All These Things That I Have Done

There is quite a bit that happened this week. I don’t know how I’m going to explain it all. I guess it started with a call… like every good story does. I was talking to the Snohomish Elders (my last area) about what areas could be split. We have so many new missionaries coming in that we have to open at least ten new areas… but that’s another story though let me keep focused here. Elder Gasser brought up an investigator that they taught once who technically doesn’t live in their ward. He’s also a single adult age and wants to get baptized. So… yeah… that’s a bummer for them. But we started teaching this kid, and he’s going to be baptized this Saturday into our ward. So…. I’ll go ahead and stamp a miracle sticker on that one and move on to the next thing.
I got a call from my good friend Elder Bonsteel. He said he just got out of a lesson with someone who moved from Oklahoma and already had all of the lessons. He’s also YSA age and lives in our boundaries... so we need to start teaching him. He has a baptismal date for a couple weeks from now.
Our investigator from WWU might be baptized this week too. We’re still working that out… if not it will happen soon we’re just figuring out the small things now.
You know, it was a good week. We got to do this thing called proselyting…. which happens to be my favorite. We worked…. and found five new investigators this week. Four were at church. Just like… man… I don’t know why all these miracles are happening. Elder Draper and I were talking about it… why are all of these blessings happening to us right now? We talked about it for a good while and somewhat concluded that it’s just happening… it’s not us. It’s them and God… but we still have a part to play. We need to just help them on the journey. Now that they’ve been placed in our hands… we just can’t blow it. We have been trusted with a lot lately. I haven’t even mentioned the four other referrals from missionaries that already accepted a baptismal invitation. Maybe all this won’t turn out to anything… maybe we won’t be able to get a hold of them or something. Maybe all of them will hold strong and follow Christ. I don’t know. I just want to do my part.
Here’s a little story that we love. We went to Burger King because Elder Draper had hecka gift cards. Three of them… with different amounts on each card. We didn’t know how much was on each. But we had no money… just the gift cards. We’re broke. We’ve been eating cashews for breakfast because we haven’t had time or money to shop. We tend to have these fun meetings on P-days that take up our day. Anyways… three gift cards. No money. Pressure is on. The total amount came up $13.69 or something like that. First gift card paid like eight bucks. So she asked for the second. We handed her the next card. She swiped the card and said we still owed $.46… so we hand her the last gift card. Guess how much was on it… 46 cents. You’re dang right we had the exact amount on those gift cards. Not a penny more or less. What’s up miracle! What’s up….
It’s cool being here in the office because every day is different. You just never know what you’re going to do the next day till it hits you in the face. Like we went into the office one day and Elder Cahill, the driving coordinator, asked if we were busy that afternoon. We told him that we were and so he made a few calls and then said get in his car. So we drove down to Seattle to an old car dealership. We pull up to see two brand new Aston-Martins. Not really… they’re the new Ford Fusions… but they look like dang Aston-Martins. Elder Draper and I each got to drive them back to the mission office by ourselves. It was business classy. We pulled out revving the engine with our sunglasses on. Posers. Living the dream.
Well… I’ve had a lot of thoughts in my head this week. For some reason I thought a lot about Adam. I thought about the creation and failure and the beginning. Adam….transgressed. He didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He was cast out of God’s presence. He had a lot of consequences because of it. Tons. He used to be able to live forever with God. Now he has sickness and death and pain and sadness. And all that we kind of just say he fell.

So Adam fell… true… but he got right back up again.

He had everything going against him. It’s been done since the beginning of time. It’s done every day. I fall short. Well… I always will. That’s ok. I keep exhausting myself trying to win the race that I’m alone in. I’m not judged where I finish compared to someone else. But if I’m a little bit ahead of where I was yesterday, or last week or month or year… then I’m doing ok. I’m growing and improving.
I don’t even know if this analogy has fully sunk into my mind and heart… but I want it to. I want to stop comparing myself. I know that God doesn’t want me to do that. I wouldn’t want someone I love to feel negative about them. That’s from Satan. He loves tearing me down. He’s all about that. He’s pretty good at it too, but my Father in Heaven is pretty good at what He does too. He’s actually perfect at it. And he loves me perfectly. Right where I am… with all of my imperfections and struggles. He knows my heart. He’s using me to bless other people’s lives. I am so grateful that I can be in His hands to help someone come into them too. I love Him. I know that the scriptures are His words to mankind. They are proof that God speaks to man. He’s not an abstract ball of energy (something I heard again while street contacting this week) or some unknown shadow or mysterious breeze. He is our Father. Who speaks to us and has given us everything we need to understand His purpose for us. It’s simple. It’s hard. It’s really, really hard. It is for me at least. I don’t care though. Obedience is liberty. I can only say that from experience.

