Monday September 17, 2012

 

"Lift up your heart and rejoice for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation.

"You shall declare the things which have been revealed to my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun. You shall begin to preach from this time forth, yea, to reap in the field which is white..."

 

These same words given to Thomas B. Marsh 182 years ago this month are the same words given to all of us. I am reminded of this section of the Doctrine & Covenants everytime I feel the fire of a new missionary. Elder King is progressing so well. I love how we push each other and try to be the best companionship we can under the present circumstances. Yes we got blinds for our apartment. Yes, I think I could say things are getting easier. Yes we're starting to grasp Erie's bussing system. But that doesn't stop a mission from being one of the hardest things I've ever done.

 

The Lord likens missionary work to the labour intensive work of the harvest - not easy and sometimes you collect less than you anticipated, but the fruit you receive from that which you sow is of the sweetest thing that can be had in this life.

 

"Therefore, thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your back...

"Behold, verily I say unto you, go from [your family] only for a little time, and declare my word...

"Yea, I will open the hearts of the people and they will receive you."

 

I've been surprised how much the Lord is already strengthening my body and desire to contact all. The Lord seems to be partial to his trainers and new missionaries. He senses their inadequate feelings and is merciful to them. We've been led to three new investigators this week and I'm psyched to see the old investigators from Millcreek coming to Church including Guy, Liam, Margie and Gary. Sister Porter told us we will not be able to count the seeds we sow. For the Lord has brought us into these areas for the salvation of souls.

 

"Be patient in afflictions, revile not against those that revile. Govern in meekness and be steadfast.

"Go your way whithersoever I will, and it shall be given you by the Comforter what you shall do and whither you shall go."

 

To all missionaries and all members the Lord gives us these promises laid in Doctrine & Covenants 31. And to us he says,

 

"Pray always...

Be faithful unto the end, and lo[w] I am with you. These words are not of man nor of men, but of me, even Jesus Christ, your Redeemer, by the will of the Father. Amen."

 

Elder Low

Monday September 10, 2012

Elder Gary King is my new companion here in Erie Walk. And I have to say he's definitely perfect for me. This week has felt like one of the longest weeks I've had on my mission in a long time. Elder King is from Lindon Utah, really close to Provo. He's 19-years-old, an excellent debater, and keeps me super accountable, which is good. Training is always an interesting experience but this experience in particular is teaching me a lot. I've learned how much stuff you need when you start off, probably foreshadowing the days when I will eventually get my own apartment and realize I really don't have anything. Our mission secretary is really good at thinking of a lot of things that go into an apartment but there's always something that's forgotten. We got into our apartment seeing that we did have quite a bit of furniture and very useful items, but we still missed some of the essentials. It turned out that our air conditioner only functions as a heater and so we were dying in the 80+ degree weather we walked in this week. We also didn't have beds until Friday, just a mattress on the floor. It definitely reminded me of the good ol' days in Bedford when I didn't know that an apartment could be any better but it reminded me in a killing-my-back and stiffening-my-neck kind of way. Oh yeah and we didn't have curtains. Yup. I felt like I was living in a fishbowl in the ghetto of westside Erie. The apartments are really old and just painted so all the windows are huge and all the doors open into each other. Nothing seems to have been set up with any sort of wisdom behind it. It was a lot of fun changing and sleeping and showering with gigantic windows on the first floor. Yeah showering was definitely interesting because there's a window IN the shower and we didn't have a shower curtain for a couple days. We gave Erie a little more than they paid for.

The walking has also taken a toll on me. I've never been in a walking area and I think being pampered in Hershey and Millcreek with cars and medical student families has made me a lot rounder than I thought I was. I've never been more tired in my mission. I basically collapse on my bed every evening as a lot of our time is filled with walking and finding people by street contacting. We still haven't figured out the bus system so we basically walk our 2 x 3 mile area. Good thing my shoes don't have holes in them except one... oh wait.

