Last year in J-Kaiwa, BYU's Japanese language club, I made a friend named José.
José owned a car. This car...ooooh boy. I'll just be frank: it was and is the most utterly trashed automobile I have ever ridden in in my life. An archaic Kia of unidentifiable model, José's beauty had a badly cracked windshield, one door fastened shut with a bungee cord, virtually no space to sit for the three adult men crammed in the backseat, and, due to a completely dysfunctional driver's seatbelt, a cute little tinkly alarm bell that rang from the moment the key went in the ignition to the moment it was granted merciful repreive.
It was a travesty of a vehicle. I absolutely loved it.
To some, the "quirks" of José's Kia branded it a dangerous kitbash with one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave. But, to us blessed passengers, it it had the most heart, grit, and sheer undying spunk of any machine that I ever had the joy of encountering.
For the last three weeks of winter semester, Friday nights began with me jimmying open the door, wriggling my way into the back row, dodging the bungee cord strung at neck level, and making myself at home listening to the alarm bell ding gently as I piled in with a bunch of upperclassmen to go out for dinner after J-会話. This sublimely uncomfortable situation was one I happily and repeatedly put myself in as a necessary price for an unforgettable night of sushi and Smash Bros. with the cool returned missionaries at the Japanese house. And, in some strange way, my rides in that wonderfully battered old sedan were also a powerful source of catharsis.
Mission life sure has reminded me of José's car lately. Whether I'm training, tracting, teaching, or leading...not once do I have any idea of what I'm doing whatsoever. I often don't know if I'm closer to riding in José's car or if I'm closer to being the car itself. Depends on the day. Some days the stress gets to me and I break down a little. Some days I break down a lot. However, the days I give my all in the quest to abandon all vain notions of pride, quit wrestling will-to-will with God, and just roll with it, well, those are the days I'm able to see my Savior most clearly. He's always there, but the days He is most visible, even if only "through a glass, darkly," are the days when I seek to live after His ways.
"Thy will be done, O Lord, not mine."
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Stuff from this week:
- Sherri, Thomas, Noah, and the Juarez-Andrianos all came to church! Noah and Thomas are returning member friends we've been working with when we can and I really love them both. After three years for Thomas and ten for Noah, they're back, they enjoyed themselves, and they're planning on coming again. This Sunday made me really happy.
- Knocked a house with a bunch of Christians doing a Bible study and asked if we could join in. They said no :/ but at least we tried.
- Found Santa Claus. He lives roughly down the street from the Bentonville Temple on McCollum Drive.
- The APs pulled up to my first District Council 
. For those of you who don't speak missionary lingo, missionaries in my position are called to lead a group of local missionaries (10 of us in my case) in a weekly council of goal-setting, lesson role-plays, and about an hour of teaching. The Assistants to the President are the two missionaries in the highest young leadership position in the mission, so teaching to them on my first time was a little intimidating. This week I focused on "Our Covenant Relationship with God: A Wellspring of Relief" by Kristin M. Yee and did a deep dive into what covenants with God really entail and precisely why they're so vital to eternal joy. https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/kristin-m-yee/our-covenant-relationship-with-god-a-wellspring-of-relief/
. For those of you who don't speak missionary lingo, missionaries in my position are called to lead a group of local missionaries (10 of us in my case) in a weekly council of goal-setting, lesson role-plays, and about an hour of teaching. The Assistants to the President are the two missionaries in the highest young leadership position in the mission, so teaching to them on my first time was a little intimidating. This week I focused on "Our Covenant Relationship with God: A Wellspring of Relief" by Kristin M. Yee and did a deep dive into what covenants with God really entail and precisely why they're so vital to eternal joy. https://speeches.byu.edu/- Elder Kemp, bless his soul, sleeps so deeply that he tends to completely miss the emergency alerts from his insulin pump. As a very light sleeper, I often find myself with no choice but to get up at like two in the morning, shake him awake, and tell him if he doesn't feed his blood to his bionic pancreas in the next five minutes then I'm gonna do it for him so he'll actually wake up the next morning.
- Yusuf Shaik: A good word to describe Yusuf is "cordial." We knocked on his door to ask if we could have lunch and ended up talking with him for like an hour while I ate a sandwich. It was really good for my mental health, because wow, Tuesday morning was pretty depressing. Anyways, we thought he was an inactive member but it turns out he was almost baptized in our church ten years ago before he became a missionary for his current group, a vaguely Hindu sect called Brahma Kuma Ris. Interestingly enough, Brahma Kuma Ris has schockingly similar beliefs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from how he explained it (besides them believing in being reincarnated 84 times). He's a nice dude and definitely gets some celestial bonus points for his hospitality to us missionaries when we were down and out.
- How to reheat brisket: sprinkle water on top, add butter, cover in tinfoil, bake at 225° for 20 minutes. Touch test that it's between super hot and warm and enjoy. Said brisket was courtesy of the Soohoos, a couple in our ward soon to move to Scottsdale.
- Played an intense chess match at the art museum with Elder Klingler while a Filipino family of 7 spectated us intently for a full hour. What started as just a game turned into a public exhibition of mental prowess when those good folks showed up and started chattering in Tagalog every move we made. It was way fun. Shoutout Elder Lauritzen, Sister Strong, and all the other homies serving in the 'Pines.
- Saw a shooting star while Elder Kemp and I took a moment to chill out. The tender mercies were right on time just as always.
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Well, that's about all for this week. My spiritual thought was mostly the story at the top, but if you want specific reading on how I came to that conclusion, check out Mosiah 3 (particularly verse 19) for a sermon on humility from the servant-king Benjamin, a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ:
"19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."
We knock people's doors to tell them about this little blue book for a reason. It's good stuff.
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Song of the week is "Sparks" by Coldplay from my favorite concert ever. Coldplay 4 lyfe, baby.
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This world is lone and dreary but I choose to believe that God is good.
Love you all and Happy Thanksgiving!
Elder Rigby
