So glad you could spend the week up in Millville and swim and play with Lola and hangout with everyone. Thank you guys so much for sending me the package last week too with the Armor Up coins in it! I had been missing having mine that I gave away a few months ago, so it made me really happy to have another one again!
Katherine, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Katherine, Happy Birthday to you (tomorrow 😉🎂). I'm so very grateful for you, and am so so glad you are in our family! I love you very much :) Hope you can have a great fun filled day!
So . . . . the moment we have been waiting for for 6 weeks, but who's counting right?! We received the transfer calls last night, and I will be training a brand new missionary and I will be staying here in the Wadsworth area for this next transfer. I am so excited to be able to train a new missionary, and learn so much from him as we work harder than ever here in the coming weeks! We also found out, that in the next 6 weeks, the OCM will be having a total of 52 total new missionaries coming here, straight out of online MTC, which will put our number at 245-ish by September 17th . . . The Lord is strengthening His forces!!! So me and Elder Johnson will be driving down to Powell tomorrow morning at about 9 am, it's about a 2 hr drive down there from Wadsworth. And then I will go to the "trainers mtg" when I get there at 11, and then we will head back up here to Wadsworth after that, so about 4 hrs total driving tomorrow, another good little road trip!! I'm excited, ah this is going to be such a fun transfer!! :)
I wanted to start this week off by just sharing my testimony of what I have been able to learn on my mission. Next week on Friday August 14th, I will hit my one year mark (365 whole days) of being a missionary out here in Ohio. I have learned so much this last year, and what I do know and have learned is that God love us all equally. He created each of us in His own image, to then come down to the earth and to be raised in families, with parents and siblings who love us. God sent His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, to make the ultimate repentance, and to suffer alone so we wouldnt have to. I know that our Heavenly Father is in the details, big and small. When we stand in need, He only asks that we then kneel, and pray in faith and to pray with courage. He will bless us as we do this, and He will strengthen us in our trials, because no trial is to great that the Son of God can not help us with. I know this is true, and say that in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, amen.
It's going to be a lengthy email this week, have lots on my mind that I want to share with you guys 👌 This week has been so good! We had district council and training visits with the Canton elders on Wednesday last week, which was so good! I went with Elder (Joseph) Medlyn that day. He has been on the mission for 22 months. He lives in Lehi Utah, so we talked about if he knew our other McEwan family up there, he said he would have to check on it and see. But it was such a great and amazing day, and we were able to meet a really cool guy at his house who is from another religion, and has a really huge love of scouting. So I told him I was an eagle scout and that got him excited! It is so truly amazing and wonderful what God can do for us when He knows who needs to talk to us, and the similarities as well as the differences we all share together.
Friday night, me and Elder Johnson went down to the south part of our area down to Rittman. A few kids had invited us to come play basketball with them, and so it was a ton of fun. We played for almost 2 hours, and then shared a spiritual thought with them. They were quite impressed with how well me and Elder Johnson behaved ourselves and that we didn't swear that night, and kept ourselves above the line. I explained a little about how we as members of the church make sure to always show respect to ourselves and to others. Me and Elder Johnson also won all the games we played with them that day, so that was good too.
So funny story, and Parker you and me are now in the same boat with this. On Thursday we went to this non member lady's house and met with her and her 2 daughters (age 12 and 22). When we were walking up their driveway, the 22 yr old turned to her mom and said "that red head doesn't look like he can even drive, let alone be out on a mission." She then explained that she thought I was probably about 12 yrs old . . . I had to explain to them that I turn 20 years old in 30 days from now. Then on Friday (literally the very next day) while we were playing basketball, a kid named John Luke said, "Dylan, how old are you? You seem pretty young". I then told them that I turn 20 in about a month, and that usually when I'm not a missionary I have some facial hair on my face. Guess it never hurts to look younger than what you really are huh?
