Season 3: Glacier Park/Lake Wilderness. Episode 2: Caw Caw! Caw! ROAR!!!‏

This is Elder Wagstaff and I (that photo almost looks like we photo-shopped ourselves in it.)

I always fret and fear using all caps in writing for I fear that it will be misinterpreted. In general it looks pretty loud and angry looking. In this context though, its just loud.

 

Consider this: Here is my logic. I am serving in the Lake Wilderness. I am often looking around and exploring this area/ward. I am discovering where people live and what exists in the area. Because I am exploring and discovering places in this area, which is called "Lake Wilderness," you could call me a "Wilderness Explorer!"

Who'duh thunk that I would become a Wilderness Explorer while on my mission? 

 

How  could I define this week or describe it? I am not sure. Today I will do the Monday-Sunday thing.

 

Monday: Elder Wagstaff and I got our shopping game on after we finished our emailing. We really stocked up so that for the rest of the transfer we don't need to buy a whole bunch of things. We did well at that and got the apartment all clean and looking good. It wasn't dirty, but we got some detailing done. I cant remember if I described to you the size of the apartment we are in, but it is massive. I came from probably one of the smallest apartments in the whole mission to probably one of the best. You could probably fit practically 3 of my past apartments in our one apartment. This one is so large. Elder Graham and I would joke around a lot about bringing stuff back to our "great and spacious apartment" (the small one I used to live in) and when I saw him at our mission devotional I told him that "the great and spacious apartment" is where I am living. We even have a balcony to point! :D

Tuesday: Our housing coordinators came over and looked over our apartment. One compliment we got was how well we are stocked up on food. Elder Wagstaff and I were pretty proud about that. :D We also had district meeting which was really nice.

Wednesday: We had dinner with one of the families in the Glacier Park and one of their sons Hudson was super duper crazy energetic. It was super funny with all the energy and craziness he and what he was doing. Also at dinner one of the things we ate was edamames. They are like this bean pod thing. What you are supposed to do is squeeze out the beans, eat those, and throw away the pod (which I didn't know). I saw it, wanted to try it and took a bite out of it just like a normal string bean to find out that it was really hard and couldn't do it well. The family told us that and I being a little embarrassed proceeded to eat them how they are supposed to be eaten for the rest of dinner. It was really funny and I felt good about it because I didn't know how you were supposed to eat it.

Thursday: We had a really awesome lesson teaching a deaf and mute less active member. Her daughter was "translating" what we were saying into sign language. It was super duper cool. A great experience.

Friday: It was a doughnut day, but we still got some good things done. We got to sit down and meet with Glacier Parks Ward Mission Leader and talk about the work in the ward and how to do various things such as dinners and daily contact with him. It was really nice and its awesome to be on the same page.

Saturday: While walking around we heard this weird banging noise. We come to find out that it is a woodpecker pecking a metal sign (like a "one way" sign.) It was pretty funny. We watched as we walked by and as we were walking away we said to each other "Are you good Mr. Woodpecker?"

Sunday: A really awesome day! We met a potential who lives in our same apartment complex who used to be a professional baseball player. We are going back by on Tuesday with a member! :D We also taught a very powerful lesson to a young women who is investigating the church. Her name is Isabel. She is 15 year olds and is friends with one of the members in the ward. She has been taught for a long time and really really wants to get baptized, but is not able to because her parents wont allow her to. This is the first time I got to meet her. It was a very powerful lesson which was good because her mom was present. Elder Wagstaff and I did some serious planning for this lesson and prepared 5 different inspired questions to ask her. We taught the lesson of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and asked those inspired questions afterwards. Those questions really gave her an opportunity to bear powerful testimony about what she believes and knows while her mom was there. Cant cover all the details, but it went well. Her mom didn't allow her to change their stance on baptism, but she is definitely not saying she cant get baptized ever. Just like any concerned parent, she is making sure Isabel takes it slow and knows what she is getting into.

 

Hope that all made sense or at least half of it. It was a really great week like all the other weeks. I definitely know I am here in Maple Valley for a reason and I enjoy the trials and growth it provides so much.

I love you all and hope you continue having great days. The Gospel is really what you can do to be literally the most happy in this life and in the life to come. The things you do and choose today, determine your happiness in the future. So choose carefully.

 

Love y'all.

Elder Sumsion

Season 3: Maple Valley. Lake Wilderness/Glacier Park. Episode 1: Re-Learning Every Day‏

Howdy! Hello! Yokwe!

