Don't Bury Your Talent
May 31, 2021
Bonjour tout le monde!
Alright, I’ll do my best to keep filling in the rest of the highlights from this past month, but I’ll also try to keep things fairly brief, so wish me luck!
We’ve spent a lot of time trying to find more people to teach, as missionaries do, and we met a really awesome guy named Ian who absolutely loves rocks - like he has literal tons of them in his backyard and it is so cool! For those of you who may not know, I also like rocks. I don’t have a crazy collection or anything, but I’ve always found them to be fascinating and I’ve collected a decent amount of them throughout my life and even on my mission. I’ll include some of the pictures of the rocks that Ian has in this email, but I really can’t emphasize how many rocks he has. He said he has about 15 tons of rocks, and the stuff I’ve seen in his backyard isn’t even half of his collection. The craziest thing is that Ian got pretty much all of these rocks in just the past few months through an ad on craigslist and some friends and now he’s been scrambling to figure out where he’s going to put all of these rocks and how to get all of the equipment he needs to start selling it for a profit. There was a really cool miracle when we stopped by one day and right as we knocked on their door Ian actually pulled up in his pickup truck with a massive rock saw in his flat bed. He's actually broken his back twice in his life so he had no idea of how he was going to unload the 300 lbs saw by himself, but lo and behold there we were! It was clearly a tender mercy, and Ian also recognized it!
We had another exchange in the past few weeks, but this time it was up here in Oakhurst! I’m happy to say that it was just as awesome as our last one down in Madera, and we ended up finding four new people to teach in one day which is honestly unheard of up here! One of those people was a guy named Michael, and he is honestly the coolest. He came to church the week that we met him, and, get this, he walked two miles to get there! We’ve talked with him about the Book of Mormon and he’s super open to learning more, so we’ll see how things progress! The coolest thing to see though is just how many interests we share. I know for a fact that God knows and loves each of his children perfectly, and that he uses our unique talents and abilities to bless the lives of others. There are people around you that have been put in your path because your personality and love is exactly what they need. If you pray sincerely to Heavenly Father, he will guide you through his Spirit to find them!
On a somewhat related note, I want to say a little bit about comparison. It can be really easy to compare yourself to others, especially in today’s world with social media and everything else, but I can say with absolute certainty that comparison is of the devil. It is the thief of all joy. I have had so much more joy in my life since coming on a mission and learning how to better focus on the things that really matter. There is a quote that I heard during the meeting where I first met my trainer that has stuck with me. There are only two comparisons that really matter, you to your past self and you to the Savior. Obviously none of us are perfect like the Savior was, but what matters is that we keep on trying and that we can learn to recognize and appreciate the progress we make each day as we use the matchless gift of his Atonement.
One last cool side note is that there is a member in our ward who loves bow hunting, and he let me and Elder Bryce come over and practice some archery and it was so much fun! I’ll through in some of the pictures below, I’m happy to say that I wasn’t half bad it either (I guess all of that gamepigeon archery is good practice haha
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