Expanding Contractions

I think my heart is expanding... again. I remember when I first came out here I thought it was too full and that I wasn't supposed to be able to feel that much at once. I loved the pain, the heartbreak and the happiness that came with that vulnerability. Once I got used to the routine and the rejection it started to mend and become used to the new world that's called a mission. I started to feel less and do more. I got better at teaching and finding but started losing some sincerity. Repetition creates remembrance and stability but it can kill progression and curiosity if you're not careful. I wasn't being careful. It sometimes bothers me that I'm fitting perfectly into the stereotypical "good missionary." Not that it's a bad thing. I want to be the best missionary... I just want to be able to be human. It's not missionary talking to non-missionary on the street.... interested in our message=success. not interested=walk away. No. It's human being talking to another human being. Brother to brother. Brother to sister. I want to take that step back again and look at it for what it is. I'm here to represent the epitome of all love, my savior... and I need to get back to the roots that I started from. I've been praying hard for the perspective to realign. It's a process but it's worth the struggle. I hope to come back to the heart and walk away from traditional "good missionary" norms. There's my rant for the week... Hope you had a nice nap.


Yes I did love Saturday night. We found a referral for the Spanish Elders in our zone so we had a little mini exchange with them that night. We took them out to a Chinese restaurant before the lesson and just laughed for about an hour. Good stuff. I went with Elder Perkinson into the secret Hispanic community. Not really hidden. Just... I don't know. Anyways so the last house we went to a guy opened the door and waved us in but wouldn't talk or look at us ha. So after about twenty minutes of sitting there a lady came out of the bathroom and started speaking Spanish with Elder Perkinson. I just smiled and they laughed and looked at me a couple times because they were probably making fun of me. I liked it. Elder Perkinson asked something and then went to the bathroom and gave me a thumbs up and laughed as he walked away. So I just sat there with this nice little Hispanic lady and she was trying to talk to me and I just said, "si" a thousand times because I didn't know what she was saying. Once Elder Perkinson walked back out I had two bananas in my hand and some Mexican candy on my lap. I don't even know how it happened... I should probably learn some Spanish.


Well those people we contacted on first street last week were... miracles. A guy we met hesitantly gave us his address and said that we could drop by as he walked away with a pizza... we weren't too confident in his interest but we stopped by this week and he was so happy to see us. We taught him a little bit but we had to get to another lesson and he was like, "Well can you come back tonight!?" We couldn't... but we went by the next day and taught him the restoration and the spirit was there and the words were flowing and the angels were singing... probably.. they were probably singing. Anyways, I'm pretty excited about that. We're still teaching two great ladies and the fifteen investigators we were working with are having weird things happen to them so we'll see how that all works out. We're teaching A LOT of less active families and some are coming back to church. I am so happy for them. You can see the peace they're finding again.


Well that's all for now folks,


Elder Trent Jay Merrill

Prayers on First Street

Ah I'm back. Back to the pressure, back to the grind. This is my new companion's first time as a zone leader... and I've only been here for five weeks so I'm just trying to show him the ropes of the new assignment that I haven't figured out yet. His name is Elder Gasser, from Spanish Fork (Spanish Fark). He's a pretty cool guy. We work hard. I've always heard that, "ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." (Ether 12:6... maybe) I think I've been seeing that play out in front of me. I'm stressed. I felt pretty overwhelmed... The zone isn't doing too well and our own area wasn't keeping up either. I've been focusing a lot on desire and prayer this past week. I wanted to know what I can do differently to help things again. I don't exactly know what it is that changed but things are definitely moving. We've been talking with everyone around us and we've had a lot of people say they would like us to teach them. Good week ahead of us.


We went to visit a lady in our ward this past week. She wasn't feeling well so we offered a blessing. She invited us in but there wasn't any other "responsible adult of the same sex present" ha so we asked if we could come by tomorrow (obedience... nice) She was fine with it and we came back the next day with Brother Countryman. Except this time something was different. She brought a friend to be with her during the blessing. So we started talking to her friend and told her a little bit about what we did as missionaries and bore our testimonies about this gospel. She was pretty stoked and we already have taught her again this week. (Obedience blessings whooh!)


We were street contacting one night in the down town street of Snohomish. We had a lot of good talks with people there. On our way back to our car to head in for the night I saw this lady looking for something on the ground. She seemed confused so I asked her if everything was alright.. she stood up really fast and then smiled. We talked for a little bit and she started to tell us about how her Mom is about to pass away and she has hit rock bottom. I was fighting back tears. We just listened and told her about the comfort that we have seen from knowing about the plan God has for us and our families. She was touched and in the middle of the busy street she held our hands and said a vocal prayer together. Sounds weird, looked weird, felt.... peaceful.... and weird. But mostly peaceful.




