Week 45 - "You'll have a tale or two to tell when you come back." "Can you promise that I will come back?" "...no. And if you do, you will not be the same."

Hi, everyone!

This week's subject line is from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I was already planning on using it earlier in the week, so you can imagine my excitement (and surprise) to hear Elder Uchtdorf begin his conference talk with the opening lines of the book: "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit." We watched conference from the chapel in Chillicothe, and I so appreciated that Elder Uchtdorf's talk used J.R.R. Tolkien's classic as one of its subjects. It warms my heart to think that he puts that just a rung or two below aviation. Although it doesn't surprise me that Lord of the Rings would be used as subject matter for a good conference talk: Growing up my friend Grant Holyoak often gave devotionals in seminary using Lord of the Rings as his starting point. I hope you got as much joy out of that talk as I did, Grant!

Speaking of Grant, his advice is one of the reasons for the subject line. He once told me that going on a mission is an adventure in the same way that the hobbits' journey in Lord of the Rings was an adventure. What we come out to do isn't always what we expected, and it ends up having a real impact on our lives and on the lives of others, and it's difficult and gritty. Basically, Sam's monologue at the end of The Two Towers is a good description of what an adventure truly is. 

The other reason for the subject line is that the mission has been changing me, and I hope it continues to change me. Earlier this week when I had some time to ponder I sat and thought about how I feel about my mission experience. If you had asked me a month or two ago whether I would recommend going on a mission to my own children, I would have told you it would be really, really hard for me to want to encourage them to do it. It's rough. You learn a lot about the world and everything that's wrong with it and about other people and everything that's wrong with them, and then you get to the real and really tough part of learning about yourself and everything that's wrong with you. You definitely get tested in and taken to the extremes of your experience in life up to this point, and you have to face some pretty stark truths about the ways you need to make change. There's a lot I feel I'm not doing well enough. I don't think the Savior would necessarily want me to feel that way, at least he wouldn't want me to feel discouraged, but it's the way I've been feeling recently. All that being said, as you experience these challenges, and you strive to adapt and become the person you know you want to be, the person you're capable of becoming, you're able to make that change with the Lord's help and become something more and something better. I know I'm a nerd, and I know I've said it before, but being on a mission really is like getting an XP booster and attribute buffs in a roleplaying game: You really are enabled to do so much more, and you really do learn and change and become and develop so much more than you would in your usual home environment. That's been my experience, anyhow. And sometimes that's hard, and it's exhausting, but the end result is well worth everything you go through to get it, though it doesn't feel that way when you're right in the middle of it all.

When I was preparing to serve a mission, I asked a lot of people if they felt like their missions changed them, and they said that they did, and that scared me. I didn't know what to make of that. Honestly, I felt like I was going to go out and serve a mission and a part of me was going to die--I felt like I was going to come back someone completely different from who I was before. But what I've come to realize is that as you come to the Lord in fervent prayer and sincerely ask for his help and do all you can to be the person he needs you to be, the changes that take place only serve to make you more of who you, deep inside, already felt you were and wanted to be. They only serve to manifest the real you--the true you--the you that you can be happy with and proud of and content to be. I have felt in my own small way the paradoxical and yet very real and very significant truth that, "whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matt. 16:25). I'm finding as I serve a mission that I'm becoming more and more the person that I wish I could be. It's in ways and at a rate that are almost imperceptible, but I think if you could stand me side by side with the person I was before I left, you'd notice some significant differences, and you'd prefer to be with current me rather than past me. I think part of the reason we're a little startled by returned missionaries is that we expect the same person who left to be the one who returns, but hopefully the person who comes back is a little closer to Christ and behaves a little more like him. That is, or should be, part of a missionary's goal, after all, as a representative of the Savior.

So as far as what's actually happened this week, it's been pretty crazy. Monday night we traveled to Gahanna for a training visit with the zone leaders and spent the next day serving again. On our way out of town we picked up some donuts from an original Krispy Kreme (edit: Crispie Creme). They were really good, and I'm worried that if I stay in Chillicothe my wallet will get thinner and I'll get fatter. ;) After training visits with the zone leaders we stayed the night again and went to interviews the next day. I spoke with President about how my mission is going and got some really good advice from him that I appreciated, and I also asked him for a priesthood blessing, which was really helpful. There were some specific things he told me in the blessing that really strengthened me. 

