Goodbye Mankato Hello Rochester

Well this week was bitter sweet. Found out Monday I was leaving Mankato to go to Rochester and so that day I started to pack and did some other stuff and then we biked around to our appts that we had and I said goodbye to Peter Tut. Ya it was good and then Tuesday I spent most of the morning packing and ya said goodbye to a few people and had Institute that night which was a good way to end my time in Mankato! Ya Wednesday at 8:30 me and another elder who was getting transferred headed off to Bloomington and ya then we got all of the stuff switched and I took off with two other elders down to Rochester in my new minivan so that is cool. I am happy to have a minivan to drive. But ya we got down here and did a bunch of dropping stuff off and then there are a set of sisters who are white washing into our ward and opening a new area  so that night we had dinner with a member and a less active who made some Fried Chicken and it was good. Then we went and met with the ward mission leader and then we went and met with the Relief Society and that was good but ya this is a different place it is a bigger city so different then Mankato so it is an adjustment! but ya highlights for the rest of the week there was this workout app that got approved called 7 min workout and it is good it is a great workout. It is nice it helps me get much better workouts in the morning for sure! But ya we were really busy this week meeting with all kinds of people

On Thursday the Cambodian elders came down from Bloomington for the day to help us out with some Cambodian people down here and we went to this less active Cambodian family and he made us so much food. I have never eaten so many egg rolls in one sitting in my life, but they were super good. It was great and then we went round with them the rest of the day. It was good. The rest of the week was busy we had all kinds of stuff to do with the zone and paperwork that was done before it had to get done and then we had lessons with people and it was good. I am still trying to grasp this area but it has been a good week. We had one investigator to church and that was good and I bore my testimony and this is a really good ward we have two sets of missionaries here and each of us has a dinner this week everyday. It is awesome! I have never seen that happen so that is cool everyone lives so close it is nuts compared to Mankato where our ward boundary was like 6 times or more the size of it, but it is good.

In my studying this week! I don't have a scripture to quote but there is a member who gave us this paper from her mission that is about becoming a sacred missionary and it had 3 sections, social missionary, honorable missionary, and sacred missionary. Then a bunch of different aspects of missionary work and a description of how each missionary acts and it was really good. Right now we are focusing, as the leadership in the mission, on changing the culture in the mission and this helped me. It was good. He says at one point in the paper that people rarely live above their commitment level of their mission and man that hit me because your whole life is a conversion process so if you don't try now then you probably won't be trying much harder later in life. It is very possible, but not super likely. If you try your hardest now to fulfill your purpose and to come closer to Christ you will have those habits for the rest of your life. You will just continue to grow closer and closer all your life and will become even more converted. But ya it is great I know I have changed on my mission, but I cannot be content with just those changes I need to push myself to grow and change even more then I already have. So that I will continue to change and progress for the rest of my life! I love this gospel and the endless possibilities of growth it presents to our lives. Well I hope you all have a great week!  That is all till next week.
Love 
Elder Howe

me and Peter Tut