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This is me saying goodbye to my teenage-hood. It's been quite the ride.

March 7, 2016

Thank you all for the many happy birthday wishes I received this past week! That was so kind of you all to remember me. It was a fun week and we saw the Lord's hand working in the details of the work. I had kind of a self challenge to try and look back at every day and see if there was something that happened that I felt God had influenced, and let me tell you what, when you just take a moment to step back and look at it all, you will be blown away at how many things you see that His hand has touched!

For example there was this one day when it was late at night and Elder Ernst and I felt we needed to go see this one guy named T. We drove to his house and as we were walking to his door we walked by another house where there were some people up in the balcony listening to music. I didn't think much about it at the moment. We knocked on the door, but T didn’t answer. As we were walking back I felt like we needed to talk to the guys in the balcony and so I took the ever so classic missionary approach and asked them, "Hey, what you bumpin' to up there?" I think I remember missionaries in the Bible using that same line to talk to some people. It's in Isaiah, look it up. ;)

Anyway, that turned into like a 5 minute conversation, and towards the end of it these two members we know pulled up in their car and said, "Elders, isn't it past your bedtime?” We laughed and asked quickly if we could stop by their house and chat after talking to the balcony people. So we did exactly that and had a lovely conversation with the members in their home. At church yesterday the sister actually raised her hand in a class and shared about how her and her husband had been having a really rough week and feeling down, but that the little encounter they had with us on the street corner that turned into a meeting at their house and us leaving a blessing on the home completely changed their moods and they had a wonderful rest of the week. It was so touching to hear that.

And it made me realize how the Lord is in the details because if we hadn't felt prompted to visit T, and then felt prompted to talk to those guys for a little bit instead of just getting back in the car, we wouldn't have been in that exact place at that exact time to run into those members who needed to feel the Lord's love that night. When we just let ourselves be tools in His hands, it's amazing what happens.

But yeah, back to birthday stuff I guess. I ended up going more of a March 3rd celebration to commemorate the ending of my teenage years haha. It was good, and a lot of people wished me a happy birthday and Elder Walker even called me up and shared with me a rap he had written just for my birthday, so that was cool:)

We also had MLC (Mission Leadership Council) this week, and it was my 12th one so that marked my one year of being a zone leader. Gosh, it's been forever. I would love to just drop and train some new Greenie somewhere. But alas, I'll go where the Lord needs me.

Can't think of too much else to report. Life is good, I'm no longer a teenager, and God is in the details of our lives, you just have to look out for it! Have an awesome week!

-Elder Alley