COMPANION: ELDER COLLETT
Life is pretty great sometimes. For example, I am enjoying a gorgeous day I'm Florida. I sit here, in my over-stuffed recliner, munching on my banana, and life just seems to come naturally. It's a pretty good time.
Sometimes though, life doesn't drop into your lap. There were days like that this week. Sometimes we packed ourselves full of snicker doodles and had whole days of scheduled appointments with investigators. And other days we did not.
The "not" days were my favorite. One "not" day we woke up in the morning with 10 investigators with baptismal dates and went to sleep that night with 3. One "not" day we were out street-contacting over an hour walk from our house and it started pouring rain so hard we could not see straight. It was a long walk home and several days before I felt truly dry again.
The fun days are fun. I had blueberry waffles prepared by a master chef and almost died of happiness. We split cedar logs and were given quite a bit of the wood to keep in the corners of our house and now all of my clothes smell like cedar. We had a ridiculous amount of success. We saw our brothers and sisters grow closer to Father. We laughed until our faces hurt about jokes I can't even remember.
But the "not" days are better. We committed over a dozen people to come to church. Solid people. Even had rides arranged for them. Contacted them Saturday night and it was all solid. Well not one of them came. And I was not pleased. But someone else came. A man we had never met walked in with a less-active member and we have an appointment with all of them on Tuesday. I guess that's not a good example of a "not" days. I'm sorry. I can't help it if they're all good ones.
We had occasion to answer the question "To what do you attribute this level of success?" We answered that it's about talking to everyone, and teaching everyone you talk to. But it's more than that really. It's about ignoring the word "no". It's about smiling even when you're insulted and inviting even when you're a little bit afraid of the situation you're in. And sometimes, it's about chasing people.
One day we taught a man a lesson in the middle of the street. I think he expected us to go away but we just kept talking, and before he realized what was happening he was reading in the Book of Mormon with us and praying about Joseph Smith. He is an outside sort of older fellow with none of his teeth. From then on, whenever we saw him, no matter what, we leapt from our vehicle and talked to/taught him. Occasionally he would try to turn down back alleys, but we always caught him, and gradually he came to be engaged as we worked our way through the discussions, mostly as he walked very purposefully around town. He expressed his love for us and even committed to be baptized at the end of the month!
I debated telling this story. There's no miracle at the end. Finally he dropped us and we don't see him around much anymore. But there is a moral! Sometimes you just have to chase people. Or things. Sometimes they walk into church and ask to be taught, but sometimes you power-walk across Starke testifying about the Resurrection, Judgement, and Immortality to a man you know nothing about as he pursues some nameless errand with an air of serious urgency. We do all we can do, we love as deeply as we can love, we testify as loudly and as often as is possible, we dream as fervently as we can and sometimes, if we're lucky, we get to chase those dreams.
Sometimes we chase people.
-Elder Jorgensen
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Letters Home
Hehehe my accent is terrible. No southern drawl just a lot of y'all. I'm working on it though! The only thing I learned to cook was oats. Oats are tasty. I will try to learn lots of things and be a master chef. Mmmmm Daddy's Japanese food is to die for. If you but a deep-fryer I can show you how to cook all SORTS of things! Hehehee. Oooooh we had these unbelievable waffles the other day. Not even sure how many I ate. Probably the most standard favorite though is the biscuits, which are served with every meal. The ward will feed us once or twice a week. Ish.
That is fantastic news!!!! A baptism!!!!! Wow good for _______. That is a hard, hard road. Pass on my love and encouragement will you? I love the idea of having found/prepared Dr. Jensen for him. That makes me feel really good. The mission has revealed so many weaknesses I don't know how to keep up! Every time I get enough emotional duct tape gathered to hold one together 7 more pop up! Thank goodness for progress!! I had no idea how much fixing I need. Let everyone know I will be loving to the very respectable age of 10,012 to have time to work through it all. Sigh. Maybe Christ will take care of it sooner. He IS pretty great...
Poor Cassidy. I really do not like that rejection feeling. But it is wonderful that Katie had so much fun!!! Hehehee ohhh Missoula. It would be fun to do plays with the girls. I bet YOUR play is the talk of the town! It sounds incredible!! I will clap for you from here. Whoa!!!!! Cameron going to general conference? That is HUGE!!!! Goodness gracious that made my whole day! What a fantastic experience. Can I come??
Hehehe scripture chase sounds fun. I love you too. I'd write more but my companion wants very much to play basketball.
A noble father followed through
He gave his life and yet he knew
His daughters, mothers to nations would be
Across the fickle, raging sea
Love you.
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There are sister missionaries in our ward. I spoke in church on Sunday about what effect my mission has had upon me and my family. After sacrament meeting one of the sister's investigators asked me to perform her baptism. It's the first weekend in April. I'm so grateful. I'm so nervous. I'm giddy.
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I forgot that you are in nursery!! Lucky.
Riddles:
1. that's faithful hid for 2, the one that heard he never knew.
2. Sticklers for what they called heaven
Jesus taught beware their leaven!
3. A temple dark and without paint
A hole made man into a saint
No name its hunch-backed captives freed
In thirty nine it saw God's word indeed.
Whoops. None of those are for first Nephi. Sorry. Love you!
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Excerpts to Grandad:
"Quandry" is an excellent word. Last week my word of choice was "verbose". This week I think it will be "pith".
I love to hear about anything, honestly. It will probably make sense if I tell you why. As you know, I have aggressively passionate feelings about reading. Well we're only allowed to read the scriptures and emails here, and we only get an hour a day for the scriptures. I'm a little reading deprived. Whatever you write, I enjoy. I love being in someone else's mind and seeing the world through their eyes. Whether you write about family or routine or the gospel or anything else, I get to experience those things (which of itself, brings the spice of variety to my week) and experience them from your perspective! It's fun no matter what it is.
I'm not sure that made any sense. Hopefully it did.
Wow it sounds like everyone is having fun adventures!! I love how closely knit our family is. I had no idea that it was such a rare thing in the world until I began serving as a missionary. I have you and Grandma to thank for that blessing in my life. It is a paradigm that will shape the earthly and post-earthly life of me, and of my entire posterity.
The weeks are definitely trending upwards. I cannot wait to see what this one brings.