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Mediocrity seemed to take a trip in this neck of the woods.... I just don’t feel like we accomplished all that much. Maybe we did. I don’t really know. Complacency looked like it came along too. Weird. I even feel pretty motivated and hopeful right now… So maybe my internal and external forces are not aligned? Whatever that means…

On to the reality of things again… this week was one of those meeting weeks…. where we had meetings and stuff… you get the idea. We had leadership training with all of the sister, district, and zone leaders. I think it went pretty ok… I think I’d really like to be on the other side of training again someday. Where I can listen to new topics from my leaders and have my little mind blown. I do like instructing and making the trainings every week for the mission but… I miss being the designated learner sometimes. Call me lazy I guess...but don’t really do that because I might take it personally… just might be a little self-conscious today. JP (Just playin’ (translation for the more mature generation))
Looking ahead I see a lot to be done and several opportunities up for the grab. We’re collecting leadership recommendations from the zone leaders this week and will have a meeting with President this Friday. It’s one of my favorite meetings we have every transfer. We’ll discuss how to potentially split and realign zone boundaries, which will be a good time… and the new leadership for next transfer. We usually talk about every single missionary in the mission and hear President’s thoughts and share our impressions about them.
Oh so last night Sister Bonham invited us to go over for dinner with the family. They have their daughter in town and wanted to have a pre-thanksgiving feast since they can’t be together. So it was just me, my comp, Larken, Sister and President Bonham. It was just like a nice little family dinner ha. We laughed and told jokes and stories and then ate some turkey and pie and enjoyed each other’s company. It was like the best night ever. Then we just met with President about what’s going on in the mission and what rules we should consider changing. It was productive, trunky and wonderful. What a great night. I miss you, dear family of mine….
Drum roll please…. Katy was confirmed yesterday! She’s great. She moves to Bellingham this week to go back to college. Keep her in your prayers please.
Human or dancer,

(In case you don't know, the Killers are Trent's favorite band. "Human or dancer" is one of their songs. Also, the number on the subject line he says is some kind of code, but I can't crack it. Debbie)

Elder Trent Jay Merrill

P.S.The picture is of Katy at her baptism! (She just had her tonsils out a couple of days before she got baptized)

Silent Symphony

“Ahh hey what are you guys looking at?” I asked to two hippie looking people lying down on some grass.
“We’re trying to figure out to blow up the sun…” They responded as if I should have known…
“Nice, what have you come up with so far?” I asked, because I was actually pretty curious.
“Basically just cursing at God till it blows up..”
“How’s that working for you?”
“It’s not…”
“Yeah it usually doesn’t…”
Well they ended up being way cool and probably on meth but… hey… whatever. They took one of those Book of Mormons and said they’d read it because they don’t have a home.. or a phone… or a car…or food.
Don’t do drugs, kids.
Welcome to the day in the life of an exchange in Marysville. My day was full of Spanish conversations where I almost had the gift of interpretation of tongues and heavy eyelids. The last time I went on a full day Spanish exchange I just prayed my big ole heart out for the gift of tongues. It didn’t quite come. This time I kept praying for it and…………… wait for iiiit………….it still didn’t come. Or at least the way I was hoping it would. I feel like I could read their body language pretty clearly though. I could follow the tone of the conversations and the direction it was heading. I knew what scriptures were being read and what would be helpful for them. So… like…I didn’t start speaking Española or anything (well… I did… just gibberish to be funny. Classic joke) but I did have some help from God to understand the subtleties of communication. I liked that.
Well, if you were wondering… I did have a great Sunday. What a day. Our WWU investigator was baptized. She just had her tonsils removed on Thursday so she still felt pretty crummy, which isn’t… ideal. She was so nervous about having to re-do it if it didn’t go well the first time ha. The last three baptisms she went to of ours, the person baptizing had to redo it several times and she didn’t like that. Luckily it went well. I stepped on her toes so that they wouldn’t fly up ha. I felt so much love for her and this gospel at the same time. The adrenaline and power that comes from baptizing someone is phenomenal. The thunder was so loud outside that the lights were flickering and people were crying (just one). I think a lot of the people inside were calm and peaceful despite the torrential storm. The Lord’s house is the great protector of all forms of danger. I could feel the spiritual safety of the soul and the love of everyone around me. It’s amazing to think that just a couple months ago I first saw our investigator on a college campus, walking to class with a friend, having no idea what was going to happen her that day. A couple months later she has accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and has changed everything about her life to become in line with God’s will. God is a God of miracles. Always has been… always will be. I always want to see His guiding hand in my life. It’s there if I let it be.

