Chapter 50: Taxation by Cinnamon Rolls

6/8/2021

Today was a lot of fun. We had a district council and I offered to play one of the hymns that I know pretty well so that we could sing a new song instead of only cycling through the same four hymns that our other piano player knows. I wish I could say that I did an amazing job, but it turns out that playing with people singing is harder in just about every way than I thought possible. I played through “We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet” completely as a refresher and I did it really fast and played perfectly the first time. Then when everyone joined in I realized I was going too fast so I slowed down and did a horrible job of playing, I made so many mistakes. Oh well, good thing I only have to live with my embarrassment for one more week since next week is the last time that I’ll see some of them.

6/9/2021

Today was a great day, we ended up getting to be a part of a service project today. We talked to the family we were doing service for afterwards, they invited us to sit down and we had a mini lesson outside of our service. The family was really surprised to hear that we weren’t getting paid at all to help out, but were in fact paying to be able to serve them. We had a lot of fun with our lessons and were able to stop by the young men’s activity tonight. They made cinnamon rolls, and so we got to eat cinnamon rolls for our “missionary activity” tonight. This form of taxation is great, we need to hang around the young men more often.

6/10/2021

Today we had a bible bash with three different pastors at the same time. Obviously that was not the ideal situation to be in, that’s the type of situation that you avoid at all costs, but looking back it was pretty funny. We had a member come along with us, which might be why that pastor invited other pastors as well. Jake was the person who we were really there to meet with, and I think he felt like he had to put on a show for the other pastors at how good at defending his faith he was. Unfortunately he wasn’t very good at it. He threw old questions we had already answered with him at us and so we just re-gave him the answers. We were pretty disappointed afterwards because Jake had been progressing a lot, but it was obvious after that meeting that we would not be going back.

6/11/2021

Today we had another lesson with Deanie. We talked about the first vision and gave her a copy of the Restoration 

Proclamation which she seemed to really like. The whole situation was pretty awesome because we were able to invite her to the church and we held our meeting there. We took her on a tour around the church building and she seemed to really love it. We had our meeting with two different couples as well: The Klines returned for another meeting and our Ward Mission Leader and his wife joined in as well. The lesson was a little difficult to guide, but we got to the end, which is all that matters.

6/12/2021

Tonight we had an activity called Ward Fun Night. It was an activity that was meant to be a social opportunity for the families, especially the younger families in the Ward. Unfortunately we only have a couple of “younger families” in this ward and only one of them showed up, which wasn’t great, but that one family is having a baptism tomorrow so they brought all of their friends from out of state which made the activity much bigger, in the end, than it normally would have been. Our lessons today went very well, and we had a lot of people asking for help with doing missionary work which was really cool.

6/13/2021

Today we had Ward council, and Ward correlation. The goal of one meeting was to talk about how the missionaries can help the Ward, and the goal of the other was to talk about how the Ward can help the missionaries. There was a baptism that happened today for one of the little boys in the Ward, and otherwise we spent most of our time with Bishop. Bishop was teaching the lesson which we attended, and we spent a longer amount of time at his house than usual. Bishop’s kids were gone and trying to maintain attention with them is always a struggle since there are a couple of youth who really don’t want to be there, but Bishop and his wife have incredible testimonies, and so we got to have a meeting tonight that was unhindered by anyone who might not want to be there.

Today for a spiritual thought I want to share a verse from 2nd Nephi 31:

7 Know ye not that he was holy? But notwithstanding he being holy, he showeth unto the children of men that, according to the flesh he humbleth himself before the Father, and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments.

One of the ultimate attributes of Christ was his humility. His humility is shown in every aspect of His life, and especially during His Atonement. One of the greatest ways we can learn humility is by obeying the commandments as we strive to become more like Christ. The commandments, combined with Christ's Atonement, are our stepping stones to perfection.

Chapter 49: I Can't Tell You How Much God Loves Me Because Numbers Don't Go That High

6/1/2021

Today was a fun day, but not for missionary work. We had to take our car into the shop today and did so this afternoon expecting to have our car back within a hour or two. Well, we got a call that our car was unsafe to drive, and that they planned on keeping it a lot longer than we originally planned for, perhaps for weeks. We called our district leader and he said that we would be staying in Delta for the night with Uncompahgre with Elder Eden and Elder Bunker. That was a fun opportunity to see Elder Eden.

