Mother freaking heck it was a long, stressful week here in Tigard.

I'm just gonna break it down for you day by day... here it comes.

So things started to get a little hectic on Tuesday when, as I was pulling in to a parking space, the lady next to me didn't see me behind her and proceeded to back into me.

All is well, no one got hurt, the driver's door has a pretty good dent in it and the lady is also trying to blame me for what happened... but really the most stressful part about that was all the freaking paperwork.

Legitimately, after it happened, we did paperwork all Tuesday and Wednesday, we didn't have any time to work, which kind of made me mad. As far as insurance and whatnot, I really don't know, I just know I did the paperwork and I haven't heard anything about it since... so if you have any questions, the mission office is the place to ask.

So that was like the warm-up...Editors' note suffice to say that the missionaries in Travis' zone have had a stressful couple of weeks. Our prayers are with them.

I don't know if I explained that very well, but by yesterday at about noon I was drained and feeling pretty down on... life. I read Jacob 3 for studies yesterday morning and what stuck out to me was not worrying about yourself, but worrying about other people, which is mentioned in my Patriarchal Blessing... but still, by around noon yesterday, I was feeling pretty freaking drained and not knowing how I'm gonna get through however much longer this lasts... My zone leaders still don't know how serious things are, and the rest of my district knows something is up, but not how bad... Pretty much the water is already pretty warm and about the only thing that can happen is that it will heat up even more. I decided I needed a blessing from someone who has no clue about anything that is going on, so I asked one for my good friends in English Elder Christensen. Holy freaking cow, that was the best blessing I have had on my mission and probably in several years. (Elder Christensen was one of the ones who helped me move Michael in Milwaukie.) He told me I have been called upon to do several hard things during my mission, but "perhaps the most taxing is that of... being a friend." Holy freaking cow, I have not cried in close to 3 years now, but when he said that, I came very close to tearing up. He went on to say that right now I just need to focus on being my brother's keeper,

or something like that, and he didn't make it sound like things were gonna get any easier, but he did make it sound like I'd be able to handle it. 

As an interesting side-note, due to all of the accumulated stress, we went on a 12 mile run Saturday morning:) We woke up at 530 and went running for an hour and a half, it was freaking the bomb.

Ok well.... yeah:) Love you guys! Thanks for your prayers and support!! Any counsel and wisdom, at anytime you feel inspired to between this week and next, is always appreciated, the stuff you guys told me last week was right on point, although mom I did have a little laugh to myself when you called me mature:) Dad, you asked how I've seen myself change, and I think I'm still the same in a lot of respects. I've dealt with a lot of hard crap, but I think that I will forever be that kid who is making jokes at inappropriate times and just having everyone roll their eyes asking themselves, "will this kid ever grow up??:)