Week 77 - "Don't you forget this."

Hello, everyone!

The quote this week is from Robin Williams' Mr. Keating from "Dead Poets Society." He says it after helping a shy young man to find his poetic voice, and he encourages him through the laughter of his classmates. The young man then says something profound and stunning, and his classmates go silent and then applaud, which is when Robin Williams says his line.

Allow me to explain the reason for the quote: Transfers were this Thursday. For some reason I thought they were going to be like any other transfer. I guess I was busy and a little dazed, and I had it running around in my mind that I was jumping into my 12th transfer. We get something called the PBZ (picture by zone) every transfer, and when it's released on Tuesday night, that's when we find out where we're headed. I've been saving and labeling them in my phone for my whole mission, and I was on PBZ 12. What my brain didn't decide to factor in the day and hours leading up to the transfer was that I didn't have the PBZ for my first transfer in the field, meaning that we were jumping into transfer 13. why is that important? Well, it's because I came to Ohio from the missionary training center with five (maybe six?) sister missionaries, three (or four) of whom were still left in the field, and sisters only have twelve transfers. I should have understood that, considering that Elder Henshaw and I talked about he was originally going to go home with the sisters I came out with, but it didn't hit me until I was talking to my new companion, Elder Schreiter, who also came out with me. He pointed out that our sisters were going home, and it sort of broke my brain. I watched those sisters at transfers and just started thinking about...
(CAUTION: if you're still a missionary you may not want to read this next part--it may make you trunky. Consider skipping until the second two asterisks) **what was going to be happening to them the next day. They were going to get up, board a plane, watch out the window as they left Ohio behind, and land at their airport to see their family. They were going to get in a car, go home, get released, and feel that load come off their shoulders and it would all be over. Their mission experience would be behind them.**

That occupied my mind for the next couple of hours. I started thinking about everything that has happened to me the past 18 months (now it doesn't feel like it's been that long, and in some ways it also sort of feels life has always been this way). I thought back to the moments and memories that are precious to me from the time I've spent here and the ways my life has changed. I thought about the things I did and didn't do. I thought about each of my areas and the time I spent in them:
Biking around in Warren on hot summer days and warm summer evenings and driving out to the church in Champion for coordination, to finish and jump back in the car (or on the bikes) to go out to proselyte as the sun was coming down.
I thought about spending time at the church in Chillicothe and meeting the people there.
I thought about the time Elder Gibson, Elder Blake, Elder Smith and I jammed out to Lauren Daigle as we drove on the highway with the windows down after a day of helping clean the Jackson elders' apartment.
I thought about Martin in Delaware.
Honestly, I'm not sure what else I thought about--it was all a blur. It just came with a bunch of different feelings. It made me nostalgic. And I started thinking about whether I've spent all that time well, wondering whether I've done everything I could. I guess it made me think about how I would feel if I had to leave now. Would I feel like I had done enough? Would I feel like I had become enough? No. I'm not finished yet. It was sort of a kick in the pants, but in a good way. I don't want to finish this with regrets, thinking, "I wish I had..."

The advice I got from Brother Hartvigsen before my mission that "You're doing this: You might as well enjoy it," I think helped carry me through the first, more difficult parts of my mission. Now, his other piece of counsel, "Don't wish today away. It only happens once," is starting to hit me. I just watched people I started the race with, cross the finish line. Suddenly I feel an urge to quicken my pace and pick up my feet. I think I've felt something like that up to this point a kind of urgency, but this feeling is different. And I somehow feel the courage and the drive to fulfill that feeling.

The next day was weekly planning, so during study I started thinking about the goals I wanted to have for the week. I haven't been great about taking time to ponder on my goals for the past several weeks, but I did it Friday, and when I did I thought about that feeling, that mixture of feelings, and I was taught that I can ponder on my present experience in that context: How will I feel about what I'm currently experiencing when this is all over? There have been plenty of difficult times, but most of them are things that I look back on now with either indifference or gratitude for what I learned. I've been learning recently that when I go through a trial, it's always contributing to my growth, and when I've finished the trial and look back on it I wonder why I thought it was so difficult. The ways in which I've grown and become have changed my perspective. When I'm in the midst of something hard, I can ask, how will I feel about it when it's all over? Will I look back on it grateful that it's been completed? Maybe. Will I be grateful that I'm not in the middle of it anymore? Perhaps. But will I feel grateful for who I am now that I've come out on the other side? Yes. Will I feel capable of going back and doing it again? Yes. So that has become a goal for me this transfer: To consider, "How will I feel about this when it's all over?" It's weird: In order to be more present I'm focusing my attention on the future, or imagining myself in the context of the future looking back on what is now the present.

