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