Week 39 - "You take a bad boy, you make him dig holes all day in the hot sun, and it turns him into a good boy. That's our philosophy here at Camp Green Lake. Start diggin'."

Hello, everyone.

This week's quote is from Mr. Sir in Holes. A lot has happened over the last 3 or 4 days--that was the most eventful part of our week, I would say. Thursday morning, before we were going to head to district council with OSU, interviews, and our own district council, we got a call from a member in Marble Cliff (the area just South of us). He told us that he needed some service and asked if we could come down and help him out. We told him we probably couldn't do it that day, but we may be able to do it next week. He said that wouldn't work, so he'd ask around and see if anyone else could help him. After we hung up the phone, Elder McVey pointed out that we could have helped him the following day: On Fridays we have weekly planning, but that doesn't take up the whole day, and we could have spent some of our time doing service. The next morning he called us again asking for help, so we told him we could probably help him out. He said he would come pick us up. Then we got a call from President, who said he had gotten a call from that member asking if we could help, and he encouraged us to go and give him a hand. So with President's permission, approval and encouragement we got in service clothes and went outside to wait for him to pick us up. When he arrived, we all got acquainted and got into his car, and he took off down the highway to his home. His driving was a little erratic, but I felt fine throughout the whole experience, though he said he nearly hit a guardrail and caused an accident (I didn't notice), and he had a tendency to speed up and brake a lot and move around a little within his lane. We arrived at his home, and he dropped us off in an alley behind it to go and find a place to park his car. We got out and walked up to his back porch, where we met a nice Welshman named Brother Williams. He was wearing a wife-beater (pardon the expression) and looked a little slight and like he was maybe in his fifties or sixties, but like one of those people who's been working their whole lives and isn't going to stop now. He also had a wonderful accent. He told us that he had just been given "my Melchizedek" (the Melchizedek priesthood) that past Sunday after stake conference. He's a convert to the church of a year or so. He's from a tiny town in Wales the name of which is 68 letters long, and he only realized after being introduced to the church in Ohio that he would drive past one of our meetinghouses all the time in Wales. It continues to surprise me how many people I meet in Ohio who are from someplace else. For some reason, I wouldn't figure Ohio for a diverse place or a melting pot, but I continue to meet people from all over the world here. Brother Williams had been working to dig a trench, where an electrician was going to put down some power lines out from the house to a garage some Amish workers had just built at the end of the yard. He hadn't counted on the dirt being as hard as it was, though (and it was HARD), so he needed our help. Elder McVey grabbed the pickaxe, and I grabbed a shovel, and we started going to work down the furrow he had made. Eventually we established a rhythm, where Elder McVey would break up the ground and pull out what he could with the wide end of the pickaxe, and then he would step back, and I would come in with the shovel and pull out the rest of the loose dirt and rocks to make room for him to continue to work. It was hard work, but satisfying to both of us--it's the kind of stuff Elder McVey did before the mission, so it felt familiar to him, and I've learned more and more in recent years how much I appreciate just doing physical work. I've said to Elder McVey a few times that if getting out there and doing service was all missionary work was about, like if that was what we did most of the time, and we took those opportunities to find people to teach, I wouldn't mind that at all. We've tried to find those opportunities to serve people in our area, but we've struggled to reach people. Anyhow, we dug this trench for about 2 or 3 hours, and we got maybe half of it done, maybe around 20 feet long and a foot to 18 inches deep. The whole time we were just thinking about Holes and quoting it. "Smaller shovel, smaller hole." "I'll get you a wrench, you side-burned neanderthal! I ain't here to be a mechanic!" "You didn't steal no Clive Livingston Sweet Feet shoes!" "You didn't steal the sunflower seeds. You didn't steal the shoes." "They said he found refuge on God's Thumb." What a great book/movie. Anyway, that kept us going. When we got to where we needed to stop and return home, Brother Williams said he could get the rest of it dug (he'd already done about a quarter of it before we had gotten there) and thanked us for all we had done. The brother who also lived there, who had brought us, needed to get to work and was going to drop us off on the way, so we followed him back to his car and then he took us through a drive-thru, asked if we wanted anything (we said we were fine), and got a drink for himself, and then when we left the drive-thru, he realized that he hadn't offered us a drink. He asked if he could get us something, and we said we were fine, but he offered and asked if we were sure, like, 20 times, and we told him we didn't want to make him late for work, so he was like, "I'll just pull over here at this UDF, and you can grab something." So we did, and then we took off, with the knowledge that we were running a little late for the brother to be able to get to work on time. I've learned on my mission that there's a specific name for the handle above the door inside a car: It's called the "Oh, crap" handle. On the ride home, Elder McVey was white-knuckling the "Oh, crap" handle. The brother driving us was dividing his attention between his drink, the pop-tarts he had bought at UDF, the occasional noise or call inside the car, the GPS (which he said he could beat), and the road and the cars on it, and he was trying to get around a truck in the fast lane. Elder McVey said he was praying the whole time, asking for forgiveness and asking the Lord to let all of us live. We made it safely home, and the brother let us know in a text that he had made it to work 7 minutes early. As we had been pulling into the drive-thru, we got a text from some members who were trying to move out of our apartment complex and needed some help, so when we arrived at our apartment, pretty worn out from the trench-digging, we went and gave them a hand, and then we came in, had lunch, had our personal study and our companion study, and by then it was 5 p.m., so we spent the rest of the evening doing our weekly planning. That evening, we got a call from some elders in the Ohio Cincinnati Mission who had a member in their ward in one of the hospitals here in Columbus, so they asked us if we could give him a blessing. We said we would do it either that day or the next day, Saturday. And that call ended up being a bit of a miracle, because one of the missionaries calling had served in Riverside, so we asked him for some referrals as to who he remembered that we could try to visit (considering most of the people who were in our Area Book aren't there anymore). Overall, the day was a funky day.

