Mr. Ambulance Driver

My week of funerals continued last week. On Thursday we had the service for our investigator who had passed away from cancer. It was nice that the family chose to have it in our chapel. There was definitely a different Spirit there when compared with the other one we went to that was just in the funeral home. It was also great to see how the ward came together to support the family that they didn't even know. I think the people were really touched that the Church would do so many things without asking anything in return.

 

I miss our investigator. The one thing that I've really been thinking about over the past week was how he never seemed bitter or resentful. In fact, I always remember him smiling. He was always very kind to his wife and daughters when we were there. It amazed me that a dying man who was in so much pain didn't have a single bitter or mean word to say. Instead he just smiled and always was hospitable and kind. He was a good man.

 

His wife seems to be doing well enough, considering what she's been through. She's been pressing forward, especially since now she has to take care of her two little daughters. My heart really goes out to her. She came to Church yesterday with her four year old daughter. We helped draw pictures with her daughter so that her mom didn't have to worry about keeping her entertained. It was great because the Relief Society lesson was on the immortality of the soul. We heard that a lot of sisters of our ward shared their experiences of loved ones passing and how the Gospel strengthened them. I was grateful that she had that experience and hopefully found some answers that she needed.

 

Easter on the mission was pretty lame. We just tracted because no one wanted to set up appointments for Easter. So my Easter just consisted of tracting for 3 hours. We did have a good experience where a lonely older gentleman invited us in to talk to him. He wasn't really interested in our message, but we listened to his stories and I think that's what he needed most on Easter.

 

We're going to play Risk today for P-Day. My plan is to just attack Elder Jeffs. He prides himself as a Risk expert so my goal is just going to be to take him down with me. It's gonna be fun.

 

Elder Jeffs has been telling us cool stories about serving up in the north in Prescott. Apparently they have a real problem with wild javelina packs up there (javelina are small furry pig things that emit a musky odor when threatened). They eat the roots of all the plants in people's yards and knock over their garbage cans. Elder Jeffs said that him and his companion used to have these big javelina beating sticks that they'd use to defend the yard of the member they'd live with. That sounded like a fun hobby.

 

This week I've been thinking about the role of the Spirit in our teaching. Sometimes as a missionary you get this idea that if you have the Spirit you'll just be told everything to say and your job will just be to form the words in your mouth. I don't think that's very common, or what our Heavenly Father wants for us. I was reading in Galatians 5 about the fruit of the Spirit and comparing it with Mosiah 3:19 and D&C 121 and it hit me that all those scriptures say that the Spirit is more likely to change our attributes and how we say things than what necessarily we say. Maybe the Spirit won't change our words so that they're more eloquent, but it'll change the feeling and the love behind them. So that's something I'm going to be working on. It reminds me of the Men's Chorus motto Esse Quam Videri: "to be, not to seem." Really, the Gospel is about being rather than just seeming. Our words can make us seem a lot of things, but what really matters is what we are in our hearts.

 

Love,

Elder Grasley