I lost my son this week. Elder Johnson flew home to Minnesota and will be back in 5 months. Training is such a special opportunity because you think you're gonna be teaching them and then they actually teach you more. That was true with Elder Johnson, Elder Howes, and Elder Searle(, and Elder Porter too!) I will always remember those days.
Then we gadda go do language study with Tracey and Twinkle, the indians. They looked at our FAT stack of flashcards and grabbed markers and corrected everything. Then Tracey was even like "I will make more cards for you" so we're gonna come back to like 300 more.
I think you only need 10,000 words to be fluent so- at this rate we'll be there in no time.
On Saturday we went to an Indian Buffet with one of our Indian members and we…ate like Indians.
Hands.
No forks.
It was….an experience.
We drove to San Jose and had some training/planning on how to run our own Social Media Page. And then we created the "Indian Followers of Christ" page. I'm very excited to use it and see what all we can do!
Elder Holladay converted me to frozen pizzas and they're cheap and yummy so.
But then right after he converted me I had another Elder teach me all about "plant based whole foods" so now I wanna be a vegan.
We had a fire member meal and they invited their non-member family to come too so it was a little bit of stress. We turned our charm and humor up and it was actually perfect. I felt like we were all friends at the end. We shared Leviticus 6:13 with them and how to "keep the fire burning" so good.
Then Monday morning was zone conference. President Larson showed us all our mission statistics and how the most effective finding is all about MEMBERS. Knocking doors is kinda silly compared to social media or visiting members.
The problem really is pride and impatience. Missionaries think THEY can do it and they want instant results. But that's not how it works! As disciples of Jesus Christ we're in this work for the long game. (These are things I learned and thought about, not necessarily things President said)
Elder Holladay and I have been thinking alot about that and how when we chose to pursue hindi we were choosing to not really baptize very often. This will be a very long process and we are simply laying the foundation so that members and missionaries in 10 years can baptize all the indians.
But if we never plant the seeds then the tree will never grow.
That afternoon we met with Pugal, my best friend/ recent Indian convert. He literally wouldn't stop talking about how badly he wants to serve a mission. He's counting down the days till he's been a member for a year and can go to the temple! He even said he is moving to a new apartment so he can get away from his roommates and just focus on reading the Book of Mormon.
He is such a pure example of faith! I love him so much and can't wait for him to serve a mission either!
That evening we performed "My Shepherd will Supply my Need" at a Tri-State interfaith celebration. Everybody else had some really cool stuff. There were prayers and scriptures and speeches and other dances and songs but….I think ours was the most powerful and striking.
I love the 23rd psalm so much, you can ask Elder Holladay, there's almost never a day that goes by where I don't recite at least 1 verse to him. So, this was a really special song to sing and I enjoyed it alot.
Then exchanges. I was with Elder Francom, what a beautiful personality he has. He has genuine humility and real fire burning for missionary work. His trainer was Elder Slade, whom I was with a year ago! So I had a blast hearing many wonderful stories about their time together.
Ok. Last thing. In Leviticus chapter 5 there's a sequence of scriptures where God asks us to sacrifice a lamb and if you can't afford to sacrifice a lamb then sacrifice 2 turtle doves and if you can't afford that then you sacrifice a handful of flour. (Look at verse 6,7, and 11)
There's 2 ways I wanna look at this and the first requires some imagination and we'll do the next one in a week.
So, knowing the children of Israel were not always the best and sometimes actually really bad, imagine an Israelite man on his way to go Make a sacrifice and he's looking at his sheep and thinks "I really don't want to sacrifice any of my sheep- others who don't have sheep sacrifice turtle doves….maybe this time I'll just sacrifice turtle doves instead"
So he goes and gives the priests some turtle doves. They assume he can't afford to give a sheep because he brought turtle doves and it goes great.
Soon it is time to go offer another sacrifice and he looks at his sheep….then some turtle doves. In no time at all he is bringing turtle doves again. A few sacrifices later he's looking at some flour and thinks "flour is also an acceptable offering…it would be so much easier than turtle doves…"
And boom. Now he's sacrificing handfuls of flour while he has a yard full of sheep.
I'm sure this or things like this happened all the time with the children of Israel. And it happens with us today too! God has defined very clearly the sheep we are supposed to offer him and one flaxen cord at a time Satan tricks us into offering turtle doves and flour when we are fully capable and able to sacrifice sheep.
Please recognize that turtle doves and flour are still good things! God accepts these offerings and they are still technically righteous things. It's a battle of Good, Better, and Best or rather Flour, Turtle Doves, and Sheep.
So please find some turtle doves and flour that you're giving right now where you know you can be giving a sheep and come up with a plan on how you're gonna give a sheep.
And also
Keep the fire burning (levi 6:13)
Love you!
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