April 14, 2011

Dad and Eric,
Thank you so much for your emails. It is great to see how well you are doing. Dad talks about how good Eric is and Eric talks about how good Dad is and you both talked about how good conference was. I’ll be the echo from the other side of the world that you are both great! I can see improvement in both of you. Eric said that, “I really love our Dad. I can feel so much he cares about each and every one of us. It's great to have a dad like him who is so involved in just being a good guy." It’s true. You are a great guy and a great example to me, Eric, and all of the young men in the ward. You always strive to do what is right. And Dad said that, "Speaking of Eric...He played the best that I have ever seen him play. He was really playing hard and got a lot of touches on the ball. As hard as he plays he works even harder to be like his older brother which is a great priesthood holder. You can be proud of your younger brother." Keep going Eric. Become the best that you can be. Do like President Uchtdorf said and become an expert at what you do. But even more, to become an expert on the doctrine of the gospel, especially the priesthood. Knowledge is so important. The more we know, the more the Lord can use us to help others. Thanks for your good examples.

Yesterday I transferred to Consolation 2 and my new companion is Elder Plania. He is a good missionary. He has been out a little over six months and I am the senior companion. That is the first time there. It will be a good learning experience to lead again. It has been almost a year since I was a leader. He is really humble and willing to learn all he can about the gospel and apply it in his life. I think we are going to have a great transfer. Consolation is a bigger area than I was just in. It is just outside of the biggest city on Cebu. I think we are going to have a lot of success. We have some good investigators and I don’t think we will have a hard time finding more. There are a lot of people here. The Lord will lead us to them, or them to us. I am really excited to see how things turn out.

Conference was amazing! I started ranking talks from one to five so that I would know which ones to read first when they came out in the Liahona. I marked a lot of 5's, but then the talks started getting better and better. So I had some 6's and 6+'s until we hit some really good ones that ranked a 200% number 10! Needless to say, I absolutely loved conference. I realized how much more I need to be doing to become what the Lord wants me to be. And like Eric said, everyone learns and notices different things. That is the Lords way of helping each of us specifically.

Thank you both so much for all you do. I miss spending time with the two of you. Take care! Love you tons! Good work Eric on praying for missionary experiences. Don’t be afraid of the questions. They are a blessing that could one day become the biggest blessing in the life of one of your friends. Send my love to Grandma Schenk. I’m sure George is watching over her night and day, as are hosts of other angels.

Love always,
Elder Schenk