The overall stress in the mission is at an all-time high. Everyone. Times are tough for the WEM but we’re about to bounce back and come up to our potential here pretty soon. We have a leadership training this week for all the zone, district and sister leaders. Comp and I have been thinking about what they need…. maybe something about how to be bold but not overbearing with people. Accountability. Something. We’ve trained a lot on finding techniques a couple months ago so we took a break because we figured everyone is tired of that. It’s weird to think most of the mission is new and hasn’t even heard our “recent” trainings. So we just need to do everything over again. Train and retrain… or so it’s said. I don’t know.
Alright here’s another tip for the day in addition to the whole “not doing drugs thing.” It involves studying the scriptures. Friday morning I came to studies with a question I’ve had for probably eight months. Now... I’m sure some or even most of you already knew this… I’m just a little behind the game. I’m going to try and explain my question and answer to you.
Ezekiel 37:16-17
“Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah (BIBLE), and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim (BOOK OF MORMON), and for all the house of Israel his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.”
I love that prophecy. It shows that we need more than just the Bible and we have the fullness of the gospel coming together from both testaments of Christ. Makes sense. Well here’s where my question comes in… In Alma 10:3 I found out that Lehi is actually a descendant of Manasseh, not Ephraim. So I was confused for like that past eight months about that. How is the prophecy referring to the Book of Mormon if the people in it (descendants of Lehi) are not from the tribe of Ephraim but from Manasseh? It must be talking about something else. The church must not be true! (not really my thoughts, but the exaggeration makes my point)… what’s the answer? Well, all during personal study I was looking up people’s genealogies trying to figure this out. Then in comp study Elder Draper and I started talking about it and still had no idea. Well we thought back to Lehi for a bit. Now Lehi commanded Nephi to go get some people before they left to the Promised Land. He said to get Ishmael. Why Ishmael? Well I never thought about it all… I just thought it was because he had some nice looking single daughters or something. But I was wrong… or at least in part because Ishmael is actually a descendant of Ephraim! It had to be him… or someone of that descent… which fulfills another prophecy in Genesis 48:14-16 which says:
"14 And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn.
15 And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day,
16 The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”
Whoa buddy… Ishmaels family (Ephraim) and Lehi’s (Manasseh) came together and “grew into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” Now combined that with Ezekiel 37 and you got yourself a multi layered fulfilled prophecy. I testify that Joseph Smith was a Prophet who translated true scripture by the power of God. The Holy Ghost has helped this make sense in my head and has touched my heart so that I could know that Joseph was a Prophet of God. I cannot deny it. I will not deny it. The Book of Mormon is a true account of the Prophets and people in Ancient America and has brought me closer to God than any other book as I've lived by it's teachings. It is God’s word. It is something that I have come to love.
Israel, Israel



