COMPANION: ELDER CORDON
ASSISTANTS
Hope y'all had an awesome week! Highlights for me:
Temple trip! Everyone goes twice in our mission; once at halfway and once right before going home. Except for us. We go every six weeks. Hehe. But this was my first time to the temple in 13 months so,
I was excited...
The Orlando Temple
1) Went to the temple. It was breathtaking. I told the mission president's wife and she looked at me a little inquisitively. I may have a tendency to exaggerate a bit. But it was! Shouldn't it be? Shouldn't every trip to the temple be the most spiritual experience of your life? Shouldn't every day be deeper and richer than the last? It was excellent. After our session, we sat in the sealing room and unloaded questions onto the temple president for an hour. It was amazing.
2) We saw Elder Anderson on Wednesday! 3 hours of real talk from him in the chapel to missionaries only. It was quite the experience. He talked about faith, then the Prophet Joseph, then the Savior. Faith was the primary focus for sure. And guess what question I had brought to the meeting? Faith. Awesome.
Me, our Ward Mission Leader, Donna, my companion, Elder Cordon
3) Donna was baptized. Donna was found by the missionaries a week or so before I arrived in the area. They just knocked on her door and she already had a Book of Mormon and questions and everything! Five weeks later and now she's baptized! She's in her 60s, she loves birds and her house is full of them. She is quick to laugh and very talkative. She has connected wonderfully with the Ward and has not missed a sacrament meeting since she met the missionaries. Donna served in the army and was stationed in Germany for a few years and then spent most of her career in the IRS. I spoke on Baptism at the service and Elder Cordon and I were both witnesses.
4) We just have a lot going on. Of the nine investigators in Church this week, six of them have committed to baptism by the end of February. And there's one more already scheduled for March. I wish we had hours to talk about every single one of them. Italee the angel. Aniya and Cheyanne the Sisters. Lopaka the Hawaiian. Marquez the 6 foot tall 14 year old. Jorge the Father. They are awesome. More details to come. Plus Ashley is already talking about how she wants to be baptized in the ocean and David is just waiting to be asked.
5) A 70 year old man who only speaks Albanian walked into Church accompanied by a Vietnamese member of the YSA branch. A part-member family moved in literally 20 seconds (by foot) from our front door and came to church. They were being taught by missionaries in Texas. Guess what the name of "their missionary" is? His name is Elder Jorgensen!!!! Crazy coincidence!!!!!!! People just call us and ask that we come teach their friends and family. It's pretty awesome.
I am sitting in the mission home eating a yogurt, staring at the "transfer board". It is a giant whiteboard with every one of the 225ish missionaries in the mission, their picture, their arrival and departure times, their leadership assignment, and their companions. There are a couple of faces I don't recognize or names I don't know, but mostly, I know them all.
And I love them. I love every single one of them. I love them so much my frame shakes! There are so many things I wish I could tell them. I would speak of urgency, boldness, love, happiness, consecration, the spirit, the doctrine, loyalty, atonement, repentance, Joseph, the Apostles, obedience... I would give them real talk! I would use what Elder Cordon calls "many words".
But we can't always talk to everyone. We can't always grab everyone. We can't always spend our lives learning from and loving and teaching and praying and growing and playing and training and lifting and watching and laughing with every single person that we see. But we can show them. We can live our lives beside them as gloriously as possible. We can reach for the third heaven and stretch and shine and testify and laugh until we weep and forget everything else in the attempt. We can share a little piece of eternity when we do the Lord's work with someone, and that bond is deeper than a lifetime spent in anything else.
I'm still here. I'm still working. I'm still trying. I'm still lying awake at night wishing to be better, hoping to be better, desperate to be better. I'm not sure I was that much better today. But there's tomorrow! Oh there's still tomorrow!! I am so grateful, because I'm still a lot like I was yesterday. I'm still a goof. I still tip over and drop things and get confused and smile too largely. I still sin and get way too fired up about things. I still love you. I still see miracles every single day. I still know that what I am doing is the work of God because I am still sure, absolutely and eternally sure, that this is the Lord's Kingdom established upon the earth. And because of all of that, I'm still. What a peaceful thing it is to be.
~Elder Jorgensen
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LETTERS HOME
Hey Mama!
Hehehee it would be an interesting place to visit. I have been blessed with some real diversity but on the nicer end of the spectrum. The humidity is coming. We'll have two more months of cool loveliness and then 8 months of rain and heat. It rains in the summer on the east coasts of continents and in the winter on the west coasts. It's also more arid and cool on the west coasts but with colder water at the beaches. Apparently the currents control all that. Fun facts.
Jacksonville doesn't get hurricanes. Not sure exactly why. Someone explained it to me. They bounce over the whole area. Awesome.
I love the Midway! What an awesome experience. I remember loving The Hiding Place. Fun to visit the old Ward! Donna got baptized yesterday. I'll talk about her story in the other letter. I love you! How was Courtney's birthday? Is Cassidy excited for hers? How is everyone doing on school? Who are some of your friends? Where is the family at in their scripture study?
We do a lot of things! Lots of responsibilities. But this week I got to go to the temple. It was phenomenal... I made a goal to attend the temple 100 times in my first year back from my mission. Long way off. Something to actually look forward to.
Yesterday I accidentally made a comment that restructured the mission! Gotta watch what you say! It's better the way it is now though, so I guess I stand by what I said! It's hard to know about the problems and the struggles that missionaries have. It's a joy to hear their triumphs and successes. It's a burden making decisions that direct the lives of hundreds of people. It's a thrill to receive revelation on how to help them.
Tomorrow we get a whole new batch of missionaries! More people to love! I love you. I miss my family. We never have pDays on Tuesdays. So, until I get transferred, it'll be Monday letter day every time.
~Elder Jorgensen