The Blessings of the Church

Sziasztok!

OK, this blog email will be short, but sweet. Sorry for the disclaimer, but I am running out of time FAST! Whatever emails I write last are always rushed.

This week was really good! Except that my companion and I have been having a hard time getting enough sleep. Because of winter and the reduced amount of daylight it offers, we have changed our schedules. We now wake up at 5:30am and go to bed at 9:30pm. Technically we should be getting the same amount of sleep as before. However, we have a lot of branch activities all of which are later at night and none of which we can reschedule. So we have a lot less time to eat dinner and get ready for bed after these activities and that has meant that we have been staying up later trying to get everything done. We almost got sick from lack of sleep, but now we are finally used to it. We have been able to organize our schedule better to give us enough time to do what we need and still get enough sleep. I never before realized just how important sleep is! It makes a huge impact on how you feel and how motivated you are to work hard. I’m grateful that we have worked things out now.

One cool thing that happened this week was that we found a guy who hasn’t been coming to church in a few years. He was pretty happy to meet with us and we had a great program with him. His life has recently become extremely difficult. His wife left him for a neighbor just two floors below in their apartment building and now she lives down there with this other guy. She totally abandoned her husband and their two super cute daughters, one who is three years old and one who is five. Because of this situation, he has to take care of the girls all by himself and that has made his work even more difficult. He works 11 to 12 hours a day, five to six days a week and usually gets about three to four hours of sleep after coming home from work and trying to be a good father. He has so many good memories of the church when he was active—I could really tell that he misses the church and the stability and blessings it once brought into his life. I am really looking forward to meeting with him again.

I have to go now; my companion and I need to go shopping and then run some more errands. Thanks for everything I love you all!

~Anderson elder