Date
January 25, 2016
Hey, Joe!
It's been an all right week. I'm getting better at working with my new companion, and he is a lot of fun.
We OYMed some really big houses, because we actually have some super rich property in our area. I had a blast, because Elder is really good at irony.
He looked at a house, and saw that there were six cars in the driveway. and a golf cart. Then he turned to me and told me: "Welp, there's obviously no one in that house, because there's only six cars."
I've run into some funny situations with OYMing, or basically, talking to strangers to try to share our message, or knocking on doors to try to share our message. One:
A guy walked past us. The thing that Filipinos like to do, for some reason, is say "Hey Joe!" to every person with white skin. I think they are intending to mean it as a way to make fun or something, but it never feels that way.
One guy is walking past us, he sees me and then turns into a broken record: "Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe!"
So I turn towards him and say:
"Kumusta Kayo?"
He responds by saying "Hey-ey!" laughing, and then cusses me off with the F-word. Elder was laughing very hard that night. And the next day. And the day after. And right now...
Another experience: We knocked on a house. We hear scurrying, and then a child comes out on the balcony. He shouts (in Tagalog of course): "Dad isn't here. You'll have to come back another day." I accept it, but want to know where I am, so I shout up: "What address is this?"
The child struggles for a few minutes, then turns around and shouts into the house: "Dad, what address is this?"
...
We knocked on a different house. An old lady came out. She asked what we wanted, so I began by introducing ourselves and saying we were missionaries. I was in the middle of asking if we could share with her when she shouted out to us: "AY! We're all sick! We have diarrhea! Do you want diarrhea? No? Well then Goodbye!"
Finally, we knocked on a house, and we heard a window open. We looked up and a man looked out at us. We had said nothing, and he said nothing. He simply shook his head and waved his hand, and shook and waved and shook and waved until we turned and left. That was the first silent OYM I've ever had. He said nothing and somehow gave us no chance to say anything...
I also had been beating myself up.
I make mistakes all the time, and feel that every mistake costs another soul, every mistake means I've failed to bring happiness. Because of my imperfection, they turned away from the perfect message...
which made me sad. I felt that perhaps I would be accountable when these people found out eventually that they had missed the truth, that because of my mistakes and sins I would not be able to gain all the blessings of God. I felt that some sins and mistakes don't allow for forgiveness...
But then, in stark contrast, I begin to understand things a little clearer. I do not doubt that forgiveness is available, that I can repent. I do not fear that blessings are lost permanently, for I realize now, that if the top could, now, never, in all eternity, be achieved, what purpose would there be in continuing to progress? If, because of what you've done, you will never be able to get a passing grade, what purpose is there in continuing to study? I feel more than ever that the true message is exemplified by peace, by hope, by faith, by happiness, by courage and no fear.
Faith is opposed by doubt, and always will be, which means that whenever you have doubt, you have less faith.
But Faith is central to the gospel, it is the first step and that which carries you through all of them. I should not doubt what the Lord can do, for all can be done by him, and if he can split the red sea through the faith of Moses, he can retrieve me from these sins, and lead me to perfection and exaltation, with my faith. It is my doubt, and that alone, which will prevent this.
Funny enough I have always hated cynicism. I hate the world's constant efforts to throw dirt on heroes in history, to darken fairy tales, to make muddy our perception of the world, to display endless scenes of hopelessness, to laugh at anything out there which says: "There is good, there is kindness, there is Christ in every soul. He lives, He loves, He hopes for all to know that through him there is peace, that through him there is love, that through him there is healing, and the greatest of feelings! Rejoice! Become clean! Become holy! Become free!"
I hate the voice that says: "It's too good to be true, so it must not be real." Why must we mock the thought that a man can become better? Why do we doubt that those we meet could be kind? Why must we focus on the dirt, and the doubt, and the darkness, and, in pride at our depression because we proved ourselves right, in grim satisfaction at our destruction of heroes and ideals, dub these things as "reality"? Why must we say that THIS perception is "realism?”
Somehow we don't see, that when you throw dirt onto something it will become dirty. So we throw dirt onto it, and then look at it and say: Wow! Look how dirty that is. I told you it was nasty.
Somehow we think that it counts if we say beforehand "My wound isn't healed," then go and look at the wound, and then when we see it looks healed, pry it open to make sure it's healed. We pull our hands away and look at the wound and see it is red and open and ugly, and say, “I told you! I told you! It isn't healed, see?”
Somehow we do as Dieter F. Uchtdorf said: We unplug the spotlight, and then look and say that it isn't giving light, just as we said it wasn't, and are pleased and gratified in our pride because we were right.
We don't see to see that we made it that way!
And yet that is exactly what I had been doing.
So I will not doubt. I will not fear. I know that all can be obtained, for if it were not so, what a terrible waste was the infinite and eternal Atonement of Jesus Christ.
