Season 3: Glacier Wilderness. Episode 11: A Solid Week.

Me with the puppy "Lucy"

My nametag after we did that service of helping make that bench

Us after doing service. The other two are the Lake Lucerne Elders. They have been helping us out a lot whenever we have gone over. Also don't you just love my watch tan :D

Things are going really great. It was a lot slower than last week number wise, but it still felt really intense.  Here is a thing for each day of the week.

 

Monday: I downloaded the first three episodes of "Two Brothers Two" on my flash drive and Elder Wagstaff and I watched them. We were glued to the screen while watching them. It was so funny, but it was good quality time watching those together. Really funny. We are going to go on a marathon today during P-Day and try to watch the other 5.

 

Tuesday: Elder Wagstaff and I were biking on the trail next to Lake Wilderness and there was some commotion going on next to a beach park with ambulances n' stuff. We stopped and watched what had turned out asking various peoples what happened. We found out later that a young man did loose his life. It was a very reflective time for me and I thought about what happens after death and how what I am doing as a missionary fits into all of this. I received some great revelation and confirmations as a result of that pondering.

 

Wednesday: We did some great service for Brother Loftuss in the Lake Wilderness ward. We helped make cement and pour it into a large retaining wall/bench he is making for his fire pit. We are actually going by tonight to teach his wife who is a non-member. We are excited :D

 

Thursday: We went and did some more service for a sister in Glacier Park. She had just gotten a new puppy and we took some picture with it. It is a Louisiana Catahoula Leopard dog. It is a very nice breed.

 

Friday: We had an open evening and Elder Wagstaff felt inspired to drop by a less active and we did and it was just what the person we visited needed! It was such an inspired drop by. We are going back this Thursday with a couple of ward members to give him a blessing.

 

Saturday: We went on exchanges with the office Elders again. Sorry I don't have a lot of time to cover everything. It was a really great day though and we helped someone move out of our apartment complex. Elder Allen, I, and an R.M. were the ones in the U-Haul organizing and getting it compact. It was really warm inside that van. Brother Thompson put it this way when came up to help move. "Now I am going to go play Tetris in a 300 degree oven." Haha.

 

Sunday: I traveled to Graham for the mission devotional there with the Office Elders. That was a really great experience. I really felt the Lord strengthen me and the choir as we were singing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer."

While I was doing that Elder Wagstaff was with Elder Gonzalez and they were doing missionary work in our areas. At one point while they were traveling they saw a group of teenagers. Teenagers usually aren't very friendly and usually tell any missionary's the saying  "Smoke meth, hail satan" (I don't understand it either. Kids these days ;D). As they came closer they saw that they were smoking and that there was a young woman who was indecent. As soon as they discerned what was going on, Elder Wagstaff turned right around and started to walk in the other direction.

That is such a great modern day example to me right there of a disciple of Christ doing as Joseph of Egypt did and turning tail to temptation and sin and running the other direction. Even when the teenagers started to yell "come back!" they still didn't even turn around. The world is really crazy. Please choose good friends.

 

A mission is a really great experience wherever you serve. Its personalized to you and the goal is really to change and put yourself on the path of helping to become a progressing disciple, constantly striving to become more like Christ.

 

Love you all so much. Thanks for your support and love!

Season 3: Glacier Wilderness. Episode 10: 1 Tim. 4:12

I think maybe one of these days I just got to send out a sad photo or something to mix it up.

Elder Wagstaff and I preparing for the day.

This week has been fantastic!

Our numbers this week have been significantly higher than all of our other weeks! We have taught our new investigators and they are progressing now. Its not the numbers that I am focusing on though, because they are a byproduct of what is actually happening which is the work of salvation!

Happy Fathers day to all you fathers and potential fathers! Yesterday at church we wished one of the members a happy fathers day and he came up and told us "We're born to be fathers and husbands, but not in that order." That cracked me up :D

We have been able to teach Alex and our others investigators. While things are happening with Em and Victoria, I would like to focus today on Alex.

To be really brief because I don't have a whole bunch of time I will talk about Alex's experience at church yesterday. Dont let it get you down or change your perspective because things are going great and he is progressing. We have taught him and done a lot of service with him. Things are going great. He is praying and reading The Book of Mormon every day which is essential and great. The Book of Mormon will be essential in his conversion which he is doing.