 

I am in Maple Valley now. I have been for 6 days. It feels like a completely different place than Kent even though its like 20 something or less minutes away.

The people are really different. The landscape is a little bit different. The weather has been pretty different as well. Its been pretty sun shiny for the past while. Elder Wagstaff and I got some good sun burns from walking around. We haven't done any biking due to a flat tire Elder Wagstaff has so its just been some great walking.

 

I guess there is just a lot of information to relay and I don't know how to it very cohesively right now, so here you go.

-Elder Wagstaff is a really great missionary! I love him so much. He is obedient and wants to continue being more so. He has a lot of the same habits and ideas about keeping a place clean as I do which is awesome!  We are able to work really well together in unity. I appreciate him very much. He is the oldest of 5 from Evanston, Wyoming. The first one from his family to go. He has been out as long as Elder Graham, so for 9 months.

 

-The missionary work here in Maple Valley is very different. When you contact (talk to everyone you see walking around) in Kent you have some pretty good success. When you ask if you can come by, more often than not they accept. In Maple Valley it is very different than that. Elder Wagstaff and I have been contacting almost everyone and have had no people at all accept our invitation to come over. It can get pretty tough and discouraging that way, but you learn to laugh. Its pretty funny sometimes when you think about it and how people respond.

If you ever wonder about how to keep a positive attitude when things are hard, the talk by Elder Wirthlin called "Come What May, and Love it" has some great doctrine about it.

 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/come-what-may-and-love-it?lang=eng

 

-Not that I was a terrible missionary before and that I would boast my numbers (how many lessons taught, how many people came to church, how many baptized, etc.) around to people, but I would say I was a little prideful in my heart about how I was doing in Clark Lake and the numbers we were getting. I am glad I am here in Maple Valley because it has taught me humility and brought a much better perspective with numbers than I had before. This week in Maple Valley I had my first "doughnut day" (where you get only zero's for a day) and very low numbers for the whole week. I was very tempted by habit and by Satan to think that I was a terrible missionary because of the low numbers.

I remembered though that it is not by the numbers that I am saved, or by how many people get baptized or etc. It is by effort and my heart by which I am judged. I have truly tried this week to do my best in serving Heavenly Father and fulfilling my missionary purpose and because of that, I am successful. I have invited people to come unto Christ, and inviting is honestly all that I can do.

That's a lesson I have already learned on my mission before and I am sure I will relearn it several times throughout the rest of my mission. I think what changes each time I learn it is how deeply its implanted into my soul and character. Some lessons are only learned skin deep, but others when truly understood and learned, penetrate into the heart and it changes you forever.

 

Love you all! Hope that made sense.

Elder Sumsion

 

I have a nice picture, but there was no port for it on this compy. Next week :D

Season 2: Clark Lake. Episode 18: The Finale.

These are pictures taken this morning (this selfie thing is really growing on me :D)

So as my ominous title puts it, today concludes my last week in Kent in the Clark Lake Ward. Transfers are going on and I am moving to the Glacier Park/Lake Wilderness Ward in the Maple Valley Stake. I am still yet to travel there because I am still in Kent typing up emails n' stuff, but I will in about 4 hours.

I am super excited to have that experience that involves a whole bunch of change. Changes ranging from the people I know to the way I travel (Yes, good bye Ishmael (that's what I named our car. Elder Buchanan and Graham named it Midus). This next transfer will be a wonderful time of new experience and growth (physically and spiritually :D).

 

This week I had a lot of great experiences of teaching by the spirit.

The best way any missionary or person can teach by, is by saying what the spirit prompts him to say (or even do). The spirit is the ultimate teacher because it can prompt you to say things you don't even know that it will have a significant impact. For example somebody could be going through a deep personal problem that is very hard. You don't even know what is going on in that persons life, but some thing you said or felt like you should say is exactly what that person needs to hear. You speak beyond that normal realm of knowledge. That has happened and happens many times to me throughout my life where I have said something that I wouldn't normally have said that affected someone significantly.

One specific experience where that happened this week was when Elder Buchanan were giving a priesthood blessing to some sick members in our ward. When I gave the blessing, I listened (to the spirit) and spoke things that I wouldn't normally say. The spirit guided and directed me to say certain things. I am so very grateful for the guidance and influence to help me know what to say, especially when I have no idea of what to say.

Another experience that deals with teaching by the spirit is recorded in my email I think two times ago. It was the one where I had the realization "this is why I am here."

 

I hope that made sense. I don't have a lot of time to go back and correct mistakes I make in logic, spelling, or other basic things during my email time. So I am sorry if you ever get lost.

