The funny life of a missionary. There are 4 missionaries using the computers here and we all got severely distracted from emails because of an odd reason. A new revised version of "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" was posted on newsroom.lds.org. We all thought it was a bit humorous that we got an outstanding kick out of it. "Woah! No way they put that scene in it!" just to name one of the comments. So anyway, now I must refocus and give the weekly report!

The zone is doing outstanding and the Lord is helping us understand where improvements and praise are needed. Last week we had a concern come up with 16 baptismal dates and only 5 of them came to church on Sunday. So the district leaders and us put some ideas together fairly quick the following day and the plans were carried out. We had almost all of them at church yesterday. It is an awesome thing to be at a point where you can start to feel the 'rush of ideas and pure intelligence' as Joseph would describe. Although I would more than consider myself still in the infancy stage of recognizing revelation, I can tell I am improving! I think one of the biggest reasons for that is keeping post-it notes and a pencil next to my bed and every time I am praying and have a question that I feel *click* and get some answer I write it down. The results have been outstanding. It is fun to see a few jumbled words written on a 2 inch card turn into a lesson designed for a struggling investigator. Such I suppose was the setting for the translation of the Book of Mormon when they wrote on the worst paper ever and couldn't even afford food.

Monday night was hilarious, we went to FHE in the YSA branch because they always have non-members there and the presidency encourages us to go. The funny part is watching two missionaries trying to get to know the members and non-members while maintaining a professional appearance and avoiding females. We had one non-member there who I have developed a good friendship with. When he first showed up he wasn't really liking the Mormon scene but now he wants to come to church yet his mom wont let him. Definitely a big seed has been planted.

Tuesday after our district meeting we had one of the branch presidency members come out with us and we struck out like 10 times until we got to Michael. We tracted him out last week and he kept his appointment. I have been practicing teaching so incredibly simple and clear and was so happy walking away from that lesson with a sigh of relief to see that it is actually working very well. That night we had one of the most intense lessons of my entire mission when we went over to the home of our 9 year old baptismal candidate. I said 2 words of concern of 'church attendance' to her mom and sat back and listened to how crazy we were. Believe me, I was nervous after the can of worms that had been opened up. We had our Bishop meet us over there and when he knocked at the door I had the 'i'm saved' feeling. Eventually he took over the conversation and really smoothed things over and met her needs. That's why he is Bishop right? I think in some ways it may have been inspired because she now has a decent relationship with the Bishop.

Wednesday we had everything cancel. We were on exchanges and I experienced some interesting things. When we exchanged it was the first time I had met this Elder that would be coming with me since transfers. At first I had this weird impression of him but caught myself and quickly repented. Come to find out, this missionary had a very unique and challenging story. He and his family had been less active for years barely making a survivable income. The young man had something happen to him and randomly asked for a blessing from one of his neighbors. A miracle occurred. A few years went by and while sporadically attending church a thought came to his mind while praying, "Go on a mission." When he told his family his intentions his father stood up angrily and said "Absolutely not!" It wasn't long before they were all sealed in the temple and he had his call to Texas Dallas.

Thursday Elder Hall called me up because his companion was seeing a dentist in McKinney so we made a lunch date out of it. It was pretty hilarious to see how we reacted around one another, I mean come on after 5 months with this one person at my side we practically finished each other's sentences. We talked about our zones and the troubles we were experiencing and then it hit me... Holy cow I am an old missionary. We had a lesson that night with one of our long time investigators. We had a goal to invite her to church which was intense because she just had a death in the family. A very bold promise was made "As you come to church, that question of 'why' will be answered." She had the funeral on Sunday and is on for this one.

Friday was fun but I was stressing out for Saturday, getting prepared to train 12 Bishops, 12 Missionaries, a stake President, and a high councilman. We also had a baptism as well so we spent a chunk of our day making sure it would all go smoothly. Again it was another situation that was "We really need to tract to get a stronger spirit in my soul." It worked and we had some miracles.

