Week 46 - "A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. It's a privilege to be among them."

Hey, everyone.

This week's quote is from the Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Right now I'm sitting in a study room in the library in--guess where? Worthington! I'm in a trio with Elder Bowler and Elder Meyers, his trainee, until transfers tomorrow, at which point I will be meeting Elder Neddo, and we'll head down to Chillicothe to resume work there.

Yesterday Elder Smith and I drove from Chillicothe to Dublin, stopping at a Raising Cane's on the way there for his "last meal," as it were. (Cane's is a chicken fingers fast food place here in Ohio, but I don't think we have them in the West, especially the northwest. I've heard they may have some in Arizona.) Then we met the Worthington Elders at the Dublin chapel, where we relocated our luggage into their Rav4 and drove to Powell to the mission home to drop off Elder Smith, where he joined the other elders and sister heading home, and from where they would go through the temple one last time before heading home. 

Once we were finished with that Elders Bowler and Meyers and myself came back to Worthington and went and visited a new person they're teaching. It was a good visit, though the person was pretty drunk at the time. It made it difficult to get anything across, though I think she knows that we care about her and want to help. She told me that she saw, like, a lightbulb over my head after I testified that what we were teaching her was true (we read Enos with her and talked about prayer), and she thanked us a lot for coming and told us she loved us. Hopefully that and everything else were more the Spirit than they were the alcohol. I'm hoping, tonight and tomorrow morning, to be able to see at least a few people I knew when I was here, especially Nancy Ratey. We dropped by her house last night but didn't have any luck, so we left a note, and we'll try by again sometime today or tomorrow. Now we're just chilling at the library doing some preparation day stuff.

As far as the rest of this last week and a half, it's been good, but pretty crazy. So on Tuesday night we visited a few people in Waverly, including a person we're teaching named Alex who missionaries have been teaching for 6 years who swears up and down that he knows everything we teach is true, but who doesn't want to get baptized until his wife is ready to do it with him. After spending some time with him we drove down to Jackson again to try to help them out for a few days with all their referrals from the Jackson Apple Festival. Both we and the Chillicothe sisters went down, and it was another odd situation being there with them. We all just sat in a room at the church in Jackson with some Won-door curtains sort of dividing us and made calls to the people who had signed up for the raffle we did to see if there were times we could come by to give them their consolation prizes. We also held district council there, and the sisters went out and contacted a few people whom the Jackson elders had set up for them to visit. 

Then Elder Smith and I stayed a second day doing the same thing and left the second evening back to Chillicothe. It's interesting--I don't think I would mind doing that kind of missionary work of making calls to check with referrals, though it did wear on me after the second day--I guess variety makes a real difference. I feel bad for the Jackson elders: They've been doing this all day, every day for probably three weeks now, and they'll keep doing it into the new transfer. I guess we'll be coming down again to help them pretty soon (I was called as district leader again, so we'll be doing training visits with them at least twice this transfer).

That put us at Friday, which was weekly planning, and the next day, Saturday, felt like it was probably the only really good, full, solid day of proselyting and visiting and teaching that we've had this transfer. Maybe it's just been a long transfer, but it seems like there have been all these things that have gotten in the way. It was kind of a cool day, too: We went and visited a member family, the Allens, and got to know them, and then later that day, while we were walking around in Waverly trying to visit a few people we ran into our ward mission leader, who was just coming from the Allens and headed downtown to grab a soda, and then he was going to return to give a few members of the family a priesthood blessing. So he picked us up, took us with him down to the convenience store and bought us each a drink, and then took us back to the house. We walked in and were like, "...hi! It's us again! Brother Cain brought in a couple strays." The priesthood blessings were a good experience. After that Brother Cain took us back to our car. (Side note: He's so awesome. it seems like every time we meet him he's got something to say regarding the gospel and is ready to testify of its truthfulness. He always brings the Spirit with him, and it seems like he's always bolstering our spirits as well. He gets me kind of pumped to do missionary work. He just sees the gospel helping a lot of people and testifies of that.) 