6/2/2021

Today we spent the morning with Uncompahgre until they took us back up to our apartment. We’ll be getting a car tomorrow from one of our other District companionships, but until then we’re pretty much stranded at our house. Fortunately we were able to walk to the church for youth activities tonight, but the 40 minutes it took us to walk there made me grateful for all the times that we’ve been able to make the drive in five minutes in a car.

6/3/2021

Today we had an awesome combined district council meeting. We got to see all of the Elders and Sisters in our Zone, and we spent a lot less time talking about technique and what it was that we could do than we spent talking about the “why” of what we were doing. There was an opportunity for missionaries who wanted to to share a brief testimony, but I told myself I wasn’t going to get up unless they asked me to since I had (as usual) an excessive amount of preparation and would have talked for no less than 15 minutes. We also got to start exchanges today, and so I got to spend the day with Elder Edwards. Our time together was very enjoyable, I’m going to miss him a lot when he goes home.

6/4/2021

This morning Elder Aguirre and I switched back. We got to do an abbreviated weekly planning session, which I just remembered that we didn’t finish, so we’ll get to wrap it up tomorrow. We got to do a lot of service today, and a lot of work over Facebook. The lessons that we had today also went really well. We found out today that our member meals are officially going away; We will no longer be eating with anyone. This is an opportunity for us to focus less on having our temporal needs taken care of, and making more time for members to be able to focus on missionary work and the more important work of gathering Israel.

6/5/2021

We had another lesson with Deanie today, and it was amazing. We brought fellowship along, Brother and Sister Kline, and they worked flawlessly together with us as we taught the Plan of Salvation to Deanie. We were so proud of Deanie because she kept the commitment we left with her, she read The Book of Mormon! We were so proud of Brother Kline because he’s a recent convert, and he was teaching as if he had been a life-long missionary. His testimony was amazing, and he closed out our meeting today by promising blessings in the name of Jesus Christ. Brother and Sister Kline are working to get to the point to be able to go to the temple, and it is amazing to see them doing missionary work alongside us. I was so proud of Brother Kline, and Sister Kline was too. 

6/6/2021

Today was a lot of fun. We had a youth fireside in our ward that we got to go to. The Bishop asked me to play introduction music as everyone was walking into the chapel, which went pretty well. He then asked if I could play an opening hymn which went… less well. Fortunately it didn’t ruin the fireside too much. I need to practice reading music more, most of the stuff that I play has been by ear, not off a sheet of paper, and so that was a little out of my comfort zone. I also shared a personal experience tonight with a family that we were teaching which is rare for me. I don’t usually share those experiences with others because I feel like it dominates the conversation and makes it impossible to teach in unity with my companion since he doesn’t know those stories like I do. I did recognize afterwards the importance of sharing my testimony and witness, though. My witness is unique, it needs to be shared.

Today for a spiritual thought I wanted to share the transition shown for those who become converted to the Gospel as recorded in Alma 26:15 

Yea, [we] were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought [us] into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and [we] are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work.

The reason why I changed these words to include us is because it doesn't matter how long we've been members of Christ's church for. Until we do the things He asks us to, until we act on them the Gospel will just be a nice idea, it has no power to bring life and joy into our lives until we act on our faith and put it to the test. We can choose to live the Gospel at any time, and as soon as we do we will be brought into Christ's marvellous light.

Chapter 48: New Leads

 

5/26/2021

Today we had lessons all day. It felt good to be busy, and made it easier to feel the Spirit since we were constantly teaching which I was very grateful for.  

5/27/2021

Today was a fun day. We got to help out at a few service projects, one was the food bank that we go to and they were very grateful for our help since they were especially short-staffed today. We didn’t even notice a difference in our efficiency, though. Elder Aguirre and I managed very well ourselves what normally took many other workers to do. We also got to help Sister Dearmond paint her concrete today. She was very grateful for our help, although we were expecting to have a lesson with her so we went over in our normal clothes instead of service clothes. We must have been a sight to behold: Painting in white shirts and ties, fortunately no accidents with clothing happened.

5/28/2021

Today was a good day. We tripled the recommended number of Facebook contacting that our Mission suggests, which was not a great thing to try because those numbers are supposed to help keep us from getting banned by Facebook. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this though, I used to do the same thing and did get banned, but we’re generating a lot more traction on group pages now than we used to, and Facebook is becoming much more lenient with us as a result since we’re obviously not robots.

