Week 6: "I believe in God. Woooooo!"

Following is Garrett's email from his sixth week of his mission. His email address is garrett.brothers@myldsmail.net, and his mailing address for letters and packages is:

      Elder Garrett Brothers

      242 Laredo Rd, Apt. 10

      Evanston, WY 82930

Week 6 Journal:

August 8th, 2016:
Just now, we visited a house in pursuit of an investigator, but it was a fake or old address.  The woman who opened the door was a female pastor, and when we asked if there was anything we could do she said no, save "pray that our eyes might be opened to the full gospel of Jesus Christ."  Fun times.

Also, I couldn't upload the photos from the camera (I had too little time) and the fist video I sent got rejected, so I'll re-send those later.  Also, I learned that I shouldn't use the google drive so if I have 100 photos or something I'll need to send lots of e-mails.

August 9th, 2016:
Today I started a workout called "Air Alert."  It's supposed to make me jump higher but in general it works out the legs well.

~Later~

Well, we just taught the person we were supposed to baptize this Saturday and he just got put on a 6 month unmonitored probation for a misdemeanor.  We talked up the chain of command and it appears as though we'll have to wait it out.  ~.~

August 10th, 2016:
I've yet to really try out my jacket from Mr. Mac, but one thing I remembered is the pen that Brother Bywater made for me.  Dad, could you send that out eventually?  It's a really nice pen, but I have no idea where it is.

Also, I sent out two of the three letters I've written.  I'm going to send the Richardson's baby bottle back along with the card I wrote for them next p-day.

There's this cool shop in our mission called Silver Stitch that custom embroiders items for a good price, so I'm planning on getting a souvenir there.

If Logan has any questions, I'd love to answer them.  For that matter if anyone has any questions, I'd love to answer them.  I'm going to review my e-mails and respond to the emails I've been unable to respond to yet.

That reminds me, there's a list of some of the other youth's emails in the ward and stake on my desk I forgot to mention.  

August 11th, 2016:
I believe in God.  Woooooo!  Yeah, it happened--I finally let myself believe, I think.  ...I guess I'm a little surprised because it wasn't as dramatic as I thought, It's like growing a plant and waiting to be able to call it a flower; one day you wake up and look at it and realize, "Yeah, I guess that's actually a flower."

Anyway my testimony is really weak.  I can only say what I believe with so much conviction.  I think the one huge thing holding me back is that:
1. I thought I could gain a testimony by logic/reasoning, which is different than science,
2. I thought this testimony would be stronger that just by belief. So once I had another not-so-stunning realization, I decided to finally chose to believe.

Now, as I said, it's weak.  I know it will grow with time.  You could call it a "fair weather testimony" at this point, as I choose to believe be as I want to, but I'm not planning on leaving it there. Also, my testimony is protected by my previous struggles in logic: I do not believe it will be so easily swayed by doubts because just as how everything that may cause more believe has another perspective (remember "duality of belief"--that the spirit may be strong feelings, etc.), everything that could cause me to double has another perspective (we could say God created man through evolution, so proving evolution does not disprove God).  So it's a shield to my feeble beliefs.

~Later~

I love beans and rice.  It's very cheap but also filling and pretty easy, after the rice is cooked.  Also, I found I'm pretty good at frying eggs!  It's nice.

August 12th, 2016:
We went on splits today.  I taught a girl who has Catholic parents. It's going to be tricky because our stake president doesn't want us to baptize minors unless the parents are members or baptized with them. It was a dual language lesson--the mom only speaks Spanish--so the member I was on splits with could translate.  We taught about the Plan of Salvation, and at the end I bore my testimony about how I believe families can be together forever and how God loves us.  I still don't know how I feel about all of "RELIGION."

After the lesson, we ventured back to where my companion was teaching. The man he was teaching wanted a blessing... during the blessing, I felt the spirit; after, I felt prompted to tell the man that God loves him.

Anyway I miss my family.  I'm not homesick--or not a ton, anyway—but I miss home.  The hardest thing here is free time.  I could spend some time doing what I want, but that's not why I'm here.  I want to work as much as we can, so I barely have time to write journal entries.

As a note, some of the best things you (being everyone) can do to help your missionaries is to help them find people who are interested in hearing about the gospel.  A solid referral becomes a solid investigator.  Aside from that, being welcoming to an investigator in church, or offering to go with missionaries to lessons.  I don't know how missionary work varies between here and there, so just ask how you can help.


August 13th, 2016:
Whew!  We just taught a 1.5 hour lesson.  Lessons should only go 1 hour, but we had a member with us who loved to talk.  It was a messy & exhausting lesson, and so I'm tired.

