Do Your Duty With A Heartful of Song

(I mentioned to the elder that I would be traveling to Tampa, Florida today, his P-day even as he was reading the email letter. I told him it would be cool to know that we would be in the same time-zone for a few days..haha) 

Hey Family,

(Dad) You're just right next door a couple of hours away that is cool! The pictures of  Ry's signing day is incredible. Oh my how Bountiful high school has changed since I was there. Ry's decision to play this year and get a head start in school is exciting! I know this is part of the Lord's will and plan for him and that he will influence the lives of those he comes into contact with at BYU. Moreover, the experiences he will have at BYU will help him on his mission and throughout life.

This week has been a really busy week as it is the first week of transfers as always. I continue to serve as a solo Zone Leader. With this I have been assigned to lead the zone with the help of our Heavenly Father. On Tuesday I went on a short, brief exchange in Sharpsburg and was able to talk, teach and preach one last day in the area in which I have called home for 6 1/2 months. While there I recieved a call from the Assistants requesting my assistance in picking up our 24 new missionary warriors from the airport that day. The missionaries were scheduled to arrive in the ATL at 1 pm, however, because of delays didnt arrive until 10 pm that night. The beam and excitement of these missionaries was so incredible! This is the first set of missionaries since the Prophet announced the lowering of missionary service age option. Amongst these mighty warriors were 9 new sister missionaries who are a powerful force and will provide a much needed boost to our units. After delivering the missionaries to their residence for the night ending about 1 am, we realize there was still a lot that needed to be done. With permission from President, we continued to press forward the rest of the night. I continued to help the Assistants get things done for transfers the next day. It was about 5 am when we finally arrived to our home. After a quick power 45 min nap which is about all the time we had, we were out the door at 6 am to pick up the new missionaries and take them to the meetinghouse.  

The next day we had Mission Council to prep for our Zone Training meeting Tuesday. I also had to do a number of Baptismal Interviews throughout the Zone. On the next day Elder Ulisses Soares the new Seventy over the Southeast Mission spoke to the entire mission which proved to be a neat experience. The brethren have so much love for missionary work, the gospel and the atonement and really want to be right out there with us teaching and preaching to those here in the mission, it is really cool! This week we had 4 baptisms in the zone and to show support for our missionaries and their investigators I attended each one -- man do I love BAPTISMS!  

WOW!! It's so awesome to hear of faithful brothers and sisters back home who know the plan and are allowing the Atonement of Jesus Christ to strengthen and heal them enabling them to do things that on our own we cannot do. I testify of the Atonement and of its neccesity in our lives, the power to CHANGE to become more of who need to BE.

Love Elder Gautavai