Elder Trent Jay Merrill

Of things Big and Small

Ahhhghgh… (that was the noise you make when you wake up in the morning and stretch with all of your might) That’s how I feel all of the time… today. It’s kinda great. Anyways… what even happened this week..
Well I know one thing that happened, that wasn’t all that cool… my comp was sick all week. What a bum thing to do to my dear friend, Satan! Man… so that was nuts. We luckily only had one day that we had to bum it in the apartment. We got ready and were in pros (missionary clothing) the whole day… even though he was asleep on the couch for sixteen hours. We were ready in case he all of the sudden felt better. He didn’t. I read all of the ensign, Alma, and the Old Testament (not really on the last one though). I danced like a goob in front of the mirro,r to the beautiful sound of silence, for a good hour and a half. Boredom drives you to do some interesting things. I learned some cool moves though… I’ll have to show you later.
On to the more serious things of life, we had Mission Leader Council this week. It was a good one. We trained on using members effectively in teaching. Something we haven’t been very good at lately. So my comp and I did some training and then (big move) had members come in the meeting from our ward to help with the role plays. I don’t know if that’s been done before so we felt pretty good about it. We had everyone role play the first time without using the things we trained them on, like preparing the member and telling them the lesson plan and all that kind of stuff. They all kind of tanked when they did it that way… which is typically how we use members. We just ask them random questions and they don’t really know what we expect of them or what they should say. So then we had them role play again, but this time they were to tell the member what their role will be. Have them teach a small principle, testify of it, and even invite the investigators to do things. Like come to church. It’s a lot more effective that way. So… it was a good meeting. I conducted and had Sister Bonham’s laptop and took “minutes” which is basically a play by play of what was going on. Stenographer Merrill is what they call me. Or at least that’s what I call myself. Possible career avenue? Only time will tell…
Last night we had cottage meeting.  I didn’t get to hear the speakers because it was so packed and I was by the door greeting people so… I can’t really say if it was good or bad. From what I hear, it was fantastic. So… good for them. Also, we’re on day 36 of insanity… and our WWU investigator is still being baptized next Sunday after church. Good times.

I’ve had a lot of thoughts. One of them has been about motives and priorities. I have come to some form of a conclusion that our motives and priorities need to be centered on one thing, if we are to not feel inadequate in all other areas. I don’t think we can accomplish everything we need to. For example, let’s say Dad was torn between going to my baseball game as a kid and helping someone out in the ward when he was Bishop. Both of those options are good things.. But he still can’t accomplish both. So depending on where he views his priorities he might feel like a failure for choosing one over the other, no matter how it turned out. So that’s a problem. Or at least I think it could be. So what if his priority was to love God. That’s his number one priority. Well… then whatever he chooses, he succeeds. He doesn’t have to feel guilty. He fulfilled his purpose. And he can feel good about it and the next time he can serve God a different way and do another option. I just feel like if we center everything on Christ and serving Him, then everything else can fall into place. We don’t have to feel guilty for choosing one good thing over another. It almost makes sense in my head and I might have even shared something similar to this before. I just had it come into my mind. Maybe someone is having conflicting priorities out there. I do realize the theory is still in the abstract. I’m not sure how to bring it down to universal application. I’m working on it. I still do think it’s a true principle. God first (serving people, keeping those little commandments)… things fall into place. Anything else first (pleasure, fun, convenience.) … things tend to fall apart. I like to ask myself which of all of my options is putting God first… because sometimes it’s hard to tell. That appealing natural man tends to blind our vision. If I still have more than one option of “God firsts” then prioritize it in order of urgency and time restraint… but whatever it is you accomplish from those “God first” selections.. You can feel good and satisfied. I like feeling good.
Oh, thanks. I like you too.



Elder Trent Jay Merrill

Strawberry Fields Forever

I remember sitting in our back yard with the sun setting over the beautiful Wasatch Mountains, listening to the Beatles. Everything else seemed to be falling apart around me and I felt empty. Even though everything was "just fine..." I just wasn't. I had some things going for me but forgot any good inside of me. I felt nothing and wanted to be everything.

I don't claim to feel the same anymore and I thank God for that. I do sometimes feel that same superficial pursuit: To be something that I'm not. To be someone that I can't be. It's a journey that has no end because there is no destination. The race is long and in the end I'm the only one running along the path... trying to beat the imaginary winner that I can't catch. Serenity is the only victory. I think if there really was a “secret” to it all... that would be it.

