Week Four: Level Up

Tad Callister

     Highlights of the week: Meeting Tad R. Callister. He came to a devotional and you should have seen me sprint down to say hi and shake his hand. Oh baby, oh baby. He's a lawyer and just lays everything out so plainly for you and I love it. He's given some great BYU Devotionals on Integrity and Divine Potential. Highly recommended reads. Things to look forward to: Elder Holland's visit for devotional this week and the Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting on June 23rd, where yours truly will be singing in the choir with the Quorum of the12 themselves. Look for me. 

     Turns out Rachel May knows Elder Herring from my district. Small world. He says hi and that you're 'sick'. Isn't that so Elder Herring? He's great though. I hosted new missionaries this week, meaning I escorted them from their cars to get all their stuff, put their bags away, and took them to their classes, where they get a companion and their teacher takes over from there. I ran into Michael Hueffner's brother Kevin (?) who apparently is a Japanese teacher.

 And I found out that Elder Anderson, one of my favorite Elders in our building, heading to Montreal this week, is the victim of a popular YouTube spoof.  (By the way He got 40,000 hits overnight and almost went on Good Morning America for it.)

Sister Swenson and I get along great and she's been participating a lot more in lessons, which is so helpful. Our companionship inventories are pretty much just us complimenting each other. Which, believe you me, is not something I need in my life. I am on a mission to learn humility and I feel like it's coming in full force soon. A lot of other companionships have problems they are dealing with that they have to solve, but as Sister Swenson put it, "We're like the Sacred Grove in a world of trouble."

 And that we are.

 Elder Lago complimented my humor this week, saying it's perfect missionary humor. There's a few things I think he's referring to when he says that, my favorite of which is when everyone starts chatting about dumb things for a few minutes and then I say loudly "OKAY, I'M STARTING PERSONAL STUDY NOW." And then they all shape up and realize, oh yeah, we have stuff to do. Or when they use slang or whatever and I say "Whoa, whoa, whoa. We're missionaries." It's a good reminder and the only way I can think to make obedience cool. There you have it. I don't like being a stickler, but I'm here to work. As Elder Leavitt quoted, "You can't leave footprints in the sands of time by sitting on you bum all day. And who wants to leave bum prints in the sands of time?" Not I, said the little red hen.

   

     During class, we often enjoy laughing like the typical evil Frenchman and twirling invisible mustaches. One day, Frere Smith came in as an investigator for another class with what little mustache he could muster over the weekend. We saw him, so he had to explain. He loves the mustache. It's so much power on one lip. What dictators do you know without a mustache? Not many. Think about it. Makes sense.

      I gotta thank all the people who sent me packages. We have nightly parties where we try to eat all the food we have between the 10 of us and all our packages. The PB Captain Crunch comes to breakfast every morning and is passed down the table. I think everyone asked for a box or something. But it's delicious-almost as good as the eternal Life they have here. One day, Elder Leavitt kept accidently calling me Elder Hutchins on accident and a few different people called him Sister Leavitt, so we kept joking around that we switched genders for the day. But the funny thing was-at the end of the day, I got a package slip addressed to Elder Hutchins. We cracked up. Taped that in my journal. 

     When they converted the MTC to hold more sister missionaries, they just changed the signs on some of the bathrooms. A bathroom in our building has two stalls and a urinal because it used to be the men's room. Let's just say I crossed one more thing off my MTC bucket list.

      And a piece of my tooth fell off this week. It's not really noticeable and I think it was a dead part anyways that just finally fell off, so I'm not really worried about it, but at the same time, I'm worried about it. I can't have all my teeth falling out all the time-then what will I floss? I will have Brother Kitley know I floss my teeth AT LEAST once a day. Usually twice.

      We had a substitute guy in charge of service this week, so we requested trashes again. We got to pop a bunch of  bubble wrap and then we got Sister Berge and Sister Huckstep and pushed each other around in the trash cans. Hey, someone here has to have fun and it might as well be me. We also cleaned water fountains and he forgot to give us gloves so I may or may not have gotten a blister on my hand from chemical exposure. Oh well.

     Let me just mention that language is a beautiful thing. There are different phrases you get in French that give you a different perspective on things. D&C 18:21 in French says "Prenez sur vous le nom du Christ et dites la verite avec simplicite." BTW-busted that out from memory. The difference is that you teach the gospel with simplicity instead of soberness. Also, God speaks to our spirits instead of our minds. And in the hymn "Now Let Us Rejoice"

, the last line says, "A tout Israel, Jesus offre un foyer", which means to all Isreal, Jesus offers a home. I had a Lauren Bellon reaction here: That's so cute.  

     

     Ann Clegg talked to us in Relief Society and told us to BE BOLD and EXPECT MIRACLES, which are two things I recommend as missionaries. These are some of my goals to constantly work on. I also listened to a talk on recognizing the spirit by David A. Bednar. If you're wondering how you tell if that voice in your head is the spirit or just you, STOP WORRYING ABOUT IT. Does it really matter if the voice is telling you to do good? David A. can't even tell! You know afterwards when you see the effects of what could have happened. He told the story of when he was a missionary and handed Elder Packer some money in Germany, detailed in Elder Packer's talk "20 Mark Note". It reminded me of a few times, but mostly of when I told mom I didn't want to drive to a basketball tournament one weekend. I'll leave you with two thoughts. One, quoted by President Mangum. He said "Faith in God can move mountains, but don't be surprised when he hands you a shovel to do it." The second, is from Preach My Gospel, and a tidbit I gleaned while preparing a district lesson yesterday. It says the gift of the spirit is a "foretaste of eternal joy". I challenge anyone reading this to think about how true that statement is. And get to work sharing that with others.