Week 33 - "Don't you let go! Don't let go! REACH!"

Hello, everyone!

I've felt more and more like my mind no longer has the ability to multitask to the same degree that it did when I was home. I had a lot on my mind when I was writing this email, so, as usual, I apologize if it's disorganized. The quote is from Samwise Gamgee in The Return of the King.

Since last preparation day a lot has happened. We had interviews and my second district council as district leader, which was great, and our second visit from the training specialists this transfer, which this time was the assistants to the president, Elder Johnston and Elder Winn (who is also from Rexburg). Also, this morning I had a great experience preparing for the next district council, but I'm concerned that it's not going to work out as well as I'm hoping it will. I'm going to need to pray for a lot of help and strength from the Lord.

So the training specialists visited us on Thursday, and I got paired with Elder Johnston. He's a very focused, urgent missionary, I think partially because when he was with me that day he only had 13 days left as a missionary. Because of that we were very brief in our appointments, we spent every spare second doing what we could in the area, and we basically just never stopped. That's the attitude I want to have as a missionary, but sometimes I worry that I will burn myself out if I do. But it's interesting: I think when we reach and stretch as far as we possibly can, and do the difficult things, when we push ourselves to the limit in the work of the Lord, we then find that our capacity is increased--we are able to continue on with more strength than we thought we had. I learned that when I was at Badger Creek at OYA, in 2008: There was this one activity we did where the males had to sort of be the "Zion's Camp" and hike up a mountain and leave the girls behind to pull the carts with our luggage with them that we were taking to the campsite further up the mountain. When we got to a certain point and were exhausted, we stopped, and we waited for the girls to come. We were lined up on either side of the trail, and we were told that we couldn't help them until they passed us. When they told us that, in my mind I was like, "Help them? I don't have the strength to help them anyway." But then when the first cart came, it was being pushed by one of the members of my group, by herself, and she was struggling. A new strength and energy rushed into me, and I felt the capacity to run up and pull the cart and help her. I think I've felt that as I've pushed myself to the limit on the mission, too: I go as far as I can and exhaust my time and my physical strength, and then suddenly I run into a nugget of a blessing that allows me to continue on in strength. That's what happened with Elder Johnston on Thursday. We were over at the home of a person we're teaching, waiting for him to show up, but we had an appointment with some members soon after. Because of a talk given by Elder Uchtdorf, missionaries often talk about "Fourth Floor, Last Door" miracles (I believe the talk Elder Uchtdorf gave is by that name--you can look it up on the church website). Basically the idea is that when missionaries give their all, when they don't quit until they've gotten the job done, that's when they see the miracle happen. We had about 8 extra minutes, and Elder Johnston was anxious to spend them as efficiently as he could, so he asked what we could do. I looked at the area book and saw that there was a member I had never met pretty close to where we were. I suggested we go visit them. For context, we had had a pretty crappy day. Elder Johnston was beginning to get frustrated, because we had experienced a lot of rejection, and some people had made fun of us, and we just hadn't seen the success numbers-wise that I think he was used to (which was validating to me, considering I haven't seen a lot of success numbers-wise anyway recently). So we hurried over to that house and knocked on the door, and a woman came out. I introduced us as representatives of Jesus Christ and said we were looking for a member of our congregation, and I asked if she lived there. She said she didn't anymore, so then Elder Johnston picked up the conversation and asked who she was. We talked for 10 or 15 minutes, and Elder Johnston taught her some things about prophets, and he asked her, "If there were a living prophet on the Earth today, what would you ask him?" She responded, "What is my purpose?" In my mind, I was like, "Uh-huh. We can answer that question." Elder Johnston gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet, and she said she would read it, and we have an appointment with her tomorrow. She became a new person being taught, I think the only new one in the area book for the day, at least for he and I. We were stoked about it. And then we got the member appointment late, but it turned out that one of the members we were there to meet had just gotten home by the time we got there, so it worked out just the way it needed to. The Spirit is awesome. He knows what needs to happen for everything to work out. You just have to listen to what he says and then wait out the difficulties, if they do come.

