Week 78 - "You're not the devil. You're practice."
Hey, everyone!
This email may be a bit shorter because right now I don't have access to my keyboard, but I may later tonight. I guess we'll see.
The quote is from Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins. It seemed appropriate for a couple reasons: The first is that we had went through kind of a difficult patch in the middle of the week, but it's over now. I'll get to that later in the email. It was a tough thing to struggle through, and I guess I'm kind of trying to downplay Satan and his antics with the quote. I've got a bit of a defiant attitude now, like, "Give me some more. I dare you." The scriptures say you're not supposed to tempt (or test) God, but I wonder if they ever say anything about tempting or goading Satan.
I've also been getting a lot of practice at doing some unfamiliar things recently, so the quote kind of works.
So the first thing about this week is that we had a couple of training visits. We did them with Riverside on Wednesday and then with Greenfield on Thursday. Elder Boyce and Elder Lyman are serving at Riverside, and I was with Elder Boyce. He seems like all-around a pretty cool guy. I think he and I will be able to get along as we get to know each other more. Which, by the way, we spent some time with them today. Their car was just taken away (I know that feel--Elder McVey and I were in a car share in Riverside), so we needed to go pick them up to help them get groceries. And then we spent some time at the church (theirs is the one next to the temple--they did not want to be in their apartment because their A/C is broken, so it was 85 degrees in there), and we sort of just hung out, played some piano and chatted. Also, Elder Lyman and Elder Boyce made a video. So they had posted something a while ago (maybe a video), and randomly some guy reached out and was like, "You should do a Mr. Rogers video." So they did. They had been working on it for a while, and they recorded it today. I'll link you to it on Facebook once it gets put up. I'll probably share it to my own wall. Anyway, after the training visit with Riverside, we met in the middle with Greenfield, and I went with Elder de Haan (from my MTC district) and Elder Bond (who I served with in Worthington) back to Greenfield, and Elder Jones (who I was in a trio with for, like, two days back in Chillicothe when Elder Smith and I first arrived there) and Elder Schreiter went back to OSU. The day with the Greenfield elders was pretty fun. We recorded a video for the zone focus and then also recorded one where Elder de Haan deconstructed and then reconstructed a LEGO set to talk about the 17 points of Jesus Christ's church. Later that day we went and did some service (which President Stratford had apparently approved) where we directed cars in a parking lot to prepare for a parade. Basically, since COVID-19 kaboshed a bunch of seniors' graduation, what McClain High School decided to do was just have a parade for the seniors where they would come in their cars, start at a parking lot, drive down to a designated point, and then drive back, and there was a radio station that was announcing their graduation, honors, and their plans, name by name. So that was pretty neat. It was a cool way to sort of get our faces out there and help out. We basically just directed cars to form lines in an orderly fashion so that when they came in and then left the parking lot it wouldn't be chaos. It was weirdly nostalgic. It just got me thinking about high school and that feeling that everything is ahead of you and the world is your oyster and you can go on to do anything you want. I wonder why we don't hold on to that feeling later in life. That's a good feeling, and it would be a good one to call on when things get tough.
So then I had a long talk with Elder Bond (because when we got back Elder de Haan crashed on the couch), and that was cool. I was able to get to know him better. We had a fun time. Trio life is great. I wish I had been able to talk with Elder de Haan more, though. I've never served around anyone in my MTC district until this transfer. I don't think I've ever even had any of my MTC district in the same zone until this transfer. I guess we'll get another opportunity sometime, since we'll need to do another training visit with Greenfield sometime this transfer.
So basically I got some practice doing training visits as a zone leader. It feels a little different. It's interesting: I looked at those in leadership positions as having a lot of authority, but I don't feel too different being a zone leader. I wonder if other people look at me as that authority figure, too. It's kind of a weird thought. The best zone leaders I had, though, weren't people who liked to play the authority card. They were the ones who would basically just put an arm around me, as it were, and uplift me, so that's what I want to do for other missionaries.
