Leading the Zone in OYM's!

Busy, busy, busy.

Those are the three words I would use to describe Elder Packham. I was starting to worry that I wouldn't hear from him this week but alas- I got my email!  I will share it with you:

Life is crazy! Please bear with me, sorry I wasn't able to email on Monday! That was memorial day and everything was shut down. We email at the college library and that was closed. Yesterday and today have both been pretty hectic. Unfortunately today is like another p-day because we are emailing and shopping today because we weren't able to do that on Monday either. We are now in a car share and get the car 2 days out of the week. We're sharing it with the two rivers elders as well as the Great Falls 4 elders.

So feel free to send stamps! Lol I ran out the other day. I'll be buying more today though. I'll probably only buy one sheet. I got the package that was floating around the mission! I thought it was from you but it was actually from Tylan Mastaw! She sent me a letter and she also sent me a byu jacket! Hahaha I love that girl, she's an amazing friend. I've only been able to hang out with Tylan a few times but we have a great friendship. She told me that she was sorry I had to mourn the 1 year anniversary of Andrew's passing alone with no contact to friends. She's one of the most thoughtful people I know. HUGE shout out to her. She made my day. Then I proceeded to sleep with the jacket because it was so comfortable. 

We had a zone training yesterday. One thing that I really got out of the meeting was being accountable and what not.

Life is crazier than ever here in the mission. Training is awesome! I love elder cooper! We have so much fun together and get a lot of work done. We led the zone in OYM's last week. Just opening our mouth and talking to people. We are loving it here! Curt dropped us, but we will go back just to keep the friendship and to talk with him a little bit, try to make some ground. One of our potentials we did service for this morning. Her name is Jo Griffith, she's super amazing! She's a grandma but she's not that old. She loves the fact that we press families so much. She said she really doesn't have anything against our church and a lot of her great friends are lds. We invited her to church on Sunday so hopefully she'll come. She bought us lunch today and that was really nice of her! 

Elder Cooper is dying for his Visa! All the elders he came out with are in Brazil. They emailed him and wrote it in portuguese, he can't even read it! Lol i feel so bad for him. The people he came out with have only been in brazil for a week and some of them already have 3 baptisms. Crazy. 

He sounds good! He sounds busy! 

D & C 58:27 describes Jake very well~

 27 Verily I say, men should be ^aanxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

In a talk by Russel M Ballard entitled, Anxiously Engaged', he says:

"The Savior taught that the first and great commandment is:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. …

“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37, 39–40).

The Savior’s words are simple, yet their meaning is profound and deeply significant. We are to love God and to love and care for our neighbors as ourselves. Imagine what good we can do in the world if we all join together, united as followers of Christ, anxiously and busily responding to the needs of others and serving those around us—our families, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens."

Elder Packham is a wonderful example to each of us and for all of you who know Jake- you know that he has always lived like this. He loves everyone!

Sure do miss that boy!

Here is a picture of him and Elder Cooper: