Monday, October 26, 2015

Missionary Thoughts

Description: https://bay168.mail.live.com/ol/clear.gifIt's been an interesting week!

I think that some of the initial excitement of missionary work has started to wear off. Now don't get me wrong, I still love missionary work, and I count every day I spend out here as a blessing, but some of the day-to-day routine parts of missionary work aren't quite as exciting as they used to be. I guess it's inevitable that the excitement of anything new will fade, but I think the important part is if you can still find things to enjoy about something every day, and you still have a passion for it, then it's something you can love even though the initial excitement is gone, and it can still be a great experience!

I also had the thought that I've always had a certain perception of missionaries, and I never really felt like I matched up with those perceptions.  But, I'm coming to realize it was the perceptions that were wrong and not me. Elder Dixon and I try to imagine certain older members of the ward who are really respectable doing dumb things on their mission, and we can't, but we're pretty sure they did. I just can't imagine Elder Holland as a 19-year-old doing dumb things in the mission field. It also made us wonder if we'll be that respectable one day and that missionaries will think we could never do dumb stuff when we were younger. Makes you think! haha

We have a missionary from Africa who is one of my zone leaders. His name is Elder Pienar. He's white, and when people ask him how he came from Africa and is white, he tells them he grew up in the shade.  He's a funny guy!

It's getting cold enough that in the mornings and evenings that I could definitely use a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt in the next package.  The rest of the time it's been very nice though!

We had a dinner appointment this week where the family was watching the Utes game and eating ribs. They told me it couldn't be helped if I watched some of the game, so I unfortunately got to witness the Utes lose at one of my dinner appointments.

Sunday, we had an awesome sacrament meeting with two priests giving their testimony on missionary work, a missionary about to depart in five days, and a returned missionary who had just gotten home a few weeks before. It was a really good sacrament meeting!

If this email sounds a little different than most, it's because I'm using the microphone option on my iPad. The writing style might be a little different, but I can write a lot more and in a lot less time!  And speaking of time, I’ve gotta run!

Love you all lots!

Q&A – 10/26/15

1.) What's on today's agenda? --The usual for today! Laundry, shopping, sports, etc.  We did stop off at an orthopedic doctor this morning to get Elder Dixon's foot checked out because of the bike accident, and it turns out that he has some tendinitis in his right foot.  Nothing too serious, he just won't be playing basketball on Mondays for a week or two.

2.) How is the MP3 working for you? --The Mp3 is working awesome!  I really appreciate that you sent some decent speakers!  I was just expecting one of the little can speakers, but it's been REALLY nice to listen to music with good quality audio!

3.) Do you get the opportunity to play the piano much?  --A decent amount.  I've played a musical number for zone conference twice, and they tried to convince me to sing at one, but I went with the piano instead, haha.  I play sometimes at district councils, and if I ever wanted to, I could play while we're at the stake center for sports on P-day.

4.) How often do you have district meetings or zone conferences?  --District council is once a week on Wednesdays.  We have one zone conference a transfer, where the AP's and President Snow are there, and one zone training, where the whole zone gets together, but the AP's and President Snow aren't there.

5.) Dad is hoping for some details about Elder Dixon's "little crash" - he loves a good missionary bike wreck story.  ;)  --As far as the crash goes, long story short, one moment he was on the bike, the next moment he wasn't.  Haha.  He was riding no hands down the sidewalk, and his handlebars got caught on a bush so they yanked around and he crashed.

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