Tim's Baptism!
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
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