Season 7:Glacier Park/Lake Wilderness. Episode 6:Change is Good.

This is the district I was I was over. From the Left was Elder Holtry and Willardsen (Zone Leaders), Elder Asper and I, and Hermana Peacock and Jorgensen.

Elder Green in his Fancy new suit that he got on Monday the local
 thrift store for $15! Its pretty good.

Elder Warner and I. Elder Warner just finished his mission yesterday! He is a fantastic missionary with a very very big heart! He serves so much! 

One of Lake Lucernes Investigators named Douglas. We went on a church tour with him and he is awesome! It goes Douglas, Elder Covington, Elder Lowry, and then me.

The pizza I got on Monday at Mods :D

I got spinach, onions, jalapenos, green bell peppers, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, Asiago cheese, spicy meatballs, grilled chicken, and a mixture of BBQ and white sauce. It was good :D

There have been a lot of changes throughout the past week and more to come.

As you know Elder Asper has been having some very bad back pain and its been tough on him. This past week it got a lot worse and on Wednesday it was agonizing. Our President Eaton and Sister Eaton came by that night and had an interview and determined it was best for him to head home and heal. So on Thursday Elder Asper left for home.

I really do love him so much and I am grateful I had the opportunity to learn so much from him! Now you may think of the question of "was Elder Asper still a successful missionary even though he went home?"

Preach My Gospel says "Your success as a missionary is measured primarily by your commitment to find, teach, baptize, and confirm people and to help them become faithful members of the Church who enjoy the presenceof the Holy Ghost. (Page 10)"

I will tell you that Elder Aspers commitment to do those things was incredible! There is no doubt at all in my mind, absolutely none, that Elder Asper was a successful missionary. He was so committed and he desired to baptize all of the people he could in The Lords way and he worked for it. If you look on pages 10-11 and look at some of the characteristics of a successful missionary, he filled every single one of those traits.

Success isn't measured by baptisms or how long a missionary stays out. Elders who serve for 24 months are no more successful or less successful than Sisters who serve for 18 months. They are both equal and the Lord accepts each of them.

Since then I have been with Elder Warner and Elder Lowry in a trio. Then I am now currently in a trio with Elder Lowry and Elder Covington. Elder Lowry and Elder Covington companions both finished their missions so we are together until today actually. Today is transfer days and I am going to be training another new missionary. Its going to be wonderful and I know I am going to grow so much again. These past two transfers for me have been fantastic in helping me grow and become more Christ-like.

On Saturday we went to a baptism with Douglas a Lake Lucerne Investigator and that was so great. We were late to the baptism in Enumclaw, but we had a really great church tour afterwards. When we were teaching (it was really the spirit that did the teaching) and talking in the chapel the spirit was so strong! I love the chapel so much! The spirit was wonderful. He is really commited and seriously desires to be baptized which is wonderful.

We also had a lesson with a very very strange man named Steve. We had it at the church with a young man. While I was beginning the lesson before the prayer he started going off on a lot of crazy things. He wasn't yelling at us or anything, he was actually very serious and quite. He was basically talking about a whole bunch of conspiracy theories. And it was about 20 minutes of this before we were able to get things under control. Here are just two of the things he talked to us about.

• Moses didn't actually part the Red Sea. What actually happened was the mother ship (which is the moon) lost the back part of it and it felt to the earth and caused an opening for them to walk through.
• Down in Arizona the church is building a super computer. And that employees are disappearing from Boeing and their mind is being downloaded into that computer.

Remember, that was only a little of what he talked to us about.

On Sunday Tatiana came to church again! This is the 3rd Sunday in a row that she has come. We haven't even taught her (yet ;D) and she still comes to church. She has been coming to a lot of church activities and other things like that. She is really becoming involved. She even said herself that she is getting "rooted" or putting down her roots. Right now her perspective is to come church for the social aspect, but the lesson in Gospel Principles class about Heavenly Father was very powerful and she definitely felt the spirit there and other times.

Yesterday we went to a Family Home Evening with her at the Relief Society Presidents home and that was great as well. They talked about Modern Prophets and general conference and she said she should be watching it. Wonderful things are happening with her.

