Week Sixty-Seven

Hey family! 

This week was great, things are really going well here in Delhi and I couldn't be happier with how things are going for us.  If things keep continuing to go this well we should be having a few more baptisms in a few weeks. We are teaching great people and all of them come with their different struggles and different backgrounds, but the gospel helps each one of them continue to progress and make changes in their lives that result in an increase in happiness. That's what I get to see every day, and I love it. 

This week I felt as if my last emails hadn't been as good as they sometimes have been, and I'm sorry for that. Some weeks we get really busy and others, p-day is p-day, but I never want my emails to get boring, so I hope you're still reading them. I feel that I have a pretty cool opportunity to help people in Idaho from India, just as you help me here from their with your great emails and prayers.

This week I wanted to write about something I felt everyone could use. A little bit of Hope. For a few weeks now I have received emails and emails about things happening around the world. Two hurricanes, an earthquake in Mexico, earthquakes in Idaho, wildfires everywhere you can think of, and any other natural disaster that seems to be happening right now. A few weeks before that actually commonly throughout my mission I have heard news of terrorism and attacks, I have heard about North Korea and Syria and nuclear bombs. Through it all, I'm kind of glad that I'm not allowed to watch the news or worry about all of that because it sounds stressful and nerve wracking. But for you people of the real world it's important to watch the news, if accurate, and be informed on the important events happening throughout the world. So I pray that as you see these things, you don't lose Hope. In the Book of Mormon we are taught that True Disciples of Jesus Christ are to Hope for a better world. Some days that sounds like quite the feat, I'm sure 16 years ago to this day on 9/11 it was hard to Hope for a better world. But the fact is, it is possible to have hope. The Church website has Hope defined as “the confident expectation of and longing for the promised blessings of righteousness.”  All we have to do is the simple things that bring us closer to God each day. Be a good person, be a friend, choose the right, and never lose Hope. The blessings will come to those who believe they will come. Believe that in the end that it will all be okay.

I have spent 20 years of my life hoping every day that this year would be the year the Utah Jazz wins it all, that the BYU Cougars or Dallas Cowboys would win it all. Most years of my life the chances of that happening has looked kind of like what the world's chances look like right now, bad, scary bad. But through it all I'm here in India doing missionary work all day knowing, that someday they will win it all. And that will be a good day, but it won't even come close to how great the day will be when the Lord will once again come to Earth, when every knee shall bow and tongue shall confess that Jesus is the Christ. That is the day I cannot wait to see and I have sure Hope that it will come. 

Love,

Elder Armstrong