Happy New Year, Universe! This is Elder Z.S.Weber, reporting in to you
once more from the Mariana Butte Ward in the Colorado Fort Collins
Mission. Once more, I am here again with my epic copilot Elder
NeVille, ready to go over the epicness that came over this past week.
However, before we get to that, I'd like to say real quick—where did
2015 go?! I mean, seriously, wasn't just like a few weeks ago that I
was sitting here telling y'all about how I would be going to Nebraska
to serve with Elder Tapia? Now, twelve months later, here we are! So
much has changed. I'm now sixteen-and-a-half months out in the
mission, I've had four companions since Elder Tapia, two areas since
Nebraska, and years worth of experience crammed into one year. And
now, here we are—the year I go home. Crazy it's already here, right?
So, how did our first week into 2016 go?
Well, let's start off with Tuesday, which probably brought with it one
of the strangest situations in my missionary life. So, like all
Tuesdays here in Mariana Butte, Elder NeVille and I went to do service
at Hearts and Horses Stables. Then, after we had finished whatever
work they needed us to do for them, we go home, get changed, and start
hitting the streets trying to find people. Well, at around five in the
evening, we got this call from an unknown number asking if we were the
missionaries. Apparently, Bishop Laws' daughter, Lindsey Laws, had
come home from her mission on Monday, and was going through what we
missionaries call 'the post-mission blues'.
I mean, it makes sense, right? If all you do for two years is knock on
people's doors and try to share the gospel with them, your first day
free of the responsibility probably feels a bit weird. It was her
request, though, that left us feeling a bit...awkward. She asked if
she could join us tracting and going to appointments. Now, for those
that don't know why this left us awkward, let me explain. For two
those two years on the mission, we aren't supposed to be alone with
any sisters or single women. So, when she mentioned that she would
like to go tracting with us, and had even already found two
investigators for us to teach, it left us with a hard decision on how
to reply. After a while, we decided to tell her that we'd love to
teach her investigators with her, and then referred her to the
English-Assigned Sister Missionaries in our Zone.
It ended up turning out the investigators were also Young Single Adult
age, so we also missed the chance to teach. Good luck there, Zone
Leaders!
Wednesday came next, and Wednesday came with our District Meeting for
the week. Because of the New Year starting on midnight the next day,
we decided to do our District Meeting on the day before the day
before. The meeting actually went along fairly quickly this time
around, as it was mainly about setting the goals for the oncoming
week. I remember we had some trouble in communication, though, because
in the past weeks, we had put the totaled goals for the District up on
the board. So, if someone thought they could get five new
investigators, and a couple other companionships thought they could
get three, and another thought they could get four, then the total
would be 15. Instead, the District Leader decided to put the average
for the District up on the board—which, in this case, would be 3.5.
So, yeah...we had a lot of headaches from that. It also begs the
question as to how you can get half a person...
Then, it was finally Thursday. The day before the New Year. They last
day of the year 2015. Because it was the New Year, we were actually
discouraged from going out and doing missionary work. Apparently,
missionaries in the past have run across some very colorful
individuals on New Year's Eve, which often led to troublesome
circumstances. So, rather than go out and do missionary work, we
decided to celebrate Elder NeVille's birthday, as December 31st is
also the day he was born. And, because he had received a bunch of
Buffalo Wild Wings gift cards for Christmas, and neither we nor the
Long View Elders had a dinner that night, we decided to hit B-Dubs for
dinner. It was surprisingly empty for a while—the only people there
besides the workers were us...and the Zone Leaders. All in all, it was
a nice evening.
And then it was 2016. The New Year. January 1st, the very first day of
the New Year! It's honestly a little hard to believe that we've gotten
here. So much has happened this past year, and there is so much more
to come in the twelve months ahead of us. So, with that thought in
mind, I'd like to share a very special Spiritual Message, to start my
last calendar year on the mission off on a high note.
This message comes from thinking over Lindsey Laws' situation.
Starting today, she'll have been home for a week. The very first day
that she was back home, she craved going back into the missionary
work. You can tell that she lived her mission to the fullest, to the
point that even after she had been released and the mantle of
missionary-ship had been lifted off of her shoulders, she still had a
deep desire within her to do the missionary work. I've been thinking
about this often this past week, and wondered whether I would have
that same reaction coming home. I can tell you honestly that no, I
would not. I know that the day after I come home, most likely I will
be glued to the living room sofa, with a laptop in front of me, a 3DS
in one hand, a Wii controller in another, and catching up on all the
nerd and pop-culture phenomena that have occurred over the past two
years.
Now, that's fair. I mean, all missionaries say that that's what they
envision themselves doing. If it's not catching up on the pop-culture,
then it's going out on a date—finally!—for the first time in two
years. However, there is a lesson to be learned from the interactions
with Lindsey. That lesson is that no matter how devoted to the mission
you are, no matter how much you have given up in service to the Lord,
you can always give more. There is no 'stopping point' on the road of
discipleship in the Church. You never reach the ultimate destination
while in this life—not unless you've given your all to God and to the
work that He has given you.
Back when I was with Elder Hale, who along with being a hard-working
missionary was also a skilled poet, he shared with me this poem of a
man sitting on a plane. On this plane, seated directly across from him
and just up the row from him, are two missionaries. One wears a fresh
suit, has a clean hair cut, and has a broad 'greenie-fire' grin on his
face. The other is wearing a faded-out suit, wore-out-nigh-soleless
shoes, and is bearing a very haggard expression. The first is a new
missionary, eager to get out in the field. The second is a missionary
who is ready to go home, a man who gave all he had in the service of
his God and is now ready for his duly rewarded rest from his labors
for a season.
It is the second missionary we aim to be on the mission, and in life.
To give all that we have—to God, to work, to family—so that when we do
leave our past life behind, we can say with honor that we did the work
our Father gave us to do. So for this New Year, at a time of change
for all of us, may we promise ourselves to give our all in our lives.
Let us give everything to the Master, and see the wonders He will
perform through us in our lives. I know that these things are true, in
His Holy name, even the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!
—Elder Z.S.Weber
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