Week 49 - "I feel like I'm taking CRAZY pills!!!"

Hey everyone!

It's been another crazy week here in Chillicothe, but it's definitely been a good one, too. The quote is from Zoolander, which I'm not necessarily proud of, but it's what sprang to mind as I was frantically writing to get this out and thinking about the events of the week.

One of the biggest highlights this week was zone conference. Honestly, I came into it kind of feeling off, like I wasn't going to leave it feeling as rejuvenated as I have in the past, like I was going to be disappointed and discouraged. But I put those thoughts out of my mind and tried to make the best of the conference, and I had a lot of great experiences. 

President taught us some very important and encouraging things. We also got some sneak peeks at a few things that have yet to be released in the church. I'll talk about those in a few paragraphs.

One of the things President talked about was self-worth. He said if our self-worth is in numbers or overthinking that needs to change. That was a relief to hear. He said our self-worth needs to be in the things we can control, and really, technically, seeing as all the key indicators involve the agency of other people, they aren't entirely under our control. It's sort of just a recipe for misery when we decide to place our self-worth or our happiness on things we can't control. At the conference someone quoted a line from "The Belief Window," a talk by a man named Hyrum Smith, where he says, "If your self-worth is dependent on anything other than your relationship with Christ, you are deep trouble." 

Just as a side note, I think to me one of Jesus Christ's most important attributes is his constancy. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and he constantly invites us to come unto him, and he will not forsake us. That's the kind of person I want to be. 

Anyway, President Stratford asked us not to put our confidence and self-worth in the key indicators because they are not within our control: They are within the Lord's control. He said we should put our confidence and self-worth in the things we can control. He said if we work our hardest all day and seek to follow the Spirit and do everything in our power and report zeroes for that day, we should still be proud of ourselves. That was a helpful thing to hear, especially considering how much of our focus this past two transfers has been on less-active and inactive members, whose progress isn't measured by the key indicators. Though that may change in the future. Who knows.

That day President Stratford and Sister Stratford also showed us the cover of the new handbooks, which we will be receiving on November 15, and answered our questions about it. President said that those missionaries who are really seeking to become consecrated will soar under the new standards (they're called standards and not rules now) and be free of restraints, but that those who refused to would not. I hope I am the former type of missionary, and if I'm not, I want to change.

I guess I just felt like the whole conference resonated with me. There were so many things said that I was like, "Yes! That's what we need to be doing! Yes!" It felt good. Anyway, near the end of the conference, we talked about 

#LighttheWorld and got to see a video called "The Christ Child," that will be released November 24. Max, you'll be pleased to hear that all the lines are in Hebrew, not English. There also weren't any subtitles, and I'm not sure if that's going to change, but they weren't necessary--we still understood what was going on, and it made me think a lot, which I think made me open to greater understanding. I really liked the depiction of the wise men, and I appreciated that they went a slightly different direction with the story (within the bounds the scriptures have set, of course). It was very emotional. So look forward to that! I think it's about 25 minutes, if I remember correctly. We were also told that there will be a special Christmas service on December 22.

This week I was also introduced to a pair of videos called "Days of Harmony" and "A Day for the Eternities" about David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery that the church has been showing in visitor's centers but that I hadn't seen before. The actor who played Jesus in the Bible Videos plays Joseph Smith in them. I really enjoyed them. They're on the church website somewhere--you may have to search for them, but they're super good, and you should look them up. Those were longer, too, maybe about 25 minutes apiece.

At the end of zone conference we had departing testimonies. One of the missionaries who was leaving was a missionary who came to serve in this mission while he waited for his visa to Brazil, so he gave a departing testimony. He's actually still in training. He said that God has answered all his prayers from the time he entered the MTC to the night before, when he asked that his visa could come (he found out his visa had come that day). He said he knows that Heavenly Father has a plan for him, and that his being in this mission was all part of the plan. He testified that Heavenly Father will give us everything we need to complete our journey.

