Good Morning, my dear friends and family back home. Sorry, again, for sending this big email out later than usual. Once more, yesterday was a very rough day, and between doctor's appointments, haircuts, lunch, and shopping, there wasn't a whole lot of time for us to be able to email everyone on our lists. Well, better late than never, am I right? To be honest, though, I am glad for the extra time these extra twenty-four hours gave me, as I really didn't know what to talk about this week. I mean, there wasn't a whole lot that stood out in these past seven days, and it was difficult to form a message from these fleeting moments.
But a message I have for you indeed.
While not a whole lot happened this week, there were two major things at the very beginning of the week that were really great moments for me. The first was interviews with President McMurray. Me and Elder Pember were President's fourth and third missionaries he interviewed that day, and when it came my turn I was feeling very prepared for the information he would give me. You see, as last week was my second-to-last week in the mission, this interview was to be what is infamously known in the mission as the departing interview. The interview is around an hour long, as to allow the mission president enough time to offer the advice the missionary most needs.
As with all interviews I've had while on the mission, it was a great moment for me in seeing how far I've come and how much farther I have to go. Throughout the interview, President McMurray asked me how my mission had gone, and in what ways I felt I had been successful through it. It gave me a great chance to look back on my past and see how I really have grown and progressed over this mission. He then asked me about my plans I have set for after the mission (school down at SUU, try to date a lot more than I did in high school, get first book published) and offered some advice on how to attain those goals while keeping myself strengthened in the church and any callings I receive.
Best of all, he told me that we will be going to the temple on the 29th, Friday this week! I get to go through one last time! Yes!!
The second major point from this week was having the chance to go on exchanges. This exchange was very interesting for me, as it was my first time going on exchanges with a greenie. And I'm talking like just an eight-day-old greenie. His name was Elder Brand, and he is Elder Anderson's greenie and companion for the rest of this transfer. To be honest, I was a little worried about how to spend our few hours together. What I was really worried about was somehow messing up and having this one moment so early in Elder Brand's mission reshape everything in how he went about the work. This fear grew even more when I actually went out working with him and came to realize that he is incredibly prepared for the work.
However, regardless of my worries, the exchange went really well. Elder Brand was a great missionary to serve with, even if it was only for a day or so, and he really shows great potential as a powerful missionary. As missionaries, we often talk about praying and reading the Book of Mormon with real intent, with a true desire to learn and then apply whatever we gain from Heavenly Father. It was wonderful to come to know a missionary that so fully accepts that real intent, who knows that he is very much still imperfect and is willing to do whatever his Father in Heaven asks him to do in order to improve. It was a moment where I was able to see the future of the Colorado Fort Collins Mission, and how brightly does it shine.
From these two moments, I have also come to love the old poem President Boyd K. Packer recited in a General Conference address in October of 2011.
"The old crow is getting slow.
The young crow is not.
Of what the young crow does not know
The old crow knows a lot.
At knowing things the old crow
Is still the young crow’s master.
What does the slow old crow not know?
—How to go faster.
The young crow flies above, below,
And rings around the slow old crow.
What does the fast young crow not know?
—Where to go." (Fast and Slow, John Ciardi)
As a missionary about to go back out into the insane world we live in today (and indeed, this is an insane world we live in), I am able to experience both sides of this poem. With President Brown, and now President McMurray, I have been very much the young crow. I feel ready to go home, to get on with my life, to start living that phase of life I've dreamed of living for years. However, the old wise crows know best the struggles I will face, and are quick to offer advice to the young crow so that he doesn't end up messing up along the way. Their words have always been the counsel and direction I needed, both as a missionary and a young man.
On the other end of the poem, though, by missionary standards I am very much an old crow. And, some days, I feel it. I lack the zeal and 'greenie fire' that I once had when I was a bright-eyed-bushy-tailed greenie almost two years ago. I work hard and do what I can, yet some days it doesn't feel as though it was enough to get the job done. All around me are young crows (I live with three of them now). Lively and excitable, they zip this way and that, eager to do to the work and do that which they have been called to do. With so many missionaries with so much more energy and zeal to do the work, what place has the old crow among them?
Well, you read the poem. I have an additional year's worth of experience over my three roommates here. While I'm not the wisest or the smartest, this experience helps me much when teaching and relating to our investigators. These pearls of wisdom that I have gained on my mission are something I hope to hold on to for the rest of my life.
Now, I am certain there are some among you that are wondering, "This is all very well and good, Elder Weber, but where are you going with this?" My brothers and sisters, each of us are old and young crows. Never doubt it, we all are like the young crow in some way or another, eager to go out, to go this way and that, to live life. And, at the same time, we are all old crows, each having experience that can benefit one another. The question then is not whether we have to learn more or be more zealous in our desires, but how we can improve. How can we make our lack of knowledge (for the young crow) or our lack or energy (for the old crow) a blessing.
The words of the Lord to Moroni I believe best answer this question. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." (Ether 12:27)
Brothers and sisters, we are all imperfect. Each of us lack, in some way or another, when compared to our Heavenly a Parents and our Savior. However, if we are humble enough to accept their help and guidance, and the help and guidance of those around us, then can our 'weak things become strong', and the trials that once stood as great mountains before us will be no more than hurdles to jump over. My friends, my plea is that we all seek this level of humility. Turn to our Father, turn to each other, and see what miracles these young and old crows can work. Thus I bear witness of, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
—Elder Z.S.Weber
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