No white flag above my door,
Elder Trent Jay Merrill

When you were young

Mmm this was one week that will go down in the books of forgetfulness and sleep deprivation. Let’s see how I do recalling the dream that happens to be my life right now. That was kind of a pun.
So going back to the beginning of the week, after I dropped off my dear friends at the airport to go home, it started to all come together. The transfers we were preparing for finally arrived. I took the truck to the airport and got stuck in traffic. We have to drive by ourselves because there are not enough drivers so I always feel pretty out of place. It was a stressful morning. We barely made it there on time to see the 35 brand spankin’ new missionaries coming up the elevator to greet us. “Hey man I’m Elder Merrill, how you doin”?
“Hey I’m tanner… err.. I mean Elder..”
“Ha hey Tanner it’s good to meet you” I remember it taking a long time for me to forget my name and remember the tag I get to wear. It’s a tough one. Why didn’t I ever get to train? That’s still a dream of mine. Hopefully I’ll get to towards the end of my mission. Anyways, after we got everyone’s bags and pulled the cars around we packed away as many as we could fit, which happened to be about half the bags. We didn’t really know what to do. Everywhere was full. So we just kept slowly putting random bags in random cracks and crevices till it all fit and everyone had a bag on their lap ha. Good calculations on the room for luggage. Woops. We’ll have to do better on that next time around.
We got everyone all settled in the mission office building and fed everyone some lunch. Elder Draper and I did a little pump up to the new missionaries to get them excited to be in the field and then ditched to take care of everything we had to do for transfers. Bikes, assignments, carpools, logistics of white washes and all that good stuff I never want to do again. Transfers came and went and actually went pretty smoothly. President interviews all of the new missionaries throughout the day so he was in his office for like 7 or more hours. Rough. He didn’t finish until about 9:00pm and then still had to make assignments to which companions the new missionaries would go with. So Elder Draper and I took everyone in the chapel and sang hymns and had a testimony meeting while we were waiting. President came in with his decisions and we got everyone’s bikes and luggage all packed away by around 10:45pm. The only problem was that there wasn’t enough room for everyone’s luggage to be taken to their area, and we knew that would happen. So we put all the extras in our truck and went around the mission to deliver it all. We didn’t get back to our apartment till 3am... and we were up since 5am that day for all the prep for the transfers. So it felt like a pretty long day. Good day though. I learned a lot. Elder Draper is sick this week too because of all the lack of sleep and stress and who knows what else. I feel fine for now though… keep those fingers crossed for me. I appreciate it.
I just want to be in a normal proselyting area. That sounds like a dream. I was so much more satisfied by the end of the day. Even though I can’t say I slept more soundly in that situation than I do now. I’m a pretty good sleeper all of the sudden. But… still feels better the other way.
Our investigator from WWU is still golden.
We had a meeting on Friday with all the new missionaries and their trainers. I conducted and did a lot of training with Elder Draper. It was fun. We taught and demonstrated how to introduce the Book of Mormon to people and talked about goals and key indicators and all that basic “missionary stuff.” The only problem is that we didn’t have time to prepare any outline or way to teach our material so we kind of winged it… but it went alright. Luckily it wasn’t on anything too deep and we had taught it before together.
We actually have a lot of time to proselyte this next week because President will be doing interviews. I'm stoked for that. We already have lessons set up with some potential investigators that we haven't been able to contact. It will be a good week to relax and work hard. I think I need it.

