Chapter 17: Snow Comes To Grand Junction

10/19/2020

Today was a lot of fun. I got a basil plant at Walmart, as soon as I saw that they had them this week I grabbed one of those. I've wanted a basil plant for a long time, so I'm going to have a great however-long-I'm-here-for. I also gave Gomez and I haircuts today and they turned out pretty great! I was very proud of how mine turned out, but felt bad for Gomez, his hair is pretty curly and so I had a hard time blending his hair with it jutting out in so many random directions, so his hair didn't turn out very well, but he was still very nice about it. We had an interesting dinner, we walked in and the Sister said, "It's cold outside, so we're going to have to eat inside" (which is against our COVID rules, and I explained that in the text we sent to them this morning). She told us we were going to have to make an exception like some of the other missionaries she knew, at which point I very bluntly told her that if we couldn't abide by the rules we would have to leave. Sitting there locked in stalemate was probably the most tense three seconds of my life before she relented and went to get a coat so that we could all eat outside. The rest of the dinner was very peaceful, and went great. We also found a surprise on our workspace today, the Sisters we share a ward with had left a bunch of cookies they'd bought for us on  our table, and left us wondering who was watching out for us. That was an incredibly Christlike thing to do, we really love those Sisters.

10/20/2020

Today was a great day. We got to teach a lesson to the Case family which was a lot of fun, every time we sit down with the Case family I end up laughing my head off about the way their siblings tease each other. They're a very loving family. Our lesson also went a completely different way than we started it off as, but we got some great things out of it, so that's what's important. We also locked ourselves out of the church (which wasn't great), I always keep my keys in my bag, and when we dropped the Elders we share a car with off at their house I was lazy and didn't want to carry my bag around with me. We realized the problem when we pulled up to the church. Fortunately the Sisters were able to bail us out without too much work on their behalves. We also had a mission devotional today. I ended up contributing a lot to that devotional so I'm sure everyone got sick of hearing from me, but I had a lot of fun. We're almost up to 270 missionaries, and so it's kind of staggering to remember the number of people who are listening every time we speak. Today Sister Case agreed to let me paint a watercolor of her family, so now I'll be very excited to have a new avenue of missionary work to pursue. Watercolors are pretty fast, so I'm hoping I can get that project done in an hour or two.

10/21/2020

Today was a great day. We had service all day. We originally planned to do two different major service projects today, and then had another two sprung on us last minute. We only ended up having time for three of the four, but it was cool to have so many different options. We ended up painting, worked on building a deck, mowed the lawn, ripped out a garden, trimmed back plants, took apart another person's garden, sorted his trash into piles, and prepared his yard for the visit we're going to make with him to the dump tomorrow. The last guy who we helped was a retired army vet who's only like, 40 years old. He says he has a lot of free time on his hands, and his garden certainly showed it. He makes a lot of his soil for gardening from scratch, as well as his fertilizers. One of his fertilizers brought back an intensive memory for me: He had a bucket of fish fermenting in the sun as a liquid fertilizer for his garden. The stench of that bucket of fish sitting in the sun was incredible, and it matched exactly the smell of what I had fermenting in a bottle as a nine year old. I left a bottle that I fed with every ill natured item I could find sitting in the sun, until my mom threw it away because apparently it was a "danger to the neighborhood" and a "violation of human decency". I can't believe we threw it away now, that could have kept our garden alive for years. We also had a lesson tonight with an awesome family, although we weren't as good at being animated and excited as usual, Gomez and I were pretty tired from our service.

10/22/2020

Today was an awesome day. We had a service project early this morning with Kyle Davis, we helped him clean out his garage and get stuff to his new house. We got to learn a lot and had a great time with him, helping out in whatever ways we could. We also drove WAY out of our area to help him, which prompted a call from our Elders who were filling out the mileage log for our car tonight, "hey Elders, we're not sure how, but we added 87 miles to the car today, do you Elders know what happened?". We got to teach a couple of lessons, which was a lot of fun. One of the lessons was to our Relief Society President, and the other was to our Elders Quorum President. The lessons went well tonight, although they were so fast that we ultimately ended up leaving the families to discuss amongst themselves after we left. We were pretty pressed for time. We also had a District Counsel today. I got my Spanish and English tags, and now have missionary tags for all the languages that I've gotten to preach the Gospel in. If only the Venezuelans could see me with my Espanol tag now. Our District Counsel was a lot of fun, and I got a lot of backhanded compliments. One of the activities that we did was getting a random topic and verse from the Book of Mormon and tying them together. The topic and verse that I got were pretty far apart, but everyone loved my explanation, and afterwards someone remarked about how I'm "always perfect". Our Zone Leader who sat in for our Council today also came up and thanked me for what I was doing for my district, saying that my efforts 'don't go unnoticed'. I guess our Zone Leader's line wasn't a backhanded compliment, and the other was just a teasing line, but the impact that Gomez and I are having on our District is really significant, its surprised me to see those around us become more hopeful, because Gomez and I haven't wilted during these COVID times, we've flourished, continued to grow, and help others in any way that we can.