Now back to the reality of things, I call this week the great and dreadful day of transfers. It all worked out. We did this thing where we planned out every possible scenario. Just to insure the most efficient and smooth transfer that we could orchestrate. There were eleven new areas that opened… which is the most that’s ever happened in the history of the mission. There were additional white washes and visa waiters to add to the mix… always keeping us on our tiring toes. We had 30 new missionaries, 20 of them are sisters. I feel like we on our way to earning an honorary degree in supply chain management from this. I feel very lucky to have Elder Draper… he’s one of those brilliant people you always hear about. Always learning from him. 

 
Chance was baptized last week. He received the priesthood yesterday and is more active than we are…. So… if you don’t get the chance to meet him here, you’ll see him in the celestial kingdom no doubt…

We’ve been meeting with our WWU investigator as much as we could between transfer prep and office whatever…. she’s been pretty good. One of our lessons we brought Chance and he bore a sweet and powerful testimony of the gospel and we just said, “Look, just ask God what he wants you to do.  Just ask God… and he’ll tell you.” So we set up a lesson for a couple days later and studiously prepared for any questions she might have or previous ones she’s asked. As soon as we had our opening prayer we just asked her, “So what did God tell you to do?” She said "be baptized… " All of your prayers and fasts for her have opened her mind and softened her heart to know what she needs to do. September 15th is the day that will go down in the books of heaven and on earth of the eternal covenant she will make. My heart is full.

Our lessons with another one of our investigators are hilarious and spiritual feasts. We taught him the plan of salvation and he said he just had the chills the whole time. He said it all makes sense and he’s been looking for this for years. In prison he studied all different kind of religions. He knows a lot from the Bible and other religions. A while ago we taught him the word of wisdom. Something that he’s struggled a lot with in the past. On our follow up lesson a week or so ago we just asked him how it’s all going. He said he quit everything. Just straight quit… and then shared all of the blessings that he’s seen from living that law.
Full of love and anxiety,


Elder Trent Jay Merrill

Of Men in Suits

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. 

Now it looks as though they’re here to stay. 

Oh, I believe in yesterday. 

Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be. 

There’s a shadow hanging over me. 

Oh, I believe, in yesterday.

A Beatles song has never rang so not true to me. Dang. I’m having to rethink my role models in life now. This is a crucial moment everyone. The Beatles are still up there… I don’t know if I can say #1 anymore though. Tough day.

We were teaching this man when I first got here for a while and then he went to jail for some past court stuff. Good news: he just got out of jail. Gooder news: he’s getting baptized this Friday. Goodest news: he’s getting baptized into the true church of Christ. What a good situation we’re all in.

E Drapes and I teach pretty well together. Best I’ve ever taught with. Most of our lessons we don’t have time to plan out but as soon as one of us starts the other knows where to go. We always have solid lessons. Mostly cause my comp is the best teacher in the mission, I just try to not get in his way. I’m a lucky man to be his comp and learn from him.

It’s the week before transfers. We’ve already had a lot of time in the office reviewing all of the missionaries and realigning districts and deciding which areas to split. My brain is tired. Every once in a while I do this thing where I say “I quit” and lay on the floor for a couple minutes and moan and stuff. It’s funny… I promise. But… I’m trying to cut back on it. It’s mostly a joke.

Zone conference week! I don’t think I fully knew what I’d train on last time I wrote so I’ll give you a little insight into my break out session, as we like to call it. So at one point in zone conference we each go into separate rooms (Sister Bonham, Elder Draper, and I) and we split up the zones into different districts and they rotate between our stations. Mine was in the chapel.

When the districts walk into my room I am standing on the box that kids uses for bearing their testimonies. They usually ask why I’m up there or make fun of me or whatever. I asked if anyone has ever wanted to soap box. Not many raised their hands because they were scared. So I described the rules of “the box,” as I’ve come to name it. I read this in a book somewhere. Everyone gets 1 min 30 sec on the box to preach to the crowd. You start with the first principle of the first lesson and go through the lessons. The next preacher will pick up right where the previous one left off. So you have to know the lessons extremely well. That’s one of the objectives I had of the exercise. There are so many new missionaries and I wanted them to understand the importance of knowing the lessons inside and out, backwards and forwards. After the exercise we talked about the observations we had. There were a lot of good insights. Something that every group said was that they were more willing to listen to a simple testimony than just someone preaching to them. I had a cool experience with this. This is what I focused on: Testimony.