Sunday was also a very spiritually uplifting day. There were some great testimonies in Sacrament meeting. Brother Cain, our ward mission leader, had attended the temple the day before, and he bore testimony of his experience, saying, "You can go [in the temple] with shoulders burdened with a load of care and leave with shoulders free and ready to take on someone else's burden." I felt I had to write that down--it was so good. There was also a different man who got up and expressed gratitude for the Sacrament. He struggles with a pornography addiction and said because of that it's sometimes appropriate for him not to take the Sacrament, and this was one of those days for him that it was appropriate for him not to take it. He got up and bore testimony of the importance of the Sacrament and the privilege it is to take it. It was powerful.

Let's see, what else happened this week? On Sunday we went with our ward mission leader and met a member who has three alpacas, two sheep, about 25 chickens, two rabbits, at least five dogs, multiple cats and a Shetland pony, so that was fun. I'm sorry for not taking pictures. 

We also gave a blessing to a member who just moved in after being in Chicago for a year. She asked us to decide who was going to be the voice, and I felt like I shouldn't be and needed to anoint, so Elder Neddo was the voice, and he said exactly what she needed to hear. It was awesome.

We also had some complications from Halloween. We weren't supposed to be out proselyting Halloween night, and then on Saturday we found out that the time kids were going to be out trick-or-treating was actually taking place that day in many of the communities in our area, so we spent some time just tending to administrative stuff in the car (we were in Waverly, about 30 miles from our apartment) and watching those two videos I recommended to you earlier in the email. Out here Halloween and the day you go around and ask for candy (which is evidently called Beggars' day) are not necessarily the same day. I guess it can be unsafe for kids to be out when adults are celebrating the holiday. :/ 

So anyway... That day we had a great visit with a couple of members of the ward who have a whole room in their house dedicated to just sharing the gospel with people. There's a picture of a resurrection lily on the wall that has great significance to the husband because of his conversion story, which he told us. He was very angry with God, and he needed his yard weeded, and he offered a lot of money for some teenagers to do it, and they turned him down, and then some sister missionaries knocked on his door to talk to him, and he said he was busy and needed to get some stuff done, including the weeds, and they volunteered to help him. They came back for an appointment later, and he was sick and started to turn them away, but then he realized that they had probably seen a lot of appointments fall through that day, so he spoke to them, and they gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon. He started reading it like a novel that night, and he got three pages in and then realized the density of what was there and went back to start really studying it and cross-referencing it, and the next time they came he had read about 90 pages and had three pages of written questions. When they came, he talked with them, and he felt the Spirit very strongly as they testified, and then they left. He had some spare water in a pitcher that he dumped over the side of his porch. The next week when they came, they noticed a flower had grown there: a resurrection lily. So he took a photo of it, and he shares it with missionaries. One missionary in the past pointed out that there was water in the pitcher and the fire of the Holy Ghost in that circumstance, and so it was sort of symbolic of baptism. It reminded me of Alma 32: He had had the seed planted with that first teaching encounter, and he watered it with the second, and it sprouted and began to grow. It was really cool how his conversion story had all this symbolism. Anyhow, our visit with them was really good. We were really able to get a sense of the things we can do to help the ward, and we're hoping to implement those things this week, though it's going to be a pretty insane week: We'll be going to do a training visit with the zone leaders on Wednesday and traveling Tuesday night to get there, we have interviews the next day ,Thursday, and weekly planning, which tends to take up a large chunk of the day, is on Friday. We'll probably also be getting a call in the near future about repairing our car, which may mean we'll have to drive to Columbus to get a replacement or something. Who knows. Anyway, it seems like it's shaping up to be another one of those transfers.

We had a great training visit with the Jackson Elders Wednesday where they came here to Chillicothe, and Elder Wiggins and I spent a lot of time working with members and trying to locate some in the lower part of our area, and it felt really good. It felt like the Lord was telling us he was pleased with our efforts. 

Oh, also, because we've been focusing on members, we communicate with the sister missionaries a bit more, and one of them had the idea that, seeing as zone conference was on Halloween, we could "dress up," as Clue characters, essentially meaning the elders would wear a tie of a Clue character color and carry a "weapon." So we just kind of did that on the down low, just for our own amusement. Picture attached.

Love you all! I hope things are going well for you.

Elder Davis