10/23/2020

Today was a great day! We had a fun service project where we got to help a man build a deck. He discouraged us from ever listening to the "crazy desires" of our future wives, but that project was probably one of the most counterproductive ways to do it, because I had a lot of fun (mostly just from getting to use power tools), and his wife's happiness was evident and continued to increase as we worked on the project. We also got to teach a lesson to an older widow in our ward through Zoom. One of the cooler side effects of COVID is that we've transitioned to doing a lot of lessons in an online format, and so we can visit a lot of people that we wanted to visit before, but had no way to do it. Zoom has become such a necessity for school, work, and social events that even those who dubbed themselves, "technologically challenged" before have had to become savvy enough to use these programs; So even though this technology existed before and we could use it, the older generation didn't want to learn how to use it, and so it wasn't a viable way to teach before COVID. We also went backwards on restrictions tonight. We had been allowed to gather in semi-large groups before, and now have regressed to two familiar groups, and a maximum of ten people in those groups. Fortunately we don't have any families of nine in our ward, and so it shouldn't restrict our ability to teach the members of our ward too much, but if it regresses much more we might be in some serious trouble. We might have to go back to doing all of our lessons via Zoom.

10/24/2020

Today was a lot of fun! We had a service project with Brother Lewis, and we were able to get a lot done. We took all of the trash we had piled up in his backyard and loaded it onto a trailer to take to the dump. Fortunately he didn't need our help at the dump, because that would have broken a couple of rules. We also worked on a Facebook video with a Sister in our ward for a couple of hours. She taught us how to make pizza and we filmed it, with hopes of relating it back to general conference. We haven't finished it yet, we'll get to do that tomorrow. We ran out of time when we were filming because we had another lesson afterwards, but it worked out okay. Our lesson was with a new family that had moved into the ward and so we got to meet and talk to them. Our lesson went WAY too long, but it's probably my fault for asking everyone about their conversion stories. That conversation went on for a really long time.

10/25/2020

Today was interesting. We knew that it was going to snow from the forecast, but we didn't think that it was going to stick until it froze in the morning, and by then the snow was supposed to slow down, and so we didn't think we would really see anything. However, at 4pm, after it had been raining all day, it started dumping snow and it snowed so hard that it managed to stick, despite the fact that everything was already wet. No one was prepared for this, and it ended up causing a lot of problems. Trees that hadn't lost any of their leaves yet ended up being so heavy from snow that a lot of them collapsed, knocking out powerlines for most of the city. Fortunately our house was spared from the worst of it, we had electricity (mostly). We also had a fun time trying to teach lessons tonight over the phone. We pretty much just bore testimony and hung up, it ended up being like, a two minute phone call, but it went really well. We ended up going to bed like, an hour early because it was pitch black and we didn't have power then, but it was okay, it was nice to have an excuse to go to bed early for once. I also would have made my dad very proud, I went into survival mode to protect all of our stuff, and we made it through the blackout without losing anything important.

Today I wanted to share these verses from the Gospel of John:

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another

John is a really special book, because it was addressed to us as church members. One of the things that confused me for a long time though, was the word, "new". If God is an unchanging God, the same God yesterday, today, and forever, how could anything really be "new"? God's commandments don't change, and so this can't possibly be "new". No, this isn't something new to God, it's meant to be new to us. Every time we read these words we are to renew our commitment to God. As we repent, as we renew our covenants and commitment to God, we obey this great commandment.

Chapter 16: Thank You For Teaching the Gospel

10/12/2020

Today was a great Pday. We had some struggles this morning, we went to get our flu shots and we were standing in line for two hours while they tried to wrestle with our insurance information. Because our insurance was for out of States service, it wasn't compatible in the States, and they couldn't get it to work. Fortunately I was still able to get my flu shot, but we're going to have to go back next week for Elder Gomez. We played Ultimate Frisbee with our district today, which was a lot of fun. Elder Collins and I have magically always been on the same team every time we play. We have a pretty good gig going. He throws from one endzone to the other where I'm standing. It probably wasn't great for team participation though, but that didn't mean that he had to start favoring everyone on our team and ignoring me because we were too good of a duo. We also threw the frisbee into other peoples' yards a lot, today. They were less than happy about that. Afterwards we had a little time left to talk to our families, and then we got to finish out the night by planning our training that we'll be giving on Thursday. Today was a great Pday.