 

The subject of changing and becoming is so amazing and profound to me. Its where you can take anything in its base form and change it to become something permanently. That happens to anyone who is following Christ and living His gospel. I am most definitely an imperfect person. I have mistakes and flaws. Some of those flaws are just apart of who I am, the current state I am in. But I don't have to stay the way I am forever. Because of Jesus Christ and the Atonement He performed, I change. I can change to become a different person with different habits and mindsets.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the way to the Celestial Kingdom where we can dwell in the presence of our Father and our families for all of eternity. It fulfills Gods purpose of helping us obtain "immortality and eternal life" (Moses 3:19). If you desire to understand and learn more about His gospel, study 2 Nephi 31. His Gospel is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It is not something though that you apply once and are forever cured of your natural state, it is something to be applied again and again all throughout your life. As was said in General Conference, apply and use it "Every Day, Every Day, Every Day!."

 

Love you all so much.

A Representative of Jesus Christ,

Elder Sumsion 

Season 2: Clark Lake. Episode 17: The Horse and The Donkey

So I don't have a super big over arching plan for this email (Saying that implies that I have a big super arching plan for all my other emails. That implication is not true. For some reason, I pointed that detail out this time) except for sharing a nice story I heard that has some good principles attached to it.

 

Happy Easter Yesterday! Also Happy General Conference Weekend! I hope you thoroughly enjoyed both! I hope that general conference was more than just a nice spiritual thought for you and that you have made goals and things you wanted to do because of it. There are definitely some goals and things that I am going to work on because of conference. On Monday at the beginning of the week one of the members in our ward said his Mission President described general conference as a "scheduled answered prayer." I took that to heart and came up with several questions I remembered throughout the conference, and every single one was answered in one form or another. I loved it. I would encourage you to make conference apart of your lives and continue having it change you for the next 6 months until the next one. I am sure you will be able to find at least one thing to work on if you prayerfully approach it.

 

I also went on exchanges with our district leader. That was on Thursday. I went over to their area. It was a super awesome and great experience! I love Elder Thomas. He is such an inspiration especially since he goes home next week and it doesn't seem the least bit distracted or "trunky." He is truly holding out to the end. In Alma 52:20 it says in reference to the stripling warriors,

"And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted."

When it said "at all times" it meant that. It means at the beginning of your mission, at the end of your mission, before your mission, after your mission. I am grateful for Elder Thomas and teaching me based off of his example of the way he lives and serves. 

 

I heard this story from a nonmember in our area who we gave a blessing to yesterday. He told us a couple, but this is the one I liked the most. It seemed like a pretty nice story, and maybe it will be pretty profound to some of you.

Oh, and this is more of like a folk lore story. It doesn't have all of the exact details, so I added in details where they were absent (or forgotten).

 

 So, I was walking down the street there was a owner of a horse and a donkey and he needed to move somewhere. So he packed up his stuff and put it on the donkey and horse to carry individually. The donkeys load and the horse's load were both 50lbs. The three were off on their journey.

During the journey after sometime the donkey asked the horse if he could help him out with his load. The horse told him "No," saying "it is good that we have an equal load."

So the donkey without complaining or bothering him any more about the matter continued on. 2 hours or so later, the donkey collapsed on the ground and died due to the strain of the load. The owner didn't just want to leave him there because he had been a very faithful animal for the past 5 years. So what he did was take the donkey and the load he was carrying and put it on the horses back. Then the owner, who was 200lbs being tired from the journey and doing all that lifting hopped on the horses back as well. After all of that, the horse continued on to the destination.

 

So, there is that story. The name I gave it in the subject is not exactly official, but it describes it well enough.

What are some of your thoughts about it? I haven't given it a lot of thought and I haven't picked out many principles from it. What do you think are some of things to learn and gain from it?

 

I know that you can change. Everyone has the potential to make it to the highest degree of glory in the Celestial Kingdom again. No one person who has been born on this earth has been predetermined to be a Terrestial Kingdom or Telestial Kingdom dweller. Because of Jesus Christ and what He did for us, you can change. I know that any bad habit that I have or any bad habit that you have can be changed. Because of Him and His Atonement, we are not stuck. As Elder Holland described it in his powerful talk, Jesus Christ our Perfect Older Brother, is there for us. He has saved us and will save you again and again no matter how many times you fall. Even if you think you have hit the ground there is no injury that He cant heal, because He has suffered all and knows how to perfectly heal us (See Alma 7:11-13). I say that and leave you with my testimony in His name, Jesus Christ. Amen.