So what's happened since that day? Well, Elder Sears reminded me at transfers that we'll be having training visits with him and Elder Foster (the Assistants), so I'm stoked for that, and I'm a zone leader over a district that includes Elder Bond (I did training visits with him in Worthington when I was in Delaware), Elder Jones (he was in a trio with me and Elder Smith in Chillicothe for, like, two days, and he's awesome. He's running for president in 2044, by the way), and Elder de Haan (one of the elders in my MTC district). Our zone also covers Riverside, where I served in my sixth transfer, so that's pretty cool. Elder Schreiter and I have been plugging away here in our apartment. He and Elder Farnworth were on top of doing visits and lessons over video call with members, so we're getting that done (by the way, if you have missionaries in your area right now, one way you can help them is by making yourself available for a video call or phone call and being taught a lesson--they could really benefit from having someone to teach and something to do, and you can be blessed by the Spirit they will bring and the invitations they will extend to you).

We've also got some good people we're teaching, so that's cool. There's an awesome member who converted as a teenager, went out and served a mission in Fresno, and now is back and is helping us teach lessons. His name's Jacob, and he's such a stud. When we were talking with him and I introduced myself he said that some of the best missionaries in his mission were older. I asked him what made them so good, and he said that because they were older you could tell that they had made a choice to come out here and serve a mission. They were here for a reason, and they knew why they were here. He said he could see that in me, which sort of caught me off-guard, but was good for me to hear.

I'm not sure what else I have to share in the way of current events, except that Elder Schreiter is a stud. He's one of the best missionaries out here right now. I mean that. He's awesome. He's a workhorse, and he's wise (he's had to go through some tough things in his life), but he can also keep it light and be a goofball. He's super high-energy and very insightful, and the mission needs that right now. He's a powerhouse.

Oh, also, we went to the mission home, and Sister Stratford gave me and Elder Schreiter both haircuts. And we talked with President a little bit, too. It was good. We had a partial missionary leadership council yesterday, and we'll have another, longer one tomorrow. One of the participants is going to be a sister training leader in the mission but hasn't arrived yet, so she joined the video call. It's so cool how everything can be so different and yet so much the same. The Spirit can be felt over phone calls and over video calls. It's awesome.

I remember I wanted to share a doctrinal insight that I had while reading The Book of Mormon. So I read Jacob 2:18-19, and it says, "But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted." Bouncing around in my mind has been this thought about why the Lord does things the way he does. For instance, why does the Lord have missionaries go out and preach the gospel when he could just appear to people or send angels to teach them? I think there are multiple reasons, but the primary reason I've learned is that it's an opportunity for us. It's a benefit to us to participate in the work of salvation. So then I thought a similar thought while reading this scripture: Why does God give us things? It's so that we can give them to others. "Ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good." Why is that the process by which he works? I think it's because he wants those of us who are the givers to grow.

This is what I wrote in my study journal: "It is as though we are package delivery people: He gives us something to take to someone else. If we take it, that's stealing. Maybe that's what the Lord means when he says, '"Wherein have we robbed thee?" ... In tithes and offerings.' If God wanted to get things to people, why wouldn't he give them directly to them? Because he wants us to be involved in that process. Do we have any idea how much he loves those of us who are his servants? We are the middlemen, and he could simply cut us out. It may even be easier to do that, and whether he did the work himself or through someone else the job would get done better--but he chooses to allow the job to be done imperfectly for now so we will get the chance to learn and grow and become more like him. That's what's important to him. How much does he loves us that he recruits us to do the job of gathering his other children imperfectly so that we can learn and grow? He loves us a whole lot. He wants us to become something more, and he allows us to make some mistakes ... in order to do it. That's a lot of love, trust and regard."

Well, that's all I have for this week. Love you all!

Elder Davis

Some more Robin Williams I saw on Facebook a while ago.