10/13/2020

And so begins the reign of Anderson. Elder Gomez and I had a lot of success today. Our efforts are moving forward exponentially; They're compounding and growing. We're very hopeful that this base that we're building will be able to keep growing. We had an awesome lesson tonight where we talked about charity and joined our hearts to a new family. It was really great to be able to sit down with them, we saw them in church for the first time on Sunday, and so it was pretty cool to meet a new family and get to immediately establish a relationship with them. Other fun events today included: Getting a flu shot for Gomez, speaking Portuguese, and walking back from our dinner towards the church which was an hour away. We didn't have many difficulties when we went to the pharmacy today, Gomez got his shot done in about 15 minutes, it was pretty quick. Brother Hudson was the one that I got to speak Portuguese with. He majored in Portuguese in college and studied all five Romantic languages, so he can get by in most places that have Latin based languages. We had a fun time reminiscing about soda brands and street vendors who would walk around with handheld grills. I always wanted one of those handheld grills. Our walk back from dinner was nice, too. It's not too cold yet, so it was great to see the sunset on the mountains and all of the scenery. Our District led our nightly mission-wide devotional tonight, and there were a couple of funny quotes that came out of it. Elder Bott (one of the Elders that we share a car with) was conducting the meeting. Most people turn the time over to our Mission President to speak by saying stuff along the lines of, "following which we will hear the inspired counsel of our beloved President" or, "at which point we will turn the time over to our favorite President to hear some remarks". Elder Bott wasn't having any of that, though. He turned over the time by saying "Then if you have anything to say Pres, hit us with it!" (His country personality came off very strong in that sentence). Sister Makisini (The Sister we share the Monument ward with), blessed that Elder Gong would recover from COVID-19 in her prayer tonight, followed by, "so that he can return to... um... whatever it is that Apostles do." Which I'm pretty sure was sacriligious, but out of all of the things that Apostles do, addressing the public, rendering service, guiding the church, it was pretty funny to us that she chose that phrase "whatever it is that they do".

10/14/2020

Today was a great day! We had three lessons, which is more than I've ever had in a Stateside mission before, so this was pretty cool. All of the lessons went great, and the crowd varied a lot. We taught seniors, mid-aged families, and young children. Our lessons were going a bit long so we had to adapt partway through the day how we were going to teach our lessons. We ended up focusing on just a single principle from one of the main lessons in Preach My Gospel, and then those lessons went much quicker, and a lot better as well. We had a pretty busy day all around. We sent a lot of spiritual thoughts via text this morning to active and inactive members of our ward and got a lot of really nice messages back. Our lunch today was also great, Elder Gomez made us some Mexican style hotdogs. That was the first time I think one of my comps has ever cooked for me, so that was a nice treat. Amid all of our lessons today we had a little bit of free time between lessons, so we would stop to take pictures for like, five minutes each time. I'm glad we did because fall here is so beautiful.

10/15/2020

Today was another very busy day. We taught three lessons tonight, and did a much better job of holding ourselves to a time limit. We had a district counsel this morning where Elder Gomez and I got to give a training on having meaningful personal study. We taught people different techniques for making the most of their studies, stuff like writing down important Scriptures in a way that's meaninful and accessible to them later, as well as the ability to learn through prayer. The training went very well. We didn't have enough time afterwards to go to our houses and make food and get the other Elders there too, so we took the other Elders with us to Subway and bought them lunch, and then rushed to our service projects. Our service project was with the Nelson family, we raked a bunch of pod things their tree had been dropping. Brother Nelson expected us to work for a couple hours, and then maybe finish the rest of the project another day, but Gomez and I were done with it in a half hour. Brother Nelson was very pleased with the efficiency of our work, because it meant that he could share more stories with us. That 70 year old man has a lot of stories. Afterwards, his wife shared the recipe she had stolen from the Brazilians for Feijao with me. I was very excited, because I could never get it perfect. She was so pleased that she invited us over for a Brazilian dinner tomorrow, which means we'll be going over for a very large lunch. Also Brazilian themed, this morning I found an acai packet in our freezer from Morse, and was able to evaporate the water from it and turn it into a very thick syrup for pancakes. It was turned out great! Elder Gomez was very excited to get to try it. 

10/16/2020

Today was a great day. We were very well fed by our members, they provided both lunch and dinner for us today. Our lunch was something we were really excited for, yesterday Sister Nelson invited us over for Brazilian rice and beans, and our lunch today was awesome! It felt very right to be eating such a large plate of such a familiar meal at lunchtime, which was dinnertime for the Brazilians. We had a great time listening to Brother Nelson's stories, and comparing details from where we had served. The Nelson's got two visits from the missionaries today, because they wanted to feed us lunch, but also signed up for dinner with the Sisters. We took advantage of that by acting as 'Elias's for the Sisters, setting up for the lesson they were going to share later. The Sisters were planning on talking about following the Prophet and letting God prevail, so we talked about how following the Prophet has blessed us in the past. It was pretty fun to get to coordinate what grew into being such a complex and cool lesson delivered by so many different mouths and witnesses. We also got to go to see Sister Bradley and Brother White today. They were both very excited for our visit, and really liked the message we shared. We shared a message of charity, and how charity is something that moves us to action and inspires us to help those around us; Charity brings us joy. Afterwards they gave us a tour of their house, complete with a piano that played itself. The paper that was fed through the piano was incredible to see. I had seen rolls of paper with holes punched out for notes in the past for other music box contraptions, but never for one as complex as a piano, seeing the complexity of that music sheet was incredible. I also completely forgot the word "enchilada" tonight, which wasn't good because that's what we were having for dinner, and they were really good. So I had to compliment Sister Bradley on what she made, without letting her know that I had absolutely no idea what she'd made. That was quite the battle, and had many awkward pauses as I jumped over and around using that not-very-easy-to-forget name.