Yesterday at church, Alex due to other things, was only able to stay for sacrament. During sacrament meeting Alex asked me about if it was common for members to be playing Angry Birds or messing around on their devices during the meeting.

Late in the evening we had a lesson with him and that's one thing that really perturbed him. He mentioned how when he attended a baptist and a catholic service and the people were a lot more respectful and engaged during it. Elder Wagstaff, I, and the returned missionary who came with us testified and talked about certain things to resolve that concern, but in the end it seemed to be a big deal for Alex.

Now I am not saying this is going to end up being a big thing, but I know that despite any challenges that come up if he has a testimony if The Book of Mormon, everything will be alright.

Just a little word about examples.

There is a lot about our examples that affect people. Our example behind and in front of closed doors really do matter. There is so much that goes on under the hood with our examples that we don't understand.

Prophets and Apostles are watchmen on the tower who warn us of trouble and things to wary of. Elder Oaks during the last general conference gave a very bold prophetic warning.

 "If the emblems of the sacrament are being passed and you are texting or whispering or playing video games or doing anything else to deny yourself essential spiritual food, you are severing your spiritual roots and moving yourself toward stony ground. You are making yourself vulnerable to withering away when you encounter tribulation like isolation, intimidation, or ridicule. And that applies to adults also."

In that he only warned of some of the specific consequences of doing that. There are more consequences to things that we do. What we choose to do has an affect on those around us. Part of Alex's negative experience at church could have been avoided if members of the church heeded the prophets warnings and advice.

Of course these examples that Alex experienced is not the whole church. Elder Bednar said  

"I believe [they were] wrong to judge the validity of our Church’s claim to divine authority by the shortcomings of the men with whom he associated in our ward. But embedded in his question to me was a correct assumption that [members of the church] should be different from other men."

My challenge and invitation to you is to "[B]e thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity, [and in sacrament meeting]."

With love,

Elder Sumsion

Referenced:

Elder Oak's Talk

 https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/the-parable-of-the-sower?lang=eng

Elder Bednars Talk

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-powers-of-heaven?lang=eng&query=dad

Season 3: Glacier Wilderness. Episode 9:#Miracles

Elder Wagstaff and I on Sunday wearing our sweet awesome ties! One of the coolest parts about them is that we made them :D

Howdy!

Super so many great awesome good fantastic awesome wonderful blessings of fantastic-ness!

 

Before all that,

some members showed us this awesome family search website thing called relativefinder.org.

It is super duper cool! You can see your relationship with various famous peoples or others (depending on how filled out your family history is)! You can also see your relationships with friends if you are in the same group with each other.

For example Elder Wagstaff and I are 7th cousins! You should all check it out. I checked with my mission president so it as at least approved in the Washington Federal Way mission.

The website is called again

 

relativefinder.org

 

If you want to join a group I created so we can see what relationship we are and with others who join it,

1)go and log into the website (just with your family search or member login0

2)click on groups on the top and choose join

3)search Group 47

4)the password is 123456

5)click on the option that will no be on the left and there you are!

 

Super cool! Back to our Sponsor.

 

 So many miracles in finding people to teach this week!

Our mission president had us a reevaluate some goals we set at the beginning of the year of how much of certain things we wanted to do. As I revised my goals I thought that I would lower them because I am serving in an area that isn't as busy as Clark Lake was, but as I did that I saw and recognized that I could do it so I actually made my goals a little bit bigger.

The best way to find new investigators is when members find them for us. At least in our mission the averages show that 1 out of every 16 people we contact in the street or tract into or etc. get baptized. But for members that refer us someone to teach, we find that 1 out of every 2 of them get baptized! That is a very big difference, so the best way to find those who are going to make covenants and endure to the end is through the members. That's only one reason why members are supposed to find people, and missionaries are primarily supposed to teach.

One of my new goals is to receive a member referral and to teach them every week! That way more and more people who will actually progress are found. This week I met that goal. On Monday Elder Wagstaff and I were blessed to meet with members who invited many people to meet with the missionaries! We left that members house with two different appointments to teach to different peoples :D

This week in total we were blessed to find 2 new investigators! One of them was a member referral, Em, and the other is a potential who called us back, Alex.

Here is a little bit about both of them.