Clocks

There I was, just sitting in our car on the way back from a baptism, and we pulled up to our last stop light of the night. It felt like one of those long days…. and there was this guy… with a sign… that said he was out of work. He needed help. I see homeless people every day. I think I always feel bad for them… to some extent at least. I should probably feel more for them than I normally do. This guy felt different. I closed my eyes and prayed for him to find Him. I wanted to help. The light turned green and I hurried and handed him a Jamba Juice gift card (sorry Mom) and drove away feeling a little bit happy and a little bit empty. I want to do more. I guess the reason I’m bringing this up is because it hit me really hard. It opened my eyes… again. I think I’ve become somewhat numb to everyone not wanting to talk to me because of my tag and tie. I know I carry the message that will help them but at the same time I always feel that I have to break down a “preconceived notion barrier” before I can get through to anyone. That’s not really the point I want to make I’m just getting off topic as usual. The point is…actually I don’t really know my point. I think I just liked that I really felt love and had my heart touched by a stranger. I want that for everyone. I don’t like it when I contact someone just to be obedient or just for the sake of “talking with everyone.” Sometimes that’s just a bad experience for everyone in that situation. It all needs and should come from true love for my brothers and sisters who don’t know the way back to their loving Father in Heaven. It’s that simple. And I am missing it! I’m missing the big picture… everyday. I want to have this realization stick but its tough. It’s real rough. I think I just need to be nice…r. nicer? And more loving to people. Not just… obedient? I think Mark Twain said something like, “Love is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can read.” I want to have the love that people can feel. I’ve met some people like that. You just know they have love in them for you. It’s the coolest thing. I want that pretty bad. I am grateful that I felt something for someone that I don’t even know, on the side of the road. I know it was God’s love for him. I know that I can have that same love for everyone if I am worthy to receive it through the spirit… and if I ask for it! I commit to all of you that I will live worthy of that love. I need all the help I can get.

I think you know about our investigator we met up in Bellingham. Her family has been the hold up. She didn’t feel supported and didn’t want to leave everything she’s ever known for something she’s only learned about for a couple of weeks. Understandable. We had a lesson with her this week and I asked her a couple questions to see where she was. I asked if she has received an answer from the spirit that this is the restored church of the very Son of God, Jesus Christ. She said yes. (That was easier than I thought) I asked what she was going to do with that answer. She said be baptized. August 11th.

There’s a couple of other cool things that happened this week. President was creating a transfer scenario online and kept counseling with us about who should go where and all that goes with that and finally we just asked if we could make a transfer scenario ourselves and see what he thought of it. So we did. It was cool to be able to pray and think about every single missionary and where they should go, who their companions should be, who they can handle, what leadership position they’re capable of handling. All the important things. And not important things. There’s a lot more that goes into it than I thought. So many moving pieces of that puzzle. You have to plan ahead for future transfers to set certain missionaries up for future leadership and things like that. It’s like chess. Except it’s people’s lives we’re playing with. It took a really long time. We have 35 new missionaries coming in this transfer. Mission record. The logistics of everything is insane. It’s like a college class or something. We’re having a good time figuring it all out. My favorite part of the transfer process was when we all got on our knees in the office and President Bonoham offered a prayer for a confirmation and direction of the transfers. It was the most powerful prayer I’ve ever been able to be a part of. It felt like President was talking straight to God. Face to face. I don’t know how to explain it. It was so… real, sincere, raw and personal. Man. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a part of something so beautiful again… I’m just grateful I had the chance to be there. I’ve learned a lot. About everything. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

I had a phrase come into my mind yesterday, “we live in a shade of grey.” I don’t know what I think about it yet but I think it has some meaning. We all come to this life with strengths and weaknesses. Some come with the tendency to be more righteous and loving, like my beautiful mother! She was just born with all of the Christ like attributes… (Trent is being way too generous here. Absence makes the heart grow fonder...HaHa) but for the rest of us we have it a little differently. Some come with tendencies to have tempers and are easily irritated. Some can’t communicate with people and some are eloquent and love being around everyone. When we judge others, we don’t define them, we define ourselves. I heard that somewhere. I really like that this week. I was born and have made choices that have given me a lot of weaknesses. I don’t know why that’s such a bad thing! Well the bad choices part is a bad thing but the whole weakness thing is part of the plan… We all have them. I know that some people have struggles that I don’t have at all. We all have our “handicaps.” And I’m learning that we aren’t judged on our destination. We all start with different aspects on different levels. If I get knocked down 100 times in my life and get back up 101 times… then I should feel good about it. I don’t need to be 100 steps ahead of everyone else. The trouble with an opportunity is that it’s usually disguised as hard work. It’s hard work to try. With it comes failure. With it also comes joy and progression. I never want to stop trying. No matter how tired I am.

