Joy In Serving

I can't believe I'm not a teenager in 8 days. That is so crazy. Now I will get an even better reaction from people when they ask me my age. You asked what more I might want for my birthday. Piano music would be really cool. I am trying to learn the piano again. We don't have a piano in the apartment, but we go to church on p-days to practice.
Thank you Amber for advice on how to write letters. I don’t receive much mail, but I did get some letters from some people that I would like to answer. I wrote one earlier this morning. Now I can send it off.
I love my mission president. He is working so hard to teach us how to be great missionaries. I think one of the most important things a missionary can learn is how to be happy. This is a gospel of Good News and “Man are that they might have joy.” I think when people see the joy of the members of the church, and of the missionaries, they desire to have some of that, similar to Lehi’s Vision. He wanted to share the fruit because of the joy he felt. When people get to see your joyful personality and your happiness at serving the Lord, they are interested in pressing forward towards the Word of God, or the Love of God.
I have noticed that the more obedient missionaries are the ones who baptize more. The church has a rule book for missionaries and I feel it is very inspired and doesn’t miss anything. Our Mission President also has a lot of rules specific to this mission. The other day we got a list of some rules, but perhaps a better word is a list of proper mannerisms. Things like when you are at a meeting or lesson you should not click your pens, crack your knuckles, pop you neck or bounce your knee. President McConkie is a very strict Mission President, but it is all in the hopes of helping us to be good representatives of our Savior. I think it would be difficult to be a mission president. He has to rely so much on the integrity of his assistants because he can’t be very many places at the same time. The assistants are his eyes on the field, and many times President McConkie is relying on them to constantly check the pulse of the mission. He is doing his best with taking the information that is given him and figuring out what he needs to do to help us be better missionaries.
I am getting along really well with my room mates. Elder Fulmer is such a cool missionary. He and I are planning on going on a mountain biking vacation down to Zion, and Bryce after the mission. He loves outdoor stuff. He is way good at mountain biking. Before the mission he was trying to master a back flip of his Mountain Bike. And, good news, Elder Dunn is doing better now after his biking accident last week, so we have been able to go out a couple of days.
We have quite a few cool people we are teaching. I miss the Lopez family. I hope they are doing well.
I have had a lot of trials on my mission, but every one of them has strengthened my testimony. I know that this church is true, and nothing can stop it from progressing. I have learned that leaders are simply humble servants of Christ, but also definitely human, and as such sometimes make mistakes. But Our Heavenly Father won't let their mistakes stop the church.
I am out of time, so I’ll talk more text week. Love you all, can I get pictures in my package?
Daniel Allen Finch