COMPANION: ELDER COLLETT
I think some stories are overdue.
Story Number 1: We share the ward with a set of Sister Missionaries. This week one of their investigators, Ciera, got baptized, and asked me to perform the baptism. So that was a little amazing. It went off without a hitch, mostly because I made my companion go down to the empty font and practice with me (over his STRENUOUS objections) about a million times. Hehehee, poor Elder Collett. A thought from the baptism: it was not necessary for me to shove her down or dunk her in the water. She bent her knees and slid smoothly under the surface, with my hands and arms providing only guidance and structure to her descent and rise. This is our role as missionaries, and as children of God. We do not force, shove, or dunk. We only are guides. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path".
Story Number 2: Yesterday a young woman walked by us, waving hello and extending a greeting with a familiarity that indicated we ought to know who the heck she was. We had no idea who she was. In our defense, we talk to a lot of people! It seems like everyone in the 5 or 6 towns we cover knows who we are. Anyway, we stood there, puzzling, until
finally we remembered. And then we chased her. She had gotten a pretty significant head start, but we ran after her all the way to her house, pausing only to try to preach to a couple of men in their front yard, to whom we must have presented a truly ridiculous spectacle. Anyways, we caught up just as this young woman, Brittany, went inside. Dang it!
Well we knocked on her door anyway. Her friend answered and told us they were baptist. But we just ignored that comment, taught them the first lesson, and are going back with a member of the ward to teach them some more tonight. Every week needs a good chasing story. "Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me..." We are certainly peculiar.
Story Number 3: We had been out walking the streets teaching people for several hours, and had wandered many many miles from where our car was parked. I was pretty exhausted from having been rather dreadfully ill earlier that morning. So there we were, in the middle of NOWHERE,
definitely going to miss our next appointment, when a less-active member pulls up out of the blue and offers us a ride. We had been working with him and he had JUST come back to church for the first time in 40 years. He bore powerful testimony of Joseph Smith while driving us to our car, and will be meeting with us Tuesday. The Lord works it out when we work our hardest!
Stories galore: I'm not sure how to pack all these in. We got kicked out of the annual Starke Strawberry festival. We were tricked by our GPS into driving into the middle of a field. As we were walking through one neighborhood a small child pointed and laughed at us so hard that he fell over and his mother had to come check on him and we set an appointment time with her. Our investigators feed us pretty consistently. We are still teaching everyone at the car wash and their
baptism dates are coming up quick! We are just happy to be alive.
As a mission, we are reading the Book of Mormon in 90 days. As I read, I mark up anything I find about the nature of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, Angels, prophets, and the wicked, all in different colors. I also have little side project going on. As I study the scriptures, I look for verses that capture the essence and unique personality of their author. For example, 2 Ne. 4 and 33:6 are marvelous for exploring the soul of the prophet/historian/warrior/king Nephi. 2 Ne.1:15 is my favorite for Lehi. Moroni has a lot of excellent ones but
Ether 12:38-39 is my favorite. Poor Jacob is so melancholy, reading Jacob 7:26 nearly breaks my heart! Helaman 5: 6-12 is an exquisite insight into the bleeding heart of Helaman Jr. Oh how I wish we had more from that great teacher, father, judge, and the bane of Gadianton and Kishkumen.
Alma 36:12-22 or 29:1-2 compete for my choice for Alma the Younger. These men are all so unique! Some, like Mormon (Mormon 6:17-22) and Nephi, actually wrote on the plates, and the insights we have into their hearts are plentiful. Others, like Benjamin or Ammon (Alma 26:35-37), are only quoted, albeit at length, and although their teachings are incredible and pure, a glimpse of the world through their eyes is harder to obtain (but well worth the effort!). Occasionally there is a third group, those who only are summarized or whose words were written down by those who knew very little about them personally. These men, like Samuel or Ether (Ether 15:34) or Abinadi, are a special sort of study for me. I feel as though Jacob or Moroni or Alma and I are quite close, but my relationship with these others is only beginning.
Oh how I love the Book of Mormon. I wish I had my scriptures or my journal here to write out the references I have searched for as I have sought for the heart and soul of the writers I cherish in the sacred pages from which I drink. I will have to be content with these few I can refer to by memory. The Book of Mormon is what it claims to be. I believe it and I know it. What a peerless gospel it is.
What do you think Abinadi was like? What was going through Samuel's mind up there on the wall? How was Ether similar to and different from Mormon and Moroni? I wonder these things. I am happy to find out. I am happy to love the authors of the Book of Mormon individually. I am thrilled at the thought that perhaps such study will allow me to love the Author of the Book of Mormon absolutely.
I love you. I love being a missionary.
-Elder Jorgensen
Letters Home