 

The Lord knows how to humble me. I told Elder Swensen a couple weeks ago that the Lord's never put me in a walking area because he knows how terribly I do with OYMing (street contacting) all the time. I'm naturally an introvert and so reaching out to talk to people, especially when I know that they probably already hate me, is really really hard. But, as He always does, He's given me weakness that I may be humble and luckily enough, His grace is sufficient that He can help turn my weaknesses into strengths (That hasn't happened yet, but I'm looking forward to that day when I can call it a strength). Elder King is really smart. He picks up on things fast and his obedience from the MTC has made me realize how slackened I had gotten being companions with experienced Zone Leaders. He pushes me to be the best and makes me realize that I really do need to be the best example, the kind of trainer my trainer was to me. He knows we need to talk to everybody and even when he feels too scared to talk to somebody, he'll nudge me and say “should we talk to this person?” I'll look down at his good intentions, sigh, and say, “yeah, we'll talk to this person.” 

Our teaching pool has been greatly reduced not only because Elder Swensen and I divided our investigators for when I would double-in, but near the end of last transfer, a lot of our investigators were ready to be dropped. We went into this area only having two solid investigators. But optimism and faith radiated from Elder King and we were able to talk to many people. Such an experience came to us the other day when he nudged me to talk to a group of black guys and a girl. Now, I avoid talking to groups of people and these guys also looked and talked like gangsters. I was definitely hesitant to say the least, but I did so, offering the generic invitation of sharing a message about Jesus Christ. They both looked at me, shocked and amazed at what I had just said. They revealed to us that the one guy (Dante) was trying to convince the other (Deandre) that Jesus Christ was the Savior and that it was only through Him that we could come to the Father. They took our gesture as a sign and let us right into their house where we proceeded to teach much of the first lesson. Dante could quote much of the Bible and, unlike most Pennsylvanians, he would quote all the RIGHT passages. We set Dante with a baptismal date on Friday and are still working with Deandre.

 

I have to wonder what would've happened if I hadn't talked to them or if we had come 5 minutes later or 5 minutes earlier, we would've missed them completely. The Lord directs and guides us and I believe that He has sent Elder King here to train me more than I could ever do for him.

 

Elder Low

The Jamestown Zone!

 Me serenly reading scriptures on the roof of Franklin Pennsylvania

One of the many Erie frogs

Us and the Clarks at a popular Erie diner called Sara's

 Me and my best friend... 

Monday August 27, 2012

 

Things appear to be looking up for this next week. Last week was pretty sparse with appointments and our investigators seem to be dropping like flies. So there's not much to report from this last week.

 

I guess some highlights might be:

• Gary has decided that the Book of Mormon has to be true. He also realizes that means Joseph Smith is a prophet. Gotta love that domino effect. However his progress halted a little bit because he still refuses to come to Church. Tonight we're going to watch President Uchtdorf's famous (in my eyes anyway) “Waiting on the Road to Damascus.” That helped me realize my testimony.
• Last P'day we went on a tour of Erie provided by the Clarks. Along with seeing the wonders Presque Isle and antique downtown structures, we went frog hunting. There are apparently 102 giant plastic frog casts around town. I think we found like 11 on Monday. Only 91 to go...
• I went to a different church for the first time in my life – a Catholic church with one of our investigators. We promised to do a church swap and so we went to the Saturday evening mass. It was interesting... The priest even acknowledged our presence amidst the congregation of 900 Catholics. He wanted to answer all of our questions so bad, so we made some up just to make him feel like we were interested. Elizabeth (our investigator) then came to Church yesterday.
• Elder Porter of the 70 came and spoke to our mission. He expounded things I had never considered about the Doctrine of Christ. His wife talked about the light that emanates from us as missionaries. She made the interesting comment that we'll meet people in the Celestial Kingdom who will run to us saying that we've never met but by simply watching the way we conduct ourselves, the light and the image of us being servants of the Lord will make people want to know what we're about.

Hold your light up. The light of Christ radiates from your very being.

 

Elder Low