Oddly Timed Exchange

President called us in the morning and asked if we could host two Elders at our apartment. One of those Elders was going home early, so they were just gonna stay with us. Anyways things lined up really nicely cause it’ll be on an exchange. So hopefully my exchange with Elder Wilson is good. On our exchange we had a lesson and that worked out really well. We picked up those Elders, hosted them for a night and at 4am the following morning, President Gill picked up the other Elder. It sounds like he’s planning on coming back out. So best of luck and prayers to him, he’s going to do great things.

Religious Diverse Lesson at Tims’

We taught this guy at Tim Hourton’s and I gotta say it has to be one of my most memorable lessons (in a couple of weird ways). We taught him once, he’s Catholic but we gave him a Book of Mormon, and he was interested in learning more. We begin teaching him about Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation and he’s quite the talker so we were derailed a bit. I started tying things back by sharing Proverbs 3:5-6, at this point a guy walks over with his miniature Bible and asks if he can join. We were like yeah of course! Now we are throwing a towel in the lesson pan and adapting it for everyone. We talked about unity in us drawing closer to Jesus Christ, despite our religious diversity. Then he was asking about some of the differences in our beliefs. We talked about the Godhead and shared a few scriptures from the Bible. We also talked about baptism by immersion and I brought up a scripture in Romans about being buried in Christ. Anyways, everything was going pretty good, then our friend noticed a lady looking back at us and smiling. We asked her if she’d like to join in the conversation. She said that she was only hearing half of the truth. Our friend then stood up for us and asked her if she had any questions and we could answer with the truth. She said that she found all of the answers to her questions in the Bible. She then said “you didn’t use your Book of Mormon.” Now if you can imagine the slug lady from Monsters Inc that said “you didn’t file your paperwork,” she sounded just like her haha. Anyways we tried to get the number of the guy that joined us for the lesson. He gave it to us and we said we’ll shoot him a text and see if he gets it. Everyone gets up, I send the text, and he disappears. We never saw him leave. Nowhere to be seen. We had no idea where he went. I looked back down at my phone to see the dreaded “message unable to send.” message. So yeah that was quite the experience. Sounds like we need to be at Tim Hourton’s more or something.

Interviews at Our Apartment

President has been touring the mission this transfer visiting almost every apartment and having interviews there. We just had the opportunity to have interviews right before the transfer ends. It was pretty good. When they walked into the apartment they pointed out the good spirit that they felt here. I had interviews first with President, and he just asked me to tell him about my family. So that was pretty good, I just went through each sibling and my parents and shared a bit about them and how awesome they are. He then asked if I had any other questions for him. I talked about the sense of urgency, there’s too much work to do, I feel like I’m not doing enough. He shared a bit about President Eyring, and how he’s talked about feeling the same way. He talked about how he would pray about which of his responsibilities and tasks were most important and focus on that. He also said that he’s not going to keep me in the same apartment for 14 months. I was not expecting him to know the amount of months I have left, but hey I guess that’s good I won’t be in one apartment for that amount of time. The Gill’s talked about how one of the big things we’ve taught them with our assignment was the importance of integrating the spiritual side with technology work.

Journal Entry 05/31/24

Here’s something a bit personal I wrote in my journal the other night, pertaining to how I felt about my work. I’m mostly leaving this for me to look back on. If this makes it sound like I’m doing terrible, don’t be alarmed, I’m doing pretty good, it’s just that I feel like I need to be doing more.

“I feel like I’m not enough. Not doing enough, not serving enough, falling short, and not paying back enough. I’m drinking out of wells I did not dig, in cities I did not build. I think about everyone that came before me. The Pioneers that crossed the plains and sacrificed everything they have for what I have today. I think about the prophets and how they sacrificed everything so that we may have these ancient sacred records today. I think about my family and everything that they have done for me; I wouldn’t be anything today without them. I think about Jesus Christ and how He paid the price for everything, sacrificed everything, gave everything, and continues to give everything. I know that I am eternally in-debted to Him, I can never pay Him back for what He did and what He continues to do. But my soul aches, and I must give back as much as I can. I don’t want to disappoint the generations of people that came before me. I don’t want to disappoint the pioneers that crossed the plains, the prophets that sacraficed everything, my family, my parents. But most of all I don’t want to disappoint Jesus Christ. I don’t want to disappoint my Heavenly Father. And because I have been given much, I fear I don’t give back enough. I know it’ll never be enough. But it won’t stop me from trying to give everything I can.”

The Big Invitation

We had our technology council meeting the day of our interviews. And that was pretty good. At the end of it, he asked the assistants to step out, and he wanted to talk to us as a companionship. He said that he and Sister Gill felt the spirit while in our apartment today and enjoyed our company. He then said he felt something in both the prayers Elder Watkin’s and I offered. He then said he would like us to read the Book of Mormon daily as a companionship and finish it by September 1st. He added that it should be a transfer and a half. He concluded that it will prepare us for something in our futures. You know when he was talking about it, he made it sound like we were gonna be reading like 5 to 7 chapters a day, but when we put together our study plan, it was only 3 chapters a day. I’m pretty excited to start doing it. I don’t know what to expect, Elder Watkins and I have just been thinking non-stop about it. But it should be good.

Derek’s Baptism on Saturday

We had a few lessons with Derek, and he seems like he’s ready for his baptism this Saturday! We just have the baptismal interview on Thursday and we should be good to go. He is actually so awesome! He’s done so much to prepare himself, he’s kept every commitment, he’s gone to church after a twelve-hour night shift, he’s read every reading material we’ve sent him, and he has a very strong testimony. We were counting out the weeks from when he first got into contact with us, and it’s only been like four weeks, and he’s getting baptized! The last call we had with him, we were just expressing our appreciation for him and how this baptism is going to change his life. He shared that he was grateful for us, for taking the time to meet with him and to work with him.

Spiritual Thought

President Gill shared something that the Prophet President Russel M. Nelson shared in a meeting with the quorum of the twelve apostles and other representatives of the church just this last Sunday. President Nelson said, “if I could have one wish, it would be that people would stop wasting time.” There’s a great sense of urgency. You can see that President Holland is really pushing urgency too in his last days. He recently said “go to work with urgency,” “However strong your prayers are, make them stronger. However often you testify, testify some more.” Even President Bragg, ended our MLC session with, “there’s too much work to do. Don’t give up, keep going.” Now is the time. Now more than ever. We live in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Prophets have all looked to this time today. The eternal weight of today and the importance of what we are doing right now cannot be comprehended.