Sometimes I think we forget to recognize even the simplest forms of tender mercies from our Heavenly Father. Last night, as we were cleaning up dinner dishes, we were the recipients of a simple yet sweet tender mercy from the Lord and a very sweet sister. Dave received the following text/picture on his phone and it made my heart swell with happiness and put a smile on my face and a tear in my eye :) He looks happy, healthy and safe and that's all I ask for.
Text...“We
just had the pleasure of having dinner with your missionary tonight! So enjoyable!
I am visiting my daughter here in Camp Hill (I live in Herriman,
UT). He ate well, but all 4 missionaries
wanted to weigh themselves and he won for the most pounds lost and we wanted to
send a picture of him!"
Elder Muir’s email below…
First off, even though it is Columbus Day, I am
writing this at the library. So FYI this library is open on Columbus Day.
- How was your zone tour? Tell me all about it,
were you able to talk with Elder Arnold? Zone
tour was awesome. Elder Arnold had some amazing things to say. He talked a
lot about how member missionary work is so important and how we (missionaries)
shouldn't be doing all the work. We
(missionaries) should just be the ones teaching. His wife talked about
repentance and how we need to always be repenting as we teach the lessons
to our investigators. Yes, I got to talk to him at the end of the conference
for a few minutes. First, he gave me a big hug and was glad that I came up
to talk to him. He told me that it is ok to have struggles on your mission
and that is how we grow. I gathered you told him about the beginning of my
mission. He told me about how he struggled on his mission and all
missionaries struggle at one point or another. He also talked about
how to work with companions.
- Tell me all about the rainstorm? (I always check the weather before I send
his emails to give him updates on what to expect and found they had been
dumped on. I thought the total was
a mistake and started checking news reports…nope, not a mistake)
Did you go out in it or stay inside? If inside, what did you do? Holy Crap!!! That is a lot of rain in 2 days,
obviously I was here in the rain but didn’t know how much rain actually
fell. (On
Thursday/Friday 10/10 & 10/11 Harrisburg/Camp Hill had a record
breaking rainfall. The previous
record set in 1894 was shattered.
It’s reported that on Thursday they received over 4 inches of rain
on Thursday and over 4 more inches on Friday. Yahoo weather has recorded 6.58” for
Camp Hill on Thursday & 3.77” on Friday. Either way that is a WHOLE lot of rain). Haha…ya right, I wished I could have
stayed inside. So the answer is no, we did not stay inside. I
had no idea that there was that big of a rainstorm coming and when it
started to rain on Thursday luckily we were inside for part of the day for
some service and our BOM class. On Friday we had weekly planning
then we did some more service that was in a patio area. So walking
to the service project I had my rain jacket on but it was soaked because
there was so much water coming down. I literally wanted to cry
because it was so cold and miserable. I didn't have my umbrella;
however, I don't know how much that would have helped because there was so
much water. After we went to a few peoples’ houses and also went up
to visit the guy in the hospital from Gettysburg. Let’s just say
that was awful too. However, it is 2 days that I will
always remember from my mission. My scriptures and PMG got
soaked but they are still usable. I used to put grocery bags in my
backpack to wrap around my scripture case but it never really rained that
hard all summer and if it did it was not for very long. So I stopped
carrying the bags around. The scriptures and PMG are still a bit
damp but they will eventually dry.
- How much weight have you lost? What did you weigh when you left? I bet I’ve lost 5 to 8 lbs. Last night when I weighed myself I just eaten and I was full from eating ham & funeral potatoes.
- Whose home did you have dinner at and who is the
nice person that sent the text/pic? How did weighing yourself come
up? So the picutre was taken
at the E family’s home. They fed both us and the sister
missionaries. They are in our area but I had never really met them
so yesterday was the first time I met them. He is an orthopedic
resident and she used to be a respiratory therapist before they had
kids. The lady that sent you the picture was Sister E's mom.
She lives in Herriman. After we ate she wanted take a picture and
send it to you guys and so I said ok and I gave her dad's cell #. I
figured you would be thrilled and yes I have lost weight. I am skinnier, but I think that is what
happens when you average walking 10 miles a day for 4 ½ months. They
all are from Utah, but he came here for his residency.
