Elder Garrett Brothers' Mission Blog: Week 11 Journal

Following is Garrett's email from the eleventh 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

September 12th, 2016:

We went bowling today! We were playing a variation where you pick a Skittle candy and do something based on the color:

Red—bowl with the opposite hand

Green—bowl facing backwards

Yellow—bowl granny style

Orange--lie down and bowl

Purple--crowd decides how you bowl.

I got 50-something points. It was fun.

September 13th, 2016:

We're driving down to Salt Lake and we're carpooling so I can write a few notes in the car!

Serving with Elder Matsuzaki has been a lot different from Elder Owen. He makes me take the lead more often, but similar to Elder Owen he will respond very quickly to questions from investigators, so I have to wait for him to pass off the discussion to me. He knows a lot of rules Elder Owen didn't know/didn't tell me, which was interesting.

September 14th, 2016:

We had zone conference today. Yesterday we went to the SLC temple. They do live endowments (no movies). [I might add to this later but I don't have time right now]

September 15th, 2016:

We have baptisms scheduled for September 22 and 23. I knew the mission would give me experience for the rest of my life, but I never expected planning for a baptism to be equivalent to planning a wedding. Are they ready? Invites! Reservations! Refreshments! Ahh!

Still, I'm glad to be doing it. I might be able to do one of the baptisms.

~Later~

I learned today! My new companion keeps saying we're both prideful, which I didn't understand. He gave me examples, but I was confused. The example he gave me today was that we remembered a companionship goal to say prayers getting in/out of the car. I forgot soon after he reminded me. He said that was a sign of pride. At first I couldn't see how that was pride. All I had done was forgot, right? But then I realized the fact that I forgot was prideful. Because I didn't value that goal enough, I forgot it. It wasn’t important enough for me to remember. I was not prepared to change, and so it really was pride. I need to value the advice/goals of others more, and be willing to not rely upon myself so much.

One of our investigators is backing out of baptism. He's supposed to get baptized on the 23rd, but I think he now has his mind set to not do it.

Also, there was another spider. ~.~

September 16th, 2016:

Today was exhausting! The work is exhausting! There's so much to do! Good night!

Also, we got tomatoes from a really nice member who grows tomatoes but doesn't like tomatoes (...?)

September 17th, 2016:

We had to get gas today. Our tire pressure light had gone on as well. So after filling up we tried to fill up the tires, but the nozzle on the air pump was bad and the time given by the machine after putting in our quarters was short. We had to get change three times and ask for help; it took four tries in total. The light is still on, so we're going to ask Brother Walker.

I shared my thoughts with Brody. I really love that kid and I hope he will consider what I've said.

Also, I've been frustrated by planning. It feels like there are so many names for us to visit! I talked about it to Elder Matsuzaki and he told me to give it time. We made a plan to start doing a lot more splits with the members.

September 18th, 2016:

Elder Chavez, an Elder in my MTC district, knew Elder Douglass, my new zone leader, before he (Elder Chavez) was in the MTC. So there are other missionaries in our mission who knew each other (like me and Logan) before they came out.

Apple’s iOS 10 released, and we got authorization to download it on our iPads. The weirdest thing is you now press home to unlock instead of swiping right. Weird. However, the facial recognition is on point. It properly identified most of my funny faces as me.

My shoulders were burning after today. The shoulder blades felt pretty raw, but they didn't look too bad. Hopefully it doesn't continue...

We put our plan in motion to get splits often and the Ward Mission Leaders were happy to help. There were a lot of them today, 6 of them, which was amazing! The only two missing are people who we see often, anyway, so it was fantastic.

Elder Owen really wanted to visit a blue house on a hill in Evanston. It looks pretty interesting and it's almost by itself. He never got to visit it, but for dinner today we got to go to the house right next to it. We may get to visit the house later, too.

Dinner today was a cheesesteak sub. We got it from a member who gave us plates with a sub, fries, and green brans, covered with aluminum foil. Cheesesteak subs are one of my favorite foods, so I really enjoyed it. However the wind is so strong up here it blew open one of the plates (covered with aluminum foil) and spilled the fries & green beans on the sub. It kinda worked out, though: their dog kept getting in the way of our car when we drove in, so on the way out we distracted it throwing fries at it. It was a big dog and he ate quite a few fries, but I think he will be okay.

We gave two blessings today, both unexpected. One was to a woman who got an infection from nursing and had a lot of pain in her chest. She is a single mother with six kids. After we finished the blessing, she was crying with gratitude. She was in the hospital emergency room when we gave the blessing, by the way.

The second was to a man named Fidel. He lives way up north, and we met him trying to find a referral named Alex. He only spoke Spanish, but from what I could understand he worked here too provide for his family in Chile or Peru. He has something wrong with his throat that makes it hard to breathe. Anyway, he's a really solid investigator searching for God. The spirit was very strong in both blessings.

We now have eight on date for a baptism in the upcoming month! That's crazy!

I love to be a healer. I love to help people. I feel good about it.

I'm struggling to have a testimony of God & Jesus Christ. I believe a lot of stuff in the gospel now, but I don't yet have a strong connection with God and Jesus as people. For instance, I know the Atonement can make us clean again, but I don't have a strong testimony that Jesus, as a person, really made that possible. I hope to increase my faith by relying on the Spirit.

However I'm very sure about helping others. Even if I'm not sure myself about Jesus's personal sacrifice, I know helping others develop that belief will really strengthen them.

A lot of my stress about missionary work derives from my inability to help people. My lack of a strong testimony makes it hard at times to give them a chance to feel the Holy Ghost. When I forget some people or we are unable to visit everyone we needed to, I get impatient with myself for not remembering or planning better. Having gone through or seeing others close to me go through the things they're struggling with, I know they may be looking to us for help or we may be able to help them, and so it hurts me when we can't visit them, either due to my forgetfulness or inexperience with planning or just lack of time in general. Being able to empathize, even in part, on such a deep level with how they feel motivates me but also causes me great stress because I feel so responsible for them or obligated to help them.

I wouldn't say I'm naturally an outgoing person or a healer; I'm not really a "people person." But I believe anyone--having felt deep religious anguish/confusion and knowing others are now in such a state--would feel an urge to action.

So I do what I can. I love to talk to people who approach problems logically instead of emotionally because I can relate to them and hopefully help them. I can use the duality of belief to help others realize that many of the doubts they have are both unimportant (as it's not at the heart of the question of religion, more like the appendix or the pinky toe) and can be countered by equally valid possibilities. I'm just weird because I don't easily relate to people (more logic than feeling, more mathematics than languages, introverted, mildly Autistic) but I really want to help them.

Photos!