8/18 To family

Dear mama,

Last week was pretty depressing but it's all good now. No worries. It's just that everything is so different here and I'm not used to listening to atheist people all day telling me all sorts of things.
I dont think I told you last week but it was a new transfer and I'm in the same area with the same collegue again.
I'm close to reaching the six month mark of my mission. I've grown so close to some of the members here. We watched a bunch of church videos today at the church and we saw one about Zions camp. There were really hard things they had to do and Joseph Smith kept receiving revelation to keep them out there and it was a huge trial for a lot of them and there were even deaths. But everyone of the men that was in the
Zions camp was later called to a position in the seventy or the twelve. and Joseph Smith gave a talk and said that none of them would have been ready to sustain a calling like that unless they had shown God that they were willing to make a sacrifice "even as great as Abrahams" and they were prepared by the hardships they endured. A mission is kind of like that in a way. At least for me. President Hinckley said in a talk that "its a hard thing for the shy diffident young men to serve a mission, but how blessed they are for the tremendous faith they have to do it" I'm not gonna lie a lot of things have been pretty hard for me out here. But as I've continued to do the things I've been asked to, there's no doubt in my mind that the Lord has blessed me and guided me.
Thanks for writing me. Sounds like the normal crazy stuff. I hope Brock's okay. I hope your having really good family home evenings every week. Love you.
-elder hill