10/17/2020

We had a service project this morning with the Case family. We ended up shoveling a LOT of dirt. We got to fill in a ditch which was probably my ideal service project, and everyone was very impressed by my diligence during it. Turns out, when you do this multiple times a week for service projects, you get good at it. As a side note, I'm missing a large section of skin on my thumb because we've been digging multiple times a week, but at least we're getting to help people out a lot. The only lesson that we had today was a last minute one that we hadn't planned for: We were calling some widows in our ward and came to a Sister Carter, I felt that we should share a message with her over the phone, so I read an easy to understand scripture from Psalms and then we bore testimony. She was already happy to talk to us, but after that she seemed rejuvenated and even happier. It was a really cool transformation to see. We also made another Facebook video today. We wrestled with this one for a long time, trying to get a clip of the prophet speaking. I did a lot of fighting technology before eventually giving up and adapting our video idea. It still came out pretty well, so we're excited to post it tomorrow. 

10/18/2020

Today was great, even though we ended up attending meetings for 90% of the day. Our ward had a lot of meetings, and so did our mission, so everything came together in the perfect storm, and so we ended up sitting and watching Zoom meetings on our phone for about four hours. Fortunately we also had three lessons today, or I would have just rolled over and gone back to bed had I known this morning what was coming our way. We also got a reference for the first time ever! The reference is a man who's moving out of our area (sad) but it's because of some crazy family members who've been destroying his life (way sadder), although he's seen several tender mercies in his life these past few days and says he went from questioning God's existence to undoubtedly knowing of His presence and love (we're very happy about that part). We taught lessons to the sweetest ward members today, some of who were little kids. There was one family that we had never met before, but all of their kids were spiritual giants, and they're like, 10 years old. We thought we would share a lesson with them, but they ended up teaching us. We talked about ways that they could show love to their friends, and suggested they give them notes. They then ran inside and wrote notes for us, and warmed the lump of coal I normally have for a heart. One day when I complete my missionary service, whatever "thank you" they give me is going to mean a lot less than the post-it note that girl handed me that read "thank you for teaching the Gospel". We also had some huge developments with our ward as well, we were able to start to coordinate our ward and missionary efforts which is a really big deal.

The scripture I wanted to share today comes from 3rd Nephi 27:27, "what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am." Christ gave the Nephites a series of commandments, all seeming incredibly difficult, but all perfectly necessary for us to become the sons and daughters we are destined to become. The commandments to not get angry, not have impure thoughts, to be perfect, seem overwhelming to the natural man in us, but it's my promise that Christ makes living these laws possible. Every day we have the opportunity anew to try to live these laws, and every day that you make that effort, you will find rest, not distress in Christ. The purpose of these laws is not to make us feel guilty for not being perfect, but to help us pattern our lives to find perfect happiness.

I love and am praying for you all!

Elder Anderson

Chapter 15: Transfers, Goodbye Elder Morse, Hello Elder Gomez

 

10/5/2020

Today was a good Pday. It was Morse's last, so it was bittersweet again, but we still had a lot of fun. I got to talk to my family for a while today which was a really nice break, and then we went back to doing missionary work and had the most successful night, it was great. We were walking to the church from our dinner because the other Elders were using the car, and three different families spotted us while walking, pulled over, had conversations with us, and tried to give us rides before they left. It was very kind of them, and very heartwarming to be greeted by people who knew who we were. We weren't able to get a ride with them because of COVID rules, but that's alright, because a lot of rules got lifted during our devotional tonight! They were mostly about not having to wear a mask outside, but it was still very welcome change. The way it'll probably effect us the most is in service. We've had to do a lot of service with a mask on, which hasn't been fun since we're usually breathing pretty hard, but now those days are passed. We also got to teach a lesson tonight. We went by the Whitesides for what would be the last time tonight. We just had our ward split, and the Whitesides aren't in our area anymore, which is very sad, they're a stellar family.

