CRAZY WEEK!!!

Elder Houston's Email:

March 25, 2013

hey family hows it going !!

 first off thank you so much for writing hunter!!! it made my day!!!1 i flipping miss my brother!! super excited to see ya!! :)

 and second pa im still waiting from that promised letter ?? hahah must be a LOOONG letter :)

  it is so crazy to think gerneral conference is here already ! im sooo excited !! and its the last one on the mission :( i am praying for guidance and direction and also that pres Monson gains revelation that missions will be extended to 30 months haha... i can hope right??

   that is so crazy about the merkleys that lived accross the street from us!! going on a mission!! so awesome ! she is going at a mavelous time! the work has been hastened. we are breaking numbers, breaking records in lessons and many other thing in our mission. our mission pres. is being asked to speak to a bunch or mission presidents about what it is he is doing haha.. he said hes just going to say, its easy you just keep sending me the best missionaries haha... he so funny and awesome. i love the shumways. i have been so lucky to have the greatest two mission presidents ever. speaking of i wonder if the merkleys are related to the merkleys that use to live accross the street from us? hm..

    by the way, im going to send a cd home soon with a talk on it that you all should listen to. its awesome like for FHE... i think hunter would really like it. oh and i was meaning to ask you in letter but did papa danny get my card i sent him? and shalyse haha hers was funny :). OH and hey if you are not planning on sending a easter package its ok you dont have to but if you were could you see how much the mormon messages 1 and 2 are and send those :) that would be awesome!! they are awsome teaching tools and very powerful. 

 oh! and mom you will love this book a member showed me its called kelsey in korea, letters home, its of this missionary, a sister named sister lund. its all her emails home about her mission and she is soooo funnny you would like reading i.t i think i might be able to get one for ya and ill send it home when i get money from the mission for like easter or something my gift to you. its suuper funny.

     any way so this week, so sorry about last week ending so ubrupt. i ran out of time haha and just saw it so had to end and send. but i was talking about this lady that was going through alot with her room mate and he stabbed himself. well so this week there is this less active family that the dad he has PTSD really bad from the army and he went bunkers and was having crazy dreams and fell back into old habits and gets really depressed and tried killing himself because he didnt want to hurt his family!! it is so sad one of the daughters who really liked listening to us teach and learning, the only one that came to church activities is getting forced to move to her real dads and she is so upset and really shook up from all this. she got on face book and added me and elder godfrey and got our address so we can keep in touch. i feel so sad for the family. satan really is doing all he can to tear families apart. if we are not careful and fortifing our selfs against him and the evils of the world, he will attack with no mercy and bring us down into the depths of misery and darkness.

   i have really been thinking so hard about being a missionary and how even with all of us out here trying to teach all we can and find, we still need more the forces of the advisary will never stop and never rest. so we can never let our guard down. there are people every day dieing with out a knowlage of this wonderful message of hope and love. we really must once we are converted never stop and never rest untill we strengthen our brothers and sisters. it makes me so sad to know, even with all our efforts some people go all there life with out the gospel, but it also makes me feel so happy and blessed to know that there is a time after this wonderful perfect plan, does not end after this life the work goes on!

   we truly do have a mercyful loving Heavenly Father whose love is in His Son, Christ the Lord. He gives us ALL the oppertunity to have this joy of the gospel. and im sooo greatful more then words can describe, that i was blessed to come into this world with goodly parents and been taught in the church of Jesus Christ and the Lord found me worthy enough to recieve this knowlege to make them known unto the inhabatants of the earth. all of us have that blessed oppurtunity and obligation to share these things. everything we do and say makes a difference even the small and simple things. i had to learn this out here, but i know it to be true.

   but we can count how many seeds are in an apple, but we cannot count how many apples are in a seed. everything we do the way we live makes a difference. 

  oh awesome story about this week... we were lead to a family that has been so prepared to hear the gospel. it was a referral  from the missionaries in st robert and we went by and finally caught them at home. as we were sitting there and they were telling us the things going on and their beliefs and their questions, i had to hold every thing back to not jump out of my chair and say YEAHHHHHH!  EXCACTILY!!! this is what we have been trying to tell everyone! will you get baptized!!! haha everything was so prepared for the message we had. and it was so crazy too how much the adversary was trying to distract them. they had these three dogs that were running around and going crazy and i could totally see satan or his followers hidding, pokeing and prading them dogs to get them all rilled up. ha and he was like ha ha nea ner nea ner haha. and then the guy just stopped and said man it just seems like somtimes when  God puts something in our familys path to bless us, the adversary puts a distraction in our way. satan probably went oh...poo he knows, and left haha. because right after he said that the dogs just stopped and layed down. it was crazy!!!  

all i could think of was like daniel in the lions den haha so cool.

no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. once we recognized the opposition the Lord aided us in our efforts as he always does. if we just do our part and do the little things, like go to church and pay tithing and pray and read scriptures, when we put on the armor of God, we can have his aid and protection. thats all the commandments are is protection like the string of a kite might seem to be holding  the kite down but , really its the reason it soars so high :) haha i love the gospel. its so cool sorry enough preaching.

    so ya it was a eventful week... wish i could talk all day about it but im about out of timelll oh you might be getting a supprise call from brother ellis who is like the man! him and his wife are both converts and wow spirit giants!! they are awsome and have been teaching me and helping us soooo much.

well i hope you all have an awesome easter!!! remember the real message it holds of our Savior :) i love you!!!! oh and if papa and  georgia are there sick the missionaries on them :)  

love elder houston