The past couple of weeks, God has been trying to teach me something. Actually he has been trying to teach me a lot of things... But one stands out to me. That is Charity. Charity is SO HARD! I try. I try so hard to love others. And I have improved immensely on my mission! But people do things that REALLY test it. The Church lowered the age for missionaries. Everyone went nuts! Thousands of missonaries started entering the MTC. Everyone went nuts! 58 new mission were created. Everyone went nuts! Our missions were affected by the changes and we got a new mission president. I think 5 people were excited... President Wilson starts reinforcing concepts that are found in the White Handbook (A handbook that is produced by the 12 apostles and the first presidency on how missions should go). People start murmuring. This isn't something new to me. When President Riggs first came in, lots of missionaries were complacent. But what is new to me is the amount of complaining. Complaining of what, you may ask? Missionaries are complaining that President Wilson is asking us to be obedient...to work harder and to set our goals higher. There is a feeling in this mission of being ok with mediocrity. President Wilson is trying to change that... And to my shock, there are even missionaries rebelling. Not just any missionaries though. Oh no. ZONE LEADERS... SISTER TRAINING LEADERS... DISTRICT LEADERS! Seriously? The leaders of the mission are being modern day Laman and Lemuals? Sadly.. yes. They are. It blows me away. One zone leader even chewed out President Wilson in his first interview with him. So... as you can see, my patience and love is being heavily tried. Luckily... and I thank Heavenly Father every time I pray for this, I have a companion who is always on the same page as I am. Oh what a blessing it is to have a companion that is obedient and loyal. It's a test and a trial that I would have never expected to go though on  my mission... But then again, I never expected a lot of things that have happened to me on my mission. haha...

On a brighter note... We have been working with a man named Tony Douglas. He has a wife and 5 kids. He is catholic, but has very similar morals and values as the LDS faith. We helped him move some of his stuff out of his attic (oh and I didn't realize how hot attics get in the humidity in the summer!). We were able to talk with him a lot, and then he fed us a smoked pig shoulder. It was so good! There were a ton of leftovers... and he gave them all to us. His family is out of town for 2 weeks while he packs up to move. Otherwise I'm sure he would have kept some for his family haha. We were able to read out of the Book of Mormon with him and he really enjoyed it. The only problem is... He is just as devout to his small congregation, as I am to mine. So... we have our work cut out for us haha. But with God, all things are possible!

We also met a lady at Walmart last Monday who has a son who is LDS. We got her her information and set up an appointment with her for tomorrow. We're really excited for that!

I heard through the grapevine that the scripture mastery scriptures have changed? Is this true? I want to see those new ones!

Love you all!

Elder Michael Litchfield