Bruce's email June 16, 2014

Buenas!

  

Hola:)  Que Sopa?  How is everybody doing?  Happy Father's Day Dad:) I miss you and love you tons. Hope you had a great and special day with everybody.
  

This week-different and crazy.  I have been kinda being beat up physically on the mission.  Never in my life have I been so prone to health problems.  I like it because it helps me to be humble, and I pray for help to be humble.  So it's actually an answer to my prayers really.  People would say I am crazy for speaking this way, but it really is true. God works in mysterious ways.  

So the rash on my arm disappeared, but another rash that itches way bad found its way to my crotch.  It is very uncomfortable.  I have a hard time sleeping.  The headaches are just a normal part of life now.  My shoes are starting to kinda fall apart so I bought glue and that does the trick.  I apply it every day.  Thanks for the shoe dryer Mom.  The house is so humid.  I think I already told you that half of my ties have a black mold on them that won't come out?  Now I only have 3 ties left that don't have that mold.  The mosquito net is working really well.  I wash my white shirts by hand, and it's not something I enjoy.  Yet with all of the children having dirt on their hands always, I guess it's not that big of a deal to have to scrub those stains out :)

The area is going well, yet this week was hard.  It is so hard and discouraging to feel like you aren't really doing anything unless you are literally dying.  All of our citas this week have fallen.  We didn't have good numbers.  It is just hard.  I want to be a better missionary like Dad, Ryan, Cambria, Kyle, Brian, Landon, and Chris.  I often think of President Hinckley, and how he was.  I think of what Thomas S. Monson would do.  It is so hard sometimes.  Cambria is the best missionary, I can tell :) I am so grateful for her example to me.  I am so glad for the success that she is having.  It helps me to strive to be better :)

Sometimes it is hard here on the mission.  I am so weak.  It isn't easy to be out here, to come out right after high school, not knowing a thing and having to do all of these things.  Sometimes I feel like it is literally impossible to do this.  But then I remember the scriptures and the promises of the Lord.  Even then it is still hard.  You truly learn the principles of the gospel out here.  Even though I have a testimony of all of these things, it is still not easy by any aspect.  I wish I was better.  Not always tired.  Yet this is helping me and I am enjoying it while I can :)  I have a cream for the rash and it is kind of getting better.  My head really hurts a lot.  I feel like sometimes I just don't pray enough, or don't read enough in the scriptures, or don't think of others before myself.  Yet with the Savior and His grace, it can be done.

Thank you for all of your prayers for me.  I truly need every single one.  I thank you so much for the love I feel from you every day.  I miss you all so much.  I am doing well.  We have a Zone Conference tomorrow with President so I am looking forward to that.  I will be singing with a couple others.  Thanks for teaching me how to sing Mom. I love you guys and hope you have a great week!

Love, Elder Bitter