- What are the highs/lows for the week? Well the high was obviously Elder Arnold and the
zone tour. It was amazing to hear
from a general authority. Another high was sacrament meeting
yesterday. Sister F gave a good talk on agency. She a great quote
that she gave in the talk. I really really liked it. You probably
remember the talk it came from. It came
from President Benson’s In His Footsteps talk. "There has never been more expected
of the faithful in such a short period of time than there is of us. Never
before on the face of this earth have the forces of evil and the forces of
good been so well organized. Now is the great day of the devil’s power.
But now is also the great day of the Lord’s power, with the greatest number
of priesthood holders on the earth." That really hit me after
I found it on lds.org of how true that is and it was
given 25 years ago. Look how much that
rings true in today’s world. I’m so grateful to be one of those priesthood
holders and be one of the faithful. I know that we were saved for this
time because Heavenly Father knew that we could make it through the
difficult challenges that are placed before us and endure to the end. The knowledge we have of the gospel of
Jesus Christ helps us to be able to endure the challenges that we are
faced with. The gospel of Jesus
Christ is constant and never changes and it’s the only constant thing in
an ever changing world that we can cling to. The low was probably the rain, as you
would have guessed. Also, we did not have very many dinners this
week.
- What are 5 positive things for the week? We were able to commit an investigator with a
baptismal date for Dec 7. He was the referral we received for
another set of missionaries. Elder Arnold and the zone tour was
definitely a positive and me losing weight…being the Biggest LOSER haha!
- How are you feeling about transfers? I really am hoping something happens
because I'm at about at my whit’s end with Elder F. He is starting
to drive me crazy but I am making the best of the situation. So we
will see what happens, you will know by the next email. Which leads
me to NO ONE send me anything after Thursday so if I do get transferred it
does not have to be forwarded to the new apartment.
- Are the new shoes working out OK? Yes, they just need to be broken in. Unfortunately, they gave me blisters again but I think once they are broken in a bit they will be better. Also, hopefully I get transferred into a drive area next week and I can finally give my feet a rest.
- What kind of business does Franky want to start
with his friend? I am not exactly
sure. It is something that Bro. M and his neighbor are doing and so
he has those 2 involved. It is something about electricity, but I’m
not really sure. I don't understand what they’re doing.
- How's the guy that's in the hospital (parents are
from Gettysburg)? We saw him Friday
night. That was one of the places we had to walk to in the pouring
rain…no bueno. We were able to see him and he is in a rough
situation. Unfortunately, he is dying. He is on some antibiotics to
help an infection in his kidney and heart. But they won't know how
well it's working for a few more weeks. If the anitbiotic doesn’t
work he has a chance of the infection breaking off and going up into his
brain and dying so that is why he is on the antibiotics. He may be able to
get a new heart valve but he has already had 2 open heart surgeries so the
docs say he has like a 9% chance of living from that.
- How is Sis. S (Bro. M's friend) doing? Have you
been back to see her? Yes, we have seen her but
we haven't really taught her again. We tried to do a walk/lesson Saturday but
that did not really go so well. She was just wandering in and out of
random stores and things and so the walks are not really effective. We can’t
really teach her in that type of environment. We have dinner with
her and hopefully a lesson tomorrow.
- What ever happened with the referral you got, were you able to meet with him? We saw him Tuesday. He is a nice old man. He is into needle point crafts. He is the one we committed to a baptismal date in December, but he has a lot of work to do. He is not really sure about a lot of things, but if we can get some work done with him he will be good.
- How's the food situation going? Are you still being fed by members...any good stories about meals/families or your own cooking/food adventures? The members feeding us has been going good. Last week was kind of lousy, but whatever. Let’s just say I eat a lot of ready made freezer kind of stuff. I would try and make decent food/meals but I don't really have a lot of time to cook stuff so I am doing the best that I can with food things. Overall, it is going well.
Love you FOREVER!!!
Elder Muir
No comments:
Post a Comment