Last night we had all of the departing missionaries stay at our place. All my good friends: Elders Fortuna, Brockbank, Behrmann, Perkinson, Gardiner, Day… and a lot of other buddies of mine. It was heart breaking. We went over to the mission home after we picked everyone up across the mission and had our last dinner together with President and Sister Bonham. Then they all bore their testimonies of their missions and this gospel. It was pretty amazing. My heart was slightly ripped out. We dropped everyone off at our apartment at around 10:30 then we had to go back to the office to do the numbers for the mission and other meeting outlines and so we got back pretty late. It’s their last night so they were all still up when we got home, so we were up till a pretty good hour in the night just talking. 10 missionaries, not including us, were all just talking about our missions. It was cool. This morning we dropped them off at the airport and that was even harder. I drove back by myself. I’m going to miss them a lot. I’ve learned a lot from those guys. The drive was beautiful. Seattle is so appealing. I just wanted to drive off the exit and walk around down town Seattle by myself. That’s a dream….a dream that will have to wait for a year or so.

The night is dark,

Elder Trent Jay Merrill

All Together Now

I don’t know the best way to say that I love my new mission president. I love my new mission president? He had the whole mission wrapped around his finger after the third day. That’s not an easy thing to do. I could say a lot about that man. A lot of good things. I could keep you here for a good minute just talking about all the things I’ve already learned from him. But I’ll spare you the details and give you the “readers digest version.” Or whatever that reference is.

Tuesday and Wednesday we went around with President and Sister Bonham to all of the zones for a nice little introduction meeting. Elder Draper and I called it the “mission tour.” We wanted to make t-shirts for it. We took turns conducting the meetings. We rode around with the Bonham’s like giddy little school girls… just so excited to be around them. We had hours just to talk. They are hilarious. It’s so relaxed but at the same time I still feel very focused and fulfilling. I think some would call that the best of both worlds. He has a gift. Well several of them. He can observe people better than James Franco can smile. Which doesn’t even make sense but it’s the best I’ve got today. He definitely has the gift of discernment. I want that. Real bad. I think I’ll start praying for that one a little more.

I feel like I’m learning at an accelerated rate. Have I said that before? Well I mean it a lot this time. I promise. I’m still learning the responsibilities and objectives I’m over plus I get to learn and see what a mission president does.. because he hasn’t really done this thing before. As it turns out, neither have I… so I often feel like my Dad always says, “drinking from a fire hose.” So we’re learning together. I’m loving it. Thanks, Mcdonalds. The only problem is that we’ve been so busy that we haven’t been able to proselyte at all. We get to the apartment after midnight from doing all our stuff and then we can’t stop talking so we get to bed an hour or so after that ha. We made a zone meeting outline last night that took a good while. I like going to meetings that I wrote the material for. It’s weird. Really weird. We wake up at 5:45 to get ripped. Get ripped. Then rinse and repeat except completely different.

Oh so the woman we met in Bellingham came to church this week but we were only able to teach her once. I invited her to be baptized. She knows it’s true. She feels it. Wants it. The only hold up is her family. They’re not into this whole “mormon” thing. Her mom asked her to ask us if we’re allowed to shower ha. Ah man… I love hearing what we believe. Always learn something new.

Hey I had my first Mission leader council as an assistant. So we had to create part of the training and some other stuff. This is the meeting with all the zone leaders in the mission remember?... oh and the STLs (Sister training leaders) that’s another story. I didn’t say much, if anything at all, the first time I went to this meeting a couple months ago. It was intimidating! Still is.. except I was calm and ready this time because I prayed for it. That was cool. I love when prayers are answered like that. We taught this concept that we came up with around midnight the night before. It all just kind of came together out of no where.