Em: We went by on Tuesday and taught Em, not a lesson (this means instead of teaching like "missionary robots," we focused what we talked about to her needs and her personal understanding). Em is about 20 years old and is friends with the members son is currently serving a mission. She was raised Atheist, but recently become Christian 2 years ago. She still hasn't gotten baptized, which we invited her to do and she didn't accept which is totally alright. She is very intelligent and expressed some sincere honest concerns such as she didn't know that we had the priesthood authority from God, but she still is wanting to learn. Those concerns are good to have because it shows she actually is thinking about and learning from what the spirit is teaching her. We are going back tomorrow.

Alex: He called us back after two weeks of when we first met him and asked us to come back by, which we did on Saturday. He just graduated from High School last Thursday (just so you know, here in Washington this week on the 17th is the last day of school.). He is so intelligent and very analytical. Maybe one of the most analytical I have met and talked with. We shared the restoration, but before we could even begin he gave pretty much a 1 minute summary of everything we were going to talk about (because he did some research before we came). It was amazing how clearly he understood and understand things. He is just very very intelligent. We invited him to be baptized as well and its something he is considering, but wont commit to a date because he doesn't know everything that it implies which is understandable. We are going back tomorrow as well to share The Book of Mormon with him. Just another note and miracle about Alex is that he is in the Glacier Park ward. Elder Wagstaff and I are pretty sure he is the first new investigator in that ward in 6 months.

 

 

I am so excited for this week! Its going to be fantastic! We have so many things set up! Like our planners are full until Friday which is a first in this area!

Love you all so much!

Thanks for the prayers!

Elder Sumsion

Season 3: Glacier Wilderness. Episode 8: Family History Is Amazing!

This week we had a great half-mission training on Family History. It is so amazing and great! I learned so much at how to use family history.

Something simple of how it applies to missionary work is a way to connect and develop a relationship with someone.

So kind of how service opens the doors for people learning about the gospel or accepting missionary lessons and them being taught, it does that same thing.

Its also a really easy thing to talk to random people about.
"Hey How is it going?"

"Do you perchance know, with the 4th of July coming up, when your ancestors came to America and why they did? "

"Would you like to find out?"

 

Just some basic examples for you.

 

This is the talk our Mission President had us read before we attended.

 

Missionary, Family History, and Temple Work

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2014/10/missionary-family-history-and-temple-work?lang=eng

 

I know family history can make a big difference in your life. You should try it out. If you don't know where to begin, talk to the family history specialist in your ward.

 

Now this next video is long, but I know it is a great example of what family history can do in helping you and your family. The Spirit of Elijah is SOO strong and does so much under the hood that we don't even understand. Try it out. I know that if can help your family even if your home is more Christlike or less Christlike than this families.

 

https://www.lds.org/topics/family-history/to-turn-our-hearts?lang=eng

 

(to watch the full video, the link to download it is underneath the video)

 

Love you all so much!

Elder Sumsion

Season 3: Glacier Wilderness. Episode 7: Remembering What God Had Done

I have been working on this email for a while where I have been restarting and rethinking what I will do lots and lots of times, so now I am just going to go for it and leave what I type out.

 

Its easy to get discourages and downtrodden if all you have is a momentary perspective. When you have an eternal perspective and remember what things have happened in the past and look foreword to what comes in the future things get a lot easier and you make a lot more right choices.

Specifically for me, right now contacting and talking to people is getting tough because we are facing rejection and no acceptance of our invitation to learn more about the restored gospel. That is the problem or scenario that is happening now. We are trying to find people to teach and to further the progress in our wards, especially Glacier Park. That is what we are currently faced with.

Now it would be really easy for me and Elder Wagstaff to give up and quit saying "it is a hard thing that has been asked of us." But as Elder Wagstaff and I keep more of an eternal perspective and remember what great things we have been blessed with in the past, we can show our faith and continue pressing foreword.

There is a great video on this of keeping a good perspective. Elder Holland shares the main experience. It is called "Good things to come." I would encourage you to watch it.

 

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-05-12-good-things-to-come?lang=eng

 

I know that there has been great blessings and things in the past that we have received. We know that there will be more of that in the future, and during this dry time now we can only continue forward with faith.

I am out of time. Sorry I wasn't able to share a lot. Have a great week. Toll next time!

Love,

Elder Sumsion