Today we had a Super P-day once again. We all went to the chapel and played volleyball, dodgeball , and kickball. It was so fun, but man was the sun hot. say sunburn. I can't remember if I told you last week but the thermometer is reaching around 105 F the past couple of weeks. Oh and as I write right now it has just began to rain. Thats nice.

You mentioned something about how the church is moving towards having members follow the spirit more than a structured material. If you look in Preach my Gospel in the first chapter it will tell you about 6 things that will help you determine whether or not you are using the spirit. Following the spirit has always sounded like a daunting task to me, especially before I came here. But as I learned to recognize it more I realized that the spirit has been guiding alot. I just didn't recognize it. But think if I had recognized it, how many other things it could have told me? That is a principle that I'm still trying to improve upon.

Elder Scott gave a talk last General Conference on how to aquire spiritual guidiance. He brought up the principle of writing things down when we recieve inspiration from God. How many of us use a study journal when we study the scriptures to write down the things the spirit tells us? I have found that the spirit teaches me many things when I take the effort to try and write down my thought and feelings while reading the scriptures. I think I could improve on keeping a more consistent study journal. Also I learned that the more we record and recognize blessings from God in our day-to-day efforts in our journals that more we can see that the spirit was guiding us throughout the whole day.

No one has told me anything about a release date. I'm sure they have bought our plane tickets and everything though. If everything works like it has with the past elders going home we will leave on Wednesday the 9th of June and be home late in the evening in Thursday the 10th.

Birthday gifts of letters and a small pack of journal pages would be all that I need. Don't make it a big box. I haven't had any time to look for any souveniers so I have no idea how much additional money (if any) i'll need.

I think thats about all for this week.

Elder Degen

Rice is Life