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Chapter 3: Still Siler (Week 5, The End)

 And it came to pass in the latter end of the second transfer...


I hit 100 days as a missionary today! I've listened to 2.5 volumes of Saints. I also read the entire Book of Mormon in a single day! All 9 chapters ;). I also finished the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ cover to cover, including the introduction and everything at the beginning. I started in the MTC and was at 1 Nephi 16 when I got to North Carolina and I found out they started a mission reading of the Book of Mormon 6 weeks prior to my arrival and they planned to be done by Christmas. I was very far behind but I started reading in my free time as well as my personal study time and quickly caught up and apparently went faster than I needed to. I love the Book of Mormon! Y'all should read it often!

Random cool thing! There are Arabic missionaries now! First ones in the world and they are in California. If we run into Arabic people their job is pretty much to be on call and help us communicate with them more clearly, which is really cool! I don't know if I'll ever need that but it's cool that it exists now.

Exchanges! It's been a while since of done an exchange so it was nice to do two this last week! For the first one I went to Pittsboro with Elder Guymon. It was pretty cool! Not too much happened but it was nice to hang out with Elder Guymon and get to know him better and also be in a super nice apartment for a day.  And I forgot to get a picture with Elder Guymon. Sorry mom.

The second exchange I stayed in Siler City and was joined by Elder Crandall. He's definitely one of my favorite missionaries and I'm pretty sad that he's going home in February. I thoroughly enjoyed being with him and he shared a lot of missionary wisdom. We stayed up until almost midnight talking! 

Just like most weeks, the goat farm was a highlight. We've done it twice since my last email, the first time was just farm chores such as feeding the goats and mucking a pen. The second time we made packaged and labeled cheese spread! And we labeled fudge as well!

Last night we found out of we stay or go! If we don't stay we don't find out until where we go until Thursday morning, we just find out we need to pack. Just like last time, I'll tell y'all next week if I stay or go.

One thing that I've been focused on is being a successful missionary! In page 13 of Preach My Gospel it says "your success as a missionary is determined primarily by your desire and commitment... Not by how many people you teach or bring to baptism" For a while I took it the wrong way. I thought my success as a missionary depended on how many people I taught and that sort of thing and it was dependent on my commitment and desire. If I was just more committed I would be able to teach more people. But that's not how it works. "People have agency to choose whether to accept the gospel or not." (PMG, 13) 

This applies to all of us, not just missionaries. A huge part of what we can do to have things go well in our lives is have commitment and desire. But that's about all we can do. At some point (annoyingly) the agency of others kicks in and changes our lives for better or worse. We have to accept that people have agency and learn to appreciate it because it is one of God's most precious gifts. I've told Elder Walker many times something along the lines of "we could help this person so much and help them find so much joy if we could just make them read the Book of Mormon!" But that's not how it works. So in conclusion, do all you can but don't judge yourself because of the agency of others. Also something interesting to think about that is related is Mosiah 2-4. Specifically Mosiah 2:25.

I love y'all! 
And thus ended the second transfer 

Pittsboro has this amazing view!





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