And it's time to return to the world

Dear Family & Friends,

General Conference, Mission Leadership Council... Spiritually fed. I loved Elder Nielson and Elder Ballard's talks on missionary work in the Saturday afternoon session. President Eyring's opening words on Sunday as well as President Monson's in the morning session were great.

At MLC, we were counselled to expect more urgency of the Hastening of Salvation at conference and so it was.

Next week, I am going home. I will be arriving at around 1 pm on October 15th in Utah. I am excited to meet my family, maybe I'll go to the temple to be endowed with power to return home.

I will then turn right back around and drive up to Oregon with my family on the 16th of October. We will be traveling around visiting people and places until Sunday 20 October afternoon when we will travel home. If you would like to meet up with me and my family at some point please call my parents at (801) 265-1103. I'm not sure whether I will be able to check my email next week, so keep that in mind.

I look forward to my next stage in life. I am grateful for these last two years. Thank you all for making me who I am today. I love you.

"And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!"

This last week was a blur

Last p-day, we hung out and played a couple games of bowling with our investigator who is soon not to be our investigator... for a good reason, too: He's getting baptized on Saturday 12 October at 11am in the Grand Prairie YSA ward! WOOH! The last Saturday before I go home, I will be able to witness one more person enter into a covenant with God and be endowed with the Holy Ghost. What a blessing and miracles. Surely there is no better way to end full-time service of the Lord.

Wednesday also brought extra blessings - I was on exchanges down in Lebanon with an Elder from Snow Peak ward. First off, before I talk about the blessings - here's a little about what I had to go through in order to receive those blessings:

Their apartment was freezing and small. Their shower even got the infamous name in the mission, "Shower of Humility" because it was so small - the roof was angled in on it, forcing you to crouch down and use the shower hose to rinse off your body. I ended up getting to tired of hunching after a minute or two and ended up just sitting down. It definitely earned it's name. Haha. It was a fun experience.

Then came the blessings - we met up with one of their investigators who hardly spoke any english and had a thick spanish accent. We taught her a brief lesson on her porch (for who knows why cause it was chilly outside!), and then I interviewed her for baptism. Although I had to strain to hear what she was saying, I felt the Spirit testify that she was ready to make her first covenant with God. It was a sweet experience.

Thursday our blessings increased ten fold as we went to the Portland Temple for an endowment session. It was an amazing new experience even though I have been so many times before. I felt God's love in the things I learned and was taught by the Spirit. I am so grateful for the temple and I hope I can meet each of you there, one day.

Yesterday, Sunday, I bore my testimony for the first and last times in the Oak Creek Ward and Grand Prairie YSA Branch. I didn't let on that I would be leaving anytime soon, but said that I hoped that someday I can stand before God and say as Paul did:

"6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.

 7 I have fought a good ^afight, I have ^bfinished my course, I have kept the faith"

I have loved my mission and as it draws to a close, I have been reflecting on all the blessings I have received over the course of my mission. No pages of any book can contain what miracles I have seen and the blessings I have been given. It will in no doubt bless me and my family for the rest of eternity. After all, that's what the family was created for - eternity.

A last exchange

Yet another week has flown by. It was a good one too.

This last week we went on a couple exchanges with some elders in our zone. The first one was from Tuesday night to Wednesday night with our district leader. I went with the district leader's companion into his area. Boy oh boy did my feet get a workout that day. "The [missionary] children [talked] as they walked and walked and walked and walked and walked...." Haha. One of the elder's bike was broken and we didn't have a car, so we walked all day long from house to house and from one side of town to the next. We did talk to quite a bit of people and were able to teach a few here and there too. The elders lived in a little "hobbit hole" of an apartment. The ceilings were just a few inches taller than me and if you weren't careful, you'd bump your head -- and I did a few times.

I was not surprised to be taught more from the elder I was with on both exchanges, than I felt I taught him. I'm sure that the Spirit can teach all of us regardless of our age or position, and I'm confident that I still have much to learn from the missionaries I serve around. They are a strength and inspiration to me.

The second exchange we went on was from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon with a missionary who was training. This time I stayed in my area. No matter how many times you move into a new area and get used to the transitions of missionary work, I still end up being clueless a few times after exhausting a list of probably 5-10 people I actually know in the area. When you run out of those options, the only thing left to do since you don't really know where you are or who lives nearby, is pray and go tracting. Haha. It is quite the humbling experience being reminded time and again that you know very little about your area, regardless of the experience you've had on your mission as a whole. We will always have to rely on the Spirit.

