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Hello hello hello! Wow I think it's been 2 or 3 weeks... SORRY!!! I'll be better!
I've got a new companion named Elder Yoshida. He was born in Japan and lived there for 10 years. Then he came to brazil to live with his grandma. While living with his grandma the missionaries knocked on the door and his grandma made him listen to the missionaries and he ultimately was baptized at age 13. Then his parents got divorced and his mom moved to Brazil and lived with him. And then years later he baptized his sister then left for a mission. So him and his sister are the only 2 members of the family! But he is incredible! He is one of the genuinely nicest companions I've ever had. And I've had 18 companions so that's saying something! He really is just a nice guy. I swear every day there is some way he has served me at least twice. He's better at it than me. I feel like I always strived to be the serving companion. I enjoy making my companions bed or clearing his plate or cleaning up his messes or polishing their shoes or other things like that but dang it Elder Yoshida beats me to all these things. I'm learning I need to serve faster if I want to get a chance to serve Elder Yoshida. Haha it is good. He's the best.
This week I really just wanted to recount a little faith lesson I learned. We had a leadership meeting this week, and I was asked to play the piano a little last minute. And I have a good amount of hymns that I've got down to just be able to play them at a moments notice for a baptism or meeting or whatever. But this time I really felt prompted to play a hymn I wasn't too familiar with. And I got scared because dang it I didn't want to mess up in front of anyone and stumble through a hymn. Also, no one would sing it was just piano playing so if I messed up... there was no hiding it.
As i was trying to justify not following this prompting 2 things came to my mind. One was a story President Horsley had recently recounted about Elder Bednar. Basically Elder Bednar went to bless a man who had cancer but before doing so asked the man if he had the faith to not be cured. Which is a pretty big question to ask. Many of us have the faith for things to go right but do we have the faith for things to go wrong... that's what really shows faith. Then also the #hearhim video from President Oaks about following the first prompting we receive. With these 2 things in my mind I figured I didn't have much of a choice but to play the hymn I wasn't very familiar with. And you wouldn't believe it... but I definitely made errors and stumbled my way through that hymn. It was a long 2 verses(I opted out of verse 3). But after the hymn I was pleased. I was happy. I had felt a prompting and went forward with it. Even if things always don't workout, there is so much joy in sticking to promptings and revelation we receive. I learned a lot more about having the faith even when things don't workout the way you want to. Maybe someone was touched by the hymn I chose that day, or it was all for me to learn this lesson. I'm grateful that i was given the opportunity to learn and was able to follow this simple prompting. It has helped me as I've received other revelation and promptings to really stick to them, even if things don't workout the way I had thought. I know joy comes from following promptings!
That's all my future kids and whoever else is reading this email!:)
Love y'all!!!
Elder Hixon
