Week 102

 On Saturday we held our long-awaited community Easter Celebration. 3 of the 4 wards that meet in our building got together to put on an open house where visitors started out in the chapel and listened to different instrumental and choral numbers, and then were guided through the different rooms which depicted different scenes from Holy Week with a narrator talking about the scene and what Jesus did. My favorite was probably Jesus overturning the tables of the money-changers in the temple. 

The last room had a paper-maché empty tomb with the stone rolled away, you could sit in one of the chairs provided and quietly feel the spirit of the room. After that they were sent into the cultural hall where there was a "Passover meal" (Naan bread, hummus, olives, nuts and dried figs) and a big wall of Jesus portraits. My favorite touch was how in baskets next to the water coolers were signs saying "everyone needs a little Jesus in their lives" and then a bunch of those little rubber Jesus figurines with different-colored sashes. I of course selected a Jesus with a purple sash.

The missionaries' role in the event was just to stand in the cultural hall, answer questions, talk to people and be friendly. I had a great time meeting lots of people, some of our friends came and I met some people from the other wards. 

One couple, the Kolbs, knew my previous mission president Brik V Eyre and his wife and we had a good conversation about that. Sister Kolb was the first person to be baptized while the Eyres were mission leaders here and the Eyres not only attended her baptism but also stayed in touch and they are good friends. Brother Kolb showed me this text conversation on his phone where he congratulated "Brik" on being called as a general authority seventy which was surreal. 

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A professional Choir came and visited the church building on Palm Sunday evening and gave an awesome performance. It was criminally underattended, apparently it's been an annual thing for Sun City West Ward for a few years now and nobody except for them have known about it but in church a couple of our wards mentioned it so we checked it out. Interestingly it was a multi-faith choir, most of the members were Latter-day Saints but some weren't. I really loved the show, along with the musical numbers there was a sideshow with different art from other Christian traditions about Palm Sunday. Lots of beautiful European paintings and stained glass windows.

My favorite song was a rendition of "Baba Yetu," (Heavenly Father) which is the Lord's Prayer in Sawhili. It was like if the choir who sang the song at the beginning of the Lion King started praising Jesus. 

I talked to some of the singers after in the cultural hall (I guess you'd call it a cookie social afterparty?) and they said that in this particular version they inserted some lines from Nephi's Psalm in 2 Nephi 4, which is one of my favorite parts in the Book of Mormon. Very neat. 

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Our mission had a "Priesthood Summit"- a meeting of all the Elders in the mission with training and a Q&A about what the priesthood is. I was happy to come to understand more clearly what the priesthood is- delegated power and authority from Jesus Christ- and also why we would need it.

It has long troubled me that many members of other faiths have shared stories with me of miraculous healings, protection, people being revived from death etc. I wondered why we would need the priesthood to give people blessings when others have these experiences without priesthood. 

But I learned more about the ordinances, or sacred symbolic ceremonies, of the Restored Gospel and how you need the priesthood to do that. People can be healed through faith in Christ and that can happen with any people who have faith sufficient to heal/ be healed. 

But no amount of faith can give you the official stamp of approval from Jesus Christ to baptize people, administer the sacrament, officiate temple ceremonies, etc. People can feel the power of godliness in those ordinances, it's remarked upon all the time how our temples, Baptisms, etc feel "different." 

It was cool to realize that while anybody can "preach the gospel," you can't be an official representative of Jesus Christ unless Jesus Christ says so. And with us, he has. Gives me a clearer sense of confidence and purpose. 

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I go home pretty soon. I feel ready to go home and begin my next stage of life but I'm also actually really happy to be here. I love getting to know people, serving, being OK the forefront of new developments in the wards, feeling important and needed. My skills as a missionary are proceeding space and I'm seeing a lot of improvement in myself from when I started my mission. I'm also seeing a change in my spiritual life, the more I am humbling myself and seeking to believe in Jesus Chrisf with my whole heart, the happier and more peaceful I become.

Yours Faithfully,

Elder C. Calder 

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Old picture of Elder Tenney and I at St Mary's Food Bank, where we usually go to volunteer on Wednesdays. I think orange is my color.

Easter Sunday invitation made in about 10 minutes by Brother Schulzke, our amazing ward mission leader in Sierra Montaña ward. I can *almost * believe that someone from the Relief Society made it. 

High-quality photo of the mission's Priesthood Summit. I'm almost in the exact middle, you can see the strap of my bag on my shoulder. 

GAME NIGHT with the Prodromides. We've been trying to set up a game night for the ward on Friday evenings but this Friday they were setting up for the Easter Celebration

My lovely purple-sash Jesus takes his place in the lineup on my desk. I don't have a lot of decorations but each item here is meaningful to me in some way.