Hey all!
Sorry I missed last week! Once again, pday was chaos. Since I'm covering two weeks, I'm just going to take a few events from each and elaborate on those this time around. Hopefully it gives a good glimpse into how colorful missionary life really gets when you write down the little stuff. Here goes:
● UPDATES:
- We haven't been able to meet with J, our friend on date, for a few weeks because of domestic problems that conveniently got significantly worse right as she decided she wanted to be baptized. Her abusive husband has been to jail twice in the last month for completely ignoring the no-contact order she has on him and, of course, when they locked him up for real the second time, some random unknown benefactor paid his $15,000 bail within 48 hours. That guy is a weapon in the devil's hands right now. Nevertheless, God will always win in the end. If she chooses to align her will with His then no power on earth or in Hell can stop His plans to bring her joy.
- We're starting to pick up speed with our teaching pool and the work's been going well. While we'll probably have to push back Jennifer's baptismal date so that she can have more time to get sober and there are still some days where every, we got our new 16-year-old friend Jack on date for December 2nd! We're also hoping to extend the invitation to our friend Brian when we meet with him next.
- After hardly any success in getting people to church with us this transfer, we smashed our zone record with 20 friends coming to church in the Bentonville stake, with seven of them being in our area! We had two full families join us, including Eric and Kaori who we met at the trunk-or-treat and John and Selene who just pulled up out of nowhere as well as Jack and our longtime Catholic buddy Matt. Side note on Matt - homedog pulls up to church some weeks like "Yeah, God told me I should come here this week" yet he just refuses to take lessons with us. This guy.
- To round it all off, we had our first temple trip to the Bentonville temple last week! I love how near to the Savior I feel when I spend time there. The promises I have made with Him to follow His commandments, sacrifice my time and energy to share His Gospel, live a chaste and virtuous life, and give my all to the work of the Lord are a consistent source of peace and stability in the constant turmoil of modern life.
● STUFF WE DID:
- Streeting: Happened on a farmer's market at the town square, so we decided to stop and hand out flyers in the rain for our ward's fall festival and trunk-or-treat that night. While at the square we met some costumed marketgoers, bought some dark chocolate from a guy who dressed like Walter White, and got free macarons from a member couple running a booth there. Fun stuff.
- Trunk-or-treat: Well, the event got moved inside because the weather was pretty wet so it was more of a hallway-or-treat. Also, we started a 15-minute conversation with a guy named Eric that led to him and his family coming to church this week by telling him he looked like Andy Samberg. Eric's cool. He studied Japanese and Economics in college just like I want to, lived in Washington like I want to, and even picked up playing soccer like I, once again, want to pick up. Basically he's future me with curly hair.
- Taste of the Islands: Ate some dubious chicken legs with a gimungous helping of rice when we visited the William family, some inactive Pohnpeians. Brother William was the leader of his branch of the church in Pohnpei and his daughter Katherine is a returned missionary. Katherine's been coming to church for the first time in two years in the three weeks since we've visited her but Brother William doesn't speak English very well and doesn't wanna go to the Pohnpeian branch a half hour away.
- Panic: Got hugged by a nice old lady named Midge while knocking doors. That's about it. Kinda against missionary standards but I simply didn't have any choice in the matter.
- HALLOWEEN: First off: it was cold. Just cold. Don't ride bikes in the winter.
With that out of the way, we had a pretty normal day filled with door-knocking until about 4:30 when people started giving us weird looks when they realized we, in fact, weren't trick-or-treaters. For some reason, people weren't excited by the fact that we had something to give them instead of the other way around. From there, we went to the Pursers' (one of my favorite families here) for dinner, where they enabled carnage in the form of two missionaries battling with hundred-dollar dueling-grade lightsabers. And to end out the night, the Bayleses had opened their home to the ward as a trick-or-treating base camp so we hung out there after visiting a few members. As part of said hanging out, I participated in a chocolate tasting contest, talked about home with a member who's moving to Scottsdale, made friends with a ton of the youth in the ward, and nerded out about Kanji with the Bayleses who all know Chinese. Certified good Halloween.
- Native American Museum: Some rich dude in Bentonville just absolutely loves Native American artifacts, so much so that his private collection is big enough to fill a museum. I could talk about the funny little ceramic dogs and raccoon head bowls we saw yesterday but it was actually way cool so I'd just say check it out if you're ever in the area. Plus, there's a complete mammoth skeleton just chilling at the front door so yeah, Bentonville's got one of those.
Honorable mentions include free Waffle House, a Pokémon-card-buying relapse, a dog that looked like a potato, and an extra hour of sleep thanks to Ben Franklin.
● THOUGHT (Extra long because it's been two weeks:)
(1) "The Teachings of Jesus Christ" by Dallin H. Oaks.
An Apostle of the Lord shares directly quoted words of Jesus straight from the scriptures for 15 minutes. Good stuff. The best person to learn Christ's Gospel from is Christ Himself.
(2) "The First Great Commandment" by Jeffrey R. Holland.
"Lovest thou me more than these?"
See John 21 for the source of this fantastic sermon on what it truly means to love the Lord.
(3) THE FOURTH MISSIONARY by Lawrence E. Corbridge.
The First and Second Missionaries, though their missions have different outcomes, are consistently disobedient. They have their reward: a comfortable-ish two years with no real, meaningful progress therein.
The Third Missionary is interesting: he (or she) is obedient and successful. However, he secretly wishes he could be off doing what *he* wanted to do instead of what *God* asked him to, and never truly overcomes the dissonance between his will and God's. If these wills do not align, this missionary will work hard, see miracles, live with the Spirit, and miserably suffer through the entirety of his laborious two-year shift in the vineyard. He does good, but *he does not internalize the character of the Savior because he does not desire to do so.*
But the Fourth Missionary is something special. In the end, only the Fourth Missionary will truly gain the full measure of joy, peace, and change they seek from their experiences serving a mission.
The Fourth Missionary does not try in vain to fight God. He understands the difference between sacrifice and consecration. The Fourth Missionary doesn't just give God actions, he gives himself—that being his will—totally, utterly, and completely. The Fourth Missionary, at the end of it all, joyfully follows Jesus Christ and, in so doing, is endowed with true charity.
In short, the happiest way to live is to want what God wants for you.
A lot of missionaries already know the document I'm writing about here but, in case you haven't, I would strongly recommend that anyone interested in or currently serving a mission should read it. Some of you, like me, sometimes wonder why even though you strive to follow the rules the beat you're able and be a good, hardworking missionary, you're just totally miserable sometimes. The insight that President Corbridge offers in this 24-page discourse will rock your world if you give it the time of day. If you want to learn how you can find more joy in your labors with the Lord, please read this.
Well, that's all I've got for this week, folks. Song of the week is "M79" by Vampire Weekend. And go read the new Eragon book for me, yeah? God is good.
Love,
Elder Rigby
P.S. I've been horrible about responding to emails lately but for those of you who have written to me, thank you very much. I read them all and appreciate every one. 出来るだけ早く返事します！I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
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