. I have many wonderful things to report, and simple can't shortchange this email for brief notes of the best week of my mission yet:
Isles of Smiles
Miles of Isles: Fiji!
Personal Progress: I can honestly say that this week of my mission was the hardest by a bit, and best by far. Because I gave it my all, and learned how to give it my all for the rest of my mission.
I see clearly and specifically that I have grown in real and measurable ways in each aspect of who I am and what God can do through me. In the past year(this being my Year mark), I have made a full transformation. I have kept all the good and gained more than I dreamed or wished. I have lost all the bad, and learned how to make my weaknesses completely eliminated.
I have taken this year by weeks. And because I had a specific goal for each week in how I would improve myself and lift others and stretch and grow in measurable, noticeable ways, now I am reaching any goal I ever set, and smashing it!
My job is to be a prototype of the heavenly home from which I came. A living picture of it. For I am a child of God--so I choose nothing less. We are born to be lights; so don't dim just because the rest of the world is dark.
God called me in my weakness, but He qualified me by my trials. So bring on the joyful opposition because I desire to be purified even as He is pure. I will deliberately and willingly go through whatever that entails I endure.
If you lack motivation to do it, then that's the perfect reason to do it, because that's how the motivation will come! (;
My new theme is "Now rather than later."
The Tongue is evidence that God wants us to enjoy life, every aspect of the moment. He could have made us so that we could just insert food into our stomachs and move on--but He designed the tongue. All the flavors and the textures and the beauty of it. Let that be evidence to you to slow down inside and just be happy, just be chill, and enjoy the now.
Defined who I am: I am defined by my Covenants with God. This is who I am. I am a covenant keeper. And everything that makes up me is just shaped by that. Anything that doesn't fit into that framework, I will reject from my life; and anything that fits into that framework, I will make a part of me. This is who me is. And now I know it and am fixed to it. Jesus Christ does in real ways lead every aspect of my being. This is who I am. It is who I have chosen to be.
District Progress: Speaking of which, our District is thriving phenomenally. We have such an incredible bond between one another. We are truly there for each other in all things. We face hard times, but we use it to make us rise higher rather than drown. I am so impressed with the members of this district. I am proud of them.
In District Meeting last week, in the District Meeting, we each held one another accountable to high and reachable personal, companion, and district goals based on what the Spirit told us while we had listened to General Conference the week previous.
The Theme for District Meeting was "Making Vision Happen."
We did things such as put these goals in each day slot of our planners and learned beautiful techniques of how to accomplish and plan ahead so we will reach our goals. Because of this affective District Meeting, we as a District will now have around 250 lessons and 10 Saints by the end of next week.
Each companionship really gave it their all this week. We were happy and spent by the end(: This District delivers! This District "earns their pillows" every day! This District is a Consecrated District. This District is a unified one. This District is a Happy one.
I have really learned how to make myself absolutely anything I want to become, and reach any goal. I know of almost no more useful thing one could gain, especially when applied to eternal things and acting on vision given directly to me by Heavenly Father. This mission is everything. And so that is what I'm trying to instill in each member of the District. By the end of our time in this District, we will be lifelong friends (we all already are such,) and will know how to accomplish any goal we will ever set in our lives in and after the mission.
One thing I committed to the District that I would do every day this week and then give an accounting for in our next District Meeting, was that I would..
I write down "DMdo" in small letters at the end slot of my daily schedule in my planner, to remind me after planning and Area Booking, to do what I said I'll do from our district meeting commitments (This way I never forget, and I'm daily accountable to it. Then I do it--and it is this):
I have been taking extra careful and sacred time at the end of each day to ask Heavenly Father how I can improve or what is stopping me from progressing the next step I need to take. And then I listen for the answers I don't want to hear--anything He would like to say whether comfortable to me or not. I open my heart all the way and let anything He wants to tell me in, no matter how against my own views it could be. And every single night, He has spoken loud and clear in dramatically helpful ways. I get the answer, and then write it down in my to do slot for the next day and then spend the day making it a realized reality.
Companionship Progress: One example was, when I felt like our good companionship relationship was struggling and stagnant on some levels and could be great and even best, I sought Heavenly Father at the end of the day and He told me, "Tomorrow, ask your companion to give you a priesthood blessing." I told Him that I would do that, then I turned the page of my planner and wrote it in the "To Do" slot specifically as Heavenly Father had said it to me.
