May 16, 2016
Well hello my good friends! It is once again wonderful to
write y'all and talk about my adventures down here in West Texas! This past
week was very busy but nonetheless a fulfilling week of serving the Lord!
The week started off with basically the easiest transfer day
ever for us. Thank heavens! Usually transfer day is hectic and long with tons
of crazy confusion and stuff, and usually takes us well into the evening until
we are relieved of managing it all. However, showed up to the church at like 9:00 and were out of there at 3:00 with not too much to worry about! I pretty
much hung around all day at the church with different people just waiting for a
car or two to show up and get the incoming missionaries sent back off. Good
times. Elder Lund had to take a nice trip to Big Spring and back, but I
basically just sat around. It was actually rather relaxing. Not too often do
you get time like that as a missionary!
Along with transfers, they closed down two of the areas here
in Abilene, which takes us down to only 6 companionships including us! So we
have the privilege of going through the apartments closing. Holy cow! Greatest
thing ever! We've found so much sweet stuff! The first time going through one
of the apartments we filled the back seat with sweet stuff to take home for
ourselves! And we haven't even gone through the other apartment yet so I am
thoroughly looking forward to scoring some sweet items from that place. You can
just find the most random stuff in missionary apartments. Its so weird. But so
fun. We brought home Play-Do, sweet sweaters, some good treats, some jammin'
cd's, and that’s just to name a few. We haven't even brought the comfy recliner
chair home yet. That will most definitely be a nice addition to the two couches
and recliner that we already have!
We had the privilege of going up to Lubbock for Mission
Leadership Council on Friday! It was legit.
President Heap is absolutely amazing! He spent a good while instructing us
about "principles". You always think about missionaries and all of
the "rules" that we have. Its true, we do have a lot of things that
the Lord asks us to do as missionaries. However, President made it very clear
that we do not and will never have a single "rule" (as far as
spiritual matters are concerned... still thinking about the temporal matters
though) either on our missions or at home. Not one single rule. The Lord will
never give any rules to govern us. He only gives us principles to live by and
lets us govern ourselves. Rules don't allow us to govern ourselves, don't leave
room for us to follow the spirit, and put up parameters for our progression.
You put yourself in a box when you follow rules, and there is no progression
outside of that box. Ultimately, this allows us missionaries and followers of
Christ to truly learn to follow Christ. It leaves us more room to make
decisions based upon our spiritual knowledge and what the spirit teaches us,
and to learn spiritually and not carnally. That is what President Heap's
mission is about. Helping us learn to govern ourselves and become converted.
Not for us to convert other people, but to convert us. A member of the first
quorum of the 70, Elder Foster, told a stake president in Lubbock that the
Texas Lubbock Mission has the lowest rate of missionaries going home early out
of all 20 missions in the North America Southwest area. And that's because he
teaches us the principles of things, and lets us govern ourselves. That usually
leads to missionaries often times going through times of waywardness because
they don't yet understand the principles of the gospel. However, through
experience they always learn the principles and are more converted should they
have been following rules the whole time. President Heap said that if we had
1000 convert baptisms this year (which we only had 200 something last year),
and he lost 5 of us nearly 200 missionaries to inactivity after our missions,
the 1000 convert baptism don't mean a thing to him. Anyway, that was just a
nice long babble about principles and how amazing President Heap is. And the
thing is too, that he taught it all from the scriptures and from teachings of
modern day prophets. Just like he always does! The rest of MLC though was
sweet. Nothing you non-missionaries care about because it has to do with
functionings of our mission, but it was sweet too. Plus, it is always super
good to be around a bunch of really good missionaries! Definitely boosts you
up!
We met a sweet brothah in the 'hood this week named Sir
Jason. Yes, you can't forget the "Sir" hahaha! His dad thinks that he
is royalty or something so he called his son Sir Jason instead of just Jason.
Def not royalty, unfortunately. I was pretty sure I had come across Sir Jason
and some of his friends on exchanges with a different missionary the previous
week, but they just stared at us and didn't respond to my trying to be nice, so
we kept walking. But, this time around, he was just sitting by himself, so I
decided to give him a second chance. Oh boy, that was the greatest decision of
my life. Hahaha Sir Jason was SWEET! I asked him, "How are you doing,
brother!" and he popped right off his bumm and told us to ask him stuff
about Jesus. What made this character so funny is his use of the word
"smooth". Hahaha he would say "Oh bro, thats smooth some real
stuff right there, man!" and of course the "I'm smooth gonna go smoke
all sorts of weed"! We actually had a really good conversation about some
pretty deep Plan of Salvation doctrine that really hit him good and made him
think. He was actually a really good thinker and had a nice layer of
spiritualness to him. However, we went back yesterday and he said that he threw
the pamphlet we gave him away and doesn't really care to learn anything. So
that was sad. We couldn't do much to save it. However, he was a little sick
yesterday, so I said, "Dang you're smooth sick today today?" and he
responded, "No bro, I'm straight sick. You just can't be smooth
sick." hahaha Sir Jason! I'm telling ya, this guy is something else! Good
times. I love the people we meet all the time! They keep life interesting.
As for the rest of the work. We have actually been able to
teach this guy named Mark a few times. He is super legit. Dang solid. He has
been praying to find truth and he soaks up everything we teach him! The only
problem is that we have very slim margins of time to meet with him during his
day because of his work schedule, but we're making it work out! We are looking
forward to hopefully getting him a baptismal date this week to get him moving
along more! We also have been keeping up with Nick who was baptized when I
first got here! He is doing super well! Their family has had a lot of road
bumps since he's been baptized but they have been hanging on strong through the
whole thing and it has only built them stronger! He and his wife (returning
less-active) have their eyes set on the temple! Nick has changed so much
through his conversion process! It is such a joy to watch! Other than them, we
don't have too much going forward right now. We have gotten some new
investigators lately, but it seems to be difficult to teach them a second and
third time. So we just gotta keep working hard!
Well my good friends, I love y'all and pray for y'all every
day! May the good Lord bless you as you continue to press forward in faith! His
grace is sufficient!
God bless ya!
Much love,
Elder Reed Ericson
No comments:
Post a Comment