Week 85 - "You know what I'm craving? A little... perspective."

Hey, everyone. The quote this week is from Anton Ego in Ratatouille. It came to mind a few days ago. My brain is feeling a tiny bit broken today, so even though I know there was a reason for it, I'm not sure what it is. I guess I'll find it along the way as I write this email.

This week has been pretty good. There was a mid-cycle transfer, so there were a couple missionaries who came in and a few who got new companions. Our zone now has 15 missionary companionships, so that's pretty crazy. We also found out recently that sisters are able to do these brief, 5- to 6-hour training visits where they meet at the church and do studies and other things (staying in separate rooms on opposite sides of the church) and then switch back, but it was only sisters for a while there, and then a few days ago we learned that elders were now allowed to do it with the zone leaders, so Elder Timothy put together a training visit schedule, and we started meeting with the elders as soon as we could. We'll have three training visits every week (and sometimes an extra one) until the end of the transfer now. So It's gonna be crazy. 

We also were given permission to start doing service projects listed on a particular website, and we were given the responsibility to take the lead on that, so we went to Grove City to use their family history center (that's the nearest one to us) and started coordinating that to start helping the missionaries out. The more I've thought about it, the more I've realized we need to be doing as much as we can to help them. There are some who are in some really, really difficult places with basically nothing to do, and it's really hard. I've been super privileged here at OSU--we have a ton of members who want to talk to us and some people to teach, and we have the other missionaries who we interact with on preparation days and when we take them to the institute. Other missionaries aren't so lucky and don't have stuff like that, so they're struggling. I may email president and talk to him a little about that and ask him what we should be inviting missionaries to do right now, especially those who are in far-off places or small branches (like Greenfield and Madison Lake). They're finding ways to spend their time, but it's pretty rough for some of them. We're trying to lead by example, but we have a lot of things available to us that aren't available to other missionaries, so we need to be doing all we can to help them. I guess that's one reason for the subject line. We're in a really great spot, and I'm not sure a lot of other missionaries are. It's pretty hard for them.

Elder Bond is no longer with us--he's now back in Greenfield with a new companion. We also got a few missionaries who returned to the field after being in other missions: Elder Schwebach, who was serving in Barbados, and Elder Parkinson, who was serving in West Africa, if I remember correctly. They seem like super good guys who are really taking all this in stride. We're excited to have them here. We had a training visit with them recently because they doubled into an area together and haven't really had a lot of guidance, certainly not in person, so we were able to spend some time with and talk to them and hopefully help them understand some of the ways they can be spending their time and being productive.

I'm looking back through my Area Book, and one cool experience we had this week was with a person named Mariah. Elder Schreiter and I were teaching her a little bit, but apparently she was being somewhat combative or antagonistic, at least that's what he said when he and his companion had met with her. Elder Timothy and Elder Hoffman had a lesson with her last week, and I was just basically in the corner being the third male and praying the whole time that it would go well, and it actually did! They testified boldly and firmly, and she basically realized that if she wants to have an informed opinion she needs to actually read The Book of Mormon more fully. Then we talked about prophets the next lesson, and she invited all of us to share our conversion stories, basically (by the way, apparently, from what she told us, in most of Christianity, when they say "testimony," they mean "conversion story"). We all told about our sacred experiences when we have felt the Spirit and when it has testified to us of the truth of The Book of Mormon and the church and other things, and it really touched her. Elder Hoffman and Elder Ciminski will be teaching her from here on out, but we'll probably going to be involved in the lessons a lot of the time as their third and fourth male.

We also shared "The Belief Window" with a member, and he really liked it--he said he's going to listen to it again and again, because it had a huge impact on him. He's had some struggles with self-confidence and so forth, and I guess it helped him. We also sent him a bunch of other talks that we recommended. We're going to talk about a devotional by JB Haws about comparisons (it's called "Wrestling with Comparisons," and it's on the BYU Speeches website, and it's super good).

We've also been getting Nohemi in the Doctrine and Covenants because we gave her the Gospel Library app, and she looked into the Gospel Topics essays, so we had her read sections 3 and 25, and then we had her read Alma 32 as well. She's listening to the six-part First Vision podcast right now as well. So that's been pretty cool. We're hoping to get some more members in on lessons.

We've also been teaching Anthony. We broached the topic of the premortal existence, and he wasn't sure about it, but we mentioned some verses in the Bible, and he was like, "I'm going to have to look into the Bible to see if that's there," and then the next lesson, he was like, "Brothers! I looked in the Bible, and you are correct! Our spirits existed before our bodies!" So that was cool.

We also had some time we spent with the Scioto elders because we needed to get in their building for the service stuff and to give a priesthood blessing to a sister, and that was fun. Elder Merrill was one of my zone leaders when I was in Cambridge, and I love that guy. He's just such a ray of sunshine. He's hilarious. He brings life to this mission.

We also had a good meeting about social media and started finding some good direction to try to improve our page and stuff, and it seems to be working.

Again, if there's anything you can do for ANY missionaries you know, please do it. Please take two minutes right now to think of something nice you can do and do it. It will really, really help them. They need all the help they can get right now. Please think of a missionary and help them.

Also, here's the missionary talk for this week. It's quite long, but it's a good one. President Kimball is awesome. 

"Remember, our ally is our God. He is our commander. He made the plans. He gave the commandment."
This is my favorite quote from this talk.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1974/10/when-the-world-will-be-converted?lang=eng

Thanks for reading! Have a good week.

Elder Davis

An IPQ I made from a picture I took in Kirtland.

Some cool missionary art I saw a few weeks ago.