The elder I was with helped me think quite a bit about what I've learned over the course of my mission. At one point, he asked me what was one or two of the most important things I've learned on my mission. It was a very deep question and I realized I hadn't really taken the time to list out only a few things, despite the many things I have learned. There's just so much. But as we talked, I came up with a few of the following:

--Hard work and diligence: whether you were a hard worker before your mission or not, I have learned that the mission helps you become one. It will either make or break you, so it's up to you, but when I'm doing all I can to do the right thing, it's inevitable. You figure out the secret to missionary work.

“I have often said one of the greatest secrets of missionary work is work! If a missionary works, he will get the Spirit; if he gets the Spirit, he will teach by the Spirit; and if he teaches by the Spirit, he will touch the hearts of the people and he will be happy. There will be no homesickness, no worrying about families, for all time and talents and interests are centered on the work of the ministry. Work, work, work—there is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work.” - President Ezra Taft Benson
I know it, I hope you do too! I love each of you.
I know it, I hope you do too! I love each of you.

--Patience: No matter what your situation or circumstance is, you'll learn patience. Whether it's through the frustration of an investigator not coming to church week after week, or a less-active member not coming to church for years even though they have a testimony, or even if you and your companion disagree on what the definition is of obedience and disobedience is -- you will either learn patience or just become frustrated with the lack of it.

--Love: Everything will boil down to how much you love the Lord, how much you love the people you teach, serve, and serve with. What are you willing to do in the long run? Are you willing to thrust in your sickle with all your heart, might, mind, and strength? If you do, God will bless you with that love. It's not easy, but what more could someone want than the love of God and fellowman? Everything else seems a little trivial.

I could go on for days about the things that I've learned on my mission, but these are just a few. And the beautiful thing is - I've still got three weeks to learn more, love more, serve more, and become more! I am grateful for this wonderful opportunity. Everyone asks me how long I've been out, and I just say... a long time. When they pursue it further, I change the subject. I want to use all that I can to focus and serve with all my might, mind, and strength. The time is nigh at hand, no doubt. But I want to be able to say that I've "fought the good fight." I know that this gospel is true, and it only becomes more true in my mind as the days go by.

Confidence

This week I've learned a lot about confidence. Confidence in myself. Confidence in my companion. And most of all confidence in the Lord. I have sought earnestly to become unified and spiritually-guided with Elder Tandy and we've hit a few bumps along the way. As I was praying one night, however, the thought came to me - seek to control what's in your control. You can't change other's agency, so do everything you can to be the best you can be and leave the rest to the Lord.

I strove to follow this counsel and was given strength as we learned about our strengths from Paul Wyn at MLC. The counsel of how to acquire the Healer's art from President and Sister Samuelian was a blessing as well and helped me see that it is mostly my responsibility to turn my companion, investigators, members, and myself over to the Lord to receive guidance and correction.

I have sought to serve my companion this week by complimenting him on his strengths and yielding to him in lessons and finding opportunities. The Lord has consecrated my efforts and shown love to me and Elder Tandy.

We saw this as we spent a good chunk of time on Thursday preparing for our zone meeting. Our efforts were blessed and we had super spiritual meeting. We testified of the Atonement in ways I had never thought of before. We led our zone through a barefoot, silent walk through the church halls. We walked in and through the baptismal font, pausing to look at "Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ..." and then walked in the Spirit back to the chapel where many members of the zone bore powerful testimony of the things the Spirit had taught them. It was such a neat experience.

Since then, Elder Tandy and I have taught many powerful lessons and have given a few blessings of comfort to help some of our investigators in their repentance process. Last night we gave one of our investigator's a blessing after he made a mistake and was set back a little on his progression. It was amazing to feel of the love God had for him and I felt it as I shared testimony of Christ and His atonement.

I am loving serving the Lord these extra weeks in the field. I pray that the things I am learning will always be brought to my remembrance.

Here's a talk I came across this week, here's just an excerpt (from Elder Holland):

For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.

If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” ¹⁶ then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.

The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I testify that the living God is our Eternal Father and that Jesus Christ is His living and Only Begotten Son in the flesh. I testify that this Jesus, who was slain and hanged on a tree, ¹⁷ was the chief Apostle then and is the chief Apostle now, the Great High Priest, the chief cornerstone of His Church in this last and greatest of all dispensations. I testify that He lives, that the whole triumph of the gospel is that He lives, and because He does, so will we.

On that first Resurrection Sunday, Mary Magdalene first thought she saw a gardener. Well, she did—the Gardener who cultivated Eden and who endured Gethsemane. The Gardener who gave us the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the cedars of Lebanon, the tree of life.