10/6/2020

Today was good. As we were leaving for a our mission-wide meeting today, a guy stopped us and asked if we were going to leave him access to our house. We told him, "sure" and gave him a key (he claimed to have been sent by property management to winterize all of the houses in the area). We didn't feel great about what had transpired so we gave property management and our mission housing coordinator a call and they both said the same thing: "Do not give him a key, he should have one already if he was sent by us". So in one of the most awkward conversations of my life we went back up to this guy, explained to his face that he wasn't trustworthy and that we wanted our key back. We eventually came to the compromise of us getting our key back, and taking our mission-wide call from inside our house, while he came in to do everything associated with winterizing the house. He did do a lot of work to prepare our house for winter, and nothing bad happened, which was good. We didn't have too many events happen today, but we got news for our transfers, which was cool. I'm going to be working with Elder Gomez, nobody seems to know much about him, so he might be a missionary that's been reassigned pretty recently too. From what I can gather from Facebook stalking, he was originally assigned to Canada speaking French. We also had a service project today, which was a lot of fun. We were digging trenches for a new sprinkler system and creating the system by gluing pipes together. I definitely enjoyed gluing more than I enjoyed digging, but I also really wanted to be digging when I was gluing pipes. I didn't look forward to digging because I enjoyed it, I do usually like digging, but the reason it was so important to me today was because Morse asked to dig as soon as we got there, and then he started working at a crazy pace, and refused to let anyone else help him out. I thought he was going to get heatstroke if I didn't swap off with him, and so when he went to get water, I very quickly stole the shovel and went to work. He wasn't happy I had taken it from him, but seemed to forget about his unhappiness pretty quickly when he got to enjoy gluing pipes together. After the project I mostly just worked on setting up the area for success with Gomez and I. I got us assigned to speak in three weeks, which was longer than I wanted to wait, but it'll still work out.

10/7/2020

Today ended up being a lot busier than we thought it was going to be. Today was Morse's last day to work as a missionary, and we didn't have much lined up so he was worried that it was going to feel like the longest day of his life, but we found ways to stay busy throughout the whole day. We had a service project this morning where we were cutting dead flowers and bushes, and now we're certified to be professional landscapers. After lunch we did studies for a couple of hours, and then I did what I could to help allieviate Morse's pain that stems from studying for long periods of time. I talked to him about his mission, everything that he'd learned and got to listen to his stories for another couple of hours until we went to a lesson, our dinner, and then to say goodbye to all the families Morse really liked. It was good to see so many people, and to hear the impact Morse had left on everyone. There was a lot of excitement about Morse getting to go home, but a lot of sadness from those who said that they would never forget Morse's testimony. I was grateful for the excuse to drop by so many people's homes, as soon as they saw Morse was leaving, they felt like their time with the missionaries was limited and so I promised many return visits, soon. I asked Morse for a blessing, and it became clear to see what an amazing missionary he had been. That was probably the opposite effect he thought he was having as he gave me a blessing, but it was all too clear to see just how unclouded his vision was. 

10/8/2020

Today was the sad departure of Elder Morse. We were a lot more emotional to part ways than I thought we were going to be, it was pretty sad. It was a lot of fun, though, to get to see everyone else in our district as we all met up for transfers. Fortunately our district wasn't too marred by transfers, other than Morse leaving, we're pretty much all back together. When I picked up Elder Gomez, I knew that this next transfer was going to be a blast. Gomez is the youngest of four, he loves art, enjoyes cooking and eating, has been teaching himself the piano on his mission, and is a native Spanish speaker. His eyes were so big when we pulled up to the house, it reminded me a lot of my first day here. We had a service project today with a lady on a ranch, we did small projects for her like cleaning out a shed, cleaning out her dumpster, and setting up an electrical fence. I guess I can add "electrician" to the list of things which I became certified for as a missionary. After service we rushed through a Facebook post for our page because Morse set us up for failure. I'm not an admin on the page because our Zone Leaders have neglected me for an entire transfer now, so I can't see when we're supposed to post. Well, apparently it was today, Morse said that the next time would be next week, so I was rather wroth with him when I found out we were supposed to post today (just kidding, it wasn't a big deal at all, but "rather wroth" sounds like some cool alliteration). We submitted our post and asked the Facebook approval team to post it for us since we don't have permission to, so hopefully they were able to. Then our night consisted of us studying, and playing basketball, where I hit three pointers and half-court shots like it was nothing, impressing Gomez before my beginners luck could wear off.

10/9/2020

Today was a lot of fun. We had district counsel this morning and were able to meet all of the new people in our district. This was one of the most effective district counsels that we'd had in a long time, it was easy to see from everyone's faces that they wanted to be there, and that they were excited for their opportunity to be working in the district. Today wasn't the most exciting day, but we were able to lay a lot of foundation for our area, which was really cool. Today involved a lot of planning, some of which even happened during basketball, since we worked for hours straight, needed a break, but didn't have the time that we could take a break. We were complimented on our efforts today by our district leader who was very grateful to see that we were Elders who were willing to put in work. We contacted a lot of families and got a lot of future lessons set up, although one we're already going to have to cancel because the appointment is before 10:00, which breaks the rules in this mission. I got to do one of those calls in Portuguese today, which made that work a lot more enjoyable. We also got the okay from our mission that we can go inside houses for lessons today! We still can't eat inside, but it's a step in the right direction, and it's more important anyways that we have a way to teach during Winter, rather than just bundling up and teaching outside in the snow.

