I was able to experience the full force of monotony and mediocrity this week. There are so many lessons to be learned from the mundane. If only I could shake the chains of complacency and apathy for a second then maybe I could relay the insights that shaped my perspective again. In essence, I sang the blues while the rain soaked my shoes. I suppose there’s a little more…
It was one of those weeks where everyone in Everett decided to get together in a secret meeting and unanimously decided that they weren’t going to talk to the Mormon missionaries or open their doors. But! The important note to remember is that if they did open the door, they can’t show any interest. They should actually act like they hate us, if at all possible. I have to give them some credit. They definitely did stick to the plan if such a conspiracy does exist, which it does. I know it. Though amongst the struggle and the disappointment I found myself talking to my Father in Heaven throughout the entire day and I’m thankful for that. I think sometimes it’s easier to be in the peaks and the valleys of life rather than being stuck somewhere in the middle. At least you know there’s somewhere to go when you’re high or low. I’ve definitely had worse weeks. I’ve definitely had better. I think it’s times like these that show me who I really am. I can either push through and my character will be shaped or lie down in the proverbial bed of causality and disobedience. I think life will be full of the mundane, and that’s ok. I was able to “find joy in the little things,” like I too often say.
I even enjoyed the lower points of the week more than the rest because at least it was something that shook my reality for a little bit. Yesterday was a nice, beautiful morning and all was looking up. After church we rode our bikes around while Mother Nature decided to dump buckets of hail relentlessly on the Lord’s anointed. No one else seemed to be outside. So I feel like it was quite deliberate. Anyways, we went down this big hill with no vision or feeling in my body from the cold, harsh exposure to the elements and I just couldn’t stop smiling. I thanked Heavenly Father for the chance to be on a mission and to be able to have experiences like that. Even the bad days are making me miss what I will miss in the near future. I don’t know what I’d do or be without my mission. It means everything to me. Sorry, tangent, back to the story: We stopped at the end of the street and locked up our bikes and hit the streets with our tools of the harvest in our pockets to keep it from the wetness. We hit all the doors that seemed to know about the secret meeting I was talking about earlier and then a sudden gift from on high happened. I saw a fire burning by some rundown apartments and a group of people listening to music and dancing. “Finally, some people I can talk to,” I thought to myself hesitantly, not knowing if they were also part of the conspiracy. We approached them and joked about the weather, their beards and it went on to a more substantial conversation. Those lovely self proclaimed “Pagan Hippies” had some wonderful insight to the universe, life and love. I learned a lot. I’m not sure how much of it I believe but there were some nuggets of truth hidden throughout their mirage of reality. We talked to them about what’s important to us and why we feel strongly about it. I tried to put it into words that were more on their level: “Reality, universe, love, marijuana (just kidding… but really), webbing of parallel realities, sphere of rainbows and prophecies, Hebrew, all backed up, proof, logic,” you know, all the things that sound fascinating but don’t have much meaning behind them. I truly enjoyed it. I thought it was a little tender mercy that was handed to me on a silver platter, perhaps a platter made of cannabis, if such a thing exists in this “sphere of existence.”
Our investigators are solid in the moment and fleeting in our absence. We need some prayers and fasting for these friends of ours. If all goes well, we will have 8 baptisms on May 17th. I’ll let you know how that all goes down. I really need to start taking more pictures, don’t I Mom? I’m sorry. Negligence is my arch enemy right now. It’s ever present in my mind with all things photography.
I had the thrill of sitting in the E.R. while my companion had tests run all over him. Once we finished the conversation with our hippie friends we got back on our bikes and rode up a hill of enormous size. It wasn’t that big, but, anyways, my comp pulls over and starts clenching his jaw with his hands and gasping for air. I was like, “uhhh,” what the heck should I be doing right now?" He started looking better and we rode our bikes again. So after a while I rode along side of him and looked at him and could tell he was in a lot of pain. We pulled over and made the necessary calls and then got told to go to the hospital. So fast forward through the excruciating long wait for my friend, we got in to see the doctor. The diagnosis: TMJ Arthralgia. All I know is that my poor companion has had a rough past couple of weeks. I feel bad. He’s a good man.
All in all, the sun keeps setting and the work keeps moving.
Elder Trent Jay Merrill
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