Missionary Mail

The last part of that (Tom’s talk in sacrament meeting) talk reminded me of the parable of the lamp by talmage. he tells a story of a lamp salesman who came to his home, he asked if he could come in a see his lamp. then after examining it he praised it and without a disparaging word got his lamp out and demonstrated it. it was a much brighter lamp and talmage says that he never would have known what a dreary dark room he had been working in before. He bought the lamp outright.
Sometimes I feel like that. People have something in their lives that is totally fulfilling to them. And I’m just here to show them greater light.
I used that in one of my recent trainings as we've been discussing the proper use of the book of Mormon in missionary work this transfer.

I love that song. “this is the Christ” is VERY powerful.
That’s neat that Linda is officiating. I wish I still remembered all the details about the temple. I miss it so much. It doesn’t make it easier that the sisters in my district got to go not long ago. To quote a catholic man in the movie 'between heaven and earth' I have "righteous envy".
I think it’s also insane that James and Tim are as old as they are. I was looking at the calendar the other night and realized James was almost 14. I can remember when I was 14. That wierded me out.

Well this week was pretty crazy actually. Elder Jackson’s back is better so we were able to get out to work, which was great. We also went on companion exchanges with the zone leaders AND the traveling Zone leaders. Both exchanges were fun and I learned a lot. Probably the most important lesson I learned was about forgiveness. One of the Travelers is an elder that I had some bad experiences with. He was my district leader during the whole Elder Strong stuff. There were some conflicts there and I have been holding some very negative feeling ever since. Well he was down here and he went with Elder Jackson and they had a great time. As Elder Jackson told me about it all I realized how immature I was being about the whole ordeal and that I needed to drop it. So I gave him a call and apologized for being so stupid. And you know what? I felt a million times better. So since then I’ve been thinking about how else I can relieve myself of any other excess negative energy that I don’t need and I’m working on it. It’s been a really good thing for me.
Everyone’s doing alright. Charles is kinda... I dunno. He has a testimony and he knows its all true but the synapses aren’t firing or something so he can do what he needs to from that point. 3 words. too many drugs. We’re going to get him to the ARP (addiction recovery program) and hopefully that will help. Chris is doing great!! He’s been working. He’s getting himself ready for the temple. He’s sharing the gospel, ALOT!! Jimmy is doing awesome as well. He came on exchanges with us and he’s going to be assigned as a home teacher soon! Pam is... well we'll find out Wednesday. She finished the book of Mormon. That’s good, I think. Like I said, we'll see. She’s expressed to her fellowshipper that things might be grinding to a halt. More details next week.
Like I said it was a pretty good week
Love ya,
john