How is it already September??

September 5 2016

Wow!i cannot believe Charlotte is taking asl ! Good for her! That will
be so cool if she gets called on an asl mission. And thank you for
ordering the book mom.
I this feels really weird to be asking about this already but I
remember really early in my senior year was when we started working on
applications for college. Can you look into byu again and how I can
reapply? I hear you have a better chance of getting in when you're on
a mission. Also I'd like to apply to byuh and Utah valley university.
Can you look up more information for me on how to apply to those 3.
I've been thinking that I will want to start next year in fall which
may mean I need leave here a few weeks early (you can leave up to a
month early with honor. But again I will talk to my mission president
when the time gets closer. The reason why I want to start in fall is
because I want to come home and already have my hard working habits
set. I don't want to come home and lounge around for a couple months
waiting for school to start. I know who I am and if I were to sit
around for forever I would maybe loose some of the working habits I
will have developed.

Also I attached nan to this because I was thinking yesterday during
testimony meeting about the future. One sister in our branch is 70
years old and now her husband has been diagnosed with cancer. She
talked about how she thought life would get so much easier when she
turned that age but she has been in for a surprise. I look at all the
things I've seen since I've been here on a mission and I know a lot of
other missionaries expedience it to but seeing all of the poverty and
trials and all sorts of things you see as a missionary it made me
think that maybe one reason I was called to this branch was to realize
that life will not be easy for me at all. Not in any way. It's not
easy for anyone. I have loved working so far and again Elder Riding is
a great companion and has taught me so much.

Next week is going to be very interesting. I thought our mission
president didn't care much about asl work at all. But I am wrong. We
met with him and president Parkes this morning and he totally is
willing to give us what we need. He realized that it is so much
different than all of the other English and Spanish missions (which it
is). I felt like I should have told him a few weeks ago about the
situation I had with elder Jackson and Weber and the whole knife thing
and how elder Jackson and I hardly worked and members didn't give us
referrals or work well with us and that elder riding and I would work
to change that( I explained it more in depth than that) and I sent
that through email. One reason why I felt him I should was in a way to
let him know we are not going to abuse the privileges we get in this
program. But he came to me a few days later and told me "hey elder
Stotts, I read your email and I think you need to forget the past and
move on, also try to work harder to gain member trust." Thatt hurt me
and I felt disappointed almost to the point of being discouraged, and
that's when the miracle happened that I explained 2 weeks ago when I
was driving and I started to go left but felt I should stop and as I
did stop stop a car flew right past me. He's completely right that I
need to forget the past but I felt it was important to bring it up but
he didn't seem to care much, but what more could he have said? He's
still brand new at this. I guess that's what I deserve for trying to
explain 9 months in one email. So after that I was worried that I just
crushed what my patriarchal blessing says about getting advice from my
mission president and counsel for mission and after mission life
goals. But after today I think I'm wrong about that. Things will be
fine.


Love you 4
Have a good week