Week 15 - "The penitent man will pass."
Hey, all! There's no way this email is going to be able to contain everything that has happened over the past 11 days, so I'm going to try to give you all the best parts. The subject line is from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and it's the best I could come up with: At a district council recently someone asked what the biggest thing was that each of us have learned from our missions so far, and I said "The Lord is able to do his own work." I've realized how involved the Lord is with trying to bring people to truth and understanding--I mean, if you read D&C 4, you understand that we are only the harvesters. He's the one who did the majority of the planting and watering and fertilizing and whatnot. We come to bring people into the church, but I believe the Lord is constantly working on the hearts of his children however he can. When we recognize the small size of the role we play, it gives us perspective, and for me it's accompanied by a lot of humility. I've also seen prayer play a big role in my life in the past few weeks, so you know, the subject line relates in that way, too. ("The penitent man... is humble... kneels before God!")
On Sunday (the 3rd of March) there was a sheet going around in Sunday school asking for people to sign up to feed a family in the ward who just had a baby. it got to Elder Thomas, and he gave me a look, and I was like, "You want to do it?" And he was like, "Yeah, I do." So we signed up to feed them the following Saturday. I brought a book of recipes with me on my mission, mostly filled with Blue Apron stuff that I really liked and/or doesn't take a lot of time to cook. So I made them beef shawarma bowls, and it felt super good to take some time and cook again. I wasn't sure we had all the kitchenware we would need, so we went to a thrift store that preparation day, and I found a Batman shirt, which I promptly bought (because I'm Batman) some ties I'm going to try to clean up/fix, and a couple of knives. I bought a chef's knife (which we don't have) at the thrift store for $2. It was from a company called Chicago Cutlery (I think that's good? I don't know--one of you may need to tell me whether that's a good company, because I'm debating just taking it with me the next time I get transferred). Side note: The thrift store we went to was full of amazing finds, and I was kind of blown away by that. I've never been able to find anything really good at a thrift store in or near Rexburg.
We had a weird experience later that day. We were going to take a bus to get to a member's house, and when we were at the bus stop a guy walked up, and it was like he laser-focused on my tag. He looked at it for longer than most people usually do, like his eyes were boring into it, and then he turned to Elder Thomas and asked, "Do you have one of those?" in a way that was almost abrasive. Elder Thomas showed him his tag, and then the guy just sort of turned away from us, like he was shunning us. I wondered what would have happened if I hadn't had a companion in that moment. I guess there are several reasons we go two by two.
That evening we called an investigator who was really struggling. She cried and said things in her life are harder than they've ever been recently, and at the crux of the conversation she said she had given away her worth because of some of the bad things she's done in the past. Elder Thomas did a great job responding to that. He said her name a couple times to calm her and get her attention and then said told her her worth was independent of any of the things she had done. I hope she takes that to heart, and I hope we can show her what the gospel has to offer her in the way of confirming, uplifting truth like that.
Twice in the last two weeks we've visited members who haven't been coming to church who people said were a little prickly, and they've been perfectly pleasant when we met with them. One converted at the age of 19 and later served a mission in Germany, and she was telling us if we're teaching anyone who speaks German or Russian that she might be able to help us. The other was a recruiter for the army in her younger years and also converted to the church, and her husband said she ended her military career at the rank of master sergeant. She also told us that at one point she worked in the Pentagon for higher officers. People who talked to us about them gave us the sense that they would be difficult to speak to, or that they would have their guard up or be very standoffish, but both of them seemed happy to have us there and quite friendly. There must be something about the mantle of missionary that opens those kinds of doors. I've noticed similar things contacting people on the street or on the bus--people sometimes seem to come off initially as not interested in talking with you, but then a few minutes later they're talking about very personal details of their lives. (Mom, maybe that's a spiritual gift that you had magnified for you as a result of your mission, and it's just never left you. :D) We had an experience sort of like that earlier this week, actually. A guy who looked really disheveled and in a bad place walked up to the bus stop, and Elder Thomas started talking to him. He said his life is the worst it's ever been right now, and that drugs and alcohol have made it a living hell. He was crying a lot on and off. He said later on that when he was walking up to Elder Thomas, he thought in his mind, "This is someone who will listen to me." Elder Thomas talked to him about how things are created spiritually before they are created physically, so improving your spiritual life can make a difference in the other parts of your life. Then we got on the bus together, and Elder Thomas gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon and promised him that if he read it every day and prayed, his life would improve. He was like, "Yeah, why not? Why not try it?" Later that day he found us in the library, and he seemed genuinely hopeful, a far cry from where he was before. He said there may be someone he can go stay with (he's homeless), and he may be able to start doing some day labor. He asked for a little bit of money, which is always a tough thing for us missionaries--I mean, I guess we don't want people to think that we're just dispensaries, and that if you come up and ask us for money, we'll give it to you, but at the same time, sometimes people need a little temporal help, and we're supposed to give to the poor. It's a tough situation. Elder Thomas ended up asking him how much he had, and he counted up his money, and then Elder Thomas gave him a $5, and I gave him a spare $1 I had in my wallet. We hope we see him again, and that he turns to the Book of Mormon when things get hard. Elder Thomas has told me multiple times that we have power as missionaries to promise blessings, and the Lord will honor the blessings we promise to people when we speak by the spirit. He's told me several stories from his own time as a missionary where he's promised that people's lives would improve in one specific way or another (they'd find a job, they'd find a place to live, etc.) if they read the Book of Mormon every day, and it happened. There was even one guy he was teaching whose life started going really poorly, and he and his companion asked him when the last time was that he read the Book of Mormon, and he realized he stopped just around the time things started getting really difficult. If we as missionaries speak by the spirit, we can help people experience the spiritual blessings of the Book of Mormon by promising them temporal blessings for reading it.
