hey‏

So, we had a pretty decent week. We had a baptism DURING our ward Christmas party on saturday. It was way cool because the whole ward was there. Fun times and a lot of food. Plus there was this kid there that is 9 years old who is an active member of the church but his mom is inactive, and then after watching the baptism he convinced his mom to come back to church and also decided to get baptized. Being that he is 9 years old it ends up being technically someone that we have to teach in order for him to get baptized, so we are just going to teach his mom. She said she will for sure come back to church and is excited. It is always nice to see inactive people coming back to church.

Speaking of which, there is this family in our ward that was super inactive but loves missionary work and we were working with them to find people to teach, and they randomly decided to practice what they preach and came back to church and are doing temple preparation. That is a good feeling to see a family being united in that way.

We can't really take any credit for that because we did literally nothing, but then again we can't really take credit for any of the work we do. The more time that passes the more I realize that a super effective missionary ends up doing very little other than just attempting to follow the spirit and rolling with the situations that come from your prayers. For instance, we made a goal of baptizing every week, and it was looking like this week we weren't going to have anyone to help despite our best efforts and trying pretty hard, but then we did a fast and then that 9 year old kid just walked up and asked us to baptize him this Saturday. And actually, pretty much everything we do ends up being like that. We always make up the master plans that we think are so cool and effective, and then nothing ends up coming from it because we are lame and the Lord just picks up our slack and makes things happen.

Things like that make me realize the true value of things like Duty to God and Personal Progress, because instead of focusing on a superficial knowledge of gospel topics, those church programs focus on helping you create a legit relationship with God and learn how to trust him in a real way and follow the spirit. I feel like that is the only really important part of preparation for a mission, or for life.

Before the mish, I thought I would study the scriptures and be able to prove stuff to myself or other people through logic, or somehow accomplish things in the mission field through my own talents... but sadly for me it doesn't work like that. You can be a total idiot that grew up in a cave and knows nothing about nothing, but if you really sincerely love God in a real heartfelt way and follow the spirit for reals you'll be ultra-successful in anything that is important (i.e. missionary work and/or real life), because in the end he does all the heavy lifting and you are just supposed to follow him. Like there is this missionary in our zone who is awkward and knows very little scripture wise and has no social skills and is super shy and he baptizes like crazy. And they are all simply people that do everything themselves and he doesn't even really work that hard. He just asks them to stop smoking and they do. And the difference comes from the fact that God prepared the people he teaches. He just asks God where he should go and what he should say when he gets there, and if he gets in a situation where he doesn't know what to do he seeks inspiration from prayer and everything he does works out perfectly.

So long story short, everyone really should consider doing Duty to God or Personal Progress, but not just to do them. Like really look for the spirit and try to learn to recognize it and build their trust in it, because I feel like my confidence in my own talents really hindered me for the first year and a half of my mission and those programs are designed to help people not do that. That is what I get for not listening to anyone and not doing my Duty to God. LESSON LEARNED. Now if only I had a time machine....

As this transfer winds down I notice two things.

1) the last 3 transfers went by really fast

2) I only have 3 transfers left. That is bad news.

I feel like I am just starting to learn. I wish so bad that I could just go back and restart. I wasted so much time on my mission because of my arrogance and my pride, and if I just would have followed the church programs and done what the prophets asked of me I would of been way more prepared. I feel like I have a heavy debt to pay off in the next 4 months. Luckily for me the Lord forgives us for our stupid mistakes when we really repent. We'll see how much I have repented when I get home and start being normal again, but however it ends up working out I am really grateful for my mission. The Lord basically took the time to sit me down and show me how useless it is to trust in yourself. Even if against other people you are comparatively successful, your satisfaction ends up being very little compared to what it could be if you would just accept your own nothingness.

Life's greatest satisfaction comes from fulfilling our divine purpose. Our divine purpose is to follow the example of our savior, qualifying for and learning how to follow the Holy Ghost and then consecrating everything that we have and are. Only through this will we receive a fullness of joy at judgement day, and I am 100% convinced that nothing else will give us peace on earth like following Him will. I have tried out both sides and I am convinced.

I love you all and I thank you all for supporting me enough to let me go and have this experience. I hope that I never am the same after this. I guess only time will let us see what happens. I'll probably just go back to being an idiot or something. We'll see.

later

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