 It has been a very different week and it will be different continuing on. I am excited though for that opportunity to train again. Training really is a sacred trust from the Mission President and The Lord. Have a fantastic week and stay strong! I feel prompted to share with you the Hymn "Does the Journey Seem Long?" Listen to it and read the lyrics. Its a wonderful Hymn.

1. Does the journey seem long,

The path rugged and steep?

Are there briars and thorns on the way?

Do sharp stones cut your feet

As you struggle to rise

To the heights thru the heat of the day?

2. Is your heart faint and sad,

Your soul weary within,

As you toil 'neath your burden of care?

Does the load heavy seem

You are forced now to lift?

Is there no one your burden to share?

3. Let your heart be not faint

Now the journey's begun;

There is One who still beckons to you.

So look upward in joy

And take hold of his hand;

He will lead you to heights that are new--

4. A land holy and pure,

Where all trouble doth end,

And your life shall be free from all sin,

Where no tears shall be shed,

For no sorrows remain.

Take his hand and with him enter in.

Love,

Elder Sumsion

Season 7:Glacier Park/Lake Wilderness. Episode 5:A Successful Missionary

This is of Elder Graham, Asper, and I. Elder Graham was my trainer and I am Elder Aspers Trainer. This was take yesterday just before the Mission Devotional at the Puyallup Stake Center

I think just in general for these emails I don't have as much time as I would like to create them. So you shall receive what is produced in this amount of time.

Elder Asper is doing much better. He is learning much better how to cope with the pain he is experiencing because of it and I am just so impressed at his diligence and effort. He definitely is handling a lot more pain that I can comprehend to experience all the time.

Missionary work wise Sister Loftus the one who wants to be baptized is sick and we haven't been able to meet with her in about two weeks which is really hard. Two weeks of not meeting with and investigator feels like months as a missionary. Hopefully she gets better soon! In Glacier Park the lady we invited (she really just asked) came to church again and this time she brought her two children. The new Relief Society President in the ward is a really wonderful member missionary. She has already invited her to several activities and Tatiana has come to some of them. She really is a friend to Tatiana. What missionaries really love is when members are actual friends to the people the missionaries teach. And that is what the Relief Society President and several others throughout both wards have done which is just amazing stuff.

Missionary work wise there isn't a lot going on to report. Elder Asper and I though are exercising our faith and praying for and expecting miracles! We truly do desire to do the Lords will and fulfill our purpose. So we have set a goal in faith that we will have a baptism on October 10th. We are going to work hard and do what we can to achieve that goal. We have the faith (because we are acting) and will do our very best. Then if it be Heavenly Fathers will, it will happen. Elder Asper is just a very very faithful missionary and I appreciate his example so much.

One last insight and thing that I have learned is about prayer and asking for blessings or Christ-like attributes. For example in life we recognize that we are imperfect and need to be more like Christ. We are yelling at our kids all of the time or bickering and not being kind to our companion we should probably strive to have more patience. So what I have learned is that instead of praying for the gift of patience to be magically plopped down upon my soul and character (because that doesn't happen), I pray for opportunities to exercise and become more patient. It really works!

Think about it in terms of working out. If we want to get stronger, we are not going to pray to Heavenly Father asking him to grant us physical strength and then sit down and eat potatoes chips. We should pray for it and then get up and work out. Its only as we do our part that God will carry us through.

My experience as I have had the opportunities to exercise my patience has been wonderful. Instead of getting immediately annoyed and criticizing my companion I recognize in the moment that I am working on it, that right now I have the opportunity to be more patient. I then pray again for strength and do my best at overcoming any negative feeling I may have. It takes time. I am not immediately the strongest person in the world as soon as I begin to work out, but I do get stronger a little bit at a time.

I hope the whole idea and concept of what I was saying. You should try it out this week if you haven't before. Try praying for in addition that you will be blessed with opportunities to be more patient, loving, charitable, forgiving, less defensive, etc. It works for me. 

