Interview With a Spiritual Giant

Hello all, Elder Thomson here once  again.                                                          

       Happy to have this chance to update you guys on what’s going on. That's right, it is transfers again, and just as I was starting to feel comfortable here. I don't know yet if I’ll be leaving or not. President J (the Branch President here) seems to think that both Elder M and myself will be staying for at least one more transfer, which kinda makes sense because we really did just get here. But we were down for Zone Conference this last week, and both Elder M and myself got to have one-on-one interviews with President Tilleman, which was kinda cool.

It was only my second interview with President Tilleman since I've been in the mission field. Interviews with him are awesome, and also a teeny tinny bit stressful. First of all he’s a spiritual giant, second he’s also huge on calling people to repentance, which apparently is a once in a lifetime experience (because after he does you only have one option: Go! And sin no more!). All the same I’d rather just do my best and not need to experience that.

The other thing that stresses me out in interviews with President Tilleman is that he knows exactly how to improve your missionary work in under a minute thirty! He'll usually start by asking some vague open ended question along the lines of "How’s the work going up there?” You start of by saying "Good, good..." and before you realize what you're doing you've given him the top three things that are keeping you from being the best missionary you can be, and you are ready to start confessing all the times that you were inwardly murmuring that life was hard when he holds up his hand and you shut up real quick like. He says a few sentences, which you never really remember, but you leave with the impression that whatever concern you came with has been resolved, and that you are going to try about a billion times harder to be "exactly obedient".

The main thing I got out of my last interview (aside from an increased commitment to the work) was that I shouldn't get "too comfortable here." I don't know if that means I’m going to be leaving soon, or if I should just be staying on my toes? But either way it’s going to be a challenge to not get too comfortable here. 

I just love all these people! The B’s are an amazing family, Brother and Sister B are the most kindhearted giving people, and their kids are the greatest! The R’s are so giving and are quite possibly better missionaries than us Elders are! They are fellowshipping EVERYONE on that side of town! The J's and S's are both wonderful older couples and President J and Brother S are always willing to accompany us to lessons almost any time of day.

R is doing awesome! He knows the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and he knows that Joseph smith was a prophet, he’s coming to church again and I think he’s working on his second time through the Book of Mormon. So really it’s only a matter of time before he is able to take that next step and accept the Covenant and Ordinance of Baptism.

R and T are both on the back burner right now. T is a boss, but neither of them have given the Book of Mormon a shot yet. Some of our investigators have also bought into the greatest lie ever told. (See "The greatest lie ever told" below)

But we do have some other people that we are working with now:

·        R - Is a lady we met when we went to go visit another member of the church. As it turns out that member no longer lives there, but R said that she would like to come to church with us on Sunday. So she’s been to church once and we've had one lesson with her. We gave both her and her young daughter copies of the Book of Mormon and R said she would read it to see what it was about. Stay tuned! 

·        D and C - D was a potential investigator found by previous missionaries, we stopped by once and she wasn't home but we got to talk to her son, C. He's awesome! He wants to serve a mission... he just doesn't know for what church! And he told us when we could come back and talk to his mom. We had a lesson with her and are going back to teach both her and C sometime. Really great people and pretty interested in the gospel. I'll be sure to keep you updated on them as well.  

 As promised, THE GREATEST LIE EVER TOLD:

The greatest lie ever told is that Truth is Relative. That somehow it doesn't matter about the way things actually are, if you believe that something is okay, then it’s okay. It doesn't matter if something is black or white, wrong or right, light or dark, true or not. It’s really all Shades of Grey anyways.

This lie is taught in school, and it can seem like a good idea at first, how else are we supposed to reconcile our differences in belief? Johnny was taught that Jesus paid for his sins, Lin was taught that he should try and become enlightened like Buddha, and Cyrus was taught that when you die that's the end of it all.

You can’t tell them that somebody has to be wrong! You can’t say that things have to be just one way. That if it’s a Brick it’s a Brick, not a Dog, or a Flower, or a Gurgling stream. Now if you had a lot of other Bricks you could make it into a house. But that would take work and a plan and probably more than a little help.

Satan is a pretty trick guy, he wants us to think that we can all be right, that we can have it anyway we like it, that it doesn't matter about the way things really are. That it doesn't matter. There are such things as right and wrong, good and bad, Salvation and Destruction. Because if he can get us to believe that it doesn't matter... we're already his.  DON'T LISTEN TO SATAN!!

I guess that's my spiritual though for the week.  

Elder Thomson signing out!

... OH! In other news: A got baptized on Saturday in PR! S is coming along a bit slower but is still progressing toward baptism. M and J are getting married, and hopefully baptized, in February. Elder C and Elder T are Super Missionaries!

I Little Info About My Awesome Companion, Elder M

Elder M is an amazing missionary; dedicated, obedient, and bold. He is the second oldest of seven children and I can’t remember his Moms and Dads name (he looked at me funny when I asked just now). He has been in the mission field for about 8 months now (twice as long as me), and his only other area was M (where Elder A and Elder M’s' previous companion are now).

All I know about is family or his hobbies before his mission are that he has an older brother who is recently returned from his own mission, and that his family isn't weird enough to sing to him on the phone for Christmas. (Thanks again for that!) ; P

I also know that he played soccer in High School and that he likes to kick a soccer ball around a bit for morning exercise. 

