Chapter 51: "My Children Think They Are Smart, But They Are Stupid" -My New Favorite Member

 Elder Aguirre, Anderson, and Elder Eden with his companion

Elder A with Brother Hightower, a beloved ward member from a former area

Elder A with Sister Thompson, another special ward member from a former area

Elder Pope, Elder A, and Elder Eden - all formerly from the Bothell Washington Stake

Hike at the Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park on Pday with a family from Cedaredge

6/15/2021

Today we had a discussion with some of the Pastors who were there when Jake wanted to bash with us last week. I say that we discussed because this was the first reasonable conversation I’ve had with people who don’t like what we teach. When we listened to them talk we were amazed. They didn’t believe in an afterlife which we thought was a part of Christianity 101. We talked about the Resurrection, Judgement, Heaven, Hell, they didn’t believe in any of it. They believed everything, like the Resurrection, was to happen temporally here on Earth. We talked about the kingdom God was building up and how it was one that was prophesied to “never be destroyed” and I pointed out that in thousands/millions of years that the sun was going to explode and consume the Earth, the promised kingdom couldn’t be a temporal one. His response was, “people say that kind of stuff all the time, that’s never going to happen”. The most important part though was that we invited them to pray about what we discussed and they were unwilling to, so we won’t be going back. Just some crazy stuff.

6/16/2021

Today we had a service project with a woman who told us that she had about 700 pounds of aluminum cans and dog droppings she needed shoveled. When she told us that I was imagining a 50/50 split between the two groups of items to shovel, but fortunately it was really only aluminum cans and plastic bottles. We spent about an hour picking out all the bottles from the cans and then shoveled the massive number of cans into every garbage bag we could get our hands on. When she told us that she had 700 pounds of cans I thought she was likely overestimating, but after carrying the number of heavy bags of cans that we did I think she might not have guessed high enough.

6/17/2021

Today was a lot of fun. We got to pick up the new companion that we’ll be staying with for the next six weeks, Elder Rinlisbacher. It’s fun to be in a trio, this is an experience that I never thought that I’d have, so even if it’s only for a little bit it’s still fun to get to be a part of. We got to have a lesson with Deanie today where we invited her to church. Her friend passed away this past week so understandably she’ll be at the funeral this Sunday but she expressed interest in coming this next week.

6/18/2021

Today was a great day. We got to do weekly planning and it was so much more enjoyable with a trio than it usually is with only two people. When you only have a couple of people it can be very easy to get into a routine of sharing the same ideas. Having a new companion, having a third, experienced missionary to work alongside us made our planning today a much more spectacular experience.

6/19/2021

Today was one of the busiest days of my mission. We found another person today through our in person contacting efforts, and it was cool because  it was someone that we had been talking to over Facebook a few weeks ago. Because we had been talking to her over Facebook she was really excited once we started talking to her in person, and we got her to commit to coming to church tomorrow. That happened before 10:00. At about 10:10 the woman who was interested in coming to church tomorrow told us it might not work out after all because she didn’t even have a place to stay the night. Our amazing Ward Mission Leader and his wife told us we could invite her to their house to spend the night. They just acted out the song, “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief”, and have a special spot in heaven reserved for them after what they did.

6/20/2021

Today was a great day. Unfortunately we didn’t have anyone come to church with us, but we did find someone new. We had set up a lesson with one of our new members, Sister Parker, and her friend Coleman stopped by while we were there. We invited him in for the lesson, and he consented to stay. Coleman told us that he had some really hard questions for us, and asked us about the trinity. We told him it was a false doctrine, and he was amazed, and listened to everything we taught, and loved it. We did feel bad though because at 7:40 he asked if he could tell us a story. At 7:45 we had another lesson, but he had just listened to us and we didn’t want him to feel like we didn’t care about what he had to say, so we consented figuring that if we were a couple minutes late to a lesson with one of our members that they would understand. At 8:28 he finished telling us his life story, and I was amazed that he had out-talked the three of us. We apologized profusely to the member who we had completely flaked on.

Today for a spiritual thought I wanted to share Malachi 3:3. This verse is one that applies to each of us as we bring the sacrifice of our hearts to the Savior.

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

We can do a lot of good on our own, but the Savior takes us as we are and makes us even better. When we let Him purify our hearts and our sacrifices, we'll find that we're capable of offering a lot more than we ever could on our own.