The next day, I acted on it. It was a big problem that I had done everything I possibly could think of or gain from anyone's suggestions or counsel, and Heavenly Father's 2 second simple solution more than perfectly fixed everything. After Elder Luatua gave me that blessing, we were again so tight--I mean, all our differences and road blocks and walls and problems of any kind all just melted away and haven't returned even to this moment days after that blessing. Our companionship relationship is fully back to great and best, instead of "good" and "let's just get the job done." Now we are back to thriving!
Why? Because of a simple daily habit that started in a District Meeting where the Spirit spoke something personal to me, which I could put into real-life action every day over a one-week period.
Learning this above mentioned principle is the key to mastering life at its highest level. Using the power of the week, to transform the weak in you, to raise you up to the highest mountain peak, the next step and the missing piece you seek.
Now it has become something I will likely do for the entire remainder of my life, every day until I meet Heavenly Father face to face in our home again.
Exchange Report: Elder Kanongata'a (one of my best Tongan friends who came to the MTC and then after to Fiji at the same intake as me) and I had a great exchange this past week. It happened to accidentally fall almost directly on our Year-Mark day! And I can honestly say that it was one of the very best exchanges of my mission so far.
We set realistic and measurable goals for the remainder of our missions, which we will hold each other accountable for. We talked, and as a result of our talking and training, both of our areas and personal progress improved dramatically. I learned who I am and why I do things the way I do. I now understand myself fully and to the deepest levels. It is so freeing! I know who I am and I understand myself! Just because me and this dear friend of mine had a conversation that was entirely led by Heavenly Father's direction.
It was one of those exchanges that just changes my mission and which I will never forget. We both walked away from it inspired and fired up.
Our Investigators' Progress: This aspect, I could spend days writing about! I'll have to keep it painfully brief: We have 14 people who are set on Baptism Dates and are progressing. We have floods of work pouring in every week. This isn't to our credit, it is the grace of Heavenly Father as we simply follow His directions one moment at a time. We love this area. The members have strong relationships with us. They are doing the work for us almost. We have learned how to do it, and now we are maintaining it every week--and learning how to juggle the responsibilities of DL on top of all we need to accomplish. We have dozens of miraculously prepared people pouring in--all of which are potential Baptismal Dates. The work here couldn't be going faster. It is healthier than I could wish. All is challenging, but we love the challenge, so all is wonderful. We really do love to live President Layton's 4 Principles of Success.
Ask any specifics about any of these color-categorized sections of my email you'd like to. Thank you for taking the time to read my Report.
I love you and hope I am doing all I can to sustain you from the distance at which I now reside. One more year, and you will be able to see me face to face, eh? Let's lift each other up each day till then so when it comes, we don't recognize each other one bit because of how dramatically and positively we have transformed to our Heavenly Father's likeness and full perfection.
We can do it! One week at a time, weekly work: bye weak by week(;
Closing Thoughts: Our progress in the mission really comes from just always making sure we're taking the next step forward, upward and outward.
It has come by a little term I now use; Get rid of Weaknesses, Gain all Strengths bye weak by week.
Weaks become strengths by using one week at a time.
If you take a time period of a week, and assign a theme to it, and then daily goals that contribute to that goal, you can master all the good you could want to reach by the end of that week, and drop all the weak, say "bye" to it. You find yourself deliberately accomplishing more in a week than you used to in 2 months! And with that kind of added propulsion to your progress and growth, you watch yourself become anything you'd like to become--more importantly, you have nothing at all stopping you from becoming anything Heavenly Father tells you that you could highest become.
Everyone in this District is becoming limitless. There aren't boundaries to our ability to achieve a vision. I have learned how to harness the full power of the weekly District Meeting. The Spirit is the Key, and my Love gets them Motivated. I know my sheep.
We are yielding to Heavenly Father in everything, so that He can fully and unrestrainedly wield us at our maximum. This District is becoming prepared for Exaltation and taking the world with them to it. That is our vision. We are enjoying every day together and making remarkable progress in every aspect of the work.
This has been the best week of my mission yet.
I mean it.
With all my love and uplifted hand of sustaining and gratitude to you in whatever you are presently facing in life and family, I pray may the Lord bless you with every blessing which you may stand in need of. In the name of Jesus Christ, I say all these things, amen.
Sincerely,
Elder Howard
District L-ongsufferer and love-r,
Suva Hindi