On the upside, I'm better at cooking, teaching, sticking to the schedule, planning, & so on.  So I've been adjusting/improving.

Also, as I've typed this journal email, I've noticed exactly how fast time flies...

"I felt like I had lost a part of my identity because I was no longer able to participate in the hobbies I had previously enjoyed doing."

August 14th, 2016:
That was a long Sunday!  We were pretty tired to start out, but then we went to the Spanish branch.  Elder Owen listened on a headset (so in English), but I listened to the Spanish speakers directly. Listening to Spanish for too long makes me really tired.  We had a few other sacrament meeting after that (which caused us to have a late lunch) followed by many lessons.

One of the hardest things to adapt to is the lack of silence.  As a missionary, you're pretty much always talking to people or on the phone or to your companion.

********

Responding to emails:  I did not get the email Uncle Art sent a while ago but I did get my dad's copy he forwarded me.  It sounds like it was a blast.  The most "fun" I get to have (in that sense) is hiking up a large hill and feeling the crazy Wyoming wind, the sports activities we occasionally have with investigators, and whenever I manage to get to bed 10 minutes early.  It's a party!

But really, the mission field is certainly a unique experience.  I don't think fun is the first word I'd use to describe it, but it can be enjoyable with the right attitude.

**********

August 15

I have more time today so I can afford to write responses to people who've emailed me, send photos from my camera, and other fun stuff!  First off I'd like to apologize in advance if I don't end up responding to your email.  My iPad only lets me see very recent emails, so I can only review them all when I'm on a computer.  It's been so long that I might think I've responded to you when I haven't.

It's been a rocky start so far.  Our three investigators who we had on date for baptism, all had to be pushed back--one I already mentioned was put on probation for six months, but the other two haven't made it to church [really, most of our investigators don't make it to church]--but I'm pretty hopeful that one or two of them will be baptized before the next transfer.  Actually, thinking about it, investigators have to go to church three times before getting baptized, so it will be close.

Anyway, I'm doing pretty well personally.  We're not worried about food or any other sort of physical need right now (the only thing I'm thinking of is obtaining a bike when I get transferred).  I'm getting along well with my companion and with God.  I've found I really do care for each one of my investigators--there's a few who smoke but want to quit, some just are so unsure about the gospel, some are shy, and some have a huge list of heath problems.  It's made me realize exactly how blessed I am to grow up in the family I did.  So thank you, mom and dad.

There are so many dogs out here.  I really hope Logan is a dog person, or at least can handle dogs.  Every neighborhood (with one exception of a mostly abandoned trailer park) we've been to has at least one dog.  Fortuitously, they've all been friendly so far.  My favorite has to be a Saint Bernard puppy we met named "Tank."  He's the largest dog I've ever seen.

One thing I just remembered: there was one person who sent photos of me and my companion to my parents.  The family is a member family we visited while trying to find where a referral lives; apparently this is a pretty common practice for members (especially those with missionaries of their own out on the field) to do in casual settings.

I'm considering keeping a blog after I come back from my mission.  I don't know if I will; I have at times wanted to start my own YouTube channel posting a wide variety of subjects from random advanced math discussions to rants on politics to video game footage to music... I don't think I could do it as a career, as I know from the YouTubers I've watched that it's a lot of work.  It takes pretty much the same amount of work as a full time job, and only a small amount of it is playing games.  No matter the subject, there's a lot of editing to do, and with gaming there's always technical problems at some point.  Another problem of keeping a YouTube channel as a career is there's no job security whatsoever--you can lose your success overnight--and a third is that I couldn't cover such a wide range of subjects.  I'd have to be just gaming, or just math/science, or just discussions.  But if I did have my own channel, I would post vlogs (video blogs) as a part of it.

I've been thinking a lot about which college I want to go to--Carnegie Mellon or BYU--and I think I'm leaning toward BYU.  It has less rigorous academics than CMU, true, but it's still a very good school.  A less stressful workload would let me take on more classes and explore things I've always wanted to look into, like metalworking, glass blowing, poetry, music, physical therapy, etc., as well as explore the different potential areas of my major.  I'd also love to do a ton of extracurriculars in college--not so many as high school--but there are some things I really want to join (video game clubs, acapella groups, percussion samba groups, racquetball intramurals, etc.)  And then there's that whole dating thing. 

I can't wait to see how the world has changed when I get off my mission.  I'm hoping for virtual reality, AI, and quantum computing to advance (it would be cool to be a pioneer in quantum programming or something!).

I may write more later, but for now bye!

Elder Brothers

A licorice video for you!