The day before, Thursday, we enjoyed some good district councils. We went to district council with OSU so we could get a sense for what work on campus will be like. There was a senior missionary couple there (the Bowmans, I think) who had been out for 2 or 3 weeks that participated in our roleplay (teach the Plan of Salvation in 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute and then 30 seconds). It was fun to get to know them. They're going to be an awesome part of our mission. Then we had interviews with President and Sister Stratford. I always love talking with President. It would be nice to sit down and chat with him for an hour, but unfortunately interviews are only 10 minutes with President and 10 minutes with Sister Stratford. I was able to talk to him about some of the things I've been struggling with and get some advice, so that was nice. After that we had our district's council and talked about developing the Christlike attribute of virtue and about using Facebook for missionary work. It was a good discussion.

On Saturday we actually went to do some service again. There was a member in the Dublin 2nd Ward whose mother, who was not a member (I don't think) had just passed away. She was living in an apartment building within our ward boundary that we had visited before, and we were asked to help move the stuff out. I expected it wouldn't take too much time, but there ended up being about 20 people there, many of them from the Dublin Ward, and we nearly filled up a full-sized moving truck with furniture, plastic tubs of belongings and papers and so forth, cardboard boxes, and other assorted belongings. The back half of the truck was filled to the brim with tubs, and the rest was probably half-full with furniture and other odd-to-pack items. It took a couple of hours to get it all done. One of the members told us that we can use our missions to learn what not to do as an adult, and they told us not to hoard things. It ended up actually being a really cool experience for me, though, because we met a young man there named Daniel Kron who had just returned from serving in the Nevada Las Vegas Mission, where half of my MTC district went on their missions. I asked if he knew any of them, and he said he knew of them. He seems like a really awesome guy, and he's going to be going to school at BYU-Idaho pretty soon. He's looking to study graphic design and get his associate degree and eventually transfer to BYU and go into animation. I told him to try to take some classes from Brother Abegglen. So that was pretty cool. But then we came back and got our studies done and went to the hospital to give that guy a blessing, but he was asleep in his room and there was no one else there, so we felt kind of weird about going in and shutting the curtain and giving him a blessing. We got in touch with the elders who asked us to give the blessing and eventually decided to come back later that night. We attended a ward function and got to know some other members we hadn't met before and then went with our new high councilor to the hospital to give the blessing. It was a really good experience. I got to be the voice, and I was able to promise the man (he had been in a pretty bad accident, if I remember correctly) that he would come out of the experience on the other side having grown and become something more and that the Lord was watching over and caring for hisfamily, and that he would have healing. It's always a privilege to give priesthood blessings. I've learned more and more on my mission about how real the priesthood and priesthood power are. It's one of the wonderful testaments to the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The next day was Sunday, and it was another pretty funky day, scheduling-wise. But there were a few good things that happened: We were able to meet with this great family, the Mills, who have this super-solid son who just got back from serving a mission. We watched "The Music of the Gospel" and had a great discussion about the moments we have felt the Spirit strongly. Also, we had someone at church! His name is Reaves, and he seems awesome. When we've met with him there have been all these things that we feel he already understands about the gospel, like concepts about the plan of salvation that he already has an idea of and already feels are true. So that's exciting.

We experienced a cool miracle this week and were able to find someone new to teach. When we had been talking with her for a while, she said that something told her to talk to us. We asked her what she thought that was, and she said it was just God telling her that it was OK, and that we had a message to give her. We taught her about The Book of Mormon and what it is, and we offered to bring her a copy. We weren't able to get one to her this week, because when we went to give her one at the time we had scheduled, she wasn't there, but we've been in touch with her, and she's still interested, so we're hopeful about her and the other people we're teaching.

We've also been able to meet with some really awesome members this week, and I talked to President about an idea for using Facebook that I'm really excited about, and he seemed to like it, so we may start seeing it work in the next few weeks. I'll update you when things start moving forward on that.

I've been noticing some difficult things going on at home as I've communicated with you and as a few things have shown up on my Facebook feed. I love you all. Keep coming closer to God, and you will be able to bear the difficulties you are experiencing. He doesn't want you to have to go through things alone, but he's also not going to force his way into your life. You have to let him in, you have to want him to be there, and you have to do all you can to invite him, as we are taught in D&C 123:16-17:

"You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.

Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed."

As President Hinckley said, "Things will work out. Keep trying. Be believing. Be happy. Don't get discouraged. Things will work out."

Elder Davis

Our district photo from district council last week. From left to right, Elder Bench, Elder Winn (the Assistants), Elder Klinkowski, Elder Lowry (the Zone Leaders), Elder McVey, Me, Sister Kimball, Sister Linford, Sister Arnett, and Sister Jackson (the Sister Training Leaders).

A bookmark that I've been using as a framework to study The Book of Mormon. It's a 21-day testimony challenge. From the other side: "It's easy! You only need to: Read the assigned scripture for the day; underline one verse that stands out to you; finish the reading with a prayer, asking God if the words you have just read are true and to receive a personal testimony of it. Do this every day, for 21 days, and the promise is that you will receive a witness that The Book of Mormon is the word of God, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's kingdom on this earth again." It's been a cool experience as I've read these passages and knelt in prayer to ask Heavenly Father if they are true. I have felt the Spirit witness to me that that they are.

A cool, weird little tunnel we found when we were out and about one day.

I apologize for not getting a picture of the trench--it didn't occur to me until after we left.