Self Conversion

Hey everybody,

Y'all will have to forgive me, but I don't have a lot to report on this week.

To be honest, this week has easily been the most difficult of my mission so far. Ive learned a lot, and one of the most prominent things Ive learned, is that if you're not completely diligent, your missionary work will follow a parabolic curve, with the high point being baptism, and the low point being searching. As you find new people and teach them, you rise, and when you baptize and drop your other investigators who aren't progressing and keeping their commitments, you fall. Just like a parabolic curve.

So as you can probably tell, we are in the searching part of the graph. We wake up every morning, leave the house, and walk for miles and miles, knock a million doors, and contact a million people. We only have one real investigator right now, and he isn't even progressing, so it's hard. My feet just hurt permanently, and my muscles stay sore. We also ran out of gas, so I've been taking freezing cold showers for the past week (which is amplified by the fact that this part of Mexico City is 8,000+ ft in elevation). Its been a tough slog every day.

But the funny thing is that there is something really edifying in really hard work. It has made me a more spiritual person for sure, and its also been a really great humbling experience, and a reminder to always give 100 percent in my mission. when you let up for a bit, you start to fall into the parabolic curve again.

Transfers has been the talk of the mission for the past while now. We have exactly two weeks left in this cycle, and then there will be transfers that Tuesday. Several of the current zone leaders are going home after this cycle, so this next set of transfers is really going to shake up the mission organization. That, and ill be finishing my training, so ill probably have a new companion in two weeks. which is really sad, because I really love Elder Ramirez.

I also was very stupid today, and forgot the cable to my camera to send photos. So sorry, but I don't have any photos :/

But I miss you all, and I think about you guys constantly. You're always in my prayers.

Love,

Elder William Jacob Long