Memories of a Mission – Page 26 – "We will work for the glory of our Lord"

Assistants (Sunday, May 30, 2004)

Today was another interesting but great day. This morning, Elder Lewis and I were called as assistants to the president. The other two who are assistants now are leaving next week and when they are gone we will take over. It’s a little bit overwhelming to be called so soon after getting here but I know that with the spirit we will do fine.

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Spirit-filled Phone Calls (Saturday, May 29, 2004)

Wow! I’m literally on fire with the spirit! I spent a long time in the referral center today. For about two hours I did outbound calls and got to send the missionaries to about five people. As I was finishing up I decided to take one inbound call. I switched to inbound and almost immediately a lady called in for a Book of Mormon. Her name was Alisha ________, and she was from Rochester, New York. She was just calling because she was curious about the Book of Mormon. I asked her a few questions after I had her address and everything and found out that she knew about Christ. I just started talking to her about how Christ is the Son of God and about how much God loves us. I talked for about twenty minutes with her and told her all about the pattern of apostasy and restoration and about how after Jesus Christ died the authority that was needed was taken from the earth. I also talked about how the reformers changed the church and tried to change it to be more correct. I then shared with her the Joseph Smith story and about the Book of Mormon. The spirit was there so powerfully. I never thought that you could feel the spirit so powerfully over a phone. I honestly can’t remember all that I talked about but I could really feel the spirit guiding me as to what to say. When I finished talking I asked her if she had any questions. She said she didn’t and that she felt that what I had said was right. I then asked her if she would commit to read the Introduction, 3 Nephi 11, and Moroni 10:4-5 in The Book of Mormon. She said she would. She asked me if I could send the Book of Mormon fast and then send the missionaries to her. I did! She is ready.

I’m so grateful that I’ve prepared myself to be a fit tool in the hands of the Lord. This experience really strengthened my testimony and let me know that I am able to do this. I hope so much that Alisha will accept the gospel and join the Church. I truly know now how it is to love the people we teach. Even though I only talked to her for twenty minutes, I really love her and hope for her best.

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Interesting Phone Calls (Thursday, May 27, 2004)

Today we got trained on the computers in the referral center. We learned how to take calls from people that see our commercials or get pass-along cards. During our self-directed time, Elder Lewis and I went back and worked for about an hour. There was a man calling in a lot that was crazy and we were told not to answer his calls. It was kind of sad. The first call that I actually got to take was from a lady in California. I got all her information and then asked her why she had called for a bible. She didn’t really know a lot about religion so I started giving her the first outline. About half way through she interrupted me and asked if I thought it was wrong to have sex before marriage. I kindly told her that I did and then out of the blue she told me that she was a prostitute! I got a really bad feeling and tried to hang up nicely but she kept on telling me about what she did. I finally just had to hang up and get rid of her. It was really scary. Anyway, the rest of the calls were good and I got to share my testimony.

The church puts out some awesome videos! They’ve gotten even better in the 10 years since my mission but here’s on that was new at the time!

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First P-Day (Wednesday, May 26, 2004)

Every week missionaries get a day to spend as a Preparation Day (P-Day). P-Day is used for writing letters home, laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, etc. While we were in the MTC it was a bit different but we still had a P-Day every week.

Well today was the first P-Day here at the MTC. This morning before breakfast Elder Lewis and I went over to the TEC to sign up for a time to teach our first outline. We’re going to teach on Friday at 3:30. Elder Lewis isn’t sure that we’re going to do well but I think that we are ready.

The temple in Provo, Utah is directly across the street from the MTC. As missionaries, we were allowed to walk across the street once a week to attend.

I got to go to the temple this morning. It was really good. I got a lot of mail today, finally. Mom, Dad, Sarah, Joseph, Grandpa and Grandma, and the Laudies. I replied to all of them as well as wrote a letter to Brian Saville. I also did my laundry today and started a letter to A.

For class tonight we had “Obtain the Word” and then did an intense work on our “mag”

verbs. My head hurts sometimes when we do those. We also talked about empathy and how we need to feel and know how our investigators are feeling. It was a good conversation and the spirit was there.

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“Stunning One Liners” (Tuesday, May 25, 2004)

Today has been fairly good. This morning we were introduced to the TEC (Teaching Evaluation Center) where we can go and learn how better to teach. Elder Lewis and I signed up for our first appointment which will be on Thursday. We’ve already put together our first outline but we’re just going to have them teach us so that we can refine our outline a bit.

Neal A. Maxwell — “Stunning One Liners”

Tonight we had our first MTC devotional. We weren’t told who was going to be speaking until we got there. It turned out to be Elder Maxwell. He gave a great talk. He talked about “stunning one-liners.” These short terse scriptures are profound very often, we often can’t even comprehend how powerful they are. The spirit was really strong.

After the devotional, we had a review of what was said with President Naton. We talked a bit about Elder Maxwell’s address but then he launched into this huge discourse on angles. He quoted a lot of scriptures and told us a lot of things, some of which were contrary or conflicting to what I know. I was really confused after that meeting.

On a bit more “exciting” note… Elder C. collapsed today. He was sitting in the hall studying and he just collapsed and sat there saying “help, help.” We got him off to the health clinic right away and he ended up going to the hospital. We were all really worried about him and had a good prayer offered by Elder O., the spirit was there. He turned out to just have dehydration and was back by the end of devotional. I guess it was a good experience.

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The “White Bag Test” (Monday, May 24, 2004)

Today has been another very long day. This morning we had to get a sack breakfast because we had, got, to do a service project. Our district was assigned to clean the bathrooms in 18M. It wasn’t too bad. Elder Lewis and myself did very well. We cleaned 5 bathrooms in an hour and we did them well.

