Week 53

It would have been nice to write some kind of special commemorative email for Week 50, but you know me. 

In two days, on May 8th, I reach the 1-year anniversary of my first day as a missionary for the Lord Jesus Christ. It's funny because all of the missionaries I've met who have made it to this point have told me that once you hit a year, you look back and marvel at how fast the time has flown. For me, it feels like I left on my mission a very long time ago, I definitely feel like I've been on a long and arduous journey. But this last transfer has been maybe my very favorite and this next one is shaping up to be pretty nice as well. I finally feel like I'm starting to come into my own somewhat, and beginning to more easily enjoy the journey. 

Imagine, it's a lot like going on a hike. You spend the first part down at the bottom of the mountain, and you look up and say "wow, that looks like a rather long, steep, rocky road. Two years, that's no joke." Then you begin your climb, and you quickly realized that there's a reason why people advise you to practice hiking with smaller climbs first before you attempt your first serious one. 

As you gasp and wheeze and pull yourself over rocks, the blazing Arizona sun gnawing on your back, you wonder whether it was such a good idea to set out on a hike like this when you could be enjoying the cool, dark, dry climate of the basement back home. You look at the people around you, who are perhaps in a little better shape or are more familiar with these kinds of climbs, and you wonder why it is that everyone else seems to be having such a great time when you're still struggling so much. You know *why* but you wish it wasn't so.

You keep going, you keep going, and every time you come around another switchback and think you might be getting near the top, you look up and realize that you've still got quite a ways to go. You keep going.

Some of the hikers around you see you flagging and they help pull you along, some pitying, some kind. Some of them are helpful, others obnoxious, but regardless of what everyone else is doing you continue to climb. Sometimes all you can focus on is putting a single step in front of the other, but you march inexorably upwards. 

After you've been climbing a long time, it occurs to you that maybe you overpacked your bag a little bit. You take it off your shoulders and open it up, and it becomes clear there are some things in there that you can probably do without. You dump them, and you are surprised by how much easier it is to climb after that. It's quite satisfying to watch them clatter and tumble down the cliff beneath you, and you watch until they disappear from sight. You keep going.

Eventually you get to the top. Everyone else is looking around, oohing and ahhing, taking pictures of the view. You look back, some of the hikers remark on how insignificant the path you've just taken is from this new perspective, how small and easy to follow the trail is from here. Others laugh and hug each other that they're just getting started, that they're ready to go back down and then up again a few times. They sure seem to enjoy hiking. You look down and you think to yourself, "no, that was pretty hard." But then you look out beyond, to the craggy, low-slung mountains and stark, picturesque desert valleys below, and you have to admit the view is pretty nice. You now understand a bit better why all those crazy people around you enjoy hiking. You can also see the mission van from here, where you'll be picked up and driven home to the airport when you get down to the bottom. 

Your eyes follow the path from here, you see some spiky-looking ridges and a few precarious cliffs that you'll probably have to navigate as you follow it down. It's a problem for later. You take a moment to stretch, enjoying the pleasant feeling of elasticity in your muscles that comes from working hard. Then you glance around at the people who are with you. They're still busy celebrating the fact that they made it, that the hardest part is now behind them. You shrug your shoulders, and without much embarrassment you're the first to begin the climb down. You think to yourself, with some irony, "well, it's all downhill from here." 

But as you make your way down the slope, you're not in quite such a hurry to get down as you were to get up. You still have a long ways to go, but the day is long, and you scheduled your day anyway and you don't have anything *too* pressing going on for a while. Maybe you can just take a bit of time to look around, and enjoy the view a bit while you travel. You know, since you're already here and all. 

- - - - - - 

You know I like dramatizing everything but honestly it hasn't been that bad. I'm glad that I'm here, I'm happy with what I'm doing and what I'm becoming. I am pleased to be able to see the Lord's hand in this work, and I look forward to becoming more like the person I want to be as I continue. I'm one of those people that when someone tells me I should go on a hike, ("the view is totally worth it!") I'm likely much more inclined to think that a picture of the view from the comfort of my living room might be totally more worth it. But yeah, the view is nice up here. You should try it some time. 

Faithfully Yours,

Elder C. Calder

- - - - - - 

Missionaries caught taking selfies at the Deseret Bookstore in Mesa (REAL) (*not clickbait*)

A lady at a cologne shop started talking to us about religion, gave us a pocket Quran to read (we gave her a Book of Mormon in return). I have a sneaking suspicion the translation isn't very good, the diction is mostly in modern English and it lacks the expressiveness of ancient scripture. But I've been reading a tiny bit of it. 

I found a rather amusing section where the Prophet denounces those who insult and belittle the Lord by daring to presume that he would create any other beings comparable in power and glory to himself. "They have even, in their ignorance, ascribed sons and daughters to him! ... how can he have a son when he has no consort?" I suppose when the angel Gabriel was instructing Mohammed on the True Way, he forgot to mention that God not only has a consort... he's got a wife. 

I haven't found anything too shocking or diabolical within the pages of the Quran, not really to my surprise. Of the Muslims I've met, they've generally seemed to be good, honorable and reasonable people. My thoughts on the matter simply boil down to this:

6 "And whatsoever thing is good is just and true; wherefore, nothing that is good denieth the Christ, but acknowledgeth that he is. 

7 And ye may know that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men, the same today and tomorrow, and forever."

Moroni 10:6-7

Having fun with an interesting light fixture at the escape room we went to.

Last week for the last pday of the transfer, we went to an escape room called the Nemesis Club, in North Scottsdale. The one we completed was called Evil Robots, and it was pretty fun if stressful. The owners are members, and so missionaries play there (and get the expensive gourmet milkshakes) for free. It's a good thing, if I'd had to use my available missionary funds I'd be without food for the next couple of weeks. Overall a solid 8/10, definitely worth going again.