Senior for the Day

This past week in the mission field was completely different than what I have experienced so far, but don't worry, it is a good thing!

 

My week started off with a day that nothing happened, most of our appointments cancelled and we actually had to tract(knock doors) during part of the day! (Note: we have now tracted a total of 35 minutes the whole time that I've been here) So you can see how slow it was on Wednesday, but the thing that surprised me the most was that I was OK with it, I didn't get frustrated and I just accepted that fact that I was having a bad day. I assumed that the appointments fell through because of my lack of faith in the people to keep their appointments.

 

The next day, Thursday, was my favorite day this past week. I went into it with the mindset that ALL of my appointments would go through. We went on exchanges this day, so Elder Cornilles left my area for the whole night and day, while Elder Ricks (also a brand new missionary) came to stay at my place on Wednesday night and to work my area the next day. This put me as the senior companion for the day, I was nervous about it at first, but I knew that I needed to show confidence to Elder Ricks so that he felt comfortable. Now I am not bashing on him at all, he is a great missionary, but...he told me that he has a hard time talking to people and doesn't know what to say during lessons. I felt like I had been out for much longer than he has just because of the difference in our abilities and strengths. Throughout the day we had ALL of our lessons go through, and I know it was because we showed faith that they would, we taught 4 lessons and they went great! I did most of the talking and had to start all of the lessons off, but I feel like I helped him out a lot in his teaching skills. Later that night he thanked me for showing him how to be a diligent missionary and for all of the things that I taught him. He told me how much he appreciated me and the hard work that I forced upon him. I in turn told him to thank Elder Cornilles for training me right.

 

One of our goals the whole time I have been out on a mission was to be exactly obedient, I thought that I had been doing an OK job of that until last week. Once we had that bad day, where our appointments all fell through, I knew that I had to change the way I worked as a missionary, not major things, just some small tweaks to my attitude and to my P-day activities and privileges. I corrected these things on my own, with the help of the lord, and then was blessed for doing so on Thursday - now.

 

We have been teaching so much since Thursday that we have had to make some sacrifices in our schedules. Instead of getting up at 6:30 everyday and working out for a half hour, we have had to get up at 6 twice and go teach lessons all morning, when normally we wouldn't be out teaching til 10am. Because we have done this, we have been blessed with more people to teach and more baptisms scheduled.

 

This weekend we are for sure having 2 baptisms, with the possibility of having one more as well. I was asked to baptized a lady named Debra Lee Harrington, she has overcome smoking in 2 weeks! She is an amazing lady with a heart of gold! I cannot believe how much I care for every single one of the people that I am teaching! It's crazy!

 

As of right now, we have 18 Investigators of the Church

11 with baptismal dates for the next month or two

and we are still talking to 250+ people on the streets every week!

 

I feel so blessed to be here in Arizona, yes it is super hot (has averaged a high of 110 the past 3 days), but the work here is so great that I cannot imagine being anywhere else. I am pretty sure that there are like 314 different missions that I could have been called to, but I KNOW that this is the one that is right for me. This work, and these people are here to listen to what I have to say, I don't know why God chose Arizona for me, but I bet that in the next 22 months I will find out.

 

This past Sunday was fast Sunday. For those of you that knew me back home, you know that I was not an outspoken person, but what if I told you that I went up to bear my testimony....TWICE! No it was not during the same sacrament meeting, because we cover two wards in my area I was able to get up there twice and tell the ward how I felt about the gospel. My first testimony was amazing, because the ward has really been helping out with missionary work, so I told them how I felt and I will share that with you at the end of this letter. My second Testimony was more of me telling the ward that they need to be missionary minded, because without the members of the ward, we wouldn't be able to baptize anyone( i told them this in a discreet way). I feel extremely bad for not helping out the missionaries more while I was at home. Every member should be willing to help out the missionaries whenever they call for help.

 

This is what I remember from my testimony:

 

"There are 3 different degrees of sacrifice that I have seen on my mission so far and I will tell you them in order, from the least important to the greatest sacrifice. The first was the sacrifice that I made to be here - to give up my time that I could be at school, giving up a cell phone, and to give up relationships with family and friends and to sell my truck were some of the hardest things ever. But all of these things don't compare to the sacrifices that the people I teach make, this is the second level, they give up habits, like smoking, drinking and they change their lives out of love for the lord. The 3rd level is the greatest sacrifice of all, Our savior, Jesus Christ gave his life, for us, so that we could become clean again, so we could be converted to the truth and return to live with him and our heavenly father again. All the things that I gave and all the things the people I teach gave, do not compare to this sacrifice that Jesus Christ, WILLINGLY gave.

We all have to be converted to the gospel, even those of us that have been in the church our whole lives, this point for me came when I was about 14 years old, and it lasted until I was 17. I rebelled against my parents and the church, I doubted things and had to find out for myself. I asked god, just like Joseph Smith did and that is how I came to find my answer, that is how I came to know that i belonged in the church and that I needed to serve a mission. One of the greatest things that helped me while I was trying to get back on the path was the example of my dad. To watch him (all 6'3 210lbs of him) kneel before the lord in humility was one of the greatest examples in my life at the time. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

 

Thank you to all of you supporting me, I want to let you know that I am working my hardest here, that I am working on becoming the best that I can be out here. It will not happen all at once, but I am making small adjustments to how I operate and what I think about while I am here so that I will be the missionary that the savior NEEDS me to be.

 

I love everyone, please send me suggestions on how to become a better missionary.

 

Elder Morgan Thomas