Week 97

In personal study yesterday I felt a little more deeply why we would need a Savior.

Before one even considers whether Jesus would be that Savior, it's a simple fact that everyone everywhere will eventually die. Nobody has been or (I believe) will ever be able to cure death, so we are helpless to stop it. We need something or someone to Save us from death. 

Also, all of us feel miserable and alone at least sometimes. We are taught that God is the ultimate (and only) source of light and joy in the universe (evidenced by how unhappy we feel when we try to find happiness in other things). We cannot feel happy unless we approach His presence. Since we are not now presently in the presence of God-  which we know by the fact that we don't see Him face to face- and have no way of changing that on our own, it would naturally follow that we need something or someone else to fix that for us. 

Of course you can just choose to believe that there is no solution to death or unhappiness, but I've found that you are a lot happier when you do choose to believe and to have hope. 

In our Monday night devotional President Grizzle from the mission Presidency spoke about how he has to choose every day to trust in the Atonement of Jesus Christ with the faith of a little child ("He's the source of everything I hope for"). I wondered about that and I realized that having the faith of a child doesn't necessarily mean being naive or gullible. It doesn't mean contorting your brain to fit an unnatural way of thinking or turning off your reasoning in order to blindly follow something. 

It just means being humble, willing to realize how blind you truly already are, and be willing to trust someone else with your whole heart. I really liked that and wanted to share it. 

Yours Faithfully,
Elder C. Calder

Every morning we bike to the church building to play basketball. Elder Tenney has played basketball for his entire life so it is not only great exercise for my muscles but for my patience as well. 


The basketball hoop was completely retracted when we got there Monday morning so in the spirit of the ancient Mesoamerican hip-ball game I tried to shoot through the vertically placed hoop. Sadly I overshot and it got stuck on the backboard. My companion shot his shot as I was lowering it and got his stuck as well. 

Apparently the technology missionaries took pictures of us at this last zone conference. Elder Tenney's mom sent this to him. The Zone Conference was great, I didn't get the Zone Conference Blues like I usually do and I got to see some of my friends. I liked the focus of it as well, on internalizing and focusing our lives around our missionary purpose (which I now know in sign language!)

I asked my companion why he never smiles in pictures and he responded with 😐

I went and got one of those big water drums filled up at Walmart 2 weeks ago. I went through the whole thing in like 9 days, who knew biking in Arizona involved drinking lots of water. Here I am finishing it off. 

We went to the Phoenix Temple earlier today (we switched our prep day to Tuesday since all temples are closed on Monday) and I really enjoyed it. Our mission president said in this last zone conference that we are now allowed to do initiatory ordinances as well as proxy endowments, so I went and experienced initatories for the first time since I recieved my endowment almost 2 years ago. During the Endowment session today I also participated in the prayer circle, which I also hadn't done since I recieved my endowment. 

We were going to the temple for my companion's 6-month mark, in the Arizona Phoenix Mission missionaries can go to the temple every 6 months. I've been a lot more than that though since we can also go with our companions for their 6 month marks and with friends we've taught who are going to the temple for the first time. This occasion today is probably the last time I will be able to attend before I go to departing activties at the end of next transfer.

At the mission office there is a bookshelf full of copies of the Book of Mormon in languages from all around the world (in a cosmopolitan environment like Phoenix we do have occasion to use them). Today when we went they had just gotten a fresh shipment of the Book of Mormon in Turkish! It made me think of my sister Peyton who just returned from a mission to Turkey 🇹🇷 a few weeks ago. I got to keep one to add to my Book of Mormon collection. 

We saw a yellow cybertruck today in north Phoenix. Go figure.

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