This past week we also met for the first time with a new member of the ward, and it turns out he went to BYU-Idaho! His name is Michael Sawyer (you can find him in my Facebook friends list, probably), and mom, he may have taken a class from you! He also knows two of the kids from my graduating class: Jason godfrey and Grayson Bowman. He took classes with them. That was a cool connection to make.
There's an investigator we've really been trying hard to meet with who we just haven't been able to get an appointment with, and we got to see her this last week! She said she feels like God has put us in her life, and she asked us to "stay in the picture," which was something of a surprise for us--we weren't sure if she was even interested in taking the lessons or meeting from us. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and what it is and how she can use it to find answers to her questions. Last time I checked, she's reading it (or at least listening to it). I'm hoping it's making a positive impact.
One of the things Elder Thomas has voiced recently is that we need to be helping the members in our ward more and focusing on them a little more. That's really tough sometimes, because it can feel like we're not doing missionary work, even though part of our purpose is "To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through ... enduring to the end." It doesn't show up on any key indicators, so it can feel like we're failing. I prayed one morning in the past couple of weeks that Heavenly Father would let us know during the day if the work we were doing to help the members was a good thing or if we needed to do something different. Our first appointment that day was with a less-active member, and we talked to him about forgiveness (he requested the topic). When we left the appointment, he was the happiest I've seen him since we started meeting with him. I took that as the answer to my prayer--that it is good for us to be helping the members of our ward. Of course we will continue to work hard to find more people to teach, but we shouldn't feel bad on principle about taking time to do good for the members of our ward.
Two days later we went to a rec center to see if we could put up a sign advertising family history help, and while we were there, we saw the son of a recent convert (he himself isn't a member) playing basketball! He isn't very talkative when we're at the recent convert's house, but he walked up to us and started chatting. It was good to talk with him and just sort of get to know him better. While we were at the rec center we saw there was a blood drive going on, and it's been long enough since the last time we donated blood that we can do it again, so we decided to do that, and it turns out there was a promotional event going on, and they were giving out free Game of Thrones t-shirts. I've never seen the show, but it was a free shirt, so... Based on how it looks, though, I'll probably only wear it as PJs or something, or wait until I get home to do that (see pictures).
A few days ago, after an appointment in an apartment building fell through, after we decided to leave, three Muslim women came out of a door across the hallway and started a conversation with us. We just kind of chatted about our beliefs and stuff, and I think it was a good contact. It was a positive experience.
Later that night, we visited Nancy. She's been in New England for about a week, and she brought gifts back for us! She bought each of us a really nice pen (see attached photo). She's a very giving person. She would fit right into the ward here--I feel like I've seen more examples of selfless service in the past few months than I had ever seen before. Maybe it's just because I'm a missionary, though. I guess you see more about what goes on behind the scenes when you're in our position.
Speaking of things going on behind the scenes, a member of the ward who moved here from Africa and has been trying for years to get his family here finally got them here! There may be one child who had some paperwork issues and will come later, but most if not all of his family members are now here living in Columbus. They came to church on Sunday, and we were able to meet them. They aren't members of the church, but the member says he wants them to be baptized, so if they're interested, we may start teaching them soon.
Today Elder Thomas and I got to go to the temple (that was the reason for the email delay--if we go to the temple, the day we go has to be our preparation day), and it was really good. I was nodding off a little bit during part of it, but I was interested in the changes that have been made. I'm interested to go again in a few months and listen to the details that have been changed again. I wish we could study those things! I'd love to sit down with the words from the presentation and really go through and think about them and stuff. Alas.
I feel like I usually try to use this email to talk about an insight I've recently had in my study, but I can't think of anything recent off the top of my head right now, so I'm just going to copy and paste something I sent in a group chat we've been having with some members (we've been sharing scriptural insights). I'm sorry for being so impromptu on that point:
Reading Luke 17:5 and Mark 9:23-24 recently emphasized to me that faith and belief are things we can ask our Heavenly Father for. We can ask him even for the faith we need to perform the tasks he has assigned us to do. There's a great talk by Jeffrey R. Holland about the account in Mark that I would invite everyone who has the time to listen to.
I love you all, and I hope things are going well. If you haven't sent me an email recently (or even if you have), I want to hear from you! Please write, and feel free to just let me know what's going on in your life. I like being up-to-date with what's going on with my friends and family.
Elder Davis
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