We were able to do some service this last week at the local food pantry up in the middle of Wadsworth. It was so much fun! We wore our masks and then helped for 2 hours on Thursday night, with loading cars with food for lots of people, and we got to meet a ton of new friends and faces. It was such a blessing, because I know that God had his hand in that experience, even something super small, made a big difference for those families and people who now have food on their table for the next little while. This is something that I have really seen lately, even more than the first 8 or 9 months of my mission, is how much I love doing service for other people. I think back to during high school, and even during Fall 2018 when we had the 2 big fires in Salem, and needed to help people get food. The whole community and more from outside the city, came to help and do whatever they could. I love that at the drop of a hat, we can all be ready and anxious and willing to serve. I would like to encourage all of us to do something this week and in the coming weeks that can be in someway or another, a service or a help to others. It makes us so truly happy when we can be God's hands in doing good for others (Mosiah 2:17).
I've been thinking a lot recently about the importance of progression and being able to grow individually to who we want and need to be. My thoughts turned to Alma 5, when Alma the younger is faced with a task of deciding in the long run, what type of a person he is going to become. He chooses to follow God, and later on, brings many to the church and to Jesus Christ. The same can be said about all of us in this life, that we have a chance to choose everyday who we want to be, and who we want to help that day. Praying to Heavenly Father lets Him know that He can trust us, and that He can place anyone in our hands, and we can help them with the power of our God in our hands. It's a joy and a happiness, because we can all and will all be blessed as turn to our Savior. Thats something I have learned to rely in and on over the course of the last 12 months, is trusting my Savior in every aspect of my life, and then also doing just the best that I can each and every single day. He loves us, and is there for us every step of the way.
JOY. What does this word mean to me? An experience I had this last week really told me that joy is available to anyone on any given day. On Thursday morning we were at a members house, her name is Sister Zook. She is an older lady and lives by herself with her 2 little dogs. We were over there and she made us zucchini muffins and chocolate chip raisin cookies. So good! We were reading the scriptures with her, and honestly I could just feel so much love for her. I had never met her in person before, and she didn't know me, but I knew that Heavenly Father had sent me there to be a light to Sister Zook. It warmed my heart to be there that day, and really just goes to show that God is really aware of all of us and our needs. He also let's us know that we need to love one another, and we need to be there for one another. Don't let things of the past hold you back from loving someone and being happy, be happy NOW 👊🌞
Another thought I have been thinking of (haha like I said, my mind has a lot of things going through it. What does it mean to have our eyes set on the finish line? This week, during District Council on Wednesday morning, we were learning about what the Anti Nephi Lehis did with burying their weapons of war, and not using them again. We then compared that to things in our life, that we might either be holding onto or going back to time and time again i.e. sin, temptation, etc. I learned and was able to feel/recognize something that makes me so happy, which is this -- It's not that God doesn't want us to hold onto our special memories and important moments in our life, because He does and He knows how important those memories and moments are and mean to us. He just gently tells us everyday, to be stronger each new day, and to not dwell in the past (like Lot's wife did on the city of Sodom and Gomorah). We cant accept Jesus Christ into our life, make covenants with Him, and then look back to our own city of Sodom and Gomorah, and then still expect to be fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. Let by gones be by gones, and move forward with faith. This stuck out to me a lot these last few days. Don't worry about what happened in the past, cherish the moments and memories that are from the past, and use those moments and memories to help us out in the future.
Also, an update on the weather here . . . So we found out that there is a huge hurricane passing through Florida right now, and so from that, we here in Ohio have been being pelted with rain and thunder and wind of every kind. It rained and rained all weekend long, and was just really cloudy. Then like an hour or two later, it is sunny and blue skies, then pouring rain again at night 🤷♂️ I have been singing this song everyday, but switched up the words just a little -- "oh the weather in Ohio is frightful, and sometimes it sure is indecisive, but when we are outside, please let it be warm, let it be warm, let it be warm.
I'm so extremely grateful for you guys, for every single one of you. ❤ I have been missing everyone a lot lately. Thank you all so much for all the love and support that you guys always give to me. I pray for you guys daily, and am always hoping you guys are doing good and staying happy and healthy. I'm so very excited to be able to talk to you guys today!!
I love YOU ALL, Forever and Always!
Elder Dylan McEwan 🌞
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