Saturday we trained the missionaries and the Bishops and it went extremely well. Most special is being with President Wright the Allen stake President, he is super inspired. We had the baptism for the 9 year old afterwords and it was one of the strongest times during a baptism I have felt the Spirit. It was exceptional. They took us out to lunch after as well. That night the Plano stake had a giant youth blitz. They volunteered us to take 3 priests out but we had no appointments! I remembered at the beginning of the day I prayed the day into the hands of God. We had a couple of extremely good lessons with the Plano priests that night that came out of no where.

Sunday we had a couple really solid investigators at church, one of which should be baptized in a couple of weeks. We are starting to get things rolling again but so far it is just some small steps.

Sure do Love Y'all

Love Elder Metcalf

New companion, lots of work to do

My new companion is Elder Davis from American Fork. An odd thing about him is where he just transferred from, Nacogdoches! He actually replaced me with a greenie 4 months ago and then followed me to Allen. We have been exchanging a lot of stories and it is a bit fun to hear what is going on. Especially all the updates on the wonderful Bennett family. I was pretty stoked. He has only been out 7 months but his work ethic is solid and his skills are high. This past week we went to work. Tuesday was transfer meeting and also the same day as the stake president report. It is funny to admit that amidst the stress for the meeting that night, we went tracting to 'take the edge off' so I could relax a little. The meeting went well and one man we met during that tracting experience was Jacob. We got a return appointment with him, taught him last night and he has a goal to be baptized in April. It's funny how all that works out. Wednesday after district meeting and lunch we went to knock doors except the problem was that the first door we knocked on invited us in to teach him. It went well even with his atheistic views.

Probably one of the biggest highlights of the week was getting in with a family and teaching them the Restoration. Elder Hall and I contacted them last week and tried to get in again but ended up rescheduling. The night we rescheduled, I accidentally double booked a recent convert lesson as well and we couldn't find or get a hold of anyone to split with us to take care of the 2 appointments. We ended up going to the appointment with the Perry's 15 minutes early and caught them right as they were walking out the door. They let us in and eventually accepted a soft commitment to baptism. We left their home about 20 minutes late for the other appointment that was scheduled and it just so happened that she called us and let us know that she was running 20 minutes behind. It was nice how that was all orchestrated.

Another cool experience this past week was the baptism of a 13 and 9 year old. I only had a tiny link to it but it was awesome to watch the process evolve. It was the family whom a few weeks ago on exchanges Elder Frost and I taught 3rd Nephi 11 to and walked out thinking the whole family was active members. The missionaries picked them up and he committed himself to baptism. In talks with President Wright, the father who had been excommunicated was rebaptized a while ago and had his priesthood restored so he could baptize his 9 year old daughter. When he did baptize her it was a supreme example of the power of the Atonement.

Well we are excited to be together, it is refreshing to get a new companion and use any awkwardness to the advantage of digging the heels a little deeper step by step. We have already had many little miracles throughout our 6 days together so far, including contacting a lady who's mom had just passed away and wants to learn about the plan of salvation, a family who wants to know more about where their daughter is coming from when she is born in the next month, and the most return appointments we've ever had. If half of them go through I will be overjoyed. It always seems like it is the Elders verses Satan and the world but we have Christ on our side.

We have a baptism scheduled for Saturday, pray like crazy for Hannah.

Sure do Love y'all

Elder Metcalf

Well the joy continues to roll on. The sad part about most of the emails I send highlight the few miracles throughout the week, while the dirt is never something you want to broadcast. For example, Monday night Elder Hall and I were in a good rhythm tracting and have been using this new contacting pattern that is producing miracles that a member helped us come up with. About 20% of our contacts accepted return appointments. The sad part is that most of them fall into the trap of Satan and eventually, through anti, drop us hard like a rock. We had a family Monday that I contacted, we went back and taught them, and their sincerity was very apparent, "Well I grew up Catholic" she said "but I don't really go to church anymore but it is something I want for me and my family." She loved the Book of Mormon, read it but (I hate the deadly 3 letter word 'but') when I called to confirm the following appointment, the response was "I found some stuff on the Internet and I am no longer interested." My patience and charity is being tried to the core. The same day we found them we had the father of a family of four, that we taught the restoration, call and basically express the same things. It is quite odd the strange world we live in. The carnal, easy natures of men are being much chosen over the true paths of happiness. The hard part, for me at least, is to look into a new investigator's eyes, teach and bare testimony and have to come to grips that the majority of them wont ever let me come back again even while the spirit may be touching their hearts.

