Note: For the duration of Riley's mission, this blog will be produced and edited by his parents, Daisy and Todd Stonely.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Week 42: Sweet Foley :)‏

Dear Friends and Family,

You all, well probably just my mom, are curious to find out if I got transferred or not :) I am happily sad to say that I will be gone :( I am leaving my dear sweet town of Foley Alabama (my home for 9 months) and will be settling in the land of Cairo Georgia! My new companion will be Elder Valenzuala (think that’s how you spell it). He is from Peru and I have heard great things from him! My companion, Elder Sturdevant, will be staying in Foley and will be training someone new coming in! That was pretty exciting too :) I must have done an alright job at training my companion if he is now training! I am excited what my new area has to bring! But am not really that excited to leave my friendships here. I’ll probably be ok with it later :)

Well this week was awesome! I have not had sufficient time to dwell on the words of conference, so I won’t share too much from it. Although, one thing that caught my eye as I watched conference was the amount of temple talks that were given. I took some time to relive the one single experience I had going through the temple for myself and the many others that I have been given to go do baptisms for the dead. The temple holds many blessings and is a place we can attend weekly to get the closest to our Heavenly Father. I feel blessed to live 15 min away both north and south of now three temples. It is a blessing I know that I have overlooked my whole life. I now think about how we don’t have a temple in our mission and I can feel just a sliver of what others, who have worse circumstances feel, when they are unable to attend the house of the Lord. What a truly HUGE blessing we all have. I encourage you all to look and ponder at the blessings of the temple. And if you’re unsure just go! You will find many :)

As a result of being transferred, this email will be a short one :) However, I want every one of you to know that I truly love you all and love each and every prayer I feel. I almost feel as if I have heavenly angels watching over me and every time someone prays for me another set of hands is at my beckon. Missionaries are some of the most helped servants of the Lord. And you all can feel the same way as you go about helping those in the community! I love you all! Till next week in Cairo!

Elder Stonely

Springtime in sweet, sweet, Foley.

Chillin in the back seat of Victor's car.

I'll miss you Victor! You're the Boss!

You all have pipe dreams, right? We'll, mine are real!! HAHA