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!
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