Speaking of listening to what he says, during the district council on Friday, the sister training leaders did an amazing training where they had companionships get together and think of a person they were teaching who wasn't really progressing. Then the other companionship got together and prayed, and we went into a roleplay where the companionship who prayed was teaching, and the other companionship was being the person who they had thought of. The teaching companionship needed to consult the spirit to extend an invitation to the person being taught, the idea being that after the roleplay each companionship would know what they needed to do to help this person they were teaching who wasn't progressing. There's someone named Rodger the zone leaders have been trying to get on date recently, and Elder Mathews was acting as him. Elder Gallagher and I prayed beforehand, like we were supposed to, and then when we got into the roleplay we were teaching in unity and going back and forth like it was rehearsed, and then I asked "Rodger" to set a date for baptism and pray on the way to the date that he would get his answer whether the church was true. He said he would, and I promised him that he would get his answer. The spirit was very, very present. I felt it burning. It was awesome. The zone leaders felt like that was the thing they needed to do for Rodger. They also taught us, with me playing a guy we're teaching named Rick, and through that interaction we learned that we need to ask Rick to make reading the Book of Mormon a priority.

That day we also had interviews. I don't know if I've mentioned it in an email, but on the fifth Sunday last month our bishop got up as part of a class on missionary work for the ward, and he reminded people about the blessings that are coming from this new way of doing things where we don't have meals in members' homes unless there's a nonmember there. There have been members of the ward who have struggled with that change, and he reminded them that we were promised as a result of obedience to that change that we would have more people come into the ward who were more prepared and ready to be taught and come and contribute to the ward. He then invited the members of the congregation to think about the people we've baptized into the ward in the last few months. John and Jean (who are AMAZING) are two of those people, and a guy named Dave the Sisters baptized (another incredible addition to the ward) is another. Bishop was then like, "Which is better?" He was basically asking the members, "Do you want members like this, or do you want to be able to eat with the missionaries?" I shared that experience with President in interviews, and he loved it. I'm hoping Bishop gets a call and is able to give that testimonial so it can be spread across the mission, because many, many people in the mission are apparently having real trouble with that policy change. But it was a great interview as well. We were in the middle of district council when Elder Gallagher and I went out to talk to be interviewed, so that carried over. President Stratford has emphasized in interviews before that they have been praying for new leadership because they're about to lose so many people (this transfer 32 missionaries will be leaving, and many of the assistants, sister training leaders and training specialists have left over the course of the past few transfers). He always says something along the lines of, "Thank you for coming at this time. We've been praying for leadership." This time in the interview he said, "Thank you for your leadership." That made me happy. I hope I can be all the Lord needs me to be. I have seen myself grow and increase greatly in these past few months, though. I think I'm finally at the point where I wouldn't trade the mission for anything. If any of you out there reading this are gamers and haven't been on a mission, going on a mission is like having double XP and attribute buffs for two years. You learn so, so much that just gets ingrained in you, and you're able to do things you never thought you would be able to do. It's awesome. Granted, there are times that things get really, really difficult, but at the end of the day, the hard times don't last, and the good ones do. You're able to leave the difficulties behind and hang on to the good things, and everything ends up being OK. It's worth it.

Tomorrow I'll be conducting my first training visit (that's what we're calling exchanges now) with the Elders from Ashtabula. They're doubling into Warren. It's going to be great. The next day we'll have district council, and this morning I studied and felt like I received a lot of important revelation as to what needs to be discussed. That's going to be really good, too.

Pray for our investigators, especially Forrest and Bruce. They're on date, and we want to see them grow and improve and come closer to the Lord as they come closer to baptism. We want them to understand this decision they're making and understand the importance of it. We want them to have testimonies of the truth we teach them.

That's really all I can think of from this last week. Like I said, I had a lot on my mind writing this email, so I may have forgotten a few things, but if they're super important I'll include them in the email next week.

Oh! And thank goodness for the Spirit. I just remembered something: I conducted my first two baptismal interviews yesterday! I was able to approve the two people for baptism. It was a really good experience. I need to learn how to get better at setting people at ease, though: I know how I would feel in that situation, and I need to take some time to think about what to say and do to make sure people know that they can relax.

I love you all! Thanks for your support.

Elder Davis