eMail from January 24, 2022
Hello family and friends!
I don’t remember if last week I said that it was going to be a busy week or not, but man… It was a busy week! More than half of the week I was actually not in Americus, because of exchanges, interviews, and more exchanges? It has been super crazy!
Monday, we had a district P-Day, which was really fun! WE went to Plains Georgia which is actually about 15 mins away from my apartment. Plains Georgia is where Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States currently lives, and there are a couple of museums that we went to about that. It was really interesting, and all of it was to celebrate Sister Ruud’s birthday (a sister in my district) so we ended the day with Ice cream and cake!
On Monday night, we started exchanges with the Zone Leaders, and so I went to the Flat Rock area with Elder McArthur and spent Monday night over there. Then Tuesday, we had exchanges where I learned a bunch, and we made a lot of contacts. Tuesday night, Elder Harmon and Elder Fredrickson came back to Flat Rock to end exchanges but we all stayed in Columbus, because on Wednesday we had interviews with the Mission President, and it didn’t make sense to drive all the way back to Americus just to drive back in the morning.
So, we stayed there again Tuesday Night. Wednesday came, and we did our studies, and headed to go to interviews, and that was super fun! I haven’t talked with President Needs very much, but every time that I have, it has always been good! Interviews were no exception! I got to talk with Sister Needs for a bit, and get to know her as well, and I am so lucky to have such amazing people to talk to and have lead the mission!!
Immediately after Interviews, we went to get lunch, but because everyone from the district was already there for interviews, we had district council, which never fails to be a good time! We had training and role plays which are always fun to do.
As if we weren’t in Columbus for long enough, we stayed yet another night, because on Thursday, Elder Harmon had a meeting up in Fayetteville that he was carpooling with Elder Hobbs to go to, and they lived only 15-20 mins from the Zone leaders house. So once again, we stayed another night in Columbus and the next day, we went to Rivercrest (which is the name of the area that we needed to go to), and had another exchange! Elder Harmon was with Elder Hobbs, and I was with Elder Bayles. Elder Bayles was in the MTC with me, and so it was really fun to be able to have two greenies working together on exchanges. We got a lot done in those exchanges and got a lot of contacts and in person’s done. It was a fun time.
That leaves us to Thursday evening, where we finally went back to Americus! (For me it was a total of 4 days in Columbus lol). When we got back, we had so much work to catch up on! We were still working from a distance with phone calls and such, but there was still so much to do!! So Thursday night all the way till Saturday was mixed with weekly planning, contacts, and lessons!
Sunday was a fairly normal day, we went to church, had some contacts, a couple of lessons, and it was nice to be able to take a small breather after the crazy week!! And now today, it is P-Day and transfers are on Wednesday, so I have already made it through a whole transfer! That is just so crazy to me!
For a spiritual thought today, I want to talk about goals! Goals are so important to have. In Preach My Gospel, it says “Goals reflect the desires of our hearts and our vision of what we can accomplish.” I find it interesting that it says the desires of our hearts, because I never really thought about it that way. I am not going to lie when I say that I have never really been a goal oriented person. I have maybe had a plan in my mind of what I wanted to accomplish or get done, but never really saw a need to write it down or set the goal. It made it very easy for me to not be accountable for what I really needed to get done, because whether I meant to or not, most of the time my goals probably slipped to accommodate what I wanted rather than what I needed. This leads me to Accountability! There is actually a whole other section in Preach my Gospel about Accountability, and that one is really good too.
I am starting to learn the importance of goals and trying to achieve the goals that I set. Sometimes goals are not met, but that is not a reason to be discouraged, but just to re-evaluate and make new goals that you can accomplish! As we set goals that are there to help us improve, even if it is just a little step at a time, we will improve! I would invite everyone this week to make a goal that will help you improve one aspect of your life. Whether that is a spiritual goal or a physical goal, or mental goal, I know that if you do this, you will be able to see progress in your life then you ever thought possible. You’ll be able to make leaps and bounds and find more satisfaction with the work that that you do.
There are so many different ways to set goals; I know that S.M.A.R.T. goals are really popular, but if there is another way that you like to do your goals, then do them that way! Just make sure that they are realistic and encourage you to do better :).
I really love y’all and hope that y’all have a good week!
I think that’s everything for now,
Elder Claussen
