Family,
Well. It's been another great week up in the North! It was transfer week, and since all the new missionaries go down to the meeting after their first transfer, we were going to fly down to the lower mainland, but one of the missionaries from Prince Rupert forgot to bring photo ID (and his suitcase, for that matter), and so they wouldn't let him get on the plane. Long story and quite a fuss at the airport later, I just volunteered to stay with Elder Forgetful and work in Kitimat during the transfer meeting. We ended up being rained on all day, BUT we found another pretty awesome family, which just kind of goes to show the simple truth that the best missionary work happens most of the time under... less-than-ideal circumstances.
It's taken me a while to get here, but over the course of my mission I've kind of come to a point where I don't really get too put out about rough times, because, well. I know this is God's work, and if I'm doing everything that I can, then whatever happens is God's intention, even if it is nothing more than a trial of our faith (1 Peter 1:7) (Elder Atwood would probably say that's a lie based on how worked up I can get in the fifteen minutes before church starts). Same thing with rules. In the mission, President Tilleman has asked us to not eat meals between 5-7 pm, because that's "prime finding time". We're also commanded to do things like not teach someone of the opposite gender without another male present. Some people just get put out and say things like "we could teach and baptize more people if we didn't need members present at lessons". That's so dumb. 1) you couldn't, and 2) This is the Lord's work, and if the Lord doesn't want you to teach single sisters, then that's His call. President Tilleman has a line he says, "Obedience is more important than sacrifice and baptisms". But I digress!
This Sunday, President Kaberry and Brother Van Horne were both
gone for a branch conference in Smithers, and so that left Brother
Streeter to conduct the meeting. It's pretty impressive to go from
having no church experience to conducting Sacrament meeting in a year.
The members up here are awesome. But... it was my turn to teach
Priesthood this Sunday, and then Brother Van Horne called us in the
morning to ask us to teach Sunday School since he wouldn't be there, and
since the manual for Sunday School was at the church, we didn't really
have any time to correlate or plan a lesson, so it kind of turned into
one of those situations where one person talks a lot more than the other
because neither person really knows what's going on. So church this
Sunday kind of consisted of Elder Blotter talking for a long time in a
mostly empty room, since most people were gone or in the
nursery/primary/etc. Ha ha. Branches really are awesome, though. And
Elder Atwood and I pulled it together by Priesthood meeting and had a
good discussion on families. The Boyson family was there, and despite
all their quirks, they really fit well together as a family, and it had
been awesome to see how preparing to be baptized has drawn that family
closer together. The church is true.Well. It's been another great week up in the North! It was transfer week, and since all the new missionaries go down to the meeting after their first transfer, we were going to fly down to the lower mainland, but one of the missionaries from Prince Rupert forgot to bring photo ID (and his suitcase, for that matter), and so they wouldn't let him get on the plane. Long story and quite a fuss at the airport later, I just volunteered to stay with Elder Forgetful and work in Kitimat during the transfer meeting. We ended up being rained on all day, BUT we found another pretty awesome family, which just kind of goes to show the simple truth that the best missionary work happens most of the time under... less-than-ideal circumstances.
It's taken me a while to get here, but over the course of my mission I've kind of come to a point where I don't really get too put out about rough times, because, well. I know this is God's work, and if I'm doing everything that I can, then whatever happens is God's intention, even if it is nothing more than a trial of our faith (1 Peter 1:7) (Elder Atwood would probably say that's a lie based on how worked up I can get in the fifteen minutes before church starts). Same thing with rules. In the mission, President Tilleman has asked us to not eat meals between 5-7 pm, because that's "prime finding time". We're also commanded to do things like not teach someone of the opposite gender without another male present. Some people just get put out and say things like "we could teach and baptize more people if we didn't need members present at lessons". That's so dumb. 1) you couldn't, and 2) This is the Lord's work, and if the Lord doesn't want you to teach single sisters, then that's His call. President Tilleman has a line he says, "Obedience is more important than sacrifice and baptisms". But I digress!
Well! Sounds like
everyone had a good week. Congratulations on graduating, Ness! (I
initially typed "getting baptized" and had to delete and change it to
graduating) Hear from you next week!
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