June 27th, 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

The main takeaway from District Meeting this week was to make sure
when sharing testimony, it should be more heartfelt and sincere, not
rote. I feel like this meeting has helped me recognize more the need
to ponder what I really believe, and why I believe in these
principles. Building a testimony needs to be an active thing, not just
something that comes as you do all the things you are supposed to do.

In District Meeting, we also had some time to share a couple quotes
from church leaders. The first quote I shared was from Richard G.
Scott, who said, "Patience with others is love. Patience with yourself
is hope. Patience with God is faith." The other quote I shared is from
Elder Hildebrandt, who was an assistant to the president. In his
departing testimony he said, "If the savior could take one more step,
face one more rejection, reach out to one more person, then He can
give me the strength to do the same." I love these quote because it
helps me put my trials in perspective. Nothing we face is harder than
what the Savior endured for each and every one of us. As we endure our
afflictions, we acquire the attributes of God and are able to become
truly like Him.

The Ward Council seems to be really excited from the feedback received
at the Stake Missionary Meeting we had on Tuesday with the stake
president. The whole feel of that meeting was different than it has
been in the past. I can see that the council members are motivated to
reach out to those in their stewardships and help them catch the
vision of getting members to the temple.

Going to the temple this week has been a great opportunity to grow my
faith in the principle of personal revelation. I really appreciate
President Daines' comments about not just looking for an answer that
fits out expectations, but an answer that is the will of God. In my
experience in the temple, I found that to be true, where the answer to
some of my questions were not straightforward, but more along the
lines of answering the question "What lack I yet?". When we are
looking for guidance on how we can help someone progress in the
gospel, sometimes the answer to our question is that we need to
further our conversion and obedience before we can lift someone to do
the same.

We found out that a couple of the computers in the office were on a
completely different network than the rest of the office. They were
hooked up right to the Internet instead of going through the church's
filter system. After looking at the jumble of wires in the utility
room, we discovered it was because all of the ports were used up. The
assistants asked us to purchase and Install a network switch to fix
the problem. I am surprised we didn't catch this problem sooner,
because it explains all of the weird problems we kept having with
those computers.

Elder Low has been making some great progress this week. His efforts
to teach and testify more sincerely have really impressed me. In
addition to furthering his teaching efforts, he has been showing more
of a desire to expand his skills with technology. It seemed that the
problem was a lack of confidence. I have been helping him see that if
he starts with the fundamentals and builds line upon line, then he
will get to where he want to be. He has also been more proactive
rather than reactive in his efforts to learn, which has helped him to
pick up more about how to use excel.

This week, I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Gee. He has been
in the mission for about two weeks now and this was his first
exchange. He is very hard worker and kept going even when he was
exhausted. He didn't ever complain. I think we may have pushed
ourselves a little too hard though, because we were both fairly
dehydrated by the end of the day. We should probably bring water with
us the next time we have that much finding planned on a hot day.

On Sunday, our day was so packed with meetings and driving that we
barely had time to stop moving. We had both Ward coordination and
council meetings in the morning, then church, then we helped with the
Columbus South Stake musical fireside. If it hadn't been for a
wonderful family in our Ward that dropped off dinner at the church for
us, then we likely wouldn't have time for meals. The fireside was
patriotic themed and was a really great experience. The musical
numbers were very spiritual and everyone did an amazing job. We didn't
have any technical difficulties either, which was a nice bonus. On the
drive back from the fireside, there was a really intense storm. We had
our windshield wipers going at full blast and we still couldn't see.
There was thunder and lighting going on around us from every
direction. The sky kept lighting up as if it were day. The storm made
the drive a little longer, but we made it back safely.

--
Elder Aaron King
Ohio Columbus Mission