Elder Trent Jay Merrill

Lady Bug

Yep, I was just mountain biking. That's why I'm late. Good guess. Elder Brockbank wanted to end his stay here in Snohomish with a bang... Dang. Actually every single companionship in the zone has someone transferring out. Just a bunch of new faces coming this way tomorrow. I'm.... torn. I don't know who my new companion is yet but I'll just decide to love him now. That should make everything a lot easier.

Hey so I was having a pretty hard week. I'm happy... It's just been a struggle. This area has always been really successful. Lots of baptisms, lots of investigators. For some reason all of our investigators are falling off the map. One got a job where they work from 10:00AM to 9:00PM (our exact proselyting hours.. hmmm) Another moved to Florida. One has parent's who won't let her get baptized... I don't know. There's just weird things happening and It's easy to get down about it. I tend to do this thing where I blame myself for what happens around me. I don't think that's always the best thing to do but sometimes it's true. I definitely need to change something. I just don't know what. Here I am again... something's got to give. I think it was on Thursday I was feeling a lot of the stress and before we went out for the day I knelt down and said another prayer. In the middle of the prayer, an investigator, who we haven't got a hold of in a long time, texted us and invited us over for dinner. Pretty cool. I love stuff like that.

Earlier last week I went on an exchange with the Elders in the Sultan ward. I was with Elder Simon while we went to visit one of their potential investigators. It was an old man named Bill. We were talking with him for a bit and he was really nice. We were talking about the Book of Mormon and all the golden conversations. He seemed interested but decided to say, "l'll never be mormon" ha. They were about to go on a trip and his wife said something about Bill hopefully feeling better before they left. I just thought, "Yeah I hope so too. Poor guy." So we left and then as we were walking I stopped and thought for a bit and then turned around to go back to Bill's and then turned around again and walked towards the car and then finally I just stopped. Apparently I was having a prompting of some sort but I just felt weird about bothering them again. After a while of looking like an idiot in front of Elder Simon and getting all sweaty we just went up to the door and I asked Bill if he would like a blessing, and explained what it was. He was pretty happy to let us do it and so we did. Afterwards they asked if we could come back and invited us over for lunch the next week. I love the spirit.

Hey I have a really lame story but It's on my mind for some reason. So first, a little background: I remember sitting in psychology class at the good ole' BYU Idaho one day and feeling pretty down. I looked at my notes and noticed there was a little lady bug! I looked at it for the next hour and felt better. Ok, now that you know about that significant event in my life maybe you'll appreciate this next one. I was over at our Bishop's house and I was feeling pretty down again. Wasn't showing it or anything, just feeling it. Then I saw it. Yep there was a lady bug on the table! Ha I'm not even particularly fond of lady bugs but ah man I felt so happy and this is the lamest story I've ever told you and I don't know why I'm still writing about it.


I love my family,

Elder Trent Jay Merrill

Never Made My Bed

Well... wow. A lot is about to change. I'm excited. So this week we had a meeting with all the zone leaders at President Wilson's house. We talked about the mission, about rules and what needs to be changed and how we can help the mission. Pretty cool. I was very humbled to be there... I definitely felt out of place ha. We know that four of the stakes here in the mission will be going to the Seattle Mission in July so if I'm serving in either the Bothel, Redmond, Kirkland or Shorline Stake at that time I'll be changing missions. Crazy. All of my friends in the Big Rock ward won't be in my mission anymore... woof.


The other day it was just beautiful weather in the morning and then out of no where it started to pour some rain upon our little faces. Soaking wet, trying to find people to talk to... loved it. Whenever we visit someone on the ward list we knock on their door and then two doors to the right and two to the left... It works sometimes. We did that again and on the second one to the right this guy gave us a weird look and then invited us in. He was like, "Why are you guys out there in the rain like this?" Then I said something stupid... So he took some serious pity on us and we were able to teach him the first lesson and now we have another lesson with him tonight. Can't give up... When the rain starts coming then we keep pushing. Literal, Figurative, it doesn't matter... We have a work to do. Nothing can stop it from progressing. I'll just quietly get off my soap box now.


So this week I was on an exchange with a Elder Young in his area. It was my favorite one so far. I've looked up to him since he picked me up from the airport my first day here in the mission. He goes home next week. We were doing some service for a guy in his ward in the morning and while we were dumping the leaves off in the bushes we came across a sketchy old rope swing ha. We just stared at it and then looked at each other and then we gave in... I'm weak. We were on a big hill, so went to the very top and then jumped as far as we could and almost died. Not really but man that was the funnest thing I've done in a long time ha. Then we got back to work. There's my bad example for the week.


Elder Trent Jay Merrill