One of the first groups (I had to do this nine times in total throughout the week) was stuck on prophets the whole activity. You see, one of the rules is that the crowd is allowed to heckle a little bit. So this group was bashing back and forth on the principle of prophets in the first lesson the whole time. Bashing, using scripture… the spirit was gone. It was kind of a train wreck and I was going to stop it and gear it in another direction but I thought they could learn something from it. The very last person went up with her companion and stopped answering the questions from the crowd and humbly bore her testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith. She and her companion then sang the spirit of God. The spirit flooded the room. I had the chills. Kind of wanted to cry… then we ended. Stark contrast.

We often get caught up in preaching and not testifying. It’s good to be on the other side of the table and hear what we sound like when we teach. What’s effective and what’s not. Every group that did this observed that testimony was the most powerful way to get through to the people. We need to teach… and everything we teach needs to be backed with humble testimony. I learned a lot.
We gave talks in sacrament meeting yesterday. It was on tithing. Which is tight, because we’re not even keeping that commandment right now so my testimony is flamin’. It wasn’t too bad though… except I bombed the talk. The only good thing that came from it was that someone who is preparing for a mission said it was exactly what he needed to hear. He is going home to look at his bank statements to see how much he owes. Sacrifice. I shared my experience with first “trying out these commandment things I’ve heard so much about.” Turns out they work. I remember my first week or so of college I decided to look at my income for the year and pay tithing on it. It was a big chunk but the next week or so I got a call from the book store and was able to get a job there. I had enough money for that semester of college. Blessings. Pay tithing. I’m car sick.

Progress, or perish

Elder Trent Jay Merrill

Excitement and car sickness

Emotions finally flying in and out of me. Tears of joy and heartache. Excitement and car sickness. The rise. The fall… and not necessarily in that order. It was a good week. Not everything worked out.

Highlight number one: Back to the basics. I started doing this thing where I read my journal writings a year from the day. I’m learning a lot… about how hard it was for me to be out here. I appreciated the little things. I had to. I noticed that I was mostly concerned with relationships and overcoming my pain through connecting with God and others. I’ve lost touch of the little things, to some extent. I’d like to see the beauty of monotony again. Find joy within the mundane. I did it before. I just need to get in that stretching phase again. Life is too good sometimes. I love it. It’s hard and stressful but I’m in a good place. My comp is my best buddy… we’re always having fun. I knew we’d have fun together but… we just get it. Get each other. We get everything done quite easily because we’re on the same page. It’s a beautiful thing.
Not much happened this week… except a new investigator .. and cottage meeting, and our WWU investigator. I’ll go in the order that isn’t really in order.

New Investigator

We met him last Tuesday. We stopped by his house and a lady answered by opening an inch of the door and sticking her nose out to ask who we were. After a few awkward jokes to help loosen the tension she yelled to our investigator to come to the door. He invited us in and gave us some water as we sat and talked about things. Every other word he said was vulgarity and he seemed desperate to change. He talked about his “baby momma” who became Mormon and he’s never seen someone change so drastically. He didn’t understand. He is just out of prison and is trying to turn his life around. He said he’s willing to do anything to change. I believe him. We’ve had a couple lessons with him so far. They’ve been some of my favorite, most spiritual, lessons I’ve had on my mission. I’m learning a lot from him. Almost everything he says highlights a principle of truth that he just phrases it in a different way. He doesn’t swear around us anymore. We didn’t even bring it up he just stopped for some reason. He said he is actually happy in the morning. He has purpose to live. He’s never found that before he met with us. Our first lesson he said, “I’ve seen and talked to a lot of missionaries and never felt connected to them. It feels like I’ve known both of you forever. I can open up to you and tell you anything. I think God put you here to help me.” Or something along those lines… it was a good thing to hear. It will be hard for him… he has a lot to overcome. We set a baptismal date with him for the 29th of September… he doesn’t get off parole until then so it’s the earliest we could set. I love that guy.

