Week 89: Revolutionary

Week 89: Revolutionary

Monday, March 12th, 2018:

For p-day, we didn't schedule well, as we were both so tired this morning that we fell asleep for more than an hour after 8:00.  Shopping, emailing, and other things took longer than expected; we had dinner 6:25-6:50. While shopping at Winco, I found dragon fruit. I’d wanted to try it for a while and happened to stumble on it as we shopped. Elder Vandehei got a mission loaner bike and I got my prescription refill.

We visited Tyson for about an hour or more.  We talked about bikes; he's a master bike mechanic and fixed/examined both our bikes. We only got to check in with Michelle, Kimberly, Noah, and Shelley.

This evening, I read the email from my dad about my mother's current health. Most of all, it surprised me. I hadn’t understood how serious her condition had become. Beyond that, I don't know what I really felt. I recognized that this would be something to work over in the future, but it didn't really hit me.  Not like it will hit me hard in a few days, but like it didn't shake me as I thought something like that would.  That's still not the right phrasing for it.  I would say that I mourn in a different way. I got choked up while I sang hymns in the shower. It was a more complex experience for me, but not such that I feel I have to sort out.  There were a few different layers to it, especially when I was singing hymns. Rest assured, I know it will all work out.

Tuesday, March 13th, 2018:

Being able to bike again is nice.  Elder Vandehei's bike, a loaner from the mission office, may be a kid's bike for how small it is.  Tyson is going to help us build a good bike.  We spent 1:00-3:00 there talking to him as he looked over our bikes, and he agreed he would listen if we actually had a formal lesson tomorrow!  His wife was supposed to pick him up for something, so we didn't go to the place we wanted to.

We spent so much quality time with Tyson that we were late to the next lesson with Arash, a man with good questions perfectly answered by the Restoration. Then we were late to dinner by 45 minutes. I feel it’s unprofessional to run late. We need to do better.

The lesson with Dawnette and Hunter went well.  We got Dawnette's cell phone yesterday and managed to set a lesson for today.  In the lesson, we got to the core of why she doesn't want to go to church but doing so caused us to be late to dinner.  Basically, she got offended; having people say rude things (or believing that to be the cause) makes having an uplifting time at church hard.  Even with judgement and offense from both investigators and members being a common issue, she is a bit touchy.  Sometimes it's hard to know how to best help her.

We met a woman named Brandy who was strikingly similar to Kirsten for me. Brandy's hair is a red-velvet shade of red, like Kirsten's once was. (That's odd to think about, but I have no way of knowing what color Kirsten's hair is now.) Brandy had a hard time in the church because of judgment.

I'm going to try to spell out what I mean to say and puzzle out what I'm thinking pretty carefully here.  I couldn't think of how to help Brandy, but I could see a few things.  First, it’s so important that a ward to be as welcoming as possible to people. More than just avoiding offensive remarks or damaging glances, everyone has the personal responsibility to reach out and welcome others to leave no doubt about it. Second, it falls to the individual to sort out their anxiety. Perfection cannot be expected on the part of the ward, and salvation is ultimately a personal responsibility.  No one else can be blamed in the final judgment.  It's 100% responsibility, called for on both sides, instead of fault-finding.  Third, forgiveness, understanding, and tolerance are pretty clearly required on both sides.  There's no sense in judging the members of the church for judging your appearance; offense helps nothing.  There's nothing productive in pointing out to the single mom that her kids are loud and disruptive; she knows, I'm pretty certain.  If you want a quieter sacrament meeting, sit beside her and help.  But I feel like I'm saying nothing new.  I don't know what to add.  It seems, for anyone who wants to improve their discipleship, like a matter of sitting down, thinking and planning it out, and doing it, paired with a continual effort to choose the better path.

Wednesday, March 14th, 2018:

I DISCOVERED MY PURPOSE AND UNDERSTANDING!  During personal study, I read from a talk called "President Kimball's Vision of Missionary Work."  The content of the talk was good, but it wasn't directly the things I needed to hear.  Longer time short, I found that we don't need to plan for and try to help every single person.  We are called to invite people to come unto Christ.  Any person will do.  We are here with a task to do, and that is help people be converted to Christ by helping them learn of Him, develop faith, and repent.  They will want to progress along each of these steps as we guide them well enough.  Then, they will want to be baptized.  We can help any person, but not every person is at a point where they want our help in the gospel.

I am here to help people be converted unto Christ and be baptized.  I should seek to teach those people who will help me achieve that goal.  I'm not here to help everyone (which doesn't mean I will not help the stranger in need).  The gospel will help people more than anything else, so it's most important that I can let people have that.

That was revolutionary.  I also decided to set a personal goal for how many people I want to help be baptized before I finish my mission: I would like to help 20 more people.  At first, I thought 5 would be a good goal, then 8, then 10, then 12... but 20 is a good goal to shoot for.