From,
Elder Streeter
We OYMed some really big houses, because we actually have some super rich property in our area. I had a blast, because Elder is really good at irony.
He looked at a house, and saw that there were six cars in the driveway. and a golf cart. Then he turned to me and told me: "Welp, there's obviously no one in that house, because there's only six cars."
I've run into some funny situations with OYMing, or basically, talking to strangers to try to share our message, or knocking on doors to try to share our message. One:
A guy walked past us. The thing that Filipinos like to do, for some reason, is say "Hey Joe!" to every person with white skin. I think they are intending to mean it as a way to make fun or something, but it never feels that way.
One guy is walking past us, he sees me and then turns into a broken record: "Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe!"
So I turn towards him and say:
"Kumusta Kayo?"
He responds by saying "Hey-ey!" laughing, and then cusses me off with the F-word. Elder was laughing very hard that night. And the next day. And the day after. And right now...
Another experience: We knocked on a house. We hear scurrying, and then a child comes out on the balcony. He shouts (in Tagalog of course): "Dad isn't here. You'll have to come back another day." I accept it, but want to know where I am, so I shout up: "What address is this?"
The child struggles for a few minutes, then turns around and shouts into the house: "Dad, what address is this?"
...
We knocked on a different house. An old lady came out. She asked what we wanted, so I began by introducing ourselves and saying we were missionaries. I was in the middle of asking if we could share with her when she shouted out to us: "AY! We're all sick! We have diarrhea! Do you want diarrhea? No? Well then Goodbye!"
Finally, we knocked on a house, and we heard a window open. We looked up and a man looked out at us. We had said nothing, and he said nothing. He simply shook his head and waved his hand, and shook and waved and shook and waved until we turned and left. That was the first silent OYM I've ever had. He said nothing and somehow gave us no chance to say anything...
I also had been beating myself up.
I make mistakes all the time, and feel that every mistake costs another soul, every mistake means I've failed to bring happiness. Because of my imperfection, they turned away from the perfect message...
which made me sad. I felt that perhaps I would be accountable when these people found out eventually that they had missed the truth, that because of my mistakes and sins I would not be able to gain all the blessings of God. I felt that some sins and mistakes don't allow for forgiveness...
But then, in stark contrast, I begin to understand things a little clearer. I do not doubt that forgiveness is available, that I can repent. I do not fear that blessings are lost permanently, for I realize now, that if the top could, now, never, in all eternity, be achieved, what purpose would there be in continuing to progress? If, because of what you've done, you will never be able to get a passing grade, what purpose is there in continuing to study? I feel more than ever that the true message is exemplified by peace, by hope, by faith, by happiness, by courage and no fear.
Faith is opposed by doubt, and always will be, which means that whenever you have doubt, you have less faith.
But Faith is central to the gospel, it is the first step and that which carries you through all of them. I should not doubt what the Lord can do, for all can be done by him, and if he can split the red sea through the faith of Moses, he can retrieve me from these sins, and lead me to perfection and exaltation, with my faith. It is my doubt, and that alone, which will prevent this.
Funny enough I have always hated cynicism. I hate the world's constant efforts to throw dirt on heroes in history, to darken fairy tales, to make muddy our perception of the world, to display endless scenes of hopelessness, to laugh at anything out there which says: "There is good, there is kindness, there is Christ in every soul. He lives, He loves, He hopes for all to know that through him there is peace, that through him there is love, that through him there is healing, and the greatest of feelings! Rejoice! Become clean! Become holy! Become free!"
I hate the voice that says: "It's too good to be true, so it must not be real." Why must we mock the thought that a man can become better? Why do we doubt that those we meet could be kind? Why must we focus on the dirt, and the doubt, and the darkness, and, in pride at our depression because we proved ourselves right, in grim satisfaction at our destruction of heroes and ideals, dub these things as "reality"? Why must we say that THIS perception is "realism?”
Somehow we don't see, that when you throw dirt onto something it will become dirty. So we throw dirt onto it, and then look at it and say: Wow! Look how dirty that is. I told you it was nasty.
Somehow we think that it counts if we say beforehand "My wound isn't healed," then go and look at the wound, and then when we see it looks healed, pry it open to make sure it's healed. We pull our hands away and look at the wound and see it is red and open and ugly, and say, “I told you! I told you! It isn't healed, see?”
Somehow we do as Dieter F. Uchtdorf said: We unplug the spotlight, and then look and say that it isn't giving light, just as we said it wasn't, and are pleased and gratified in our pride because we were right.
We don't see to see that we made it that way!
And yet that is exactly what I had been doing.
So I will not doubt. I will not fear. I know that all can be obtained, for if it were not so, what a terrible waste was the infinite and eternal Atonement of Jesus Christ.
From,
Elder Streeter
