Thank you for all of your wonderful, yet TRUNKY emails. Yes it is quite fantastic and yes I am excited. I have my trunky moments but mostly I am just nervous half to death. There is some sleep lost over the harsh reality that my perfect world of no work, no school, just complete and total focus on the work of the Savior to invite others to receive the restored Gospel, is about to take a most dramatic turn.
I have had some rather unusual experiences this week that have, quite frankly, tried my patience. We have a companionship in my district (one of which is going home with me) that can not get along! I do not intend to make this a negative report but it is somewhat disturbing how bad they really are. The missionary that is going home is wasting the last few precious moments in anger, jealousy, etc... This is definitely some of the more poignant moments of my mission, so I haven't quite understood why they cant work it out. The zone leaders and I are working with the President to make sure they are mostly separated for the final week of the transfer. It is a rather excellent learning opportunity for me to realize just how much I really need to forget myself to be happy. It is a lesson that I have been learning for 2 years, the more work of the Lord's that I do without my selfish intentions, the more blessed and happy I become. It is just that natural man that we have to fight off.
We had to do a few exchanges this week with this companionship and we had an interesting experience with the one I went with. We were getting food at Braum's and the man in line behind us started to ask us how hot it was doing our work. He then proceeded to do something that even astounded me with boldness. He begin to tell us we weren't Christian and believed in a false Christ. This is an occasional experience being a Texas missionary but it still irritates me. Although my blood boiled a bit I ultimately ended the conversation. I asked myself a few times, why is this church and its missionaries so bombarded? The answers are obvious but I heard a better one the previous evening at a Stake Priesthood meeting. The stake president, while on his mission, had President Faust address him and the missionaries of that particular mission. One missionary asked the same question I had "what are we supposed to do with all this anti garbage?" President Faust responded something like this 'these people continue to shovel manure on the little sapling of our church which will only cause it to grow faster, so let them shovel!' Most excellent.
Wednesday was great, we had some appointments fall through early on in the day and the zone leaders were going to the temple. So hey, we went with them. It was a rather powerful experience. As things progressed, I could feel the power in the room change. The things you do as the endowment continues seem to enable you with more power. The only thing I could think of comparing it to was putting a missionary name tag on. It was awesome.
We had a unique meeting with a less active this week. The spirit was powerful. His wife has separated from him and there were a few tears given as we talked about following the spirit. It is so important to live the Gospel. We got dropped off at the lesson and didn't have any bikes or transportation to get home, which was about 3 miles away so we just started to walk. As we did a man walked out and sat on his door step as we walked past him. We initiated a conversation and it was something that felt like it was straight out of Preach My Gospel. He was asking "why are there so many churches?" "Where is the truth?" "how can I know what the truth is?" and so on. It was fantastic, especially since the missionary I was with was a convert of about 3 years and bore a power house testimony about joining the church.
Another interesting event this week was getting asked to help with a primary class. The teacher gave all the 6 year olds a badge to wear around their neck that read "Jesus Christ loves me." At first I was like, 'oh that's nice' then there was some pretty sweet meaning attached to it. I started a 'church journal' a couple of months ago and so I started taking note of impressions I had as I watched these kids with their badge. The first was "how much different would the world be if everyone wore a badge that said that?" and then I asked, "How much different would I be?" One of the most important lessons I have learned as a missionary is that I am a son of God. How awesome is that?
I love this work.
Sure do love y'all
Elder Metcalf
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