May the fourth be with you...

Greetings, 

The title of this email had nothing to do with what I have to say, I just wanted to give a little reminder. 

Today started off a little different than usual. At 5:00 am, the fire alarm in our building was going off. So, we grabbed a few valuable items and made our way down 6 flights of stairs. After about 15 minutes of waiting outside with our new friend Nick, from Illinois, the firemen said the coast was clear. I shrugged at Elder Jones suggesting we get an early start on our excercises. It was quite nice after all. 

Elder Jones has been teaching me a lot of good things lately. He is very talented with the guitar, so he's shown me a chord or two. We also performed a musical number this last week in Zone Conference and it went quite well. 

This last week I've been really focused on a verse 22 in the first chapter of James. 

"be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves" 

Recently a lot of our friends have been flaking on us. We set lessons up and they confirm, but then later that evening don't pick up. As missionaries we can only do so much, but the rest is in their hands to take with them. I often wonder how many times God has felt these same feelings with us, when we don't hold up the end of the deal. It certainly takes a heavenly level of patience and love to continue moving forward. 

That's one reason I love this gospel. We have the ability to change our trajectory when things start heading south. It's through our Savior this is made possible. 

As for our friends, maybe I need to learn some more patience. For now, we'll keep working with them. 

Have a nice week! 

con mucho amor,
Elder Rasmussen