Hi Josh,
Biggest news this week is Sam's Mission call. I'm hoping he gives you a detailed account, but I'll give you some of my perspective.
It turns out that the Church Mission office accidentally mistyped a part of our mailing address and Sam's mission call ended up not getting delivered. Last week, the Bishop called me after 4 weeks had gone by and asked if we'd got the call yet. When he learned that we hadn't he suggested he give the mission office a call. He did, and he learned that the call had been sent 3 weeks before! After checking the address and realizing the mistake, he was going to have them send the call again, when he had the idea to check the post office.
After some rummaging around, the post mistress found a large letter in the out basket being returned back to Salt Lake. Bishop gave that to Sam and we arranged to open it on Thursday. Matthew Wright came over and Cody was here as we started a Google hangout and a Facebook live feed. Sam opened the letter and started reading. From the start, something seemed a little off. It started of talking about welcoming him to the South Africa MTC, then started talking about Visa application forms. So we thought that they forgot to send the cover letter! At first all we knew was that he was going to Africa!!!
After a bit more searching we were able to determine that Sam will be serving in the Zambia, Lusaka mission... in AFRICA!!
And guess when his departure date is? December 20, 2017... which if we're not mistaken is the same day you come home. So, what that means is that unless something changes, you and Sam won't see each other for 4 years! Sam is very philosophical about it and says he will miss you but is happy to sacrifice to serve the Lord. I'm sure you feel the same way, but we were sure hoping that you could somehow see each other however briefly.
Of course, we are just super excited for him to have his call and know you will be too. You are a great example to your brothers and sisters. Thank you for choosing to serve and serve faithfully!
Grandma and Grandpa Bruce are up this week for a bit to help with wiring the garage. Mom and Grandma took a trip to Vancouver island to have a nice visit with Kurri. Benson is living there now and Kurri is happy about that. Cody is staying with Uncle Tad at the cabin down the road. He's alone a lot of the time, so he spends lots of time here and Ben goes there often as well.
Have a great week. We love you and miss you and wouldn't have you be any other place.
One thing to stick in your head and give us some thoughts on is whether to try and register you for some classes in January somewhere in Edmonton. Think NAIT, Grant Mackewan. Probably a good idea to get busy soon after your mission to get your feet moving as you make new and exciting decisions about your future.
Dad.
From Josh:
This week has been crazy busy, we have had so many experiences of stress and so many positive experiences.
What is sad to me is when stress overcomes missionaries. We had a sister in our district who wanted to go home because of self doubt and inadequacy and I totally understood where she was coming from because I had a lot of the same experiences and struggles, Satan does not want us to succeed and will use every tactic to dissuade and annul us of our desire to serve it is not an easy experience to be a missionary, I am pretty grateful for the elimination of the regular stresses of life, but there is a huge burden that is laid on our shoulders that not everyone can take, "Hence many are called and few are chosen, and why are they not chosen? because their hearts are set so much upon the things of the world" It is our call to be set apart from the world. So it is not easy at all to be serving the Lord, Unless your heart is given to him. It has been said that God is only angry when we don't acknowledge his had in all things. I have been able to more fully turn my heart over to God when I have been able to admit that His influence and direction are in every aspect of my life. I am still really struggling to follow him fully, and i am grateful for a companion who leads out when I am feeling unsure.
The other day we were walking away from talking to one of the potential investigators we had and this guy started approaching us, he was super friendly, extending an open hand much like we would do so we welcomed the change of not having people avoid us and we offered to help him with his yard (he had his entire garage emptied into his yard, which for California is a lot of stuff) he told us he was fine and started having a pleasant conversation with us, we noticed real quick that he truly was taking the role of a missionary by trying to "bring the mormons to the true christ" He used biblical knowledge and what he knew of our beliefs about Christ being the God of the old testament to "give us something to think about" (i.e. tell us we were wrong and to lose faith) We didn't try to argue though I really wanted to, Elder Bergeron my companion just extended his hand and said "thanks for the information have a good day" and we left. It was a negative experience that made me shake with adrenaline and frustration, however every negative experience precedes a positive and that day we did a lot of walking, we were able to talk to and share testamony with 8 people on the street, have really good conversations with pretty much every door contact we knocked into and near the end of the day we sporadically talked to this lady who was just about to carry her groceries in to her house, we offered to help her which she declined and so we just simply jumped into teaching and testifying of the Gospel, we learned that she was Greek orthodox (a sect of christianity that is deeply rooted in tradition and they never change) but after we shared our message we invited her to test it out and to ask God, she said that if God told her this was true she would be baptized into the Mormon church, after the lesson we helped her to carry her groceries in and set up an appointment for today.
Well the next day (this being sunday) we accidentally knocked into a members house and he told us an experience he had the day before. He was driving down the road and he saw this little middle aged woman surrounded by some gang bangers and as he approached ready to spring to her aid he noticed that it was actually three missionaries and that it was us! Guess we have to look a little less conspicuous when in public... kind of hard for a missionary to do... There were many more positive experiences that continued up into today. I love being a missionary and there is nothing i would rather be doing right now then dedicating my life to God, I was super happy to hear about Sam getting his mission call to Africa! A lot of cool experiences that await! A mission is a refiners fire for the Lords servants so be prepared Sam, you will have amazing experiences, and you will have experiences that will test your faith, fortitude and everything you are. Just remember that when you experience trials to fall into them, trials are like a trust test from the Lord, and as you experience trials you can know for sure that when you fall backwards trusting in God he will catch you and make you into what he needs you to become, don't be afraid to pray for humility, to trust in your leaders, remember that everybody on earth is not perfect and that there are three types of trials.
Trial from oneself (temptation, doubt, frustration)
Trial from others (unkind words, negative people, hard companions)
Trial from Circumstance (Trials that come for no other reason then you being in the right place at the right time, trials that God lets you experience to learn)
I love you all so much!
I have been working hard to eat a lot more greens, this is the last week of the transfer so a lot of anticipation on where I will go or if I will stay, working on not letting my mind think so much about coming home that I neglect my duty here.
I am grateful for all that you all do for me and for the relationships we can develop together.
Josh
Holland Quoted this!
Just after a service opportunity, actually this was a funny experience, we asked this spanish man if he needed a hand, he told us to come back tomorrow and we did we started helping move bricks and shovel dirt, then we looked over and realized that this was actually people working for money and we weren't asked to help serve we were instead hired to work for money! so we did our work for an hour, went and told one guy that we were actually missionaries and we loved serving them and before they could say anything dipped out... that is when I took this picture.
Trio life shadows.
Training our trainee how to tie a tie! I love training.
No comments:
Post a Comment