10/10/2020

Today was a great day. We were kind of sad because most of our work fell through, but we were able to get creative in the way that we worked today, so it was definitely worth it, and a lot of fun. Elder Gomez and I are both artistically well practiced, and so we spent a good amount of our time today trying to find ways to use our talents to bless others. We decided that we would post pictures of artwork we would make to Facebook groups, and give our masterpieces away to less active members in an attempt to share Christ's love with them. We don't have time to make artwork for all of our less actives, but we have a lot of confidence that after opening a few hearts, that more will follow. The drawing I was working on was stylized after the Savior reaching out to grasp a struggling Peter's hand. The only thing is, the Savior bears the tokens of the Atonement He made for us, so the hand couldn't possibly belong to Peter sinking into the waves; No, that's our hand, that the Savior grasps so firmly. I've actually been very proud of the progression it's made, I didn't have a reference photo, so this was just a nice imagination, but it's turned out really well. I also included a couple of lotus flowers circling the Savior's arm. Lotus flowers are really cool, because they're symbolic of rebirth, and have appeared throughout the Bible. Lotus flowers have been referred to as "buds and calaxes", and one of their most prominent occurences was in the temple of king Solomon, as engravings inside the temple. 

10/11/2020

Today was a lot of fun. We had a meeting with our ward mission leader in which we invited his family to make a family mission plan. They're trial running something we're trying to implement at a ward level, and if we can guide the ward to do half of what this family is doing then we'll have more success than we've ever had before. We also had a dinner with a family tonight, which was a lot of fun. We felt bad because it was pretty cold outside and we asked them if we could eat outside. They offered to let us eat inside, but we held ourselves to the rules. They didn't seem to mind too much, but I still felt bad. We also got to start going back to church regularly today, we had a fast and testimony meeting, which actually ended up not being fast at all, because I spoke during it. Coming back from the church today we saw our Sisters walking to their home. The Sisters they share a car with abandoned them and so we took pity on them and pulled over. They rejected our offers to help them, but they did let us take their bags to their house. This was the second time we got to break into their house, but this time we didn't get to crawl through their bathroom window.

Today I wanted to share two verses that I think complement each other beautifully: 

Helaman 3:29 Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked

And,

Revelation 2:7 To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

The end of the promise we get from these two verses, that we'll be given power to overcome and power to partake of the tree of life is dependent on one thing: Our will. Those who have the will to do these things will be able to, but that requires us to make a decision on our part to believe in these promises and trust in them no matter how difficult things may get.

I'm praying for you all!

Chapter 14: General Conference Week

 9/28/2020

Today for our district Pday activity we went on a hike to independence rock. Turns out it's called "independence rock" because of the large singular rock formation at the end that is independent from the surrounding mountains the same way that a 16 y/o might claim to be "independent" from their parents. I got a lot of really great photos for drawing from that hike, though. It was a very good way to start off the day, so even though there wasn't much interaction between our district because of COVID rules, I was still grateful we did it. I practiced the piano for a while, got to talk to my family, and that was our preparation day. We went to dinner with a very nice family tonight who gave me a lot of fresh basil. That was an easy way to win my heart. The kids also had incredibly good manners, I felt very out of place. I don't have bad manners or anything, but I also don't say stuff like, "Mother, does this salad have walnuts in it? (yes) Well, that's okay, mother, I think this just isn't my favorite type of salad". I guess that wasn't particularly well mannered or formal, maybe it's just the word "walnuts" in that sentence that makes it sound so formal. Walnuts feels like a very formal word. We shared a spiritual thought about being drawn to the Savior. I told people that I like to draw and that word to me (drawn) means to create in the likeness of something I see, and so to be drawn to the Savior is to be recreated in His likeness.

9/29/2020

Today we got a lot done. Morse and I showed up to the church today only to find out that our all mission meeting had been cancelled which we were pretty disappointed about, but it gave us time to study so it worked out. We went to the library and I got to study for another couple of hours. Morse and I had a lot of fun driving around to our numerous locations and screaming lyrics to Disney songs, especially Mulan's "Be a Man". We got to teach a couple of lessons today. I was nervous that talking for an hour would be difficult, but I should've known that I overprepare for everything, and the stories that Morse and I told ate up a lot of time in a fun way. I think the boys enjoyed it a lot. They also got to ask us a lot of deep, soul-searching questions, which was also really cool. It was a good opportunity for us to testify that those boys were on the right track and doing a great job in their lives. We also got to teach a family tonight, and it went really well because the daughter had a friend over when we were there. She had to go before we actually shared the lesson, which was sad, but when we were getting to know the member family we got to know the daughter's friend a little bit too. It was really cool to see that her friend got to have some contact with the missionaries just from being in the right place at the right time, and if we can encourage that relationship, maybe it'll even be the means of bringing the Gospel to another family. It was really fun to meet that family tonight because they didn't put on a show for us as missionaries, they acted completely normal, and so we got to laugh and joke with them in a normal way that we don't get to do a lot as missionaries.

