Joy in the journey

So lets see. This has been a fun week. You know how I said it’s a choice to be happy. Well I keep on proving it. For example in my area we sometimes have to bike from our house to a street called Memorial. It’s like 2 miles away and sometimes we are late so we need to do it fast. So I’m biking along and I feel my legs burning and just going till I’m tired and then I try to keep pushing so that we will be on time. I’m always thinking like ‘Yeah, look how fast I’m going’, ‘Wow we are almost there’, ‘Hmmm it smells good’ ect. I always feel happy to ride like that. Yeh it’s hard and all but I’m still happy to do it. There are times when we stop and I ask Elder D* how he is and he always just says “Tired”. I bet he goes along and thinks ‘Man why do they live far away’, ‘My legs hurt’, ‘It’s cold’, ‘Why do we have to ride so fast?’ I always just feel like, ‘What’s going on? We are doing the same work.’ We both have to ride the same distance but when we choose to look at the hard parts we will always be mad. There is a quote that says “There was never a problem so bad that whining made it better”. You know what? Sometimes you just have to do things and if you do it the right way, looking for the blessings, you’ll be able to see them. I’m figuring that out. There is nothing that we do that shouldn’t or couldn’t bring joy. So yeh, that’s something that’s been going on.

Did I tell you I’m in just a bike area now? We have no car but we have our bikes! One thing I have to go get is some new lights for my bike. I mean I love to walk by faith but biking by faith in the dark, that’s kinda dangerous. Haha, but I haven’t wrecked recently so that’s been good.

What’s happened this week? Well we were able to make some really good contacts with some of the people that me and Elder B* had found. We had stopped going by because there were people in the Sisters area that were more interested but now that’s not an option so we went back and with some luck set up like 4 return appointments and now we will see what will happen in the next week.

Hey so I’ve been doing something that I really like. Recently I’ve bought a little tiny Book of Mormon and every time I am just chilling or we are waiting for a ride or a really long stop light, I just whip it out and read a little, just a verse or two. It’s been really fun and has helped me stay focused. Ya’ll should try it. For those of you with smart phones just get an application and then try it out. When you’re at a slow point of your day read just a little. I bet it will help you have better days.

Well I got to go. The work is going on, the church is still true and I’m working hard. One day I will help Elder D* change that way of thinking so that he can see how much fun we really are having here. I love ya’ll sooooo much.

Love Elder Birks