WWU investigator..... We decided to set up a “movie night” at our friend Enrique’s place and watch the Joseph Smith movie with her. So we did… and then had a very bold, hopefully loving, discussion after the movie. I told her that Joseph Smith is either a man of God, true prophet of the restoration, or a liar who made everything up and everything we stand for is false because of it. I bore my testimony of Joseph Smith and so did everyone else. We asked her what she now believed of Joseph Smith. She said he was a prophet. I asked if she believed the true church of Jesus Christ was restored through Joseph Smith and is the only true and full gospel on the earth. She said yes. And I asked again, what are you going to with that? She said she knows she needs to be baptized. Please keep her in your prayers. Everything is on the line.

Cottage meeting was last night. I don’t know if I’ve ever explained what that is. Maybe I have. I’ll just do a short version… So the whole mission invites their investigators to the mission president’s home on the second Sunday of every month. We move all of President’s furniture into the garage and set up 100 chairs on the main floor. There are 3 to 4 recent converts who bear their testimony and share their experience of becoming converted to this church. It’s one of my favorite meetings. The investigators really connect with the speakers and can feel understood and supported. Our WWU investigator came and had a great time. Elder Draper conducted. I sat by the door to greet everyone and directed them where to go.. then sat down on the floor behind the wall and fell somewhat asleep… but that last part was a secret.

Zone Conference is starting tomorrow. So we’ll be on tour all week. I still haven’t fully come up with my instruction but… it’ll be good. I think I’ll do some kind of soap box exercise and help with people’s fears and teaching ability. It’ll be intense. I’m starting to like meetings that we have to instruct in. We do a lot of instruction to the mission. I get nervous still but I’m getting better. I even still get nervous when teaching people 1 on 1 but… I love it. Maybe it’s not nervousness anymore as much as butterflies. The good kind.

Gallon a day,


Elder Trent Jay Merrill

Music of the Night

So my comp and I decided pick some black berries across the street while our investigator was being interviewed for his baptism. Adventure time. That’s what we call it. While we were picking the fruity deliciousness I heard a little voice across the small road that said, “Elder Merrill, can we pick some berries with you?”
“Come on up Peyton!” I said with a smile but then realized there were thorns that would cut her bare feet. “Actually I’ll just pick you some good ones. Your feet will get hurt if you come up here…”
“Ok, well… pick a lot for me,”
“Ok but I might eat them all first…”
“Come on Elder Miral… that’s not fair” as she likes to pronounce it.

We were done picking the small handful of black berries and made our way down the little hill. I held out my hand and divvied out the fruitful wages to the six years old and under club. While we were walking back to the church, the sun was just setting and Peyton looked up at me with a cute smile and said, “ahh, it can’t get better than walking with a missionary and eating black berries.” And that right there…. was my awakening. It put some things back in perspective for me. It hit me pretty hard. Our investigator was baptized the next day.

This week was full of teaching too many lessons for our investigator ha. We combined a couple lessons into each appointment to make his desired deadline of his Saturday baptism. We brought members over to the Petersen’s home, who live in the Snohomish ward that he’s known for years. Everyone loves him. He’s a nice, tall, non social butterfly, kind of guy. The kind that smiles at everything and probably doesn’t like being hugged. Maybe he just needs to be hugged. I don’t know. His baptism was short and sweet. The spirit was strong and didn’t skip a beat. The Petersen boy, Marsall, was dressed in white and performed the deed. It was nice. My comp and I (I like saying comp now because I still can’t get natural at calling Mike Elder Draper… but still haven’t messed that up even when we’re just kicking it together. so… good for me for doing that.) So… yeah anyways: Comp. Me. Piano. While the font was being filled we just fiddled around on the keyboard and created some beautiful music. I think it’ll go places. We decided for every baptism we have together we’ll write a new song and play it at the end while everyone is leaving.

Serenity is deliverance,


Elder Trent Jay Merrill