Trick Bicycle Riding

Hello My friends and family,

It is with great appreciation and excitement that I relate to you a new development in the mission field!

This past Friday my beloved Elder Brantley took a break from his mission and returned to Georgia.  I will definitely miss him, and his amazing accent.  I hope he returns quickly to the field.  The story continues however for myself.  The night before Elder Brantley flew home I was speaking with President Ellsworth, and inquired regarding the Status of Elder Conaway.  With a smirk on his face President Ellsworth informed me that after nearly 6 months Elder Conaway would be flying in the following day.  So here I am with my "new" companion the one and only Elder Conaway!  It has been very fun, as we have put our best feet forward, and began another opportunity to work together.  Despite the almost constant changes this transfer I am confident that the Lord knows who I am and that I am loved.

We have a wonderful investigator in the singles ward.  He has been taught before.  We were walking around the neighborhood one day, and he walked up to us asking where the nearest church building is.  He came to church and a lesson at the Visitors Center, which went really well.  While watching a video presentation about the Book of Mormon, he turned and said "I remember reading that".  It is really cool to watch as he is super excited to be baptized. The only really sad thing is he will be moving out of our area.  We did encourage him to start going to the new ward and learning from the new missionaries.

This Saturday we had some fun ordering a pizza and taking it home.  On the way back to our apartment, we put the pizza on the handle bars of the bikes, so that we could eat at home.  I'm sure it was an interesting scene for those driving past.  A missionary biking down the street with a broken wrist, and a pizza in the other hand.

So I really haven't shared a lot of personal feelings recently, so I figured a report on how I am personally doing would be a good thing.  Having finished more than 3/4 of my time as a missionary, I have felt a whole array of different emotions.  The most powerful emotion is one of peace that seems to carry me over challenges as they come.  It isn't that missionary work is getting any easier, but I am learning to be humble enough that I can learn from lots of the difficult experiences.  A wise lesson I've learned is taking the good lessons from the bad experiences and leaving the rest behind.  I also feel inadequate in so many different ways.  No matter how good I think I'm doing I know that there is still so much I can do better especially when it comes to helping others.

On another side of the coin I am feeling the pressure of time left to serve.  There is so much left that I can do, and the time to do it is my constant prayer.  Major decisions that we help other people make are about to be coming back into my life.  Being subject to all the different challenges of the world is also looming on the horizon.  In addition I still look forward to the day when I can return home and say I did all I could do.  Until that time it will be lots of hard work.

Everyone should have an amazing week especially when the weather is so nice.

Love
Elder Will Davidson