5/29/2021

Today we picked someone up and the lesson was amazing! Oh my goodness, the person who we met up with was a nonmember with a lengthy teaching record, and on their record was recorded several times that this person was doing well with reading The Book of Mormon. Elder Aguirre and I prayed about our lesson and felt that for some reason we needed to only focus on The Book of Mormon, instead of talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ or Plan of Salvation with her which would have been the logical next steps. When we sat down for our lesson we said that we would briefly summarize the information she likely already knew about The Book of Mormon, but she urged us to go on. We found out that she had never read from the Book of Mormon before, and so we asked her if we could read through a section with her. She agreed and we read through 3rd Nephi 11 with her and she loved it. She solidly committed to reading through The Book of Mormon, and now we’re going to be regularly studying it with her. We’re very excited.

5/30/2021

Our Sacrament meeting today was awesome! We had some really good speakers and I really enjoyed getting to hear from those people. We had been working with the speakers for the last several weeks through some of their difficulties and getting to hear their messages today and ways that they had been overcoming their difficulties and achieving their goals was incredible. I was so proud of them. Elder Aguirre and I also got to teach for our fifth Sunday combined lesson. We talked about missionary work and how we could better participate in it, and the presentation went really well. There was more excitement about missionary work afterwards than I’d ever seen before.

Today for a spiritual thought I wanted to share a verse that I was very impressed by this week from Job 13:15

"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him."

A willingness to be faithful even in the face of immense persecution and trials is exactly the kind of faith that I want to have, faith to be faithful though the entire world should conspire against me and though I feel abandoned even by God. That is the type of faith that Christ had, that great faith that has been immortalized through Job's words. A complete willingness to humbly submit to Heavenly Father's will is the only way that we can develop that kind of immense faith.

Chapter 47: Victories

 Video about how Satan can deceive

Sister and President Rees with Elder Anderson

The Montrose District (Elder Carter Eden, formerly of the 

Bothell Washington Stake, is also in this picture!)

5/19/2021

Today was a great day. We had an opportunity to meet with a few member families today. The highlight of our lessons was probably when one of the families wasn’t there, and in the process of checking to see if they were in their barn we came across their cows and got to feed and pet their cows for a bit. We also got to pick up a couple of new people through service today. The project went really well and we shared a short thought afterwards on the sacred nature of Christ’s sacrifice that seemed to strike a chord with them.

5/20/2021

Today was great. We had a service project with a nonmember family; we sprayed weeds for them, but since everyone has massive yards and live out in the middle of the country the project was a little daunting and took us a couple of hours. We shared a scripture with them at the end and they seemed to enjoy it and all our help, which we count as a big success. 

5/21/2021

Today was a pretty busy day. We had some service work to do and a lot of lessons. Today was also our day to plan out the rest of our week, which always makes our day busier than normal. We were assigned to make a Facebook post for our area page tomorrow, and ended up making a beautiful 15 second video. This definitely makes my top 5 list for videos that I’ve made on the mission. We also met a new family today and they had a picture perfect yard for painting, so I made sure to take some pictures. They were very friendly with us, so we’ll have to go back and take some more pictures soon.

5/22/2021

Today was a lot of fun. We got to help Sister Dearmond paint her house, and she made us an amazing pizza in return, which was an awesome exchange for us. That saved both of us a lot of time, and we thoroughly enjoyed her superior cooking skills. We also had a power outage happen today and it made for some interesting situations for us, since most of our teaching is happening over Zoom. We ended up driving to a couple different church buildings to find internet access.

5/23/2021

Today we had our church services and a Ward Council meeting. Our meeting went really well, and we were able to discuss the Ward’s plans for reactivation. Today it really felt like we were all on the same page, which was amazing since we were falling short for so long. Today our whole Ward decided to step up, and that we were going to do even better things together. We also discussed as a Mission about ways that we were going to move forward, principally in what sounded like the permanent abolishment of our dinners with members. During COVID members have been providing meals-to-go instead of us eating with them, and tonight our Mission discussed about the very real possibility of permanently taking meals to go rather than eating in homes. While good for friendship, our Mission President worries that meals may take away from the spirit of short, frequent, and powerful interactions, and asked us to consider whether or not that was something that we would be permanently willing to give up.

5/24/2021

Today was our Zone Conference, it was amazing. Definitely one of my favorite Zone Conferences because what we talked about felt really relevant to what we were struggling with and how we would improve.

The scripture that I wanted to share today comes from an account of when the Sacrament was administered to a congregation, as recorded in 3rd Nephi 18:9 And it came to pass that they did so, and did drink of it and were filled; and they gave unto the multitude, and they did drink, and they were filled.

