Things are definitely winding down...

Good Morning!

Things are definitely winding down. The Semester here at LSU finishes up this week and you can kinda feel the stress that the students have and the excitement of the prospect of finishing so soon. I think I am feeling those same feelings. It still hasn't hit me though and I am not just saying that. I just can't wrap my head around that fact that I will see yall next week. I am excited to see Quinn too! I am just so excited to see yall. The work hasn't been too bad though. The whole time I have been here it has been kind of slow and we just never were able to create anything too solid. But at the same time it has been really steady with what we do have and that is a blessing. We have been trying some new ideas, but I think the thing that has worked the best lately has just been being open and talking to people. I have a couple stories that I can share about that! It has been awesome to be district leader too and you are totally right that I am continuing to be humbled. I definitely feel more comfortable doing it and sharing ideas than I used to be, but it is still very humbling. 

Well I definitely have felt everybody's prayers all throughout my mission and I am extremely grateful for them all! So I have to get off pretty soon, gotta run some errands but I will share a few stories.

I have been trying to be better at just talking to people. And so we were on the bus and this guy was holding a green smoothie so I said, "Hey that is a green smoothie." Haha probably not the most creative of approaches, but we ended up talking to him for the whole bus ride and even though we didn't teach him anything we have a new familiar face. Next story. So the whole time I have been here I have seen this one guy on campus and we have become friends without ever talking to each other, we always just say hi when we see each other, I didn't even know his name haha. Well the other day we were sitting in the Student Union and randomly he came up to us. His name is A. and he just expressed to us how grateful he was for how we are kind, welcoming and how we try to live a Christlike lives. We ended up talking for about and hour and a half about how similar are beliefs are on how we should live our lives and that means we talked about following the example of our Savior. It just made me realize that our influence can be seen by others, A. and our lives have both been improved because we are trying to live the best we can. You really can share the gospel by example!

I better get going, but I love you guys so much and I will talk to you soon.

Prayers and Thoughts always!

Elder Devin Soper