Week 79

 Elder Calder, attempting to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, unto the friends, relations and associates scattered abroad, to them that seek sanctification and peace in Christ Jesus, and to those who aren't so sure about that at the moment, Grace, and peace be multiplied, greeting. 

If anybody has tried messaging me over Facebook messenger, the reason I have not responded is because I deleted Facebook messenger. Please convey your many praises and compliments towards me through email.

We were in a trio for two weeks because my current companion, Elder Timothy Smith, came back to Arizona after a year back home in Ohio. He continued his mission as a service missionary (and YSA Branch Mission Leader) while he was waiting for a surgery but he made a triumphant return for his last transfer and a half back here. It's fun to hear from him about the old Phoenix Mission that stopped existing right before I got here ~18 months ago, back then Scottsdale (to the east of us) was its own mission and they split the Valley of the Sun between them, also splitting the mountain areas in the north. Flagstaff was in the mission back then and Elder Smith was trained up in the town of Prescott in the mountains. When he goes home there will be no missionaries in living memory that have been up there. 

Being in a trio was stressful and I'm glad it's over. With just one companion there is only one relationship that you need to maintain but with two companions there is 3, between you and comp 1, you and comp 2, and between comp 1 and comp 2. 

Elder Whipple went to the Scottsdale YSA and Arcadia wards, my old area. I'm a little jealous but I wish him luck. 

Elder Smith and I made a goal this transfer to make this the best transfer of our missions. He feels like he missed out on a lot of experiences and growth while he was gone so we resolved to make the most of the time we have together. We began by making a bunch of goals both personal and companionship. His goal is to find reassurance about what God wants him to do next. My goal is to learn to find solace in Christ. 

I learned on Halloween morning that 'Saints' (the Church's narrative history) released its 4th and final volume. I was very excited because I started reading the series on my mission and enjoyed it very much. We had a curfew of 6:30pm that day due to dangerous drivers and people being out on Halloween night, so I went home and devoured the audio book on 2x speed for 4 hours. I'm almost done with the book now and it's interesting, a lot of the focus of the narrative has been on the previous race restriction of the priesthood and the growth of the church in Europe and Latin America. I thought it was amazing to learn of the patience and faith of the hundreds of Saints in Nigeria and Ghana who waited 13 years for the Church to send the first missionaries in west Africa to come baptize them. 

We are teaching a few people in our area who are progressing nicely. I have been very sad looking in retrospect at a lot of the friends and people I've met over the course of my mission being baptized and going inactive afterwards, I've done a lot of pondering over what my responsibility is for their inactivity, what I might have done better. It's become more and more clear to me that genuine understanding of the doctrine of Jesus Christ is hard to cultivate and takes time. 

In Saints Volume 4 there are a lot of examples of amazing people looking for truth who find the gospel and then hold fast to it. Interestingly they almost all take a long time before they are truly ready to be baptized, learning and growing over a period of several months or sometimes even years. As missionaries I think we often have a very narrow view of how fast a person should be progressing, how much we think we should understand in a given period, etc. I've learned how challenging it is to genuinely teach for spiritual understanding, to help them build friendships with people in their ward, to help them to make major, permanent changes in their lives. In fact on our own, it is impossible. In the colorful language of Joseph Smith, Jr:

"There has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn-dodger for a wedge, and a pumpkin for a beetle."

[Translation from 19th-century English: helping people to understand the gospel is like trying to split apart logs of hard wood with a cornbread-pancake for a wedge, and a pumpkin for a sledgehammer]

At this point I'm just trying to focus on inviting the power of the Holy Ghost into our lessons by sharing my testimony and by reading from the Book of Mormon. And by being patient. I think if we want our friends to genuinely grow closer to God I need to rely more on God rather than my own teaching ability. 

Alma 4:19 "And this he did that he himself might go forth among his people, or among the people of [Arizona], that he might preach the word of God unto them ... and that he might pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among his people, seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them."

Yours Faithfully,

Elder C. Calder

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