Retrospection

 Wow, that was fast.

I will be home in 1 week. I've had 19 companions, 4 areas, 2 mission Presidents, trained 4 times, 12 of my friends have been baptized, and I've only actually paid for a haircut 1 time.

Looking back I can confidently say that I have been successful. Could I have done more? Yes. Was my heart always in the right place? No. Yet, I am an absolutely changed person. I have learned who Jesus Christ is. I know I am a son of God. I know priesthood power is real. I have experienced life-changing repentance. I've given up my will to do what God wants Instead. I have truly desired to help others come unto Christ.

My entire life changed sometime way back in my 2nd transfer when I woke up from a silly dream. I dreamt my companion and I were running around a neighborhood goofing off and ended up knocking on a door. A kind old man answered and let us in. We sat down with him and soon realized he was Deaf. In the dream I knew ASL and so I started signing with him.

Then I woke up.

I don't really share my dreams much but I felt like I should tell one of the other elders, Elder Eli Hendricks, about this one. He shocked me by telling me it meant I was to become an ASL missionary. I had no idea we even had ASL in our mission.

After that my entire life was changed. Pretty soon I found myself in Fremont, struggling to learn ASL. And then in Fremont for 18 months straight.

If I never shared that dream I never would have become an ASL Elder. I would have stayed english and travel the course of a normal mission. Instead I was tied to Fremont.

Fremont is full of Indians. This prompted me to learn Hindi. 

Later I was on exchange with Elder Holladay. We had just picked up some groceries and were sitting in the car when we both got a notification to hop on duolingo so we didn't lose our streaks. We opened it up and were surprised to see not only were we both learning Hindi, but we were on the exact same lesson! 

That was the beginning of Hindi work. 

Then we started going on exchange every week to try and teach Indians. There was a direct and plain to see correlation between the amount of study and prayer we did for Hindi and the amount of miracles and doors opened. So many Indians have now had a chance to hear the truth. Not many seriously accepted it. But many of those curry covered hearts now have a seed planted inside.

It never would have happened if I didn't talk about a silly dream. 

Now I know ASL. I will be serving Deaf people in the church the rest of my life. 

Now I know a ton of Hindi. I will be doing all I can to invite Indians to come to Jesus Christ for the rest of my life.

I know this is God's work. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are trying to save all of their children. That's the plan- we do all we can to save everybody by helping them come unto Christ and learn who he really is. Sometimes that means you have to serve in Fremont for a total of 20 months and play around with 2 languages. Sometimes it means you need to leap out of your comfort zone with no parachute and accept that the landings gonna hurt the first few times. Sometimes you cry because of the thought that some soul should perish. Sometimes you get to stand in the water and baptize one of God's precious children in the name of the Father and of the Son and of The Holy Ghost. It all works out when we try our best. God is in charge. Curveballs aren't actually Curveballs, it's just God's plan.