I don't think he has any strong dislikes aside from I now he’s not a huge fan of tomatoes or raisins (and who can blame him!), and he is developing a healthy aversion to Pierogies, as anyone would after eating nothing else for about a month straight. Admittedly we made some poor shopping decisions this month, and our diet has suffered as a result. We have been subsisting mainly on pierogies, frozen pizzas,  microwavable  burritos, tater tots, and sour cream on all of the above. As such, most of our conversations not involving missionary work revolve around how bad we smell, how fat we are getting, or how poor we are because we spent all our money on garbage food.

Pranks? That would be immature and unprofessional! As a representative of Jesus Christ I would never... tell anyone about the kinds of pranks we pull when nobody is looking. ;D

We do sing a lot, seems like. A lot of Hymns and EFY songs, but occasionally something will get an "apostate" tune stuck in your head, and you can’t keep it there so you have to get it out somehow. ; P

Elder M runs funny! But I thing that's because he’s trying to jog in out tiny apartment and that a bit hard because... it’s tiny. And it’s WAY TOO COLD to go outside in the morning. So we have perfected 7 different ways of running like an idiot indoors. I’ll have to tell you about them some other time. :)

That’s not everything about Elder M but I think that answered some of your questions at least. :)

 

President Tillman is talked about on LDS.org!http://www.lds.org/church/news/karl-tilleman-an-example-of-determination-and-endurance?lang=eng&country=ca

Thats all I have time for though guys.

Until next time!

Love,

Elder Thomson 

 

No Post this Week

Elder Thomson wrote a very touching letter to the Parents of his friend, Josh, who recently passed away.  Due to the personal nature of the letter we have chosen to not post it to his Blog.  Thank you for understanding. Stay tuned for future posts.

-2 Fahrenheit this week! IM GOING TO DIE!!

It’s supposed to get to -2 Fahrenheit this week! IM GOING TO DIE!!  Nah, I'll live. But it is gonna get pretty chilly here. Or, so I've heard.

I'll have to tell you about the really big miracle we witnessed this week a bit later, but we have been able to meet and in some cases exceed our goals that we have been setting here. We were blessed enough to have 9 lessons this last week one of those was with a less active Member, and the other 8 were with investigators. 2 of our investigators came to church and we had a total of three non-members at sacrament meeting.

R - Is our big miracle. We met R first while we were tracting a trailer park. We were knocking doors, when he walked by. We introduced ourselves as missionaries and he made a comment but he just kept walking. So we shrugged it off and kept walking too. A few days later (New Year’s Day) we were tracting in the same area and we knocked on his door. He invited us in and was nice. We talked about his religious background and beliefs. He was raised Christian but fell away in his late teens and partied a bit but later realized that that wasn't taking him anywhere he wanted to be and started taking a second look at religion. When he started reading the Bible again everything just clicked and he knew it was true. We asked if he had ever read from the Book of Mormon before. He said that he had but that he never really got that into it. We explained what the Book of Mormon is and how it came to be that we have it. We talked about Joseph Smith and invited him to church on Sunday. Saturday morning we got a call from him he said that he had been reading from the Book of Mormon and that he had received a witness that it was true. Sunday he came to church and bore his testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. We actually had two non-members bear their testimony in fast and testimony meeting!

M - Is an older guy, who used to work logging trees, but is now retired. He lives alone in a little trailer a bit out of town, and LOVES to tell stories from when he was logging. He's known the missionaries for a while, and is pretty good friends with several members of the Branch. He has two copies of the Book of Mormon, one of them is quite a bit older and has kinda a funny story. The other is just one of the ones we hand out. He's read some of the Book of Mormon and had some concerns. He wondered why God would tell somebody to kill an unconscious man. We explained that Laban was a wicked man who had rejected the commandments of God as given through his prophets, (i.e. Lehi) and had, on top of that, robbed and attempted to have Nephi and his brothers killed... twice! And that even if Nephi had been able to get the plates without killing Laban, considering Laban's earlier reaction to them just offering to buy the plates he would have be even more furious and committed in his campaign to have them killed. M agreed to read from the Book of Mormon again and to come to church with us on Sunday (which he did do). He also has a dog who likes to eat icicles!

T - didn't make it to church. But there is at least some level of interest there and he said that he'd give the Book of Mormon a go, so if he does that, then the spirit will be able to touch his heart. He really likes Native American art (Which, I must say, I'm a pretty big fan of myself). T is just pure unadulterated awesomeness! Last time we were at his house he took us down into the "Man Cave" and it was indeed the manliest man cave I have ever seen. The walls are covered in Native American and African masks and planks carved with native art (some of which he did himself!) against one wall is a flat screen TV with swords (and a spear!) stacked to either side. Against another wall is an old entertainment center, with every drawer full of different kinds of knives. there are more knives our on the tables and three different rooms coming off of the man cave in one is his gunsmiths shop (he is a gunsmith and used to shoot competitively) another is his wood an machine shop and another is his room that he has (and needs) to store all of his guns. I think he may have more guns and in greater variety than the gun section a Cabellas!! He practically has his own museum!! ... Except there were no "please do not touch" signs anywhere and he would just hand you 200 year old revolvers and start explaining how old it was, how rare it was, and the shiny penny he paid for it. Needless to say it was really easy to get distracted when we were in there. But it was still really cool. He said we could come back sometime and get a picture in his gun room. :D  

Gotta run, love ya bye!

Elder Thomson