Josh's response to Don's request for advice to preparing missionaries

to be honest, my only advice would be to learn how to cook and learn to work hard. the rest of it i dont think can come without practical experience. and while its not something the can really work on i would let them know that it will be THE HARDEST THING THEY HAVE EVER DONE!!! EVER!!!!!!!!! but that it is also worth it. i just heard all of the stories of how great a mission is before i came out and not nearly enough about how hard it was. at home you hear what i call the "miracle stories" but not really the "this sucks" stories. i'm not trying to discourage anybody, i just think it would be better if they expected the hard times to be there because then they can at least think "well they said it would be this way" instead of "i swear my mission is 12354845798 times harder than anybody elses and i just want to go home."
but i am grateful for the way that my testimony has grown over the time that i have been here. there is one of the couples that likes to say "you all come with your mothers testimony, but you leave with your own." and in the mtc the area authority told us "the testimonies you have now just simply arent enough." i'm not going to say that i didnt have my own testimony when i came, however the second statement may be more acurate. the words may be the same, but the feeling now is entirely different as i say that i know the church of jesus christ of laterday saints is true, i know the book of mormon is the word of God, and i know that joseph smith is a prophet. i love my time here for the testimony it has given me of these things, and i say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

here it is dad, have a great day. i would advise the stake presidency to slow down on all of the firesides and things if they havent from the time i left anyways because it really was overloaded and it felt like i have heard from many missionaries that they felt like they were being force fed the gospel due to the peer pressure of being at all those things and their parents expectations of them being there, but mostly they mentions how it was just too frequent and they just wanted a brake sometimes. they say things like "i dont have any problem with going to church on sunday but when you also have mutual on wednesday and then a fireside on top of that i dont have time for anything else." i just think you would all be shocked at the negetive effects it has on somebodies mission when they feel the church has given them too much to do and to be at prior to their missions. most of them end up feeling that their mission is just one more way to get the gospel down their throats. and that is not how we want missionaries to feel because then they dont work as hard. and funily enough, its normally the kids that were "rebelious" and skipped those kinds of things that are the very obedient and powerful missionaries. i am not saying they arent good every now and then, but they were far too often back when i was home.

and mom, i am sending this to you too incase you want it for something but dad asked me to write it for some young mens thing