Week 52 - "I'm here to get validated, please."
Hey, everyone,
So I'm sort of cheating this week: The quote may not be exactly precise, but it's from a short film on YouTube called "Validation" that you should watch. It's a movie, it's just not a feature film. But I'll draw the line there--I won't start quoting obscure YouTube videos in my subject lines. The reason for the quote will appear later on in the email.
[I added this for Gabe. It's a must see! So worth 16 minutes]
Well, Thanksgiving will make it a year. One year since I've been away from home either preparing in the MTC to serve a mission or serving in the field. It's weird. I've felt a sense of relief today, and I'm not sure if that's the source, but I feel more relaxed than before, and I think the timing may have something to do with it. If you've done something once, you know you can, so doing it one more time doesn't seem like as big of a deal. Considering everything I've learned and gained over the past year, doing another year of missionary service seems not quite so daunting. I feel more prepared for the next year. It's probably going to fly by, too... I don't think I expected to be where I am in just one year on my mission. It's like it's both been enough time and not enough time. I feel in some ways like I've been out for more than a year and in other ways like I've been out for less than a year. I guess the long and short of it is that the experience hasn't been what I was expecting.
To get the important news out of the way, I'll let you know that I'm getting transferred! After two transfers here in Chillicothe I'm returning to the Marysville District, the district I started my mission in. I'll be the companion to the district leader, Elder Sears, and I'll get to do training visits in Marysville with the zone leaders and with the Worthington elders there in Delaware and keep up to date on everything that's going on in my first area. So back up to Columbus we go. Delaware is relatively far north from Columbus proper, though. The closest I've ever been to Columbus proper is Riverside. The road so far has been two transfers in Worthington, three in Warren, one in Riverside, and two in Chillicothe. Now we'll add one in Delaware.
So the biggest event of this week, and the reason for the subject line, was that we met Elder and Sister Uchtdorf. They came to the mission for a conference, and it was really good. We got to take a picture with them, we shook their hands as a photographer took photos (I'm still waiting for mine--I don't know if we'll receive them personally or if they'll just be sent to our families), and then we listened to them speak. (Side note: We were asked to give our name and where we were from to Elder and Sister Uchtdorf, so when I shook their hands, I said, "Elder Davis, Rexburg, Idaho," and Elder Uchtdorf was like, "We know where that is." :) It made me smile.
As I've worked here in Chillicothe I've constantly wondered if the kind of work we've been doing has been the kind of work the Lord wants done or if it's simply been the kind of work I've been inclined to do. I've continually asked for assurances that what we've been doing is what the Lord wants, and I've felt and seen assurances in many different instances. Once I asked for that assurance, and then we met with someone that evening whose complaint was exactly about the sort of thing we're trying to solve in our area. I've felt the approval of the Spirit and of the Savior as I've prayed, and there have been other evidences, like breakthroughs we've seen in the area. Well, before Elder Uchtdorf came I had another difficult day and asked the Lord to reassure us that we were going the right direction. The whole meeting there were things Elder Uchtdorf said that jumped out at me that helped me know that we are indeed doing what he wants, or at the very least that I'm learning the things I'm supposed to be learning. I felt very validated and reassured. Among the things Elder Uchtdorf said were as follows:
• When you approach people, listen to them! Listen to who they are!
• We are here to find, teach, baptize, and make disciples, but there is even more to this process.
• Why are you here? Maybe it's because you're supposed to be the leader in this part of the mission or the companion to that missionary.
• You should find your purpose anew and afresh every day.
• You are called to serve, and God has a specific purpose for you to be here (I really believe that).
• "Come and belong." Look for belonging. Make people feel welcome! Be welcome among yourselves. Make sure there aren't any cliques. Remind yourself always that you are servants of the Lord. There aren't these groups within that separate you--you are one group.
• He told a story about bringing a woman to a meeting, though the meeting didn't go quite as smoothly as he would have hoped, and he was embarrassed, but when she walked away, she said, "This was amazing how these people cared for each other in their diversity!" That's what should be happening.
• There are ways of sharing the gospel that we don't think about. We think certain things are exclusively for church members, like "For the Strength of Youth," but how many parents are looking for their children to have moral values, and would like help to do that? We can share these parts of the restored church with them, and then they can come and see what the rest of it is about. We need to connect people with the wonderful teachings we have that meet their needs. Why do we start people reading at the beginning of The Book of Mormon? Why don't we show them the passages that apply to their situation first?