Ultimately is only through Christ that we can experience any lasting change and make it count. I am so very thankful for His Atonement for me. That through his suffering and anguish in the garden and on the cross, which I don't fully understand, I can be forgiven as I exercise faith in Him, Repent, renew my covenants I have made with Him and Heavenly Father with the Sacrament, follow the council of the Holy Ghost, and continue that process throughout my life.

Love you all!

Elder Sumsion

P.S. Letters are always a nice thing that I appreciate. Feel free to write me.

Elder Cameron Sumsion

23175 224th Place SE, Suite E

Maple Valley, WA 98038

Season 7: Glacier Park/Lake Wilderness. Episode 4:

Howdy Howdy! Did you read at least one of those talks? You should if you haven't.

This week has definitely been a very interesting and different one. I will take on the day approach in report.

Tuesday: It was preparation day so it was great that Elder Asper was able to take a break and rest. For lunch we went to this great pizza joint called "Mods." Its basically Subway, but for Pizza and is SO GOOD. I have been several times, and I would highly recommend it. It is just really really great. If you have one near you, or you come and travel around here try it out.

Wednesday: Elder Asper was feeling lots of pain again so President and Sister Eaton actually came by and had a interview with him to see potentially some more solutions. The pain, because this came out of the blue, could be caused by stress or built up something so we went to LDS Family Services. After that the pain was still so bad and we went back to the Valley Medical Center in Renton. No cause still could be detected, but their best guess was pulled muscles. We didn't get any proselyting in and we were traveling around the whole day doing stuff. It was a long day.

Thursday: We got an appointment set up with a family doctor in Puyallup so we travelled down there to see what he could discern. He is the Graham Stake President. His conclusion was that it was lumbar spasm. The treatment is basically stretch it out slowly, but continue pressing foreword. Elder Asper is in a lot of pain consistently, but he continues to press foreword doing his duty.

Friday: We had an amazing lesson with progressing less-actives in the Glacier Park ward. They are firm and committed to coming back to church, getting married, and being sealed in the Temple. Their desire and motivation is very inspiring. They are committed and coming to church so far 2 weeks in a row, considering a about year ago they thought they would never come back.

Saturday: We helped some non-members move in right next to Lake Wilderness which was very very nice. We had a lot of young men from the stake there. The work that was done was great. All together we unloaded 4 moving Pods in an hour and a half. It was funny how impressed the guy we helped move in was. We have also been borrowing Sister Eatons, our Mission Presidents wife, car until this coming Tuesday. We have another appointment with the therapist today that we need to drive to. I have been driving around a lot more than I really have before in my life. Every day and every safe trip we have is such a great blessing. I am so very thankful for a Heavenly Father who watches out and cares for all of His children.

Sunday: Elder Asper was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting. So even amidst great pain and lack of sleep he gave the talk and did well. I am so impressed with his dedication to work so hard even amidst his great pain.

We also had a non-member come to church that we met earlier this week!!! It was so fantastic to have someone there after inviting. Her name is Tatiana and she recently moved into the Glacier Park ward and is looking for a potential church to go to. She really really enjoyed it and is planning on coming next week with the rest of her family (she also joined the ward Relief Society Facebook page :D). The ward members did such a great job of fellowshipping and being kind. Elder Asper and I were so happy that someone has come. Its been tough work, but as we have been working hard at helping people experience the blessings of the gospel we have seen so many miracles!

Elder Asper is also just a very faithful individual and prays for specific blessings. We are working very hard at finding a prepared family for us to teach and it has been exciting for us to expect miracles and to pray for that every day.

The church recently released a lot of videos about addiction recovery which are all very powerful! You don't need to be a drug addict to watch them. Whenever I watch one of those types of videos on forgiveness and overcoming hard things my appreciation for the Atonement of Jesus Christ are strengthened so much! The videos are all based on the 12 steps to recovery from addiction and I have watched them all. Two of them that I really appreciated and were powerful to me was step 5 and step 9.

12 Steps to Change video's

http://www.mormonchannel.org/12steps

Step 5

http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/12-steps-to-change/step-5-confession-jessicas-story-on-food-addiction-recovery

Step 9

http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/12-steps-to-change/step-9-restitution-and-reconciliation-johns-story-on-drug-addiction-recovery

I hope you have a wonderful week and find some peace and joy in watching these videos, or reading any of those talks I sent last week.

