ST AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA
COMPANION: ELDER BURTON
zone leadersFrom Home to Valley Center,
from Valley Center to Temecula,
from Temecula to Home,
from Home to the MTC,
from the MTC to Gainesville
(by way of Jacksonville)
from Gainesville to Starke,
from Starke to St. John's,
from St. John's to St. Augustine, and now
from St. Augustine to another part of St. Augustine.
That's a lot of moving for a missionary who still hasn't been out a year!
As I said, I did not get transferred. I am still in my same area. So we were going about our day as usual. It was Wednesday morning, the day of transfers, and my companion and I get a phone call. On the call, we are told that the Elders who live next door to us (we live in a quadraplex, so from the outside it looks like one medium-large house but it is really four three-room apartments) are being replaced by Sisters. There were some concerns expressed about our living next door (that phrase doesn't really do it justice. We would have been sharing a wall. We would have shared a washer and dryer. We would have shared a parking spot! Just... A lot of sharing) to a set of Sister missionaries.
So we moved! The two new sets of Sisters took the two elders apartments, and we took the old Sister's apartment, which is giant and ridiculously nice. We measured the bathroom. It's four times the size of our previous bathroom. Pray for the sisters. There are four of them sharing one washing machine. Neither companionship has a dishwasher.
And also, we took all of their stuff.
So this was not intentional, but it did work out this way. Missionary apartments, over time, accumulate an enormous amount of things. Missionaries are given or buy or are shipped clothes and supplies and whatnot, and it is HARD to take it with you when you are transferred and impossible when you go home. So. Apartments that have been missionary apartments for YEARS just have many, many things.
When you leave an apartment, it is supposed to be SPOTLESS. So we made ours and the other Elder's apartment SPOTLESS. It is a rule that you are not to leave ANYTHING in the apartment when you are moved out. We, trying to be as considerate as possible, giving the Sisters a clean, fresh start, left only a whiteboard filled with encouraging comments we had written, and a tiny Christmas tree with all the candy we could find stacked underneath. We took everything else. Everything. If it was small enough to fit into the car, we took it. Wednesday night, that was the cleanest apartment in the mission. We ALSO cleaned out the apartment next door to us since the elders were already in Jacksonville for transfer meeting. We were being very obedient and kind.
WELL! The sisters get back from Jacksonville and we have a dilemma. We cannot move in until they move out. So we wait for them to pack (because they didn't KNOW they were moving) and call us. They do not call us until 9PM and then it is to tell us that yes, they are out, but they forgot to leave the key. We drive across town to get the key and then start moving. Moving at least a decades worth of things out of two apartments across St. Augustine with only you, your companion, and your Ford Fusion takes some time. We got our stuff out onto the grass so the sisters could go inside and get to bed on time, but we did not finish the move until past 1 AM.
So that was an experience. Anyway. We arrive at our new apartment. It is great and spacious. We have a porch with a view and a bathroom you could fit our bedroom into. There is also about $2000 worth of electronics that no one is able to explain (three phones, a DVD player and flatscreen tv, chargers, wires, a hook up for xfinity, a cable box, other things.... What?) and SO. MUCH. STUFF.
Apparently, Sister missionaries are even bigger packrats than Elders, and they took NONE OF IT. Not the food, not their bedding, not their supplies or whiteboards or posters of ANYTHING. They didn't even take their own records! Their Ward list and area book was all on our shelf! They left a whole suitcase worth of clothes piled in the corner of their walk-in-closet! (They asked us before the move if WE had a walk-in-closet. We told them that you could walk in if you were a smurf, and you weren't claustrophobic. They did not laugh very much.)
So, we now have a great and spacious apartment and many, many, many possessions. Many. We have a panda beanie baby with a tiny bowtie. And a nerf gun with 13 extra darts. And nine pictures of Jesus hanging up in our study room. Nice ones! Oh wait, ten! I just saw another one. It was hidden between the third Joseph Smith portrait and the second poster of the Orlando temple. We also have two irons, an old timey alarm clock, four mirrors, a scale, five white boards, six drawers of pens, and 15 million hangars. And three rice cookers. And ten rolls of paper towels. And two light-up bouncy balls. And a cactus. And two bags full of ties. And 11 pairs of pants that fit reasonably well. And a briefcase. And three bags of bath soaps and a bubble-blower shaped like a rocket ship. And eight chairs. And a couch. And a weight bench.
And... Well, you get the idea.
So. We made a couple trips taking them stuff they needed. Like their area book and one of our three full-length body mirrors and their refrigerator magnets (their magnet was of a sister missionary saying "When life gets hard, I've found the answer to be a manicure and a cute helmet." Ours is of a pickle doing a cannonball shouting "I'm a big flippin' dill!") and a blanket. But the trips are over, and we come home and rejoice in our possessions. Life is pretty good.
New address is 420 Villa San Marco, Apartment 201, St. Augustine, FL, 32086.
Other notable events from the week... There were the two days it took to move. And then the next day we spent four hours on the phone with everyone from the mission president to the new individual missionaries (we have nine new missionaries in the zone) coordinating trade-offs, mileage limitations, Christmas things and meetings and how to report certain key indicators and WOW. Just a long phone continuous stream of calls. While I talked, Elder Burton cleaned. He unpacked the whole apartment! What a superstar.