• Ask yourself what the gospel has for the people you meet, and offer them the blessing it has for them. That's how you find.
• Minister to all. Use the ministering concept to bring the ideas of missionary work to your ward. Communicate with the organization presidencies and share your experiences with them! Help them feel the beauty of missionary work. Teach them. Practice teaching them in their home. Find the lesson size and topic that fits your personality. Teach it in the way you feel comfortable. Teach so you can understand it. Keep it simple. Be yourself. Bear YOUR witness.
Practice teachings the lessons to the members. Then they will get a sense for how you teach and may feel more comfortable having you teach their friends.
• There are over 20,000 convert baptisms in the church each month. To visualize that, that's the conference center filled to capacity each month with new converts.
• The baptisms in your mission don't belong to one companionship. They belong to the whole mission. You're a team.
• The Hope of Israel is the gift by our Savior, Jesus Christ, that enables us to repent. Leave past transgressions alone. Let them heal. You wonder, "Had God really forgiven me?" Then Satan comes in. Accept the Savior's gift. Embrace it. Do not push it away. If you have gone through that process of repentance, you have been forgiven of your sins.
• Jesus Christ is our Savior. That's our message. Accept him and his gift.
• When things are getting hard and you're struggling, sacrifice those things on the altar of the Lord (in other words, at the end of the day, approach the Lord, and offer the difficult experiences you have had that day as your sacrifice to him. When you finish a day, offer it to the Lord as your sacrifice. You can consecrate it).
(Not all those notes were verbatim, it's just what I wrote down as he was speaking or paraphrase from my notes.)
He also bore a powerful testimony. He said, "Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World. He lives. He is real. He knows you better than you know yourself. He is for you." (there may be some ellipses in there--I was writing as fast as I could--but those were some of the things he said). That testimony may seem pretty ordinary, but there was a great power to hearing it in person. There was a force and an assurance behind it.
At the end of the meeting he left us with a blessing. He blessed us that we would find joy in our service, and that through the joy of the gospel we would feel the highest joyful feelings, both during our mission and the life after. He also said, and this may not have been the exact phrasing, but this is what I wrote, "Among your family many wounds will be healed, and those whom you are worried about will be blessed. This will be because of your dedicated service. You will see it on your mission."
So that was awesome. I feel like I'm not doing a great job at explaining how awesome it was, but hopefully you can understand. I just felt like a lot of what he said matched with my own perception of missionary work and with thoughts that have come to my mind in the past several months. So I felt very validated.
In other news, we had two training visits this past week, one with the Jackson elders and one with the zone leaders, both in Chillicothe. Those were good. We got to ride with the Jackson elders to the conference with Elder Uchtdorf, which was fun. There's also going to be a Christmas mission conference, so that will be fun. Several missionaries will be leaving a few days after, so they'll be giving their departing testimonies there.
What else happened? We had a meeting about "A Night in Bethlehem" in the ward, which made me super excited for it, but I'm a bit bummed now, considering I won't be here. We played volleyball and dodgeball one evening with some members and nonmembers at the church, and that was fun. That's basically it. That's about the extent of what I have to share. I hope your week goes well, and you'll hear from me this coming Monday.
Elder Davis
Oh, yeah. I cooked a chicken this morning. Sister Petersen bought some chicks at last year's Jackson Apple Festival, and then a member family raised them and butchered them for her, and she happened to be there to get them, so she ended up with three chickens last transfer after the Jackson Apple Festival. We stuck ours in the freezer, and I figured if I didn't do something with it it would eventually just get thrown out. So I found a Chef John recipe on dinner spinner and cooked it. It seemed OK, and we cooked it according to the instructions, so hopefully the meat we cut off it is good.
This turtle was carved from a stump. It's pretty neat.
Our last district photo.
Blast from the past.
This was the picture with the bear that was taken in Ashtabula about 6 months ago. It was recently posted on Facebook, and I was tagged in it, so I snagged it. I thought I had mentioned it in an email, but I searched "bear" in my sent emails and couldn't find it, so maybe I just wrote it in my journal. There's a family in Ashtabula that has all the missionaries take a picture with this giant teddy bear. I can't remember what his name is.
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