Love,

Elder Sumsion

Season 7: Glacier Park/Lake Wilderness. Episode 3:Simple Lessons Learned.

Elder Asper and I at the hospital yesterday. (I am not perfect at the selfie thing yet :D) We were there from 4:00pm to about 9:00 pm. It was an interesting day.

These are all of my ties that I currently have. If you look back at my MTC posts you could see which ties are new and which ones have stayed. I enjoy a good tie.

Howdy!

I read ALOT of talks. If you would ever like suggestions please do ask. Recently someone asked me for a list of good talks, so here is a list of 10 talks. Now this isn't my "top ten talks" (due to my absolute nature, that list would probably take at least 50 years to make :D), but it are suggestions of talks that I really like.

The talks towards the top will more missionary minded so I encourage my missionary friends to read at least the top 3. These are some great talks.

1) The Quest for Spiritual Knowledge

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2007/01/the-quest-for-spiritual-knowledge?lang=eng

2) A Treasured Testament

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament.p1?lang=eng

3) President Kimball’s Vision of Missionary Work

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1985/07/president-kimballs-vision-of-missionary-work?lang=eng

4)The Inconvenient Messiah

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-and-patricia-t-holland_inconvenient-messiah/

5)“Quick to Observe”

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/david-a-bednar_quick-observe/

6)Come, Join with Us

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/come-join-with-us?lang=eng

7)You Know Enough

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/you-know-enough?lang=eng

8)Hastening the Lord’s Game Plan!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/hastening-the-lords-game-plan?lang=eng

9)Of Things That Matter Most

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/of-things-that-matter-most?lang=eng

10)Truly Good and without Guile

 https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/truly-good-and-without-guile?lang=eng

 

 You should read/listen/watch these talks. I really enjoy them and invite you, if you wont read them all, just try one of them. I love to share the things that I love. Think of the difference it would make if you read a talk instead of watching a youtube video? What a difference that small act would make.

 

Okey Dokey, this week is has been a great one of stories, and I am sure if you have already taken a sneak peak at the pictures are wondering about what happened. You shall see :D

 

In our mission we have been focusing a lot on finding more and more people to be baptized in the Lords way (which is preceded by Faith in Jesus Christ and Repenting, and succeeded by the Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End). In order to find the people you have got to go where the people are, and if its raining and there are no people around we should go to the doors and "knock and [hopefully they will be] open unto [us]." Knocking on doors is called tracting and it is something our Mission President has nudged us to do a little bit more because missionaries will often walk around for hours and not talk to a single soul. Now we don't have required times to tract or required people to tract, but he does encourage us to knock on some doors if there are not any people out.

So that is something that I have started to put into practice and it is very comfortless, but it helps me and Elder Asper grow so much! I have done close to none on my mission, so its great to be growing in this way. We knocked some good doors and you know with tracting comes stories.

-We were walking past a house and we saw a woman inside sewing and she saw us and we walked by. We then decided to go back and knock on her door. When she saw us coming up to her driveway after we passed by her face was hilarious. She looked like 0.0  "what are these missionaries thinking."

That's all the stories I have for now, but I will have more to share in the future.

 

Lastly, the picture. Yesterday during studies Elder Asper didn't feel good at all. He was in a lot of pain and potentially had a kidney stone because it felt like it did when he had one last. So we went to an urgent care place here in Maple Valley, but they didn't diagnose anything so they released him. Then the pain afterwards got really bad, so we went to the ER in Renton with our Lake Wilderness Ward Mission Leader Brother Hinton to see if they could figure out what it was and help with the pain. They didn't diagnose anything so the cause is unknown, but he had no kidney stones which is good. Elder Asper is doing better now because of the pain pills and hopefully time and a nice P-day will help him throughout the week.

Love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! Things are going great. Pray for Sister Loftus. Great progress is being made and a baptism date is what we are going for today.

Elder Sumsion

Elder Meads and Elder Sumsion