Picture this: You’re in the pre-earth life. What’s happening? Well a third of all your brothers and sisters just rejected the Savior’s plan after a grand council was assembled. Their whole purpose of existence from that time on would be to lead you away from your Father in Heaven and into the arms of their false master, the devil.

About 100 billion people have been born on this earth throughout the history of the world. Now without hurting yourself try and apply a little math here. 100 billion represents 2/3 of all the spirits in the pre-earth life. That means there are, say, 149 billion total people from beginning to end of earth's existence. Think about how many of our fallen brothers and sisters are here to drag us down to the gulf of misery and endless woe... 1/3 of 149 billion (or about 49 billion). I don’t know about you, but that’s not very comforting to me.
Well maybe this will help. We know that God’s purpose is to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” So I’m sure he’d have a pretty big army to bring about his purposes. How many has he chosen, set a part, and called to be his authorized messengers and “soldiers” on the earth at this time.. about 72,000. Think about that for a second. 72,000 vs around 49 billion. I’m still thinking we can’t do this alone.. well I guess I can’t fully speak for you but I definitely know that I can’t do it alone. I know that through something I like to call failure. He and I have become closely acquainted throughout my life. I’ve learned a lot from him too. He is quite the bitter-sweet relationship.

Mathew 19:26
D&C 82:10
D&C 10:5

Here is the kicker: The battle is already won. Christ has defeated death. He has been crowned with the Glory of all of the Father. He is my brother who knows me perfectly. Because of Him and because of His perfection and triumph in accomplishing the will of His Father… we are entitled to promises and blessings from our Father. We don’t even have to be perfect to receive them. I always like hearing that part.

He will strengthen us. He will carry us. He will carry our message through the holy ghost to all those who will allow their hearts to be touched by it’s majesty and subtle whisperings. He will save us from sin and despair. He will comfort us, lead us, lift us. Why would we try to fight the battle against hundreds of billions of enemies when we are promised victory and everthing that the Father has by relying and following the Lord. It seems simple. Simplicity isn’t always cake. But it still is that simple. Our main goal for that training was to help the zone leaders think about ways they can bring their zones and this mission to understand and apply the concept of dependability and serenity to the Lord. We don’t want the new missionaries to depend on themselves. They’ll lose. Every time. They need to serender themselves to the Master, the King, the Promised Messaiah and the Savior of their souls.



I still get nervous standing in front of people. Thought that I would be over that by now. I kind of like it though. I’m kind of on a “facing fears” phase right now. I’m sometimes too afraid to do it though. I’ve been trying to volunteer for the chance to be uncomfortable. If I stretch then I’ll grow. It makes sense to me. I think I really need some stretching right now. It’s easy to become complacent when life is the way you want it. I’m kickin it with my good buddy, getting along perfectly, always laughing and getting stuff done. Trying new things together. Figuring out problems and praying for answers. Non of those are bad things, obviously. Life just couldn’t be better. I just need a different kind of growth. One that’s outside my comfort zone. I remember being in Big Rock and feeling like I was going to shrink into the dark hole I’ve come to call fear. I was full of anxiety. Like anything, that could have taken me to or from God. I’m grateful that I depended on Him for my strength. He delivered me. He taught me things about love, people, endurance, and patience that I would never have learned if I was with my best friend in a killer area. Or if I was home rock climbing in college. I had to be there. I had to be broken down… and I still need that now. Always will.

Moonlight

Tim's Baptism!

Life is like a green stop sign. Mr. Nelson always used to say that...

