9/7/2026

 Whats up email! It's been a super chill couple of weeks out here in Virginia! A bunch has been going on. I am no longer in Virginia Beach but have been transferred to Lynchburg. My time in Virginia Beach was so awesome and saying goodbye to all our friends was super sad but the work goes marching on. My new comp is goated. His name is Elder Sampson and he is about 10 months out and has only been in this area for one. 

Before the transfer we had Elder Phillips pull up to the mission. He is in the North East Area Presidency. He was so awesome and just straight up spoke for like 5 hours with no notes. He just changed my outlook on the mission and there was so much that he shared that could have been its own zone conference in itself. I found out the week that I was about to be conducting the meeting and that stadium pulse was very real. We are talking Penn State white out. I only stuttered over my words a couple times but the job was done nevertheless.

 For those who don't know too much about Lynchburg it is a chill lil city up in Western Virginia. It has Liberty University which is pretty much BYU on steroids except the Baptist version and it is also the most Christian city in the United States shoutout Meta Ai. With all that we get bashed a good amount which is kinda sucky cause they are always so contentious. Our first night here a 13 year old kid with the thickest theology book you have ever seen rolled up on us and started bashing until his Mom came over all panicked of how she lost him. These kids get the bible in their hand right out the womb.  

This area is also a part of what was the other mision before our mission got split and merged with the other one so it has been really weird seeing how they do the work different in the other mission. The city is so cool. It is literally Saint Denis. Most of all the buildings are from like 1850 and mad beautiful. 

There are some mad chill friends that we are teaching out here as well. I am used to the hood type of teaching pool but these are more of the southern type teaching pool. My favorite person is our friend Mama C. She is a 74 old lady whos son is a member who loves the missionaries. Everytime we come to her house she grabs her Book of Mormon and yells Bible Study is in session! We had some super awesome lessons with her this week she is da goat. We have a couple other chilla friends I have had the oppurtunity to just pop in and teach so that has been goated as well.

The work has been awesome and I love it!

One of the thoughts that Elder Phillips shared with us is how our testimony should be built. He talked about how a lot of people visualize their testimony as a Jenga tower and how you need individual testimony on each principle of the Gospel. When you don't have solid testimony on just a few principles then your testimony fails. He shared with us how our testimony should be one big block founded entirely on Christ. Everything else is so secular just focus on Christ and your testimony will grow!

Love yall let me know how you are doing!