11/11/2019
Date
November 11, 2019
Area
Cannock, England
Companion
Elder Warner
11/11/2019
I hereby declare an all out war upon the dreariness of mission life! I am fed up with hearing the stories of missionaries who have simply endured with misery and heartache for a large duration of their mission because they want to avoid the embarassment of going home early! Frankly, I am sick to my stomach of those tales. Why would I insanely walk along that same path?! I will take the road less traveled by even if that means blazing it myself! Why should I have to wait a miserable six months to a year to delight in this great work in which I have been called to do?! I will not let the the constant rejection and slander I face get in the way of me having a good day, week, month, year, or mission! I am the master of my own fate, I am the captain of my soul, and that is the way it is going to stay!
I knew that serving a mission was the right road to travel on when those many roads diverged in a yellow wood following high school, but for some ignorant reason I assumed that I could just throw up my hands for these two years and say "Jesus take the wheel" and find myself coasting through these two years and miraculously come quickly to the end of it. I have never had such an incorrect inclination of the future in my whole life. If my previous letters have not made it clear enough, this is hard. Hands down the hardest thing I have had to do in my whole life. Nothing comes close enough to even contest it. However, in the weirdest way possible, I am starting to love it. That has not come through a natural or inheret transition of mindset but through much toil and riggor. I am doing my best to rediscover happiness out here and am relying on faith more than I ever have. I am killing my inner natural man, and sadly that cannot be done in a month so I am continually having to starve him out.
There was a cool leason I learned today about adjusting to new enviroments and coping with life adjustments. We were helping a man move soil into his back yard by loading up wheel barrels and dumping it into his back yard. The wheel barrel that I was using had a very annoying squeaking sound emit from it whenever I was rolling it around that resembled a loud cry in my imagination. To try and silence the sound I sort of played around with the way in which I positioned the wheel barrel while I was using it. I tilted it a little to the left and then the right, I tilted it a like more forward and then a little backward, and just experimented with any way I could think of so that I could console this wimpering wheel barrel. Eventually I found a position to wheel it that finally silenced the cry. Then it sort if hit me, that principle I had just practiced was very similar to one I am currently putting into place in my life as a new missionary. Something I been implementing in my own life is the principle of being proactive instead of reactive. I have very much been experimenting with new ways to console myself as I take on this lifestyle change. Whether it be how I work out in the morning, how I wind down before bed, or even how I occupy my thoughts. I have come to the conclusion that I am not going to just figuratively sit around and wait for myself to get used to missionary life but that I am going to act and bring myself more swiftly to it. I am going to submit to the will of the Father.
There is a quote from Neil A. Maxwell that goes as follows,
"In conclusion, the submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we “give,” brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!"
I am so very grateful for the life I enjoyed back home, but I recognize that it was given to me from my loving Father in Heaven. I am also so grateful for the amazing opportunity I have to pay my Heavenly Father partially back for the immense blessings I have been given.
I bare this simple testimony to all of you that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ. I know that to be true. I now know...without a shadow of a doubt, without the ability to even conjour up a single sense on uncertainty, that that statement is true. And I say that in the name of our Savior and Redeemer, our loving Brother, Jesus Christ, Amen.
-Elder Pricer
Picture:
We're setting a goal starting today to take a picture once a day. Hope you liked this one though lol.
I knew that serving a mission was the right road to travel on when those many roads diverged in a yellow wood following high school, but for some ignorant reason I assumed that I could just throw up my hands for these two years and say "Jesus take the wheel" and find myself coasting through these two years and miraculously come quickly to the end of it. I have never had such an incorrect inclination of the future in my whole life. If my previous letters have not made it clear enough, this is hard. Hands down the hardest thing I have had to do in my whole life. Nothing comes close enough to even contest it. However, in the weirdest way possible, I am starting to love it. That has not come through a natural or inheret transition of mindset but through much toil and riggor. I am doing my best to rediscover happiness out here and am relying on faith more than I ever have. I am killing my inner natural man, and sadly that cannot be done in a month so I am continually having to starve him out.
There was a cool leason I learned today about adjusting to new enviroments and coping with life adjustments. We were helping a man move soil into his back yard by loading up wheel barrels and dumping it into his back yard. The wheel barrel that I was using had a very annoying squeaking sound emit from it whenever I was rolling it around that resembled a loud cry in my imagination. To try and silence the sound I sort of played around with the way in which I positioned the wheel barrel while I was using it. I tilted it a little to the left and then the right, I tilted it a like more forward and then a little backward, and just experimented with any way I could think of so that I could console this wimpering wheel barrel. Eventually I found a position to wheel it that finally silenced the cry. Then it sort if hit me, that principle I had just practiced was very similar to one I am currently putting into place in my life as a new missionary. Something I been implementing in my own life is the principle of being proactive instead of reactive. I have very much been experimenting with new ways to console myself as I take on this lifestyle change. Whether it be how I work out in the morning, how I wind down before bed, or even how I occupy my thoughts. I have come to the conclusion that I am not going to just figuratively sit around and wait for myself to get used to missionary life but that I am going to act and bring myself more swiftly to it. I am going to submit to the will of the Father.
There is a quote from Neil A. Maxwell that goes as follows,
"In conclusion, the submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we “give,” brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!"
I am so very grateful for the life I enjoyed back home, but I recognize that it was given to me from my loving Father in Heaven. I am also so grateful for the amazing opportunity I have to pay my Heavenly Father partially back for the immense blessings I have been given.
I bare this simple testimony to all of you that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ. I know that to be true. I now know...without a shadow of a doubt, without the ability to even conjour up a single sense on uncertainty, that that statement is true. And I say that in the name of our Savior and Redeemer, our loving Brother, Jesus Christ, Amen.
-Elder Pricer
Picture:
We're setting a goal starting today to take a picture once a day. Hope you liked this one though lol.
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