Kenny's Mission Letter
Matthews" <Kenneth.Matthews@myldsmail.net>
To: jamie5663@juno.com
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:23:06 +0000
Subject: Hey Family
Message-ID: <1255490586.51fb46dcKenneth.Matthews@myldsmail.net>
Hey everybody!~ well today Ill give a shout out to Stone for sending me
his mission address but thats it. Im sure everything is crazy with
getting ready for the wedding. I hope everything goes well! I think you
can send pictures over email cause i can open them now.\
So Conference was the bomb! Man conference weekends in the mission are
the best. You get to just sit with no worries for a 10 hours and listen
to the inspired words of our Prophet and his Apostles. I had a lot of
questions going into conference and I received a lot of personal
revelation. Its given me a lot study material for the next couple of
weeks. One of things that really stuck out to me this Conference was the
focus on Love. This is something that I haven’t been lacking but its
something that I could probably try harder to exercise. I specifically
loved Elder Scotts talk. It was all about learning to recognize the
spirit. Sometimes as a missionary I wonder why I don’t feel the spirit
super strong all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I have had some experiences
where I know that the spirit was working through me to touch someone but
sometimes I wonder why its still hard for missionaries to listen to those
subtle promptings. I forgot that learning to recognize and live by the
spirit is a process. Something that Elder Scott said that I really liked
was "your Father expects you to figure out how to follow the spirit on a
consistent effort". This Gospel is one of progression, if we were given
everything we desired without the appropriate work and sacrifice there
would be no improvement or growth. Its no wonder than why missionary work
is hard. The little things that used to be hard out here are not so
prevalent anymore because I have a new focus on bigger and greater
challenges but with greater obstacles equals greater reward or in other
words greater progression. Anyway I loved conference and I don’t know if
it is because I am a missionary but I thought all the talks were awesome.
On Monday at about noon I started getting a headache again and started
feeling really weak. We went to this little American Hospital to get my
blood tested for Dengue Fever just in case. I wanted to keep going to our
appointments but we had to throw in the towel and go back to the
apartment to rest for a little bit. I took a nap for a couple hours and
woke up with a fever at 102'F so I took some tylenol and went back to
sleep til around 6 and woke up feeling pretty good and then the next
morning I was fine! I thought it was weird that I got a one day fever and
then I was thinkin maybe this was a tender mercy from the Lord. Maybe for
some reason we weren’t suppose to go out proselyting for those few hours
because we would have got hit by a car or something. I don’t have any idea
but I thought it was a fun little idea to play with. The hospital called
this morning and told me I don’t have the Dengue but i do have something
wrong with me so after this we are going to pick up some meds for the
doctors. No worries though, I think it might just be a worm.
Well thats all I got for this week. I hope all goes well with the
wedding. Maybe you could get T to hold a picture of me for the whole
thing to make it seem like I was there.
Love Elder Matthews
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:23:06 +0000
Subject: Hey Family
Message-ID: <1255490586.51fb46dcKenneth.Matthews@myldsmail.net>
Hey everybody!~ well today Ill give a shout out to Stone for sending me
his mission address but thats it. Im sure everything is crazy with
getting ready for the wedding. I hope everything goes well! I think you
can send pictures over email cause i can open them now.\
So Conference was the bomb! Man conference weekends in the mission are
the best. You get to just sit with no worries for a 10 hours and listen
to the inspired words of our Prophet and his Apostles. I had a lot of
questions going into conference and I received a lot of personal
revelation. Its given me a lot study material for the next couple of
weeks. One of things that really stuck out to me this Conference was the
focus on Love. This is something that I haven’t been lacking but its
something that I could probably try harder to exercise. I specifically
loved Elder Scotts talk. It was all about learning to recognize the
spirit. Sometimes as a missionary I wonder why I don’t feel the spirit
super strong all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I have had some experiences
where I know that the spirit was working through me to touch someone but
sometimes I wonder why its still hard for missionaries to listen to those
subtle promptings. I forgot that learning to recognize and live by the
spirit is a process. Something that Elder Scott said that I really liked
was "your Father expects you to figure out how to follow the spirit on a
consistent effort". This Gospel is one of progression, if we were given
everything we desired without the appropriate work and sacrifice there
would be no improvement or growth. Its no wonder than why missionary work
is hard. The little things that used to be hard out here are not so
prevalent anymore because I have a new focus on bigger and greater
challenges but with greater obstacles equals greater reward or in other
words greater progression. Anyway I loved conference and I don’t know if
it is because I am a missionary but I thought all the talks were awesome.
On Monday at about noon I started getting a headache again and started
feeling really weak. We went to this little American Hospital to get my
blood tested for Dengue Fever just in case. I wanted to keep going to our
appointments but we had to throw in the towel and go back to the
apartment to rest for a little bit. I took a nap for a couple hours and
woke up with a fever at 102'F so I took some tylenol and went back to
sleep til around 6 and woke up feeling pretty good and then the next
morning I was fine! I thought it was weird that I got a one day fever and
then I was thinkin maybe this was a tender mercy from the Lord. Maybe for
some reason we weren’t suppose to go out proselyting for those few hours
because we would have got hit by a car or something. I don’t have any idea
but I thought it was a fun little idea to play with. The hospital called
this morning and told me I don’t have the Dengue but i do have something
wrong with me so after this we are going to pick up some meds for the
doctors. No worries though, I think it might just be a worm.
Well thats all I got for this week. I hope all goes well with the
wedding. Maybe you could get T to hold a picture of me for the whole
thing to make it seem like I was there.
Love Elder Matthews