After we had finished our cleaning assignment, we had to do the dreaded “white bag test.” [1] We had to do two blood tests, a feces test, and a urine sample. It was awful. The fecal sample was the worst by far; it was smelly, and nasty. I hoped never to do it again.

After that atrocity was over we had a bit of class and then lunch. After lunch we attended a large group meeting. They taught us about the Spirit and how to teach by it. It was an excellent meeting.

We had class after that until dinner at 4:30. Everybody in the district was making crude jokes about how awful the white bag test was. I didn’t feel very good about it but I didn’t say anything. I will probably talk to Elder Cox, the district leader, about it tomorrow.

After dinner and more class time we had gym. It was so good to finally run around again. I’m glad that we have gym every day. In our night class we read about repentance. Bro Santiago brought up a really good question that an investigator might ask, pertaining to children’s state prior to baptism. We had a good long discussion about how to answer. I think I will try to think about what kind of questions an investigator might ask when I read my scriptures from now on.

[1] The white bag test was a test for parasites. Warning, this description is not for the faint of heart. You had to go into a bathroom and collect a feces sample, put it in a test tube and put the whole thing in a white bag. You then had to walk across campus and carry that parcel to the medical offices. Imagine a bunch of less-than-mature 19 year olds all doing this together and you get a pretty accurate picture of what we were up against!

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Sunday, May 23, 2004

The Infamous Tree of Life!

Today was a very relaxed day. I woke up, as usual, at six-o-clock and showered at the “Tree of Life.” The “Tree of Life” is what we call the common shower. It’s a bit uncomfortable to shower there but I guess I’m getting used to it. The first thing this morning after breakfast is have district meeting. One of the members of the branch presidency taught us about the priesthood. He had a very interesting way of teaching. He would chain scripture together and then teach the chains. It went really fast and I didn’t learn much.

Yesterday I had a good experience with Elder Lewis while we wrote our outline of the first principle set. The spirit was very strong while we worked. When we first started writing it was hard but as we were working the spirit came and we really started feeling what we should write. Once time while we were working stands out. I don’t remember exactly what we were writing about but I had this great idea of what we could say next as we are teaching. When I opened my mouth to tell Elder Lewis what it was, I couldn’t say anything. It turned out that he had a much better idea than me and if I’d done my idea it wouldn’t have been right. I believe this was the spirit directing us what to write.

Tonight we had a great MTC fireside and President Steven Allen of the missionary department was the speaker he talked about how romance is not a part of the mission. He said that we needed to lock our hearts and that we have companions for our own protection as well as for the protection of the church. He also talked about how we missionaries are in a war more deadly than any war that’s ever been fought on earth. It was really good.

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Friday, May 21, 2004

Today things started to go a little bit faster. I’ve finally figured out how the cafeteria works and soft of what happens for gym time. Today was our final large group meeting. From here on out we are really in the MTC program. Elder Fairbank’s companion arrived here today at about three-o-clock. I feel bad for him. One day to missionary not seem like an awful lot but we have learned so much since getting here that it would be really hard to catch up. I hope he does well. I’m really getting to love my companion Elder Lewis. He has a great spirit about him and I hope that I cannot be stuck up and proud about how easily things come to me.

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First “Real” Day (Thursday, May 20, 2004)

I slept fitfully last night. At about four-o-clock I had a dream that my whole apartment hadn’t gotten up and we had a mad scramble to get ready to go. We were still late. It was scary. As it worked out though, we all got up promptly at six-o-clock and were all ready to go. I’m excited for what lies ahead today.

Later… Today has been one of the longest days of my life. This morning we met our teachers for an hour before breakfast. I can’t remember their names right now but I think they will be good. We had our first class after breakfast and the instructor went over how to study the scriptures. He used the exact same outline of principles that Bro Sommerfeldt used. It was a good class but quite frankly I got bored because I had already learned it. Lots of the things that we are doing to “obtain the word” are things that I’ve been doing for a long time. Sometimes I feel that I just want to learn the language and go. I hope I will be able to overcome that attitude so that I can learn what I’m supposed to learn.

I always sort of thought that learning a language would be as simple as just wanting to learn. When we started learning some vocabulary in the morning, it still seemed like it would be easy, however, when we started learning grammar and a bit of sentence structure, it felt like I was getting hit with a cannon! All of it makes sense and I can remember where to put the placers, verbs, objects and everything but memorizing all the words is going to be a real chore. In class today we also learned how to pray in Tagalog. We have to say all of our prayers in the language and add in words as we learn them. It was really strange to say my personal prayers tonight in Tagalog. I guess it will become more and more natural as time goes on.

Well you can certainly see some of my bad attitude that I came into the mission with! Reading this entry, and some of the coming ones, really has shown me some of the weaknesses that I have. I like to think that I’ve gotten a bit better today but I know I still have a long way to go.

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1st Day in the Missionary Training Center (Wednesday, May 19, 2004)

Well today was my first day here at the MTC. It’s a bit overwhelming to think that I am here and really doing this it all still has a dream-like quality. My companionship is a threesome because one elder hasn’t arrived yet. My real companion is Elder Lewis. He is from Arizona. I think that he will be a good person to work with while I am here.

The parting of the ways, so to speak, was hard, but once I got out of the room I just felt that I am ready and that this is the correct thing to be going. I’ve learned a lot today. Most of the things that I already knew. One thing that was really stressed is that we be perfectly obedient. I need to make a strong effort to know exactly what I need to do.

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