25 June 2019: Whoa ... I really am halfway there

Hi everybody!

Another week has come and gone on my mission here in Las Vegas. It was a really good week full of miracles, food, accidents, and one elder hitting his year mark before he goes home. Yes, one year from yesterday I will be on a plane heading home to Pennsylvania, having completed my full-time missionary service. Because of this little milestone, I have done a lot of reflecting of the past year. I have conquered a lot of fears, as well as surpassed many obstacles. I have become almost completely fluent in a foreign language, even though I have yet to serve in a Spanish ward (#blessings). I have seen literal miracles happen. I have had so many sacred experiences on my mission thus far, and am looking forward to another year of witnessing miracles.

We also had to take care of a missionary who had gotten hit by a car while on his bike. He was ok, but we still had to take him to the hospital to get checked out. That ate up the rest of our day yesterday, but a lot of blessings came out of that. I got to get to know my mission president a little more personally while we waited in the waiting room for the elder to get checked out. He is so awesome. We talked about how he got called to be a mission president, and it is actually a really interesting process!

The other blessing is that while we were waiting, a girl came up to us and asked us to give her mom a blessing. Of course we accepted, and it was a really sacred experience. The lady was from Brazil, and after we gave her the blessing, she seemed much better. Then we went back, and took the elders home and got back to our apartment pretty late.

We had some really cool lessons this week, and I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Troya! That was really fun! We got to compare the last six months with each other. 

There is this Samoan member family, who the mom needs to be baptized, and we were able to set her on date to be baptized August 24th! So many miracles are happening in this area, that I don't even have time to write hardly any of them!

This lady named Shirley that we are teaching, has not been too willing to pray or go to church, but this last lesson, she said the closing prayer, which she had practiced all week, and it was awesome! She had even practiced saying "Love-ull" instead of saying "Lovéll" (incorrect emphasis on the 'e' " 

One last thought: Since yesterday was my one year left mark, and basically this past week, I have been pondering the power of setting short term and long term goals, both in missionary work, and in everyday life. I have seen miracles happen as I have set goals on my mission, and done everything I could to achieve them, while still putting all my trust in God to help me achieve them, and I actually do. Heavenly Father wants us to succeed, but He also wants us to grow while we succeed, and we do that by setting goals, planning for them, and faithfully doing all in our power to achieve them. This next year is going to be life changing for me, and I plan to set goals to help me do that. 

I hope everyone is doing well!

Elder Lovell

Pics

Elder Congdon, one of the missionaries who lives close to me (he was also with me in Paradise/East) loves to make unnecessarily unhealthy food. He made us a burger with two grilled cheese sandwiches instead of buns, and then wrapped it in a tortilla, and fried it in a frying pan. It was good...for the first 3 or 4 bites, and then I realized what I was doing and promptly stopped eating it, which may have saved my life, or at least my arteries.