I don’t know if I can claim this yet… but I’m pretty sure this was the craziest week of my mission. We met with President Wilson almost every day this week. I loved that. I swear I've learned so much from him that I don't even know what to do with all of it. We’ve been doing a lot of updating of procedures and rules and miles sheets and anything and everything that needs to be reviewed or restructured before President Bonham gets here. I will miss President Wilson. Wow I’m going to miss him. I just want to hold a tape recorder around him because he’s so inspired… every word he says is a powerful truth. It’s been cool to see him in a totally different way this past month or so. He’s pretty funny actually. I love that I’ve been able to get to know him a little bit more in this light. I’ve only cried a couple times when I think about him leaving. No one saw it though, don’t worry. Yesterday he had Elder Draper, Elder Henson, and me over for some root beer floats. We took some pictures and then we were able to just ask him any questions we could think up. It was a cool experience. Jumping a head a bit now... Elder Draper and I just went to the Mission Home to pick up the phones for President and Sister Wilson so that we can take it to the sprint store and transfer the contacts over to President and Sister Bonham’s new phone. Anyways, while we were there we met President and Sister Bonham! We only got to talk with them for a couple minutes. President asked us to stick around the Mission Office all day today. It'll be a fun p-day I can already tell. All in all I would say that I am excited, nervous, stressed, happy and, of course, tired. I think that's a pretty good combination of emotions. I wouldn't have it any other way. Startingtomorrow we'll go around the mission with President and Sister Bonham to meet everyone. It'll be fun. Man, we have to be really, really on top of things now. No mistakes. No sleep. Here we go. God be with us.

Hey so Tim was baptized this week. I don’t know if you heard the good news. Elder Henson and I were the witnesses The spirit was really strong. Remember that girl that I met in Bellingham? Well she was there too and we’ve already met with her four times this week and she’s come to every single ward activity, came to church yesterday, and has kept every commitment. She asked how long it would take for her to be baptized. Wow. It’s the most amazing thing to see the spirit work in people’s lives. It changes people and drives them to do, and just be, good. I really wish I listened to that spirit a lot earlier in my life. It would have saved me from a lot of trouble and pain. But hey… you can only move forward. I’m just keeping my eyes up.
We have another investigator that we haven’t been able to get in contact with for a while… we had no idea why. So the other day Elder Draper and I were on our way back to the Mission office after dinner and decided to street contact for a couple minutes. We’ve been in the office all week and felt like bums. So we had to get out and talk to some people even if we didn’t have time. So we’re walking around, doing our thing, playin all the cards, and across the street we hear someone calling us over. You'll never guess who we saw... Janis Joplin. No it was our long lost investigator, you got me. We were in Everett and she lives in another city called Lake Stevens. We were so shocked. So we J-walked our way on over there and talked with her for a good minute. She said she’s read 30 pages of the Book of Mormon and wants us to come over as soon as we can. Pretty sick right there.
Ok so I’ve had this thought. Actually I don’t know what to call it now because I feel like it’s passed just being a thought. It’s a truth that I’ve come to know.
Where does happiness come from?
“Oh boy here comes some cliché insights from a missionary who teaches this every day to people.” Well you may be right but bear with me here. I’ve now had reality prove to me a couple things. One: Recognition and status are illusions of success and confidence. Did you catch the word illusion? Recognition and status are almost the complete opposites of what true “success” and “confidence” (self worth) really is. To the inexperienced observer (me) it seems that once you reach a certain point of popularity and control then you would have the same attributes inside yourself. You would be able to love yourself. Now, I never admitted to this kind of thinking because it’s obviously false. Logically I knew that but still… somewhere in the back of my mind I thought it had some validity. Now, let me say what my thought, or insight, has become.
Happiness, along with a lot of other things, primarily comes from anonymous humility and service to the other. Ok, you got me. That isn’t original. But… it’s now locked in as internal truth in my heart. I have one small example that pops into my head. When I first came here my prayers were all about how I can be strengthened and do my very best and that I’ll have the capability to fulfill my responsibilities. All of those prayers… fell flat. Ssspuhp (that’s the sound of something falling flat on its face). There was nothing to those prayers. That kept happening until I started to almost entirely cut myself out of the picture, and pray for ONLY other people and their needs, the mission issues and changes that are going on. That’s when my prayers have become electric. Fulfilling. I see the results in my own life as well as others. That’s when everything clicked in my head… all the areas and missionaries came to my memory. I want to do things for other people. I wish I could just stay in this frame of mind but my natural man is pretty strong sometimes. I lose sight of the truth’s I’ve come to love and accept. I think that’s another part of the learning process… learning to remember the truth’s I already know. I guess that is the whole part of life now that I think about it. I’ve known everything I needed to know to return to God and to be happy. I just can’t remember. Now is the time to remember… to learn, to fail, to grow.

I've come to love making lists... and I'm not a list person.
When all is said and done,

Elder Trent Jay Merrill