Big News!

Alright so the big news first (in case you haven't already heard). I'M GOING TO CHICAGO! Haha I'm so excited to get out there and start teaching actual people the Gospel! I'm a little nervous now that it's finally time to go, but I'm really really excited. Chicago is going to be a lot colder than Mexico that's for sure! So if you want to send me letters and any cold gear for Christmas that would be the best thing in the world. Please and thank you!

The mission home address is:

1319 Butterfield Road Ste. 522
Downers Grove, IL 60515

I think it's kinda random because I thought that they usually only temporarily reassign missionaries to places close by like Idaho and California, but that's just fine with me because that's where the Lord wants me right now. The other reassignments in my district were to Salt Lake City West (I think that's my house), St. George, San Jose California (lucky! they get to be warm!), and the Elder who was supposed to go to Peru forever ago finally got reassigned to Alabama last week. I'm pretty proud of my new call though and I can't wait to get to work.

So my week was pretty crazy, but really fun. On Sunday I had tons of stuff to do including writing my weekly talk in Spanish, teaching our District meeting lesson with my comp, and our district need to practice our "Swan Song" which is a hymn the district that's leaving sings the Sunday before in Sacrament meeting. We chose A Child's Prayer (the district favorite) and pretty much all our practices went better than the actual performance haha but it was good.

Me and my companion's district lesson went a lot better than the first time by the way. Because we weren't really prepared we didn't rush it like last time and the Spirit was like 10x stronger. Plus me and my companion finally don't bug each other that much now that it's our last week. Ha last night we actually planned our lesson with our new investigator really well even though we still didn't agree on everything. We compromised and it made a huge difference. Hopefully it doesn't take this long to get along with my Chicago comp!

I'm feeling really confident with my Spanish right now, but I just know when I finally get to talk to real people I won't be able to understand anything they're saying. I'm already loving teaching people and giving them what they need to be happy forever like we do. I'm seeing how we can really take the blessing of the Gospel for granted so I invite everyone to start reading the scriptures and talks from General Conference more. We have so much and we don't even use it. Thanks to Glen Reber I have a General Conference Ensign and it pretty much become scripture for me. There's so much good stuff in there so take a look! Check out LDS.org too, because it's got everything.

There are physical changes happening at the MTC. Workers have been working on our classroom building a ton lately for some reason and then finally yesterday we got kicked out of our classroom because they're going to turn it, and all the other classrooms in that building, into residences for all the new sister missionaries. I'm glad we could contribute haha. It's kindof weird to think that Sarah or any other sister missionaries might be living in the same room where I had class. We now have class in a lot smaller and warmer room with tiny desks and not so great chairs, but I'm not complaining because I'm out of here on Monday!

Thank you everyone for all your letters! I don't want to put up the rankings, but Sarah has got all of you beat thanks to her weekly letters so you all need to step your game up. Haha I got surprised to get some from Robbie, Steph, Toni, and Jason so they are my favorites now too. Of course it's a given that my parents are up top because they get to e-mail. THANK YOU everyone for all you love and support! You're awesome! Have a good week, the church is true, read the Book of Mormon AND CONFERENCE TALKS and stay safe!

Love,
       Elder Adam Shurtliff

Adam's mom here. The Chicago mission will take care of Adam's needs and won't let him turn into a popsicle.  If you have something in particular you feel he may need/want let me know and I will find out if it's a good idea to send it. My biggest concern is that he only has one suit (in Mexico they don't wear suits) and I don't want to have to get him a new one that he may only use for a couple of weeks. Stay posted and if he has any needs, I will let you all know. Thanks for all your love and support. It warms my heart to know that so many are looking out for my boy.

Oh. And I don't know why there were no pictures this week. He didn't explain. So unlike him.