Assistant to the President

There has been a lot of changes over the past week! I left Albany, which was super hard. But then President asked me to be his new Assistant. What's funny is that normally he calls the new assistant a day or two before transfers to let them know, but not for me. I didn't find out until he called my name at transfers in front of everyone! So I was just as surprised as everyone else.  It has been a crazy week. It's such a big difference, instead of teaching investigators or members, we train and teach missionaries and take care of all the stuff in the mission for President Wall. We are always on the road. I'm enjoying it so far, just trying to get use to the culture of being an Assistant. I love being around President and Sister Wall though, they are awesome! 

My new comp is Elder Parker. He is from Alpine, Utah. He is like 6'5 and skinny and I'm 5'9 and chubby, so we make a funny companionship! We get along great, we both like sports and have a lot in common. We joke around a lot, which I'm glad because it makes things easier. 

We are in the heart of Baton Rouge, and the ward is awesome. They are nice and love us missionaries. Oh, and I had Chipotle for the first time in over a year and a half! It was heavenly! They have one on LSU campus so we made a stop while dropping a missionary off at the airport. 

Well life is quite crazy right now, but something that I enjoyed this week was being able to stop everything and study. I read Elder Packer's talk from last conference called "These Things I Know."  I loved the talk but two things that stuck out to me while I read it this time were when he says "There are few things more powerful than the faithful prayer of a righteous mother." the reason why I liked it so much was because I too know that that is true. If it wasn't for the hours of heartfelt and sincere prayers of my momma for me, then I would not be here today. Who knows where I would be. No matter how dumb I have been or what I was doing, the Lord would mold and influence others to help me, because of my loving mother's prayers. I know that to be true. So thank you momma, I love you! Something else that stuck out to me is when he is talking about tolerance. He says... "Tolerance is a virtue, but like all virtues, when exaggerated  it transforms itself into a vice." I love that because sometimes we take gospel principles and turn them in to vices or excuses. We allow ourselves to use things as a crutch, and those crutches are what keep us from becoming what we are meant to be and from reaching our full potential! That's a weakness that I am continuing to work on.