Somehow I doubt that the "filling" spoken of here was signifying that they were physically filled, I think that much more likely what is being spoken of here is the spiritual filling that accompanies those who use the Sacrament as a time to reflect on Christ's sacrifice. That reflection leads us to perfection; That reflection completes us, it fills us.

Chapter 46: Losses

This week was a semi-disappointing one. My phone screen broke, which is the reason for my short weekly today, my broken phone screen makes journaling a lot more difficult. We also lost an investigator this week. Cybele's grandparents felt pressured by the commitments that we were making with them, and decided that we would no longer be meeting to teach Cybele. We have increased our focus with the rest of the people we have moving forward though, and are looking forward to seeing the additional people who are put in our path.

One funny story came late Friday night: We were walking back to our apartment and were stopped by a lady asking if we were "Mormons", we corrected her with "Members of the Church of Jesus Christ" and she stared at us blankly. We conceded that "Mormon" was a nickname that the church was known by and she told us, "I knew it! I can spot you Mormons a mile away!" My companion and I looked at each other, dressed in white shirts, ties, and dress slacks, complete with black nametags, wondering what in our appearance could have given away the fact that we were missionaries.

For a Spiritual thought I want to share a verse that we find in the book of 2nd Nephi, as well as Isaiah:

9 Awake, awake! Put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days. Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?

10 Art thou not he who hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a away for the ransomed to pass over?

The strength that Isaiah and Jacob were talking about here was the strength of the Lord, His power: Compassion, mercy, longsuffering, and patience. This power is what gives us the ability to conquer dragons and move the sea, this power is the power that ransoms you and me.

---

Chapter 45: Building Up Zion

 5/4/2021

Today was a good day. We had our District Council today, and a man wandered in thinking that we were members of another church. He walked into a church that was full of missionaries, and we found out about him because one Elder went off to use the bathroom at the same moment that he walked in, so we could hear them talking in the hall, and as soon as we realized he was a nonmember our District Leader signalled to Elder Eden and his companion to go talk to him and set up a time to meet. Both Elder Eden and his companion immediately stood up as soon as the DL motioned to them. It looked like our DL was running a small mafia or gang who were going to deal with the situation, but resulted in the man leaving feeling uplifted, so I suppose that’s the opposite of a mafia/gang interaction.

5/5/2021

Today we had a lot of lessons, we were very busy running back and forth all night, and once again ended up pushing our curfew a bit. We got back six minutes before our curfew, which was much tighter than we originally expected, but it felt good to be busy. We met a new family today, and they were very excited to get to help us out with missionary work, which is everything we could hope for as missionaries. We also got to do a roleplay in front of our whole mission today, aren’t the wonders of Zoom just amazing? It went well enough, and everyone seemed to think it was a pretty good example, so Elder Aguirre and I were grateful for the opportunity to help out.

5/6/2021

Today we also had a lot of lessons, two of which were with new families. Today was officially six weeks since Elder Aguirre and I got to Cedaredge, which was shocking and made meeting two new families a much bigger deal. We realized we needed to pick up the pace a little more if we wanted to really engage everyone since we weren’t even able to meet everyone in the last transfer we were here for. We’re really counting on our Zoom classes to pick up speed a bit, because otherwise we won’t have a way to engage the ward like we need to.

5/8/2021

Today we had a conversation with Brother Woolsey about Cybele’s baptism. We looked at the requirements for baptism and showed how Cybele met them, but Brother Woolsey wasn’t happy about it. His argument started off as, “She’s not ready”, then as we discussed it shifted to, “She and I aren’t ready”, until finally he confided, “I’m not ready”. We then gave him a plan of action moving forward and he seemed really happy about it. He had started off rather angry but by the end of our meeting he told Elder Aguirre and I, “You gentlemen are welcome here anytime,” which was a huge compliment. He had given us permission to baptize Cybele, but told us that he wouldn’t attend or help out, we told him that this wasn’t just about Cybele, it was about helping him to know that the Lord loves and trusts him as well. We could have compelled him to have Cybele baptized right then and undoubtedly would have walked away with the numbers our mission wanted. We were glad, though, for the opportunity to show that we weren’t as invested in the numbers as we were the lives of those we were serving.

