Week 29 - "Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level!"

Hey, everyone.

The quote is from Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope, and I may have gotten it a little wrong. I'm not sure.

The last week and the things I've learned are I think a little bit difficult to describe. Again, I'm falling behind on my journaling, which makes remembering the events that have taken place difficult, and there have been a few situations we have been involved with and have been able to help with that I probably shouldn't share too many details about, due to their sensitive nature, so I'm going to try to be as vague about the details of those experiences and yet as detailed about the way I felt about them as I can.

Well, since Elder Anderson has been gone I sort of feel like our area has been falling apart. It seems like suddenly we can't reach people we were normally able to get in contact with, we can't find new people to teach, and the plans we make with people are falling through. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not or if I'm catastrophizing, but it's felt pretty tough. In the past 6 months (the fact that I'm already a quarter of the way through is baffling to me), I've never been the greatest at finding people to teach--I wonder how many people my companionships have found in the last 6 months where the contact has actually been initiated by me. I don't think the list would be very long. So that's something that's difficult that I'm going to have to learn to overcome. I've appreciated the help that your emails have given in that regard. My uncle Barney sent me an email and cited the verses Matthew 5:10-12 and 2 Corinthians 12:10, and I think keeping those things in mind is going to help me a lot as I try to stretch and grow to take on the roles I'm being asked to take on. In a way, I feel stuck between two big objects, one of which is moving on its own, pushing me closer to the other, and it's making it so I have to push the other away if I want to survive. That's how I've been feeling today, sort of like I'm being crushed. It's not a pleasant way to grow. But I have hope in the advice I've been given, and I'm learning that I need to rely on my companion and not just on myself. That can be difficult with a new companion, considering we don't know each other very well, but I think that over time we can get there.

Well, there have been some good things that have happened this week, one in particular, though it was a good thing that came out of a bad thing, which I guess just shows that the Lord works with what we give him. I've said before (and I'm sure I'm not the first one who's said it) that the Lord can take bad situations and make something good come from them--I think that's one of the ways he turns weaknesses into strengths. We've been meeting with a pair of people recently, and one of them is now physically removed from the other. He's living in a town nearby, and I think they have to stay apart for the time being for some reason. She asked if we could call her Saturday night, and we got in touch with her. She was pretty broken up about the situation they were finding themselves in, so we went over to give her a blessing, and invited a male member of the ward who has met the two of them to come with us, so we could give the blessing in her home. We were able to talk with her, and she was seeing the bright side of the situation, for sure, but we saw some of the negative effects it had and was having, and it was pretty heartbreaking and difficult to deal with. The member of the ward dealt with the situation perfectly, doing what he could to strengthen the relationship while addressing the trouble that was separating them. He was the voice for the priesthood blessing, and I think he said a lot of things that she needed to hear. He asked her if we could go see the guy, and she said she'd get in touch with him and ask. He was available to see us, so the ward member took us down to see him. It's a testament to the Holy Ghost and its influence that as we were driving to the area, right at a very specific moment the thought came to me, "You're leaving your area." I was like, "I should probably make sure we're still on our boundaries." I pulled up Area Book right then, and sure enough, the moment that impression had come was the moment we were crossing the area boundary. I hurried and drafted a text to the zone leaders explaining the situation and asking if we had permission to be where we were headed. Fortunately they said we were fine. Anyway, we arrived to see the guy, and we got out of the car, and I noticed when I first saw him that he looked pretty distraught, and his countenance was different. Looking back, I think it was because he was battling some things, demons that were trying to make him despair. We went up to meet him, and he seemed a little more like his old self. We talked about the situation, and he said the girl had told him she had gotten a priesthood blessing from us, and he said that he would really appreciate one for himself. We talked to him about it, and the ward member absolutely spoke by the spirit and said that these things worked by faith, so he needed to exercise faith. The guy said probably the best place to give the blessing would be on the front porch, and I gave a prayer before we started, so I prayed that the spirit would make it an appropriate environment for the blessing. And through most of the blessing, I didn't hear any cars go by on the street or anything, so that felt like a little miracle--it almost felt like we were in a little bubble, and the spirit was keeping us safe from distractions inside it or something. It's difficult to describe. Anyhow, the blessing was great, and it seemed like it had a positive impact on the guy. We left and reported back to the girl, and she said the guy had just called her and said the blessing had helped, and--and here was the miracle--he finally understood something. We have been teaching the guy, and he has had difficulty with faith, with exercising faith, and I guess with understanding what it is that we feel when we're talking about the spirit and stuff. He told the girl that he finally understood what we were all talking about when we talked about feeling the spirit and the love of God and so forth. We had definitely been feeling it while we had been blessing the both of them. I know that God loves them both. I guess what he felt is a testament that being at our lowest is sometimes the only way we can experience the grace of God. It's like being in complete darkness and then seeing a little ray of light, or drowning and getting a breath of fresh air, or falling and feeling something catch you. But it's more than that--it's also knowing that the light, the air, and the hands that catch you are dependable. They will always be there, and they've got you covered. They're aware of you, and they won't abandon you, and the next time you feel like you're at your wit's end, they'll come at the eleventh hour and let you know everything is going to be OK. I think the combination of all those things is what this guy felt. So it may be difficult, because to meet with him we would need to visit him out of our area, but I hope we can continue to teach him about the gospel and he can search and feel for that feeling he felt while we were giving him the blessing, and he can understand that it is good and go after it.

We experienced another miracle recently: We were at the house of some members, and their son has been distant and not super interested in the church. He's technically not a member--he hasn't been baptized--and he's been dealing with some major issues that have made life really hard for him. We were meeting with the couple, and the dad invited him to meet with us, and he said he would! He let us know when he was free, and we set up an appointment, and I think we're going to start giving him the missionary discussions. So that will be awesome. I feel like the parents have waited a long time for what's about to happen, and I think it's going to be a testament to them and him of the truthfulness of the church and gospel we teach and the very real impact it can have on a person's life, if they let it.

In other news, a tornado apparently came through the area and did some damage, but I don't think it was anything too extreme: There's a grocery store near where we live, and like most grocery stores it's got it's name on the front in big, light-up letters. Well, the last letter was hanging by the cord that lights it when we passed it after the tornado yesterday. I didn't act fast enough to get a picture--they got it fixed by the next day--but it was funny to see. Everyone had been talking about the damage the tornado had done at the grocery store, but that was all we saw amiss--it was a little anticlimactic.

Let's see, what else is new? I'm the designated driver now, so that's interesting--it felt really weird and uncomfortable to get behind the wheel again, but I feel like I've gotten acclimatized now--I feel more comfortable with it. Um... I think that's basically it. My new companion is Elder Gallagher. I don't know if I mentioned him in the last email, but he came out with Elder Anderson. He's further along in his mission, though--he actually served a two-transfer mission before he entered the MTC, because I guess that's how that works, so that's pretty neat. He likes movies, so we've talked about that a lot since we've been together, and that's fun. I'm hoping our work together yields some fruit here in Warren.

I love you all. Keep up the good work!

Elder Davis

The image: Our car seems to automatically assign genres to the music and audio we play on it if it can't identify the artist or if the track doesn't come with some sort of picture. I guess it knows something about Elder Bednar we don't.