Smile No Matter What

Questions First:

1. How many ties do you have? Do you trade ties with everyone?
     I've got like....... 8 ties. One for every day of the week and change. I don't really trade them out.... that's not a big thing in this mission.

2. Do your pants fit?

    Yes. Thank you so much! I needed them SO bad.

 

3. Did you ever meet Seth Frankhauser? (Grace's friends son) He went to the Lima MTC in like Jan I think.

    He comes into the mission on March 10th. Looks like I'll pick him up from the airport.

 

4.  Who cuts your hair? Do you pay for it?

    Elder Tway uses his buzzer and whacks the top with a 5 and the sides with a 3. He says no shorter.

 

5. Last night I was thinking and suddenly remembered I sent you a lego for Christmas. Did you ever put it together? And how did you like your Christmas stocking? Did you give the other one away?

     I got it. It was sweet. It's on my desk here. Ha ha ha ha. I loved my stocking! thank you so much! I gave the other to Elder Hernandez. He's from Honduras, and has not recieved a letter from his parents for practically his whole mission. They don't have internet where he lives. He was very grateful.

 

6. What was in Aubries tootsie roll can she sent you for your bday?

    Aubrie's tootsie rolls and bracelets were awesome. Thanks Aubrie!

 

7. Also do you have enough socks at the moment or should I keep sending a few pair with every package?

   I've got enough for now. They get lost at a rate of 1 pair a month.

 

Elder Tway will no longer be my companion as of March 10th. He's training the new Financial Secretary Elder LEAVITT. Elder Leavitt was my comp in the MTC, then we were born in the same zone. Now we're comps again. Crazy........ I spent exactly half a year with Elder Tway, 6 months...... wow......... a quarter of my mission. And now, I can't even count Elder Leavitt as a "new" comp, because I've had him before. I've had 4 comps in my whole mission. Ha ha ha ha. One of which I only had for 4 weeks........ how weird, my mission is.

My mission is nothing like I thought it would be. And honestly, I didn't really know how it would be to begin with. But I never imagined it would be like this. God has this really interesting way of giving you exactly what you didn't think was coming. Just when you think you know the next step, you find out that you are in fact very much off course. I just hope my mission turns out to be everything I's "hoped" it would be. God gives you what you need, but not always what you want. That's part of maturity. Learning to smile no matter what happens. We have to love and trust God and His plan more than anything else in this life. It is the only way to remain constantly happy. When things don't turn out the way we thought they would, and we feel like nobody can understand our pain, or the cross we bore, we should remember that there is ALWAYS someone there who understands. I give my witness that Christ, our Savior bore the heavy burden of all the pains of the world. He alone paid for every last debt that the rest of us bring about. He never complained. He never gave up. He never worried that nobody would ever understand Him and His duty as the Savior of the world. He simply went and did. He completed everything His Father asked of Him. And we have to do the same. 

 

I am out of time this week,

 

I love you mom, and everyone else,

- Elder Boekweg

 

Chance's 20th Birthday at the Mission Home. Thank you Pres. and Sister Marler.