Two scriptures come to mind though that keep my hope going: "And this he did that he himself might go forth among his people, or among the people of Nephi, that he might preach the word of God unto them, to stir them up in remembrance of their duty, and that he might pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among his people, seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them." and "Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart." I think I am beginning to understand only a fraction of what you (yes mom and dad) must have felt raising me as a teenager. It gives me hope to realize that more than likely the Spirit has told everyone I have taught "it's true" but the choice to live the Gospel has yet to take priority or be desired amongst other inferior aspects of their lives... yet.

Now on to the happiness! Felipe got your email and said he cried through the whole thing and was grateful for it. I got permission to have dinner with them sometime soon although they wont be able to for a while because their daughter was born! Felipe sounded overjoyed on the phone and it was a similar feeling to having yet another niece born to the clan of 'papa de ron metcalf' so I was pretty thrilled.

Thursday night we had a relatively intense lesson with one of our golden investigators with a baptismal date for this month. I wont mention his name for obvious reasons but it is pretty easy to guess if you read last week's email... We split up for the night and one of the YSA's in the branch met me at the church to teach him. We taught the end of the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson, The word of wisdom and The Law of Chastity. That was the big one. Turns out he has had a girlfriend for over 5 years so needless to say it was a tough one to commit to. After 30 minutes of teaching the law of chastity he finally committed. He went to Austin the next day to visit her so we did our best to help set up parameters. I thought it would be unique to note that although we live in this strange world of sin and apostasy, there were 4 of us young men between 20-22 discussing ways of NOT breaking the law of chastity. Before we parted ways I gave him my iPod after making a quick playlist of conference talks to listen to on the way down.

Some interesting highlights this week was walking around Plano for 4 1/2 hours waiting for our brakes to be replaced the day after it took 2 hours for our oil to be changed. We worked on a Stake President Report that we have with the Stake President and Mission Presidency tomorrow (my new companion will be a bit surprised I'm sure).

We had a leadership training meeting on Tuesday that was pretty epic. I liked how they went over the basics of the same stuff I have been learning for over a year but did it in a way that was refreshing. I am becoming a bit of an old timer missionary I do believe which is super sad. Something that Sister Smith talked about was to be nice to others and that there was too much belittling within the mission. The next morning before studies I had a inkling of a feeling I would be giving a talk in district meeting and a few minutes into reading about Mosiah 27 our district leader called and assigned me to speak about Christlike attributes. It was awesome how it all worked out. I talked about who Alma was before the angel and who he was after the angel and how we need angelic motivation to develop our own Christlike attributes. Angels like the scriptures, righteous leaders, family, etc... and how we need to be Angels to other missionaries to help them develop. I suppose that talk was more for me though!

Sure do love y'all

Elder Metcalf

The Crown Jewel

On Thursday afternoon we were planning, well sort of in a thoughtless stupor because Elder Hall and I were both extremely tired. I was sitting down, one of our companionship's called us and I ignored it. They called again and I ignored it. Any yet again they called. I finally mustered the stamina to grab the phone but missed their call so I called them back. "Hey Elders, this is Elder Metcalf, what can I do for ya?" The reply back was like the part in your favorite movie that sparks something heavy in the main actor's eyes, "ELDER METCALF! I forgot to tell you! Felipe and Vanessa are going to the temple tonight!" After a few seconds of silence and a load of thoughts circling my mind, my response, though poignantly frustrated at the late notification, was "I'll talk to you later." Never have I felt motivation as intense as that to make phone calls. Quickly I called the assistants, the Frisco missionaries, left a message with President who called back within a few minutes then I called Felipe. I was most nervous talking to President because naturally going to an endowment session with people you taught and baptized is at the top of the list of mission experiences. I told him the situation and he said back to me, "Well Elder Metcalf, is your temple recommend current?" later he also remarked "I will never deny the opportunity for a missionary to go through the temple with their converts."