9/30/2020

Today was a lot of fun. This morning at 10:30 Elders Hatch and Collins came over to our house to start exchanges with us, this time, I was staying in Monument with Elder Hatch. Elder Hatch and I had a blast, we got a lot of work done. I put him through a lot of crazy schemes, doing everything I could to move this area as far forward in one day as we could. We definitely made some big leaps: We got a list of ministering assignments for our ward which is HUGE, and we got in contact with a huge range of families. Some families we were even able to send short, personalized, pre-recorded messages to, to try to make our visits even more accessible to our ward members. We also had the long-feared conversation about splitting our ward. Elder Morse and I haven't wanted to split our ward, we have so few people to work with already that splitting would have felt like a bigger handicap than we could deal with. I can count the number of active families we have on the fingers of a single hand, and so dividing posed numerous problems with  our ability to branch out and connect with the other members of the ward. For a long time we deemed that it was necessary to work this way, because even if the families were getting double teamed by the two sets of missionaries in the course of a couple of weeks with new ideas and different messages. We've both switched from trying to share the messages we want to share to the ones the mission wants us to be sharing, but since we're now sharing the same message, we can't repeat the same people. Our area has some geographical difficulties to splitting it, like the fact that 90% of our members live on the same street, but we'll figure it all out.

10/1/2020

Today Hatch and I woke up and hit the books. Well, I hit the books, Hatch hit the couch and was out for a long time until the sun inconveniently moved right into his face. I was glad he got some sleep though, missionary work can be pretty hard, and his house is freezing so I don't think he sleeps too well. Speaking of which, because Morse was gone I turned off the AC which makes our house like, 40 degrees at night, and so last night was the first night I slept well in a long time. I'm going to be very sad when Morse leaves, but I am excited that next transfer I'll get to sleep in a normal temperature house. Today was zone conference. It was pretty fun because that was when Hatch and I switched back to our usual comps, and our comps were the last people to arrive, so everyone was questioning why I was sitting alone and what I had done to my companion. The conference was pretty great. Afterwards we had a service project, we went to finish digging up tumbleweed's with three y/o Matthew's dad. A neighbor also showed up to help with the project, no one had asked him to help or anything, he just saw some people working next door and went to help them. After about 30 seconds of conversing with this dude, I could see that Morse was freaking out on the inside, apparently this guy was one of the close friends of the star of a documentary called "Free Solo" about mountain climbers. This guy was also really into mountain climbing, which was right up Morse's alley. Morse came over to me multiple times and in hushed excited tones tried to help me understand that I was in the presence of a celebrity. We finished all of the tumbleweeds which was pretty great, although, sadly enough, Matthew wasn't there to help us out this time. We also had a lesson with a super cool family. They shared some tacos with us, which is a sure way to my heart. I saw that their daughter was starting to learn to play the piano, she had been playing for about a year and was getting pretty good, so as part of our message to them, I shared my story about learning the piano: I practiced the piano as a kid for a couple of years. My incredibly intelligent mother warned me that I was going to need that skill on my mission, and so I needed to practice and get good at playing. I told her there was no chance my playing would be needed, since every other future missionary's mother was going to tell them the same thing. Because of how little I enjoyed it, eventually my mom let me stop. Fast forward to Brazil, everyone hoped that I knew how to play the piano, and every time I saw their disappointed faces, I knew just how foolish I was to have not listened to my mom. When I came back out the second time, I resolved to learn the piano from Elder Collins, and so ever since that three week period, I've been practicing the piano on my breaks. I told this girl that in the year or two I had practiced as a kid I never got very good, I could barely play with my right hand and reading notes was very difficult for me, and when I came back out I couldn't even remember how to do that, I was learning from scratch. In a matter of months, though, I went from not having touched the piano in years to being able to play hymns. I never would have imagined I could play hymns, maybe after years of practice, and how could I possibly have learned so quickly? Because any practice in which you have the Spirit, you will learn tenfold what you could have learned otherwise. As I practiced the piano, I played hymns and children's hymns. I have a friend on the mission who had some classical music books sent to him to play. Classical music isn't bad, but it doesn't invite the Spirit the same way hymns do. The effects of me practicing hymns, and my friend practicing classics has been huge. Though he's practiced for over a year, I've quickly surpassed his ability to play. Any time we can include the Spirit in any way as we learn, the Spirit will accelerate that learning process.

