Hello, I am now in my mission. During last week's episode I was writing just before I left. Now I'm here. It is very different but very fun.
We got off the plane, and found our mission president and his wife, they are very friendly and very nice. They took us along with the Assistants to the President back to the Mission home where we ate brisket and rolls, like the kind you can get at Dickies. Very good food here. I was able to talk with the Assistants to the President for some time, they are the kind of missionary I want to be. Very obedient, very spiritually, but still funny. While explaining some of the rules specific to Oklahoma, one of them said, "Now this rule is in a quote, 'where ere thou art set well thy part'". I knew he read the quote wrong because Mom had that quote at our house and Isaac and I defaced it, but when he finished reading it, both of them turned their heads. They both had a part in their hair. that is the rule here, every elder has to part their hair on the side of their head or the like. So Gavin, don't say that I look like a dweeb or something, because it is a rule. However this rule showcases my receding hairline quite well.
That night we were told our area and companion. I got Elder Vest in Aurora, MO. While we drove out to the middle of nowhere, I noticed the missionaries we bumped into with parts in their hair, it is a bit strange but you can tell who is obedient. So, Elder Vest is older than me and only has one transfer left. He is from the North West as well, but in Oregon and not Washington. We get along really well. We live next to the english Elders, Elder Holyoak from Sandy, UT and Elder Powers from Maine, in a little duplex thing and Elder Vest and I go and prank them all the time. (We put hub caps on their bike, we have a car by the way.) Our apartment is nearly empty, when we got there, there was only a couple of fold up chairs from the church and a blowup mattress and a normal mattress. (The english Elders have tempurpedic beds, sorry for the awful spelling but what up with that?!) But after some service we did at The Harvest Church, a non denominational christian church, they gave us enough food to last for a really long time! The people that I have met so far are very nice. they don't care if you're Mormon, Baptist, Jew or Gentile, these guys at this church were helping out everyone and we were helping them help out people. They were giving food to people and we would help them carry it out to their cars. This also gave us a chance to meet some Spanish speakers in the area. We are opening the area so this helped us a lot.
The latinos here are very nice and easy to talk to; most of them don't have a super strong knowledge church because they are mostly catholic by tradition not religion. But the spanish members, there are a group of about seven of them here, are very strong. One woman who has been a member for a year can't read or write in ingles or espanol. Her testimony is based off what she has felt and heard. That is a true testimony and it is inspiring to me how much faith this elderly woman has.
There is a different spirit here. The spirit in the CCM (Mexico MTC) was super strong all the time, guiding you every which way. Here, as I have heard before, the spiritual training wheels have come off. Its my turn now. Which is a little inconvenient, because this is a new area, a new companion and new environment, a new everything! You may be asking yourself hey how do I get back on the right track! well, let me tell you. Faith and obedience. I have no idea what I'm doing here, but its all just about faith and obedience and holding on to those promptings you feel. We have to be left in the dark long enough to learn how to find the light. If we have lived in the light all the time then we would be spiritually ignorant in those brief moments of darkness. So, I feel a little in the dark. But I am so glad I am in the dark. I was getting too comfortable with my environment at the CCM, and maybe I wasn't grateful enough for the spirit that I had there. And now that things are different I have the chance to earn that back, and study more and learn more about how I can keep it in my life. Although these guys I'm with might do things or say things that I think aren't for missionaries, I can still work with myself to be better. One of the Assistants to the President said, "I have learned a lot about agency out here," he talked about how it's not just right or wrong it's about, better and best, worse and worst. These decisions will make us better. I hope that I can use my agency the way that Heavenly Father wants me to and I know that he will guide me in the direction that I should go. I have been blessed with a lot out here and I have already seen incredible things out here. But you don't have to be on a mission to see stuff like this, you just need to look for them. Keep reading scriptures and praying. And thank you for praying for me, those prayers help me each and every day.
Elder Thomas
My address:
Colonial Village 19
Aurora, MO 65605
My email address:
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