In other news this week, we had Mission Leadership Council, and that was interesting being a part of for the first time. It's basically just like any other missionary meeting. President called on me to share some of my thoughts that I talked with him about in my weekly email. I basically talked about how there are missionaries with talents (sometimes those who are extremely talented) who feel that to use their talents for missionary work is not really equivalent to being a missionary. I hoped that leadership could start to understand that that's a bad principle, so I appreciated that President had me talk about it. Later this week I saw a video from some of the Sister Training Leaders where they played guitar and sang a song (https://m.facebook.com/
What else? We have had some really great lessons with members and with people we're teaching. There's one in particular, Nohemí, who is reading The Book of Mormon, finding comfort and peace from it, and asking really great questions about it. I've wondered for a long time as a missionary who the elect are, like what their characteristics are, what they do, and Nohemí seems super elect. We had some members in the lesson with her who came in CLUTCH. She had read Mosiah 14 and 15, and there was a passage in 14 that said "with his stripes we are healed," and she was like, "What are the stripes being talked about there? What does that mean?" And Jacob Wyne, a member of the ward, who was a convert in his teenage years and decided to serve a mission after his conversion, knows Spanish, which is (I think) Nohemí's first language, and he was like, "So in the Spanish translation, the word they use there is 'llagas.'" And she was like, "Ohhhhh." So it was an awesome way for him to help her understand something in the scriptures. And then the other member who was there, Emily, explained some things about how we are the seed of Christ, or how we become his children, and it was just really good.
As far as the difficult situation we went through earlier this week, there was a recent convert from a previous area who I saw a message from who said he would no longer be meeting with the missionaries, and then he posted some things on Facebook about how he was looking for a Bible-based church to get him "back on track," and he wrote some other things as well, like a statement of Trinitarian belief and something about the word "gods" in the scriptures. So that was pretty discouraging. He's no longer my responsibility, so I just kind of was like, "Well, I guess the missionaries in that area will take care of that. Except that after I saw the message "We won't be meeting anymore" I reached out to him and asked what was wrong and if maybe the elders hadn't been able to answer one of his questions or something. I also prayed and asked Heavenly Father to send some specific people who are important to me to help him. That event, coupled with a conversation we had with an evangelical guy where we talked about some of our different beliefs (very politely and civilly, but still), put me into a bit of a funk, and I had to marinate in that for a little while to try to find answers to some of my own questions. But I came out the other side having grown some, and then when the recent convert messaged me back I felt huge relief. He said he was stressed and anxious, and we arranged a time for me and Elder Schreiter to meet with him. So we're going to talk to him. It's rough because he doesn't have a lot of support right now, so I'm not sure how to help him. He's a pretty new convert and married to someone who's not necessarily supportive. But anyway, it was a nice feeling for that to be turned around, because I was having some trouble dealing with it.
Also, on Sunday morning, we were guinea pigs for the zone and held the first live devotional event on our zone Facebook page. We talked about the Come, Follow Me lesson for this week. It was all right. Elder Schreiter and I didn't really come into it on the same page, but we'll do better next time if we get the chance. I also learned a lot about how to effectively do live video. It's a little different. If you want to watch it it's here (https://www.facebook.com/
I don't have much else to report, so I guess I'll just share something from my studies. One thing I'm learning about right now is pride. So I was reading in Jacob 2, and I was continuing the Book of Mormon challenge we were given at Christmas to go through the whole Book of Mormon and underline God's commandments in red, blessings for keeping those commandments in green, and consequences of not keeping them in blue, and I had some insights. So if you look at Jacob 2:17-19 and mark it up that way, what you start to see is that by virtue of our obedience to God's commandments we will be blessed with a change of heart. At least that's what I learned from it. Then I went on to read verse 21, and here's what I wrote in my journal: "to place ourselves above one another or greater than one another is pride, and it is sinful. The Lord esteemeth all flesh in one. One being is as precious in his sight as the other. Every single person you talk to is loved and esteemed of God. Every single person you talk to is precious to him." Then I sort of got into analyzing where I fall short when it comes to that, because I do have a problem with measuring people's value. To me, everyone's value is not necessarily the same, but to God, everyone's value is the same. So I'm working on that. Also, I've been reading in Numbers (because I'm trying to get through five books of the Bible this transfer--I've been reading in my spare time, in breaks, and I finished Leviticus at the beginning of this week), and I've found some interesting things there. There are definitely chapters that are less interesting (like one where Moses lists individually literally exactly the same items that each prince of the twelve tribes of Israel gave for an offering. It's about 86 verses long, and he summarizes it at the end, but not before telling you the same thing twelve times, and I'm not sure what the purpose of that was--maybe there's something symbolic about how important each of our individual sacrifices are to the Lord). But it's an interesting chapter. Also, in Numbers 10:29 I found the name of Moses' father-in-law, so that was cool.
Well, there's not much more to say. I'll attach a couple photos. Things are going pretty well. We're teaching a lot of lessons to members and trying to use Facebook in new and different ways. Also the social media specialists are testing out Instagram right now, so... that's going to be interesting. When Elder Schreiter saw an email about it in our inbox (they used our area email to set up the account) he literally threw it away from him and was like, "NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO."
Well, I hope y'all have a great week! Keep smiling!
Elder Davis
Memes.
A picture of all four of us today. Left to right, me, Elder Schreiter, Elder Boyce, and Elder Lyman.
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