After that we went and talked to Jamie, one of the people we're teaching. We've had a minor concern we've wanted to address, and when we spoke with him, it seemed like everything got cleared up, and the Spirit witnessed to both me and Elder Smith that Jamie is ready for baptism. We're excited to get the date set and everything and get it all set up. It will be great. He's going to be a great member of the ward, and he's going to bless the lives of a lot of people. 

Our Sundays tend to be pretty packed with non-proselyting activities, like meetings and so forth, and this Sunday was no different. We did get to meet with a member of the ward who's in a nursing home. He says while he's been there he's been doing his best to try to spread the gospel to the people who are there and minister to and lift them. We talked to him about Doctrine and Covenants 80:3, which has become one of my favorite scriptures as I've served. It's direction to a missionary that tells him that wherever he decides to go to serve will be fine, "for ye cannot go amiss." I've come to the conclusion that that's because there's work that needs to be done everywhere--there are people everywhere who need to be lifted, who need their burdens lightened, who are struggling under the weight of all life has dealt them and need to be lifted and strengthened. That's what this member in the nursing home was doing: He was lifting where he stood and helping others where he found himself. That's an important and true principle. If you ever want to serve but don't know who you should serve, just find who's available and get started. We can spend all our time looking for a way to triage the individuals we can serve and end up spending no time actually helping them. Sometimes we just have to jump in and contribute somewhere. That's better than spending all our time thinking and planning and ultimately doing nothing at all. And I think the Lord is pleased when we help somehow. Again, there's so much that needs to be done by the large majority of us to help people that "ye cannot go amiss."

Monday we spent a lot of time cleaning the apartment and getting Elder Smith's stuff sorted and everything--since we weren't going to be there on preparation day we felt like we needed to get that stuff done then. That afternoon we went to the library to work on a spreadsheet we just finished making to help us organize information about and inform the ward about the work we're doing with the members. Unfortunately, after we came out of the library, we found out that our car had been the victim of a hit-and-run again, for the second time in two and half weeks. So then we had to get the police to come over to fill out a report and call our vehicle coordinator and so forth. 

Later that night we went to a ward empty nesters activity we had been invited to and tried to get to know a few of the members there, and just before we left, one of the members, Brother George, who studies and teaches about the Hopewell people, a native American civilization that took up residence in the area of Ohio, especially Chillicothe, told us about how closely their written history parallels the history of The Book of Mormon and how there are many signs that point to the idea that this area was where much of The Book of Mormon actually took place. I told him that when my new companion and I came back to Chillicothe, we would be happy to take a preparation day and go out with him to the Hopewell mounds and learn more about it from him. I'll have to tell Elder Neddo about it, and we can take some time to do that someday. I'll be sure to bring my camera and take some good pictures.

The next morning we got everything ready and drove to Dublin to meet the Worthington Elders. Elder Smith and I have had a few deep conversations in the past week or so, and we talked that morning about how he was feeling at the end of his mission. He felt like he was going to get home and sort of wonder if it had all been a dream. He's probably at the airport now. I'd bet his family has already picked him up, and he's headed home. From our conversation, I think he worried that he didn't feel changed from the experience and sort of wasn't going to take anything with him from the mission. I guess he just worried it would be separate from the rest of his life, and like he wouldn't be able to integrate it together, like this would all be something that he just left behind forever: the experiences, the people he met, maybe even the things he learned. He also said he appreciated the mission, especially Ohio, more now that he was at the end of it and sort of didn't want to leave it behind. I got a glimpse into what it might look like when I reach the end of my mission. I think it's motivated me to experience every day and be present and not "wish today away"--to realize that "I'm doing this. I might as well enjoy it."

Now that Elder Smith's gone I feel a bit lonely. I enjoyed serving with him. I'll look forward to seeing him again when the mission's over. Elder Neddo and I will have fun, though. We'll do some good things in Chillicothe.

If you're in Rexburg, keep an eye out for Elder Zachary Winn: He headed home today and was one of the assistants in my mission. He should be back by now.

I love you all.

Elder Davis

Elder Smith, Elder Wiggins, Elder Muhlestein and myself at the church in Jackson.

The Chillicothe District after District Council at the Jackson building (Sister Peterson [right] has an Instax camera and likes preserving memories that way).