AJ's mission pics

AJ's first baptism (also the man he taught his first discussion to)

I have now reached the point that when people ask me about AJ, I answer without my lips quivering or my voice cracking.  What a proud moment in time!  I really do feel a lot of joy now in knowing AJ is out there having experiences that he will never forget, finding inner strength he didn't know he had, and building himself in a way that can only come through being a missionary.  And then I read things like this in his letter---"I have found that when I start to worry about myself less and start caring for others more is when I can speak and understand the best.  If I work hard, then the mission is less hard.  It seems backwards but it is true.  I knew coming out here would be hard but being able to see a change in myself and others as I am here is making it all very much worth it" 

How can I be down and sad that he's gone for awhile, when I read something like that?  And that is what I do now when I am missing him...like after the Halloween party, I came home and read a bunch of his letters.  It doesn't take long because he is not writing us near enough.

 

AJ and Kyle Funk in the MTC together



On the always rainy streets of Ecuador