Hard to focus

One week til we get to skype! Is it possible? Time is just marching on and the benefit this time is really quite great. I only have a few questions for him, the thing I want to see; is him! Oh an btw, this new format is really stupid! I cannot even get it to put a space between the things I say and the the letter. I am so sorry it is happening! For those who want me to just forward the letter, tell me! I really do like audios. They´re way more convenient here in the office than outside. Looks like Skype will be which day? Saturday. Okay. One your time will be five my time, according to what I see on my world clock thing. See you there. Elder Monsen left on Monday, so I am now in the hot seat. I've already had several emergencies, but that's life, really. It's going well. Preparing for the Christmas party has been crazy (I'm spending a can-load of money and Elder Spencer has spent more time on the phone than off for three days.). It is really hard to be spiritual and focused here. I have so much not-missionary things to do that it's hard to just put them all way when I leave. Even more than that, a lot of the time people will call me between lessons to give me more emergency news. Then comes a day or two with nothing really heavy to do. Those days feel like trying to pedal a bike in the lowest gear while already going down a hill at forty miles per hour. Luckily I'd read Getting Things Done, so I have it pretty well figured out using Outlook, which is a pretty cool program, actually. I have already started getting stuff for Christmas. It makes me feel bad because I know the stuff I'm getting for you absolutely will not arrive before then. I'm not even done getting it yet. Thanks for those one socks - they are a great deal better than Chilean cloth-tube socks. I'm kind of in a problem right now, though. I understand the doctrine. I get it. But I've lately had a dip in motivation. It's sometimes difficult to care a lot for me. Elder Tialavea, a BYU foodball player who's about to go home, is in the office his last week. All he wants to do is go out and work. Today was our PDay, but all he wanted to do was work in a sector somewhere. We ran into some missionaries from somewhere close to my first sector and he left with them. Point being, it scares me a little that I didn't have that same desire. It says in Preach My Gospel that as one understands more the Atonement, one's desire to share it with others will increase. I have felt the Atonement in my life, and I do want to share it. But it is still difficult for me to want to contact people in the store on PDay, for example. So I guess I don't get the Atonement? You get to this point in your mission wherein you figure you should have changed more than you have. I'm there. I've been here a reasonable amount of time - I would imagine at least somewhat that I would be different? Have you noticed anything? I honestly haven't - not from what I can see and remember. Do you feel still young and unprepared sometimes? I do. It kind of brings my attention to marriage stuff too. Not to be trunky. I think I need another ten years before I'm capable of making that kind of decision. This has also happened to me when I went to be district leader, and to the office. Do I ever get to feel like I know what I'm doing? I suppose it's worked out okay until now, though. I kind of miss having a trio. It was more than a companionship - it was a friend group. Almost definitely too much fun. This change has been the most fun probably yet. Elder Monsen said something to a member about the mission that I think is apt: Every time you go to a new sector, or even get a new companion it's like your mission starts over. I feel like I've started over a little here, especially since it's a "faster" ward, which is to say that the members are more involved and willing to help, and people are easier to find and to baptize. We have, at this moment, some five baptismal dates - a record for my entire mission. All this with occasionally losing days completely or at least halfway. Something that is super key, by the way : young people. They like us, they want to hang out with us, i.e., go on lessons. They make friends with the investigators fast. They invite people to everything. Etc. I'm verifying my skype junk, by the way. I suggest you make sure it all works by calling Dad's office or something. We have been lucky so far. Well, I need to go. I need to go focus on missionary stuff. Hard sometimes. Ámense. Elder A Conrad Crist