WEEK 74 - Berlin Wall

Hello my loved ones! Hope everyone's week was swell! We got transfer news and I am staying with Elder MacDonald for anotha one here which I am just tickled about I am baffled that it is already 2025. For the new year our mission president gave us a pretty neat challenge. He challenged us not only to make a new year goal, but to also make a lifelong goal. I already have a lot of lifelong goals like getting married and having a family, starting an orthodontic empire, going to space (I will legit do this one I'm not joshing), and many other goals. I was thinking of being super basic and using the family one, but I decided there is something I want even more than that. And that is charity, the most precious gift of them all. I can have everything that I have ever wanted if the Lord will give this gift to me, and if He wills, I will give all I can to those in need. There was this quote from a talk by Jeffery R Holland that really hit me hard. He is describing Thomas S Monson and I decided that my lifelong goal is for this to one day be said about me: "More than any man I know, [Henry Horsley] has "done all he could" for the widow and the fatherless, the poor and the oppressed." That is all I want. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who can help me get there, so I will follow His invitation and follow Him. Ok I legit just write the same spiritual thought every week, it's alright though cause I mean it. But how bout a dang SHOUTOUT to my pretty much brother Lance for getting married this last weekend! Sadly enough, he's been married for roughly 48 hours and is LIKELY preoccupied, so I doubt he sees this. If you happen to see this, know I love you Lance. Congrats Laureli many women will forever covet your situation. Here is the week: - What an absolute pleasure it was to go on an exchange with my son Elder Christensen in the Chinese branch this week. It was on new year's eve and everything about it was wonderful except the dang thermostat was giving me some sass. Anyways. We pulled up to Xin Xing's for dinner and a lot of branch members were there, oh how I love them. Xin Xing has a baby who was born at the beginning of my mission and this baby was once very obese. I love Samuel, I especially loved Samuel when he had some excess weight on him. He has seriously slimmed down so in Chinese I was like "aww Xin Xing I miss it when Samuel was fat" and then like 4 of the branch members piped in and were like "well Elder Horsley we miss it when you were fat." I love the branch. And for dinner can you guess what the topic was once again? That's right! My stocks. Judas literally all I said was my new year's resolution was to "eat more lobster" and that was just the perfect segway into my stocks I guess. I just love the branch, I will be back one day - Pretty much everyone I know writes my name "Elder Horsely" and honestly I give up the fight, my new name is Elder Horsely now I guess - Elder MacDonald's bedsheets did not dry one night so he just had to brave the cold and threw on pj pants, jeans, two pairs of socks, and a winter coat. It broke my heart when I went urinate at 3 AM and to see him sleeping in conditions like that - I went on an exchange with my literal day one Elder Jacobs and it was as amazing as I could've hoped for. We were at dinner with some legends named Brother and Sister Miller, and Elder Jacobs and Brother Miller were both from Idaho. And boy oh boy those brothers could TALK Idaho my gosh. When we left Brother Miller decided to whip out the big guns and give Elder Jacobs some huckleberry taffy. It would be a criminal understatement to say those things were just enjoyed. I love Elder Jacobs - We went to a fun missionary meeting this week and it was so much fun to see a lot of my friends! Elder MacDonald was assigned to play the piano for the meeting. Elder MacDonald forgot to practice the piano, and sadly he does not know how to play the piano so it was an intense situation. The opening hymn was "come come ye saints" and he nervously mozied his way up to the piano, sat down, and played the right hand with ~35% accuracy. He sat back down and me and him were giving our whole souls trying not to laugh. President was feeling merciless I guess, because Elder MacDonald still had to play the next hymn which was "be still my soul." The accuracy on this one dropped about 15% sadly enough. He played the intro about 4 times but nobody knew when to start because we weren't 100% sure if he was actually playing the right song. Sitting next to Elder Turner just made the whole situation about 4x harder for me. My heart goes out to the chorister and her family, she just had no idea where Elder MacDonald was going with the song haha. Needless to say my soul was not still during that song. Elder MacDonald is a legend - Our bathtub has jets for some reason (no complaints here) so when Elder MacDonald got in the bath I served him and put the jets on, threw his 11 rubber ducks in there, and donated a hint of my spider man bubble bath, and my gosh the bubble bath worked way too well. Like 3 minutes into it, the bubbles had become the size of the Berlin Wall it was so funny. We laugh way to much together - I love being a missionary It's insane to think that I come home this year, it'll be good to embrace you all once again. Idk what I'm gonna do though, I lost all of my non missionary skills haha so we will see how this goes. I love what I do and I am excited to keep doing, know I love you, and know I'd love to hear from you! Have a great week! Pics: 1. Me with my good friends 2. Me with my son 3. Elder MacDonald sleeping without bed sheets 4. Elder Madrid is so awesome 5. Dinner with the GOAT Sister Jones 6. Me with Elder Jacobs 7. Temple with George!