Relax, said the night man 03/03/14

Happy Birthday to me! Thanks to everybody who sent me happy emails and letters. I've celebrated so far with a couple games of Settlers of Catan. I inherited a copy of the game from an Elder that went home. So there will be lots of Settlers on P-days from here on out. :D

I have to include this little pick-me-up from my buddy Elder "H", who I met in Moreno Valley but is currently serving a mission in Madagascar.

"Hang in there buddy just one more transfer and you're southern free (that's extra free cuz the south is real America)"

That's darn right, Elder "H". 

So, what happened this week? A whole lot of rain. I'm told that we got more rain in the past three days than the entire year of 2013. It came down pretty hard. And instead of feeling like home, because it rains like that a lot in South Carolina, it felt really alien and strange. I've been here for too long. 

Being transferred in-zone is odd, but being transferred within the same ward is even odder. The Elder that took my place in Diamond Valley North is an old companion of mine, and I love him to pieces, but he and his companion are almost as clueless as if they'd both been freshly doubled in. Luckily I live in the same apartment, so they can just ask me when they have questions. But they typically have questions for me right when I sit down and get comfortable. It's kind of comical, actually, how many times I've sat down or laid down, only to be called back into their room to answer a question about zone leader stuff, or the people in the ward, or whatever else, within 30 seconds of getting comfortable. I think this may be what parents of small children feel like sometimes. 

Lest you think I'm not happy with this Elder who's now my zone leader... well, we get along super well. We sit together and talk and he plays guitar and we talk about the good old days in Moreno Valley. Apparently I'm one of the few people in the mission that know he's a closet liberal, and I try not to pick on him for it too much... at least not in front of other missionaries. He says that our three-way companionship in MoVal was actually the best teaching synergy he's ever had on his mission. That made me smile like you wouldn't believe. I do feel a bit bad that he's having to restart a really dead area. Oh well. At least I got one family going for him.

The temple president of the Redlands temple came and gave a fireside at our stake center last night, and it was pretty darn informative. I actually served in the guy's ward and helped him move out of his house when he got the call. But yeah, we got our recent convert to bring her investigator husband and almost-daughter to the fireside, and it was super cool to see them there and have them feel of the spirit of temple work. Thankfully, nobody asked really stupid doctrinal questions during the question-and-answer session at the end, so none of the stuff mentioned made me cringe for my investigators. It was a really great time.

Something that stood out to me was that too often, young people view the temple as something to check off their list to prepare for a mission: dental work, doctor's physical, interviews, paperwork, temple endowment. But it's important to realize how the temple has eternal worth of it's own far above just preparing you for a mission. You don't need to serve a mission to be in the Celestial Kingdom (believe it or not, I heard it from a reliable source.) You do need to be endowed in the temple of God. So don't skim over that, and take full advantage of the power of temple work before you go. I wish I had gone more often.  

But don't worry too much about me! I keep receiving spiritual confirmations that everything is going to be okay. Surely God knows what he's doing with me, right? I sure believe so. Like my grandma likes to say, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. 

Have a fantastic week, guys. Love you tons.