Elder Oliver Rigby: Week Four: Paratrooper

Hey everyone! Hope you're all good. A ton of stuff happened this week and I can't get to it all but the biggest thing is that I finally got to go to Arkansas! I'm assigned to the Bentonville 1st Ward with my trainer Elder Cebellero and we're right in the middle of town. Like smack in the middle. The Bentonville temple is literally in the same parking lot as our church haha.

Saying goodbye to my district and the MTC was sad but it had been a fire two weeks and we were ready to get going. The trip to Arkansas was actually super fun because my travel group turned out to be like 20 missionaries on the plane to Minneapolis and like 12 on the plane to Arkansas. The others in Minnesota went to Milwaukee so prepare for some greenies Elder Thompson. Also, a pilot named Captain Brett bought like seven of us Chick-fil-A. Thanks Captain Brett.

I couldn't help but feel like I was getting shipped off to war in the last few days in the MTC. Everything was geared around suiting us up, handing us a plane ticket, and giving us a nice pat on the back before we parachuted into a battlefield. Arkansas is legit and the Bentonville mission is strong and no-nonsense. It's so foreign in so many ways and as missionaries we're out there in the thick of it almost 24/7.

My mission president, President Collins, is equally legit. He's a super nice guy but he's waaaay tough on the "high love, high expectations" thing. No music, no member service, even no Pokémon cards. Just knocking doors every second we've got. It's way intense and honestly a lot tougher than I expected. But hey, the stats don't lie. Since he's taken the wheel the average baptisms per month has literally quadrupled in our mission. That's four times as many children of God accepting the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ every month. So while some of the guidelines we have to follow are frankly unpleasant I know that our mission president knows what he's doing. I came out here to do the Lord's work so if it's four times as effective with strict rules then heck yeah.

My trainer, Elder Cebellero, is great guy too. He's a District Leader who's been out for nine months now and he's a great example of both an obedient missionary and a good hard worker in general. Elder Ceb's responsible, diligent, and competent and I've been learning so much from him these past few days.

In other news, this week I:

- Met one Elder that looks a lot like like Michael Cera and another that looks EXACTLY like Jim Carey. Like frighteningly close. I'll send a picture of him sometime cause he lives next door.

- Learned missionary slang. We're discouraged from using slang so we sound more professional so a few substitutes include "treacherous," "powerful," and "hairy." I still don't know half of what the other Elders are saying but whatever, I'll pick up on the dialect soon enough.

- Lit the duolingo owl on fire.

Thought:

(PHILOSOPHY ALERT. Skip to the bottom and I won't be offended. Plus I can't see how much of this you read anyway.)

I got to spend part of my first day in the trenches as a trio with the Elder I was replacing on Friday. His name was Elder Sam Andersen (the exact same name as my MTC comp but he's a different guy haha) and it was his very last day before he went back home. I was exhausted and discouraged from knocking doors without success and at some point I made a joke about wishing I could switch places with him and be on my very last day too. He got super serious as soon as I said that and told me dead serious that he would do almost anything to switch places with me. It caught me completely off guard—I thought he'd be so done by that point that he couldn't wait to get home but he found something here in Bentonville that made him want to stay for as long as he possibly could. I kept thinking about it and it reminded me of an idea we learned about in my philosophy class last year. I'll quote it roughly: "you know what you're doing is meaningful if you would be okay with doing it an immeasurable amount of times over and over again." This dude was cool with serving a mission over and over again and he was devastated that he was going home while here I was doing mental math of how many months, weeks, and days I had until I got to fly back to Arizona. What made him love this so much that he never wanted to leave? I had and have literally no idea, but the longer I wear the tag the more I start to see what he was getting at so bear with me for a bit and maybe I'll answer my own question soon enough.

Anyways, enough with the philosophy stuff for now. Here's a scripture:

Doctrine and Covenants 84:88:

And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.

Missionary work is hard. It just is. But I know God will support His servants and j know that the one thing better than going home to Heaven is going home to Heaven with as much of your family as you can possibly bring with you. Nuff said.

Love you guys!

Elder Rigby