Last Changes

Dear Mom,
Hello, it turns out that my companionship is changing again. Elder
N..moto was called to be an assistant to the mission president, so he
will be going to the mission home tomorrow, and it will just be me and
Elder M together again for two weeks. That is, unless something
else happens. It shouldn't. Unexpected transfers should be extremely
rare, but two have happened now.
It was definitely kind of sad to say goodbye to Elder McC last Tuesday, but I saw him at the Zone Conference last Friday, and he was doing well.

Working together with Elder M and Elder N..moto was pretty fun. It was a little strange. Being in a three-man companionship is way harder than it was in the MTC. But we had our fun. We even went out for pizza one time:

Elder N...moto with pizza
Elder N...moto's bike broke down while we were really far away from the apartment the other day, and we had to stop what we were doing so that we could go to the bike shop. That made for quite the adventure. We didn't have to walk there, but he did have to ride very carefully because the axel where the pedals attached to the frame was making really sketchy noises. Anyway, we were pretty exhausted after that ordeal, so we went to get pizza.
Zone conference was this week too. It was really good. It was the first one that President Ishii has done, and it was my last. It was really good. We've been talking a lot about faith and personal conversion this transfer, and the conference was about those things. We're reading the Book of Mormon as a mission, and highlighting things about Christ and faith and it's been going really well. Every time I read it I can't help but think about just how much I like it now. It's so much more engaging than it used to be. I guess it means that I'm different now, because the words sure haven't changed. They are exactly the same as they were when I was a kid.
President Ishii hasn't been mission president for very long, but he has emphasized over and over when he speaks the importance of having a testimony and of how the success of a missionary is not measured by the number of baptisms he performs or even by how many investigators he finds. It's about how much he changes. And whenever he says that, I feel happy, because I know I've done my best.
Here is the Shizuoka Zone.

Well, this is going to be my second to last letter home. And it feels strange. I never really thought that I would make it to this point. I just couldn't imagine it. I didn't know what to expect, but I am so glad that I am where I am now. When I was in Takayama, there was a friend of mine who I talked to a lot that transfer because I was just so discouraged, and he gave me a note when he left to go home to America, and he said that after trying to think of what he should write, he decided on four words. "You can do it." And I wanted to believe him, but I wasn't sure. But now here I am. I've done it.
It's a good time to be me.
With love,

Elder Mueller