May 11

Hey everyone, I have the best family ever! If you don't know them, you should get to know them, because they are amazing :) It was wonderful talking to everyone and it's so good to know that they are all still real :) Still there in Utah, right where I left them. Sometimes out here on a mission I forget there is a life outside of Norway, so it is good to get a little reminder. I am not going to spend a lot of time emailing today, but I love being a missionary! There is nothing like it. There is nothing like being able to focus on helping other people 24/7; nothing like waking up every morning to change and improve yourself; and there is nothing to compare with the joy that comes with being a missionary. Helping other people is the best thing I've ever done and I am so grateful for the opportunity to do it.

I am moving into my last transfer now, and that is a weird feeling and I have a lot of mixed emotions about it. The dominant one for now, however, is an overwhelming desire to keep the focus and work harder than ever. I want to run to the finishline, finish strong, and return with honor. Despite everything that has happened over the course of the last two years and all the growth I have seen, I still feeling like I am climbing frantically to the climax of my mission. I feel like the peak is just on the horizon and that if I could only climb faster, jump higher, I could reach the top. There is so much to do and not enough time, so I am going to give it everything I've got. I'm committed to that :) It reminds me of the scripture in Alma 34:33:

"And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had somany witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; forafter this day of life, which is given us to prepare foreternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while inthis life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein therecan be no labor performed."

And that's not to say that I feel like I have any great repenting to do, but we are given this time to improve ourselves, ot prepare and to constantly grow. I am not going to waste it now or ever. I am so grateful for the opportunity we have each day to be a better person than we were yesterday. To stand a little taller and smile a little bigger. To reach out to one more person and to think about ourselves a little less. The gospel is amazing. If we live it, we become the product of day after day, year after year, of being put through the refiner's fire, and we come out on the other side as perfect, glorified individuals. I think that's amazing.

I love you all, and to all you mothers, Happy Mother's Day!

Elder Nielson came to visit and it was great fun :)