After over a year of missing these amazing people, After not seeing Felipe and Vanessa for such a long time, I can not began to express the solemnity of the first time seeing them in the endowment room of the Dallas Texas temple. Although we could only shake hands because the session was about to begin, once we were all through the veil in the Celestial room, I experienced one of the sweetest reunions of my life. There we were, the epitome of the Gospel (and a missionary's short existence) in the temple with those that we love who were baptized just last year! But alas we could only be in there for a few moments before moving on into the sealing room with these two glowing individuals. They wanted to accomplish everything in one night for a very peculiar reason, Vanessa is pregnant and is due 3 days later. Felipe explained that the "Born in the covenant" blessings were something that they couldn't let their precious Bianca miss out on when she comes into the world! The sealing was sweet, I quickly got in a line to congratulate them, and gratefully prayed to Heavenly Father to give my gratitude.

Elder Hall also served in that same area before I did and although he never met Felipe or Vanessa, there were many friends present. The Bishop who served while we were there was beaming and we were borderline irreverent because we couldn't stop conversing. Surely that is what this church is all about, reunions. I think I have somewhat of an idea of how Ammon felt when meeting Alma for the first time in so long.

1) And now it came to pass that as [Elder Metcalf was serving in Allen,] behold, to his astonishment, he met with the [Bordasch's] journeying towards the [Celestial room of the Dallas Temple.]

2) Now these [Brazilians] were with [Elder Metcalf] at the time [when they were taught and baptized]; therefore [Elder Metcalf] did rejoice exceedingly to see his [converts]; and what added more to his joy, they were still his [converts] in the Lord; yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were [a couple] of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God.

3) But this is not all; they had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting; therefore they had the spirit of prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and when they [were pregnant], they [were endowed and sealed] with power and authority of God.

Needless to say we took a picture after the ceremonies before Elder Hall and I flew like Moses home because it was getting extremely late. I think I have stared at that picture a thousand times. Surely this is what its all about. What makes the story incredibly remarkable? A member invited them to a trunk or treat while she was waiting on them at the cheesecake factory and this is what followed my friends... The homecoming talk that Lance gave rang in my mind a few times when he was recounting the couple that he taught, baptized and were sealed and I cant remember your exact words Lance but something like how I feel I am sure. Even if everything else in my mission failed, it would have been far worth it because of this wonderful couple being sealed.

Another fascinating miracle this week was with Miguel. I think I completely forgot to report meeting him last week. Probably because at the time I didn't think we would be able to teach him because of where he lives; the assistants called though and let us know he would probably be moving to Allen so we took over. Miguel came to church the week before yesterday and I went and talked to him after sacrament meeting. He has quite an outstanding story. He was depressed and looking for God but had nearly given it up when he offered a prayer and asked for something to reassure him of his Heavenly Father's existence. 3 days later his friend Josh gave him a Book of Mormon. The first night with this book Miguel was up until 3am reading it, "the stories, I feel like, are written for me!" When I met him he was already halfway through Alma and loving it. I followed up with the invitation to have a lesson and he said "Yes, please. That is what I want." He is now preparing for baptism at the end of this month (although we are considering recommitting him to a date much sooner).

Heavenly Father loves us all a lot and it is amazing with just a few basic things in our everyday life how much more amplified we can feel that love.

Sure do love y'all,

Elder Metcalf

This week was very interesting to say the least. Thursday we had an emergency with on of our companionships in the zone that kind of affected both Elder Hall and me in a weird way. The best solution seems to always be the same, go out and worka nd have some experiences that will bring the Spirit.

Monday night we had a lesson with someone that Elder Hall found on exchanges last week. The funny thing was that when he opened the door and let us in at the scheduled time, we were both a bit surprised but excited. We have been working on teaching the first lesson to all our new investigators in about 10 minutes. We had a member convince us to do it that way. It has worked miracles. I think for me I had got caught up in asking 'inspired questions' too much to people who really aren't used to the spirit and they take everything to a different dimension, so it seems. The goal with the short lessons is to teach true doctrine to bring the spirit it in for the objective of a reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. I am starting to notice how effective this is. I believe we as missionaries get caught in 'logical ruts' with the Texans. We use a few biblical scriptures or prove through analogies the truthfulness of the message rather than just taking it to an extremely basic level and allow more reliance on the spirit to carry the message. The member said something interesting "I bet there are converted Jehovah's Witness' that have been strong members for 10 years that just barely have figured out that Christ was the Jehovah of the old testament and that's ok!" When he said that a very interesting 'case in point' came to mind, the brother of Jared! No doubt a great prophet and the strongest Faith of all, yet after all tha,t he knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood like man until he was shown.

