Week 69 - "Through fire... and water..."

Hey, everyone,

This week's quote is from Gandalf the White (played by Sir Ian McKellen) in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It's been an interesting week.

So the day after I sent out my weekly last week we were told we needed to start self-isolating, meaning we needed to stay in the apartment as much as possible (with the exception of trips to the grocery store for essentials and so forth and getting out for some fresh air. But we definitely weren't supposed to visit people, and we definitely weren't supposed to go out and contact people. So we've been in our apartments most of the time since then. At the time, that felt like a relief. I've felt like I've been behind on my sleep basically since I entered the mission field, so I took the opportunity to take a few naps and try to get caught up that way. It was also an indication that this was being taken pretty seriously. But I've learned a lot over those past 6 days. It simultaneously feels like it's been longer and not that long.

Just for a few highlights, Shawn, one of the people we were teaching, asked if we could move his baptism date up to March 21 because he wasn't going to be able to be off this coming Saturday and Sunday. We said that would be fine, and we scrambed to get everything together. We were able to get him an interview with the district leader, take over some jumpsuits for him to try on, and get everything together for Saturday. Long story short, we baptized him, confirmed him, and ordained him to the office of priest in the Aaronic Priesthood all within about an hour. We held a very small baptismal service, as we were asked to, with just a counselor in the branch presidency and his wife, Shawn himself, the two sisters who were teaching him before we got here (Sister Adams and Sister Weir), and us. But it was awesome, and the Spirit was very present. I felt and understood things that are difficult for me to explain, but that have confirmed to me the truth of these initial ordinances and of the doctrines of the church. After his baptism and confirmation Shawn bore powerful testimony about the truth of the church. He's dealt with a lot of obstacles leading up to this and has been on date for baptism several times, but now he's finally gone through with it. He said, "If I'm going to get on this train, I'm going to face the obstacles." He also said, "This church displays God's truest form of love that I've ever seen," and "I never felt or understood the love of Christ before I read The Book of Mormon, and the Bible more." My favorite thing he said was when he was talking about exaltation (he touched on many of the things people ridicule us for in our faith, a few of the anti things people often bring up). He was talking about how people think we think we become gods and get our own planets and stuff, and he was basically saying that's not a good representation of the doctrine, and he explained that God loves us, and we are his children, so he wants to share everything he has with us. He said, "To share everything He has, that's what exaltation is all about!" It was awesome. Shawn is stellar. We're going to do all we can to strengthen him during this weird time, but he seems really self-motivated. He seems like he's on the path and determined to stay on it. He's a great dude. I've included a picture of us at his baptism below.

We've been asked this week, on Thursday, the 26th, to all read The Book of Mormon in a single day. So that's going to be interesting. It will be a fun experiment to go through it that fast. I'll share any insights I had in my next email.

The Coshocton Elders came to our apartment for the past few days because their area was starting to flood, so that's interesting. I'm sure it's hard for people not to feel like it's the end of the world--earthquakes in divers places, famines, pestilences, floods. There's a lot going on. We're definitely passing through some refining trials.

On the topic of insights, I'm still learning a lot about the scriptures, and I write those things down in my journal, but it's hard for me to remember them when my journal's not in front of me (which it isn't, right now). Suffice it to say I'm spiritually lifted every time I study. I feel nourished. That's actually one insight I had during the quarantine. I was noticing that my scripture study wasn't nearly as satisfying as it had been before, and I started to wonder why. We hadn't been working very hard those first couple of days, and as I reflected, I started to realize something: As I've served a mission, when I've come to the scriptures and my study time, I have come in desperation, basically every morning, almost without exception. I have come in great need, starving for the spiritual nourishment the rest of the day would require me to have. At the end of the day, I would feel pretty spent, and by the next morning, I would feel that hunger again for spiritual nourishment and refreshment. So as I thought about it, what I started to realize is that part of the reason the mission is such a time of great growth, not only in spirituality but in our knowledge of the gospel, is that we're focused on the spiritual and expending a great amount of spiritual strength every day. Part of what "feast upon the words of Christ" has come to mean to me has to do with the strength we spend when we are not feasting on those words. When you fast, you appreciate food more because you're deprived of it. It's similar when you've been aware from the scriptures for a long time--it feels when you really get into them like you're coming up for a breath of fresh air. But I've noticed that sometimes that feeling wears off over the resulting few days, and I lapse out of study again (I'm talking about before my mission). In the back of my mind, I guess I've had the question, "Why? Why does that happen?" I think I understand now. It's because I'm not spending that spiritual strength during the day to day. I'm not doing anything to try to lift others, to try to stretch my Spirit and become more like Christ. I'm not making conscious decisions to push myself each day to do something better or further the work. On a mission, though, that's the whole focus of your life, so when you come back to the scriptures, you need to refuel to prepare for the day ahead. That's not always a priority outside the mission--it's easy to feel like you don't need it. It's especially easy to feel like you don't need it when you're in a community full of people who share the same values as you. It's almost as though you're just feeding off the spirituality that the people who are working at it give off. But the kind of study I've been experiencing isn't something that's exclusive to missionary life. When we sincerely seek each day to know the Lord's will and have the power to carry it out, we expend our spiritual strength. When we do that, we grow in the process, we bless the lives of others, and we come back to the study table fasting, with more desire to learn, which means we get more out of our study. If your study has been lapsing, seek the Lord. Seek to know what it is that he wants you to do, and then try to do it. As you do, you will spend spiritual strength, and your study of the gospel will be more fulfilling.

That's about all I have time for right now. Sorry--this one's a bit short, I think. I love you all. Here are some photos from my week, and some memes.

Elder Davis

Us and Shawn at the baptism.

Elder Hansen from Coshocton solved this puzzle I've been trying to solve since Delaware. We've also been doing some 500-piece Disney puzzles I bought last week.