10/2/2020

Today was a good day, it was very uplifting although probably one of the dullest to describe. We had basically everything fall through today, so we ended up studying for like, 12 hours. One thing that I saw today that was really cool was about our prophet. There's a promise in D&C 84:33 that those who are faithful unto the obtaining and magnifying of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood will have their bodies renewed. That's a pretty powerful promise, and one that we see in the prophet. He's now 96, and is characterized by the quote from his wife, "I'm constantly having to ask to see his birth certificate for proof of his age", as he acts with seemingly infinite patience and boundless energy. This is a man who's body has been renewed to allow for the continuation of the service he so loves. How wonderful it is to know that these lofty promises aren't just grand aims, they're achievable by men, and that we can look to our prophet as a living example of what perfect Priesthood service looks like. I'm very excited to see him in conference tomorrow.

10/3/2020

Today was very busy, but a lot of fun. We woke up and went to a service project as soon as we got up today. It was our reoccurring service project with the Case family, and today they let us dig up their yard. The goal was that we would smooth things out, take dirt from the higher areas and deposit it in the lower ones. Brother Case was impressed that I just kept going, by the end my arms felt like lead and they weren't going very fast, but I definitely dug for the longest time. It was actually kind of fun to feel that my muscles were exhausted since we can't get out that often, at least when we do have a service project it gives us the needed opportunity to not die of atrophied muscles. They made us waffles for breakfast which was super nice, but made for a very eventful breakfast. Brother Case put apple cider on his waffle, mistaking it for syrup, and I'm pretty sure that I ate the tip of my plastic fork. I had been cutting waffles with my fork since there weren't any knives and the tip of one of the tines broke off, and I set it on the side of my plate, but I realized with horror that it had disappeared when I was done eating, which meant that it was probably inside of me. I didn't even realize it until we got home, but somehow I forgot to put on my tag this morning, so when we gave a spiritual thought after working and I pointed at where my tag should have been, telling everyone it's not the tag that makes you a missionary, apparently my companion and Brother Case shared a confused look as I gave everyone my pep talk about how you couldn't be a missionary anytime. I didn't know I was living that counsel when I said those words, usually I like to a missionary when I'm labelled as one. We also watched six hours of conference today, which was pretty awesome, but between conference, service, and meals, our whole day was gone, I didn't even get to study today. I guess it's a pretty good thing I got to study so much yesterday. Conference didn't disappoint in the slightest, I was taking notes even from the opening prayer, everything that everyone said was inspired, and it was incredible to learn so much. It's hard to pick a favorite talk, but Bednar's was really good, so was Rasbands, and President Nelson gave an incredible talk to the women tonight.

10/4/2020

Today I had a lot of mixed emotions. Conference was absolutely amazing, but the end came all too soon. Morse and I had an amazing day, we got to do personal study in the morning, and then listen to conference for the rest of the day until we had dinner. When dinner came around the other Elders that we share a car with had a mix up with their dinner (they didn't know they were eating with anyone and got one of those, "so are you almost here yet?" calls) so due to bad planning we spent the remainder of our night walking to the church. It took us a bit to get there, but it was very relaxing to watch the sun go down as we hiked back to the church the same way I got around everywhere in Brazil. We didn't run into anyone on the way, I would have been more than happy to talk to strangers on the street, but Morse said that was, "not advisable". Our dinner was with the Gibson's, and it was a very bittersweet reunion, they were very sad to see Morse go. I'm pretty sure this is the second time ever that my comp is leaving the area and I'm staying behind, my trainer left Grande  Circular and said goodbye to the members in Brazil, and other than that, I've never gotten to be the one to keep an area alive. Conference was incredible today, it's impossible to pick a favorite talk, but I picked some that were my favorites. Nelson's talk was amazing, I especially loved the Hebrew reference. Soares's talk was also incredible, I'm going to reference that talk every time anyone asks me why I love Brazilians so much. Anderson's talk was also amazing, besides having an awesome last name, his thoughts were very powerful. 

As a spiritual thought I wanted to share a line from a talk that I really liked from conference on Sunday. Elder Holland is a poet, so it should come as no surprise when he shares beautiful messages accompanied by beautiful language. I especially loved the way he described our trials saying, 'too many of us want to float on our cloud of comfortable Christianity'. We believe that our beliefs should liberate us from the need to grow, when in reality the blessings that come from trials and difficulties is often the requirement to grow. This knowledge makes "Christianity comforting", as Holland said, continuing his alliteration, but doesn't negate the need for growth on our part. The reason that this news is so joyful, is because recognition of the difficulties that are sure to come allows us to prepare! By fortifying our faith and looking to the Lord, we can be protected from losing faith, rather than hoping that inevitable trials will pass us by leaving us unscathed and unchanged, better described as unlearned and unrepentant. 

I'm praying for you!