Tuesday we buzzed up to Greenville which is about 45 minutes from here. We haven't been to any of the district meetings up there so we made a full day exchange out of it. I went to Bonham after the trainings and spent the day with them. We had a couple cool experiences. I had prayed that we would "get into the 3rd door" to teach but it was answered differently than we thought. We got into about the 6th door we knocked on and about halfway through the lesson it had dawned on me that it was the 3rd door that I had knocked on. We shared the restoration and he agreed to baptism. We met with a woman named Regina in the evening. She has a granddaughter who was born a few weeks early and is barely hanging on in the NICU. Regina had called many churches to put her granddaughter's name on their prayer rolls. A thought came to mind to explain what the temple rolls are and she agreed to have her name put on them. Surprisingly I made the phone call right there at the beginning of the lesson. Once the Baby's name was on the roll, Regina paused and with tears in her eyes said, "Now I know she'll be OK. I didn't feel this way with any of the others." Another experience was when we simply went to go get pizza and there just happened to be a former investigator who wanted the discussions again. The interesting thing was that the Elders had been prayerfully seeking former investigators to follow up with and he was one of them.

We had a sleep over then woke up Wednesday and headed home. We had an exchange with the assistants that night and it was a lot of fun. We tracted a lot and had many jokes. I think the worst part about it was that I was the youngest in mission age so all of our jokes were related to younger missionary questions. We went to a house that we randomly knocked on, gave service to and I asked if that counted as an LTMP because there were 3 missionaries. He responded, I think it's 2 LTMP's because we talked to her, gave service, then talked to her again. If you don't know what that means, then you know what I mean.

Thursday was the crazy day you'll have hear about some other time but when we finally got home from, we had dinner. We ate with the Lafyettes who are the investigator couple that should be getting baptized in March. It was super awesome. She cooked us some super good food because she wanted to really help us out. Just kind of cool. Today we went over to where she boards her horse and hung around them for a bit. It got me kind of excited although I cant ride a horse and I am in Texas. Hopefully dad hasn't sold them all because of the financial burdens of his 2nd born son. We were a bit despondent from the day so we contacted at wal-mart, ended up buying ice cream, and going home at 8:45. Thankfully president called explaining that everything was OK.

Friday we finished Thursday's planning session, had lunch with the Fox's 15 year old son to build more of a relationship with him, and ate my favorite dinner ever (chicken roll ups- mom send the recipe please!). Everything cancelled the rest of the day so we did some contacting and less active drop bys. At that point we accepted that our lessons this week were going to be super low but we could always desperately find new people to teach!

Saturday we helped some elders out in their area. I went with one of them and Elder Hall went with the other. We were tracting this street where the houses were an acre apart. Not a single person answered their door (besides a 10 year old) for an hour...until...(don't you just love missionary stories? I do!) we met Kelly. She has already been through all the discussions in New Hampshire. All of her friends including her godmother are Mormons. She said she would have already joined the church if she didn't go to church because of a bad experience in her former state. The cool thing is that she was already committed to attend church with one of her Mormon friends in Plano before we showed up. Odd coincidence eh?

Sunday was a heartbreaker. No investigators showed up to church and by the end of sacrament I was trying to convince Elder Hall to skip out and go contacting. An interesting chain of thoughts have crossed my mind as I have considered looking over a congregation of 250 active people and not a single non-member in sight. My initial thought was "why aren't these people bringing others to church on their own!" Then the following thought was something along the lines of don't talk the talk until you can walk the walk. The following thought was a commitment to put in a lot of effort after the mission to be that member that the missionaries would love to see by bringing others to church on my own.

It is odd what missions do to you. I remember being scared to serve one because of how much it would change me. I thought "man, I'll just get sucked into it all and not want to do anything fun like snowboarding again and just want to read scriptures and go to church." The funny thing is...I was right.

Love y'all

Elder Metcalf!!!!