Elder Stewart

    Hello guys, I've been doing much better this week. My depression cycle passed and I feel like myself again at this point. 

     My companion Elder Stewart went home. He served his full 24 months. I learned so much from him and I'm really sad to have seen him leave. I already miss him so much. He cared so much about everybody around him. He's such an amazing chef. He taught me so much about how to be a missionary, I didn't deserve him truthfully. He was my older brother. I've never had one and Elder Stewart is by far the closest I've ever had to one and I've always wanted one. I owe so much to him. It's really sad to see him leave, and I'll see him in September when he comes back from Alaska to school, but I'm going to miss him so much. Watching him leave was interesting, I hope when I'm done I'm leaving like he did. He's happy with his mission and his efforts, the mission president is happy with him, his family is happy with him, and God is happy with what's he's done and he knows that. Honestly, I think I needed to see that. That if you put everything in to your mission you get everything out of it and that motivates me. 

     I also gave my first priesthood blessing this week. It was really neat, I only said 4 lines and I had pauses in between them, but I could feel the spirit so strongly. When I was saying the blessing, I could sense both the spirit and my own thoughts as two very separate things and it felt a little cluttered in my head. Eventually I'll get to where I'm only sensing the spirit, but the blessing I gave was still a super cool experience. 

     This week I also converted another one. Meaning I convinced him to work at In-N-Out rather than where he was thinking of applying Chick-fil-A. I got my cast off, tore that to pieces as well and I'm now in a brace where I have much more movement. Then I also ran into my best buddy, "accidentally." It was great to see him and we picked up right where we left off. Good luck in Mexico Mitchell.

              Good times are ahead, Elder Blacker