. . . at the crossroads . . .: great Monday reading

Here's this week's email from Brennan. He regularly reports that he's never been happier than he is now. He loves his mission!

Dear Shaffer Family!

Thanks again for your wonderful e-mail. I love hearing from you guys. Really quick before i forget, I will probably call in the evening sometime probably between 6-8 our time so get ready!! I also want to talk with Logan for like 5 min, and I'm not too sure if i'm really allowed to specifically call him, but if you could invite him over for me to talk to him real quick about his mission call I would love that.

This week has been a crazy week for sure. There has been a lot of weather around here. We have experienced over a FOOT of rain in just April alone!!! And i love it, its really different though - I'm not used to this at all. We've probably had 7-10 tornado warnings here, where the sirens go off and its pretty crazy. I still want to see one though. It’s also so so so green here. I cant really even explain how green it is here, it just blows my mind, and there are a ton of bugs. You guys all know how much I hate bugs. I've had the blessed opportunity to kill multiple cockroaches in our apartment which has been such a joy.

But now to the good stuff. This past weekend Colby Curtis WAS baptized, and I had the wonderful, wonderful opportunity of baptizing her. Nancy who you guys know was baptized a month ago gave the closing prayer and just started to cry. It was a very spiritual service and one that I'm so so grateful to be a part of. It took Nancy 4 months to get baptized, Colby 5 months, and Hopefully Darren will follow. I love that family with all my heart, I really couldn’t have asked for a better experience in my life than seeing this family change. It just wont be complete untill Nancy's husband Darren gets baptized. I love them so much. We saw them go from nothing, to walking Nancy down the aisle to get married, and the next day her being baptized and now Colby being baptized. Just amazing and my joy is truly full. I'm just so grateful that the lord has trusted me, and blessed me with the joy of seeing lives truly being changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yesterday was fast sunday, and in Elders Quorum we had a testimony meeting, and I bore my testimony. Darren was there and i bore it on the conversion power of the holy ghost and really for the first time i felt the spirit just burn inside of me. I can’t even explain to you how amazing just that one little moment felt, truly the spirit of God like a fire is burning, and i just hope and pray Darren felt the spirit too.

I don’t really know what more to say to be honest, I'm doing great, I'm healthy. I'm lucky to be out here serving my mission. Oh yeah, we’re getting a new mission president in a month! His name is President Woodbury from salt lake and he is an attorney who graduated from Harvard and is a multi millionaire. So I look forward to getting to know him really well! Also what’s really cool is I haven’t been out that long but i really can’t imagine life back home. This is all I know and this is what I've slowly come to love. I am just so grateful to be on my mission and to serve.

I love you guys. I'll call you between 6-8 on Sunday (invite Logan). LOVE YOU ALL - you guys are great examples to me and push me every day to be better! Good job reading, Austin!

-Elder Shaffer

He's the cute one in the back: