stretch your boundaries and grow to be the best you can be.

wow haha. Lots of fun stories about paint I guess :P Were you getting the house uppraised because you want to sell it? 

I`m sorry to hear about the forgetfulness and such mom. I understand a little more out here. I survive on my planner. If I don`t write things down in about 3 different places I`ll probably forget. There is so much to think about here! 

I have always wondered about that Stop light thing actually haha. Thank you so much dad! 

It`s good to hear about all the wonderful things happening back home! I`m so excited to see everyone again after the mission! I`m torn though. I didn`t understand what the missionaries meant when they said that they don`t want to leave Japan when I just got to Japan, but now that I`m getting a little bit older and better at the language I understand a lot more. When you start being able to communicate with the people you become a part of them and the culture.

Apparently I woke my companion up a couple times the other night because I was sitting up in the middle of the night speaking Japanese and having conversations with people and shaking my head back and forth agreeing and disagreeing with people...this seems to be a regular occurrence :P I guess when I get stressed I start teaching lessons to people in my sleep haha. I`m 8th transfer now and I guess it`s been happening to me since 3rd transfer! Interesting stuff.

I really have come to love the people a lot more now that I can understand them better.

Well, I don`t have much time because we`re heading to Kushiro today on a bus, but I`ll let you know how the week went.

This week has been crazy and filled with miracles up the wazoo (I`ve started randomly using "up the wazoo" lately and I`m not sure why). We`ve gotten in contact with two of our old investigators who came to church this week for Shibu taikai (Branch conference) and we`ve been having lots of lessons with lots of people and been feeling the guidance of the Spirit a lot. I wish I could tell more, but there is too much I want to tell! Suffice it to say, the Lord is preparing and guiding His children to us and us to His prepared children :) It`s amazing. I`m so excited to keep learning and growing through my tests and trials, my failures and shortcomings, and my experimenting with things I`m not comfortable with. That truly is how you stretch your boundaries and grow to be the best you can be. I feel very stretched sometimes, but I can really see the growth when I look back at how blessed I`ve been to be given this growing experience.

I hope everything at home keeps going well and I`m praying for you! I love you so much and I`m grateful for your support! 

P.S. Thank you for the recipes!!! I`ll see if I can figure out something! Also the box is waiting at the post office for me (supposedly) so I will probably get it Wednesday morning. Thank you!

Bye Bye!!!

Elder Mitchell Perry Sotto