After that I got to give a training in district council on the Christlike attribute of patience, an attribute I'm definitely still in the process of developing. I should go back over my plan for that training and take some of my own advice. I used as my subject, at least in part, 1 Nephi 5:1-8. Notice how Lehi feels in comparison to the way Sariah feels, and notice the tense of the verb "obtain" Lehi uses in verse 5, and remember that the family is still in the wilderness at this time. How can we be more like Lehi when it comes to faith, hope and patience? (Side note: do you ever have that experience where you teach someone something or tell them to do something and then realize that the words coming out of your mouth are something you need to hear yourself?) 

Anyhow, after that we spent a little time in Canal Winchester, where the interviews were, and waited for some materials to come that we were going to take down to Jackson with us for our training visit with them. The morning after we arrived in Jackson, we were pulling out of the driveway all together in their Tacoma, and Elder Smith noticed our car was dented (pretty heavily dented) on the passenger side. We realized that we had been the victim of a hit-and-run, so after trying to figure out where it happened (based on the different people we asked who had seen our car before and after the dent, the accident happened in the Gahanna elders' apartment parking lot), we had to kabosh the training visit and head all the way back up to Gahanna to ask an officer to come meet with us so we could file a police report. That basically took up the rest of our day. The next day the Gahanna elders were coming to meet us so we could help them clean out and dedicate some apartments. After getting an estimate on the car, we met them at the Chillicothe Sisters' apartment, did a little reorganizing and cleaning (Elder Blake and Elder Gibson are very into cleaning/organizing/feng shui, and Elder Smith is very into cleaning), and then dedicated the apartment. It was weird. We were all in our service clothes, two sets of elders and a set of sisters in the sisters' apartment. Someone commented "It's like having friends over!" It was really odd. 

Anyhow, after that we went to our apartment and dedicated it and then headed down to Jackson to do the same thing there. Elder Gibson and Elder Blake did some real work reorganizing and rearranging the rooms and everything, and afterward it felt a lot better. The energy of the apartment was more harmonious. It was going to be Elder Smith's birthday the next day, and his mom had sent me a package to throw him a little party and make him a cake and everything, so we baked the cake and stuff while we were down there, too, and then we celebrated when the Jackson Elders came back for the evening and rededicated the apartment. Then the zone leaders took us home. The next day (Saturday) we helped a family move into the ward and watched General Conference, and then Sunday was General Conference as well. I noticed a big theme this year of commitment. I felt Elder Holland's opening talk (the end of which, by the way, felt like a mic drop: "Welcome to General Conference.") had that theme, as did the talks by Elder Terence M. Vinson, Elder Steven W. Owen, and Elder Uchtdorf, and there were echoes of that theme throughout many other talks. My trainer once said when we were discussing the impact of the changes in church length and the Come, Follow Me program is that there will no longer be a spiritual middle class. It will no longer be enough to simply go to church every week. We'll need to make the gospel a greater and more consistent part of our lives if we're going to be able to survive spiritually. It has to be a part of who we are. I also really loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk, for reasons that have been stated, but I think my favorite talk was President Henry B. Eyring's, at the beginning of the Sunday afternoon session. I've decided I want to be like President Eyring when I grow up. When he was speaking, I felt overwhelmed with feelings of safety, peace, comfort, rest and contentedness. I want to be the kind of person who can bring those feelings to others because of who I am and how I have prepared in my life. I think those are the kinds of changes serving a mission can bring to a person, and I hope they're the kinds of changes a mission brings to me.

So that's my week this week. You won't hear from me again until at least Wednesday, because that's when transfers will take place. Elder Smith will get shipped out on Monday, I think, and I'll probably go join some missionaries to be in a trio for a few days, and then I'll find out whether or not I'm getting transferred and who my next companion will be. 

This week will be pretty crazy--we may need to swap out the car for a loaner while it gets repaired, and we're going to be in Jackson on Wednesday and Thursday to help them contact Apple Festival referrals. We've probably been out of our area for a good, solid two weeks during the course of this transfer. It's been crazy. Hopefully I and/or whoever comes in next transfer will be able to do some good work here.

I love you all! Do what you can to share the truths of the gospel in small ways with the people around you, be they members of the church or not. Be kind. Love one another. Serve one another. Be a representative of Jesus Christ. Condemn not. Do something today and make a difference.

Elder Davis

The donut box.

The donuts.

Elder Smith's cake.