Have you seen the He is the Gift Video? No????? It is fantastic! Go watch! It's only a couple minutes long and you are GUARANTEED to feel the spirit and want to watch it over and over again. Christmas.mormon.org. Try not to be distracted by how beautiful Mary is. They went a little overboard on the "most beautiful and fair above all" scripture in first Nephi. Well, they went way overboard. Come on people. We've got 1500 He is the Gift pass-along cards with her face on them and it's just ridiculous! Missionaries can't catch a break!
Anyway.
I had a couple of spiritualish thoughts this week. They occur to me occasionally. Sometimes I even write them down. This week I spent a LARGE amount of time pondering the lyrics to one of my favorite hymn lyrics. Savior, Reedemer of my soul. It is FILLED with gorgeous lyrics that resonate deeply with me, but for the sake of your time I will address only this one...
"Chasten my soul, 'till I shall be
In perfect harmony with Thee."
These thoughts came as I read the institute commentary to Job in my personal time this week. Job proclaims, "Yea, if He kill me, yet still will I trust in Him." Probably didn't get that word-perfect. Do we have that sort of trust in the Lord? Do we look at our lives and the worth of things in them as did Job? Do we truly have an unconditional relationship?
That is what is required. Less is not acceptable to Him. That is the vision the lyricist captured when he asked for the chastening. To have your SOUL chastened. What accomplishes that? What does that feel like? I imagine and for a moment I tremble. But then I catch the vision! He is my one delight, my joy by day and my dream by night. The path to perfect, soulful harmony with Him is the one I desperately desire to tread. I love Him. And the hunger to be with Him again colors every emotion and event.
The purpose of life is to prepare to meet God! I am not more prepared as I grow richer, I am not more prepared if I do things faster or if people are kinder and gentler with me. I do not seek these things. I am not more prepared if I am in good health. My physical and emotional and intellectual comfort and ease do not contribute, nor do the absences of fear or pain. The length of my life is not even a variable in this eternal consideration. However, my opportunities to love, my willingness to sacrifice, my awareness of Him, my dedication and my desire all are very much tied to this preparation. My love for Him matters very, very much.
I had a heartbreaking moment this week when I was unable to read music. Once upon a time, I was quite the little musician. Once upon a time I could hear it. Just as clearly as I can hear English in my mind as I read it, I could hear the music with a glance. I could feel it in my bones. I could sit down on the bench and feel the muscles in my hands provoke sound from a keyboard as easily and as naturally as my throat could pull sound for speech from my body. During the time my mind slipped away, it was music that went last, and for which I grieved most. After reading became strenuous and then impossible, after focus had faded and vocabulary vanished and exercise evaporated and diction dissipated, I could still play that piano for hours without effort, and I could still sing! And I remember the week at the end of March, 2010, when it just... faded away. And so much has come back. I can read and memorize and speak and work and think again. But music hasn't. With practice and work and many, many hours it might, but it hasn't even begun yet. Before my mission I surrounded myself with music constantly, even while I slept. I needed it to come from without, because it no longer erupted from within.
So this week we were trying to help the ward choir, and people were being really nice about my singing, and they were SO surprised when it came out that I could not read even the simplest melody. When I look at sheet music, I might as well be looking at Korean for all the clarity I have as to what noise I am expected to make from the symbols represented on the sheet. When I hear notes, I can't even tell which is higher or which is lower, let alone what is sharp or flat! I can't hold my note against other harmonies, I just... Can't.
And it broke my little heart! Here I am trying to contribute to something beautiful, trying to worship my God and uplift my ward, and I CAN'T! And I can remember when I could have and the longing tears at my soul. This experience is representative of many that I have. And I just sat down on my little futon and got a little watery-eyed and said a prayer. It didn't have words, but if it has, it would have sounded like this: "Father. Daddy. Where are you? Why aren't you here? Why not Father? Why not a little song? Why not for Christmas Father? Why not for Thee?"
And I had the most MARVELOUS experience. Oh it was majestic. Again, it was not in words. I'm sorry. I really don't use words except to speak or write. We watch a lot of Mormon messages. One is from a talk where Elder Christofferson quotes Elder Hugh B. Brown. If my answer had had words, they would have come from that talk, and they would have been: "Look little currant bush, I am the Gardner here. I know what I want you to be."
I have been different since that experience. I have behaved, spoken, and reacted differently. It was that experience, and not the experience immediately afterwards where I found I could sing and understand and play that song as easily as if I'd written it myself, that changed me. Oh it was a thrill. I was known by Him. I was enough for Him. I had a glimpse of His care in my development. I had a gasp of His glory. I knew Him a little better, and for that I would have sacrificed all the talent that ever has been had by all the men in all the nations that ever have been! My soul was chastened. I had the opportunity to choose what was important to me, music or Father, and I got to choose to be THRILLED to choose Him. If it costs talent or music or inner-peace or memory or health or strength or WHATEVER, then
I will get to come closer to Him every time! Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. Chasten my soul, so that I will get to be in perfect harmony, the only harmony that really matters, with Thee.
Merry Christmas. If I had planned my Christmas, it would not have been half this good! If I had planned my life, it would not have been a fraction as gorgeously joyous as this.
~Elder Jorgensen