This week has been good. This area is so different from Cedar. In answer to your question, reopening an area is hard. We have to sort of jump start the area, get the excitement up, dispel discouragement from the members, and get the work flowing again. My new companiado is Elder Urbina. He is from Miami, and he has served in this area before. He was here when they closed it. We are really short on missionaries right now, so some areas had to be closed to reopen this area.

Speaking of bikes, I will be using one of the mission bikes up here in this area. This whole experience is entirely new to me. I have really begun to appreciate the challenges that missionary work presents. I can feel myself growing, becoming stronger as new struggles arise and are overcome. I'm not to the point where I am praying for challenges, but I see them in a new light. I recently saw a Mormon message called the refiners fire. That video really strengthened my testimony of the purifying power of adversity. I know that the challenges we face in life are consecrated by the Lord, and help us to become the people that our Father in Heaven wants us to become. How will we ever learn our true potential if we are never stretched?

The weather is warming up here as well. We got to help an elderly Sister get her garden area ready to plant. One of the sisters in this stake has Nubian goats, so that was really fun. We are going down to Ephriam today to play football with the zone.