Enjoy the Journey

Writing emails each week tends to reflect my missionary drive. Starts off each time with "I don't know what on earth I am going to say." But like everything else you just go for it and hope the Lord will make up the differ
ence.

I'll start off with the bad.

We were way into deep east Texas on Saturday doing some knocking, finding referrals, and visiting members. So deep were we that for some reason I felt like getting a picture next to a 'Welcome to Louisiana" sign. We were only a few miles away so we thought it would be a nice kick. Sadly, on our way there I didn't have the best feeling in the world and next thing you know we're on a bridge crossing a river that divides Texas from the dark, no protection zone. As soon as we saw 'Logansport' signs we knew we had made a grievous error. Needless to say (you know me) there was much laughter and we turned around immediately and drove home. The Lord saw fit in His infinite mercy to spare us outside our protective bubble-wrap. That one hurt a bit and there has been much praying for forgiveness ever since! Even knowing it was an accident, it was a preventable one. As Elder Holland said "The pull of proximity can be fatal."

It was one of the tougher weeks this week. Our 2 overage youth that are getting baptized on Saturday did not come to church! I am assuming "best case scenario" on this that they were sick at home. However everyone is still stoked for their baptisms.

Now on to the good.

If there is one thing that has been made more and more clear so far on this eternally changing 8 month extravaganza. It is the mere definition of faith. I thought I had some idea of what faith was with the typical response of "faith is an action word" "faith is hoping for that which is not seen." But the power of the Gospel is in application. Last night in a priesthood meeting our stake President said it like this "We are world class speakers, but the we need action!" how true indeed. I have noticed immediately how badly it hurts when someone attempts to destroy every portion of your faith with put downs such as "you are not really Christian" or many slammed doors. I get bothered by it a lot! It tends to be a constant battle of love verses contention with many thoughts crossing my mind such as "if you only knew who you really were..." or "who do you think you really are." However in the midst of this trial and even sometimes appropriately defined persecution, there is always a solution which has yet to let me down - Exercising faith to move on to the next contact, and the next contact, and the next contact... With all these No's, as Elder Walker would say, we become that much closer to a Yes. Even with all this rejection and non interested people I can always revert back to the fact that I am growing to new levels that I would have laughed at a couple of years ago. Not to mention I find myself in good company, how receptive were the people to the one and only Jesus Christ.

This has lead me to a interesting view (may be considered offensive - fair warning) of who we are, who I am. There seems to be something that irks me to the very core every time I hear it, something worse then all anti out there, when someone tells me that I don't believe in Jesus or that I am not Christian. My initial reaction has been 'Yes we are! We believe in Christ like you!" However this past week something I have discovered is, that phrase is somewhat false. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only Church on earth that houses true Christians. Let me repeat, out of billions of Bible believing, Church going people, only a nano fraction can actually truly be considered real Christians - and the kicker to the Bible belt is the fact that it is the Mormons! Those that actually keep the sabbath day holy, live the word of wisdom, obey the law of chastity, are baptized by proper priesthood authority and receive the Holy ghost, etc etc etc, are the true Christians of the world. Other churches think they are true followers of Christ but really are not.

I took a pencil the other day in my usual "where are the elect" pleading moments and slapped it in the middle of the area map and asked "are they above or below the pencil?" I followed that until I got down to 2 streets and we went out. The first door we knocked into had a really good friend who is an out of state Bishop. Interesting how that works. We continued knocking around until we met "Pastor Bob" who we talked to for about 20 minutes on the porch until his wife invited us in for some water and rice krispy treats (fantastic.) Good heavens I was a little nervous I must admit. Here I was a 21 year old young man trying to convince a Lutheran pastor of 39 years that babies without baptism do not get thrust down to hell! Where on earth did this doctrine come from? Needless to say he could not prove to me with any Bible verse or anything that Martin Luther had ever said that baptism is for the original sin of Adam. He was quite confounded to my response when I testified "We will all be resurrected and brought back to the presence of God. Baptism is not for the original sin!" At that point as the book of Heleman teaches, the 2nd spiritual death is brought upon those that do not repent from their own disobedience.

We had the relief society president and her husband invite themselves out to teach on Tuesday night and it was awesome. She committed both of our investigators to having visiting teachers over. Fantastic. I still am a bit of a believer that missionaries just organize people and lessons and let members do the converting. Well something like that anyway.

I believe that we are living in the "hay-day" of the Gospel and are not taking enough advantage of it. Think of it this way, in the early 50 years of the Church, members were being severely persecuted or even killed for the Gospel yet we have this small window of the world allowing us to really do some damage to Satan and his work. Soon the persecution will once again erupt and it will be a bigger challenge to simply stay active. Let's convert the world!

Sweet

Love Uncle Elder Metcalf X2