We went by Tyson today again, as we thought we could go to the bike place and have a lesson, but things didn't work out so well.  We don't know if he was fully sober or not, but he seemed to not know what he was doing as much.  We tried to make our visit as brief as possible.  We still haven't managed to talk about why we want to visit him, as it almost seems like he deflects the gospel when we bring it up.  He just likes to talk about good things. We texted him later on another day to ask if we could help him be converted unto Christ.  He said he would have to ponder on it.

We helped Omer, a newer member, set up cameras.  He can't read English very well.

Of two less active families we visited, one had a teenage son we invited to YSA (young single adults).  Between a waning interest in involvement in the church and social anxiety, it's understandably a hard thing for him to return to activity. YSA could help.

We had dinner with the high councilor over missionary work in the Midvale East stake. His wife had been repulsed from joining the church by the hypocrisy of some members, but eventually came around.

It rained a ton today.  There was even thunder and lightning; some people we met from the East coast agreed that it brought a familiarity of home with it. During the worst parts of the deluge we took shelter in a carport., where I took our picture.

Thursday, March 15th, 2018:

Interviews with President Hillier were today. I discussed my new understanding regarding my purpose, and my goal. He observed that I may be protected by the Lord from feeling excessive grief over my mother’s medical condition.  I know that I can't do much about it on my mission other than pray. He observed that I'm strong and stoic in trials, which was part of the reason that I was taking the news of my mom so well.  I wouldn't think of myself as emotionally strong, but it makes sense that my emotional disconnects could help me be stoic.

I also asked his advice about how to better stay on time and not be running late. He suggested that I set expectations with others and myself by saying that I can't stay longer than the pre-allocated time, then stick with it.

Weekly planning was slower than last time, but it was still good enough.  We are always looking to improve, of course. Katie, the mother of Parker, gave us a cold reception when we stopped by today.  We don't know what's up.

It rained and snowed today.  A few days ago, it was 70 degrees as a high.  Now it's in the low 40s. The gloves I found are awesome!  They can even warm up my hands after they get wet.

Friday, March 16th, 2018:

I introduced Elder Vandehei to "How do I fulfill my purpose?" today, as he never saw it before.

Amidst my ponderings after studying that, I found most of the insights I have might sound really good on a stage in some presentation, but when I look back on them I realized they don't change me. It's like the quote in PMG about how a study of the gospel will change behavior faster than a study of behavior will change behavior. The biggest takeaway I found was that if the gospel says one things and I think a different way may be better, what the gospel says is inevitably more accurate.

I made chicken noodle soup, as three households were sick, but nobody wanted it.  Now I have way too much chicken noodle soup leftovers.  I'll give it to Elder Taylor. We contacted the rest of the day. District meeting was better because of my new perspective from studies earlier in the week.

Saturday, March 17th, 2018:

I woke up today believing it was Sunday.  I always wake up the most tired on Sunday. I tried the dragon fruit today for breakfast. It's basically the kiwi's more exciting big brother.

Steven, a recent convert in our area, is going to try to read the Book of Mormon in one day next week.

During dinner (with the ME 5th WML), I got unexpected advice on college.  It turns out the WML is going to BYU now.  He said that BYU isn't a guaranteed shot for spiritual preservation. He said that both schools offer great opportunities, but it's up to me to make of it what I will. It ultimately falls to me.  I just need to figure out which of the exclusive characteristics of college I want.

We had a lesson with Dawnette and her kids.  We can see why sometimes she has little patience with them now.  In trying to explain things, like who God is, they don't pay attention.  They'll cut in with a question like "what would happen if Noah didn't build the ark?"  It will require a great measure of learning to love them enough to teach well by the spirit.

Sunday, March 18th, 2018:

We basically went to church with Dawnette and her kids. They almost didn't come, but the mom promised us that they would, and she felt it would be rude to not come. Hunter wanted to leave right after sacrament, so he and Dawnette left.  Dagan got bored within the first 30 minutes of primary and wanted to leave, so we walked back with him to his mom's house. Still, we got them to go to church and we got their records in to the ward. Hopefully now the ward council members can help us find a good family to fellowship them.  Doing so will help them really want to go to church enough to overcome obstacles on their own, which is what we are aiming for.

We had a stake meeting near the end of all the day’s meetings. The stake president admitted that they had let things run without input from the stake presidency for a while. It was a good refresher.

We secured some general conference tickets today.  That'll save us a headache later.

We met with James, Tiana, and Jaymianah this evening.  They had us over for dinner.  We made a plan with them on how they want to go forward in the gospel, as they admitted that two months (before they visit Hawaii to visit all their family) may be too soon for Jaymianna to be baptized.  Our lesson did really well in encouraging them to figure out what they want to do next and what they have to do to prepare them for big steps, like going to church, baptism, or marriage.