Great news!

Hey Everyone!
Great news! CJ is back in town to stay. He said that he has missed Midland so much! He has missed the way he felt here and how close to God he was and he said he wants it back so much. He told me something that made me really happy! He said my brother Dylan facebooked him and just told him he was the man and that he needs to get baptized. That meant a lot to CJ. Look at Dylan. Being a missionary. Straight up stud! I love ya Dylan! CJ is planning on getting baptized on the 14th and is excited. He will be ready by then for sure!
This week my email may be a little different than it usually is. It’s not as much about missionary work but more about life. I like to think of the mission as the LTC (life training center). It is crazy how all the things we go through in our missions we can relate to things we know are going to happen in our futures, or things we’ve seen happen to our parents. We realize and appreciate how we were raised so much. We go through certain things and it trains us for so many things. Things like parenting, marriage, career etc... I’ve had that outlook on my mission recently. I go into every situation thinking about how I can apply it to something that I will go through in life. I try to learn every opportunity I get. I try to figure out how I want to be and what I want to do. I make goals to try and be the best person I can be. Sometimes it’s hard cause I have many flaws and get discouraged when I’m not where I want to be but I know as I endure and continue working at it I can get better.
The experience that I had this past week that really opened my eyes was pretty cool. I realized that I needed to talk to a person about something that he was doing. It’s something that he’s been doing and no one has tried to talk to him and motivate him to change. They have just said well he won’t listen to me cause they try and force him to change which is kinda ridiculous cause we teach about agency everyday. One of the greatest gifts God has given us! But I’ve become this persons friend and I don’t just want to hand him off to the next person. I want to help this person so I decided I needed to say something! I sat him down and we just talked. He respects me and loves me and because I gained his respect he had an open heart when we talked. I went into it thinking solely about him and what was gonna help him and he understood it and is going to work on it. He knows what he needs to do. He has his agency as we all do and I learned a lot.
I learned that is how marriage will be and being a father as well. If I couldn’t talk to this person about what he was doing how could I talk to my wife or kids if something happened. I learned that yes he is my friend and all but I needed to say something to help him, I learned that is how it is going to be as a parent. Yes I can be friends with my kids but I will need to be their parent first. I learned that it is all about presentation. I went into just with a calm voice and started out telling him that I was doing this for him cause I care about him and that made a huge difference. We can always apply what we go through to our lives. sometimes we have to speak up and say something even if it will make us uncomfortable to help someone out. But when we face our fears and do it with love it will conquer that fear! We all can make a difference if we face our fears! I have learned so much!
I’m having a great time! I want to thank all of you for all you do! Keep on keepin on and always remember that your Father in Heaven loves you! It’s a simple principle we all learn at a young age in the church but it’s one of the most important principles of the gospel! If we understand that then we will all understand what we need to do to love Him back and that is to be obedient! I love you all and thank you once again!

Love Elder Weston Reay