5/9/2021

Today was Mother’s day. The highlight of my day was getting to call my mom for a few minutes. We spent the majority of our day running from lesson to lesson and delivering flowers to some of our widows on behalf of our Ward for Mother’s day. All of the recipients were very thankful, and we were glad to get to do some nice things for them. All of our lessons went really well today, they were all object lessons, and all of them were very engaging. My favorite one was one where we had a family construct a human table by having one person lay their back on another’s knees who was laying their back on another’s knees and so on. When they did it we asked them, “now, why are you doing this?” In a belittling tone, and they shouted back, “because you told us to!” We then read the Moses 5 account of Adam offering up sacrifices and not knowing why he was doing it and told everyone that they were on a good track.

Today I want to share a couple of verses from John that are really important for all of us:

John 4:37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. 38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.

A lot of times as missionaries it feels like all we do is plant seeds and we get no success, but this is a beautiful thing that shows us all how needed we are in the kingdom of God. Is the reaper greater than the planter? What good does a planter do if there is no harvester? Likewise we are all needed in the kingdom of God. God knows how to use our specific talents the best, and we can be assure that we will always find success as we do.

---

Chapter 44: Ward Activities

This picture made me laugh. The light gray strap is the strap of Elder Anderson's missionary bag. The nice crisp black strap is from the bag of a missionary who is just beginning his mission!

Elder Anderson and his companion were blessed to be able to make their own pens at a Church member's home on a Pday. Elder Anderson made a beautiful olive wood pen.

4/27/2021

Today was a good day. After five weeks of having been here we finally made it through our entire member list, which means that we’ve contacted every member of our ward. Not having to split an area is really nice, usually we would go through our entire list in a couple of weeks, it’s just refreshing to be able to talk to so many people and to feel like we have such a large area to work with.

4/28/2021

Today I got to go on exchanges with my District Leader, Elder Edwards. Our day was pretty much a massive study session. All of the appointments that we had other than digging holes for planting trees in a riverbed (which means that our holes were like, 60% rock and the worst place ever to dig), all of our other appointments fell through and so Elder Edwards and I had a study session for like, two hours where we talked about Christ’s Atonement. Elder Edwards is a really smart guy and I really benefited from our studies.

4/29/2021

Today we had combined district council and swapped back companions. After our council Elder Aguirre and I headed back to Cedaredge and tried to make do with the small remaining amount of time that we had to teach an absurd number of lessons. Fortunately it all worked out and we were able to get back, but we were a lot closer to breaking curfew than we would have liked.

4/30/2021

Today was an amazing day, we watched the Book of Mormon video on 1 Nephi 8, talking about the tree of life, and Cybele understood it perfectly. We talked to her about how the path that the people walked that led to the tree was the covenant path, and that baptism would help her receive that fruit that brings joy. She was very excited about it, and we were very happy that she enjoyed it so much. We also got to do a lot of service today, one of the service projects we did was at an animal shelter, and the workers were amazed that the animals who seemed scared of other humans or males would be friendly to Elder Aguirre and I, and want to interact with us.

5/1/2021

Today was a great day! Brother Taylor found someone for us to teach, and led us to the house of a woman who cleans other houses. She’s a hispanic woman and was very excited to see us, and even more excited that I would speak Spanish with her. My Spanish isn’t very good, my ability to speak comes solely from the Book of Mormon and so while I struggle to speak normal words certain phrases like, “Repent ye, or an awful hell awaits you, yea, even a lake of anguish and inextinguishable suffering” those phrases come much more naturally to me, but fortunately I was able to get by with what little Spanish I know and avoided calling her to repentance in the first twenty seconds of having known her.

5/2/2021

Today was a lot of fun, our Ward had an early Cinco de Maio activity that we got to attend, and we were very grateful for it. We were able to get a lot of food, but we were also able to meet a lot of people in a very short amount of time, which was very useful, we lamented, because the end of the transfer is this week and we still have yet to meet some families that are considered to be “active members”. We met a few nonmembers at the Ward activity, which is why we were really excited to go, and Elder Aguirre destroyed the pinata, which withstood all of the blows of the children, so he instantly won a place in their heart. It was a very fun activity.

Today for a spiritual thought I wanted to share the definition of "Atonement" as it's given in the Bible dictionary:

The word describes the setting “at one” of those who have been estranged and denotes the reconciliation of man to God. Sin is the cause of the estrangement, and therefore the purpose of atonement is to correct or overcome the consequences of sin.

The purpose of the Atonement is to allow us to be at one with God, even as Christ is one with the Father. It was His love for each one of us and this ultimate goal that gave Him the strength to make the greatest sacrifice ever made.