Walking on.. netting

Best Sunday ever!  And 1/4 of the time up. 1/100 of who I want to be.

When you're a missionary you have the privilege of attending three primary programs in one Sunday, it was with out a doubt the most entertaining Sunday of my mission.  I learned a lot of good lessons from those kids, especially when you have a resounding chorus of "Scripture Power!!".  There was one little kid about 4 years old, and you could barely see his face over the podium.  He was wearing a sky blue bow tie and big black glasses.  It was really one of the cutest things I'd ever seen.

Right so since some of the letter most of you don't have time to read I'll get to the interesting stuff. 

6 months almost gone!  It is time for me to set some goals for the upcoming months.  I feel like this is the greatest time in my life to learn and to grow.  There was an interesting phenomenon this afternoon.  We were next to a Sonic and some music was blasting and I didn't know the song!  Even weirder was I didn't want to know the song, it just wasn't important to me.  The world really is turning around me and I'm just standing in one place.

This afternoon Elder Marco and I decided to test our walking on water skills.  The house we're staying at has a net to protect children from drowning and apparently you can drive a car over it.  Elder Marco and I thought "I wonder if we can walk/roll across the whole net and not get wet?".  The answer from the pictures is pretty obvious, if I tried to roll across it I would definitely be breaking a rule.

I need to repent.  This past week not one but three mothers of missionaries told me that they hate it when their questions aren't answered, and I realized that I have not been answering my mother's questions.  Last week she asked what are some things I would like to have in my own family some day, which made me really think.  There are a few things I've learned.

    First is that as a Future parent I want my kids to know I love them and that Heavenly Father does too.  In all the homes we go in, that is the number one thing that I admire is when children know that their parents love them.  It also seems to be a good sign of how strong the family will be later in life.

     Second I want my children to know how to work in whatever they do, and make it fun.  It is a lesson that my Dad took a lot of time trying to explain to me.  Work can be fun if you just have the right attitude.

     Third and one of the most important is I want to allow my kids to fail.  I mean that in the most loving way.  When we teach children some of their parents have become so disruptive to their learning that we can't ask a question without the kid turning to the parent and waiting for their parents to answer for them.  It is painful to watch as the child's brain is so under utilized as they sit and have thoughtless information go in their ears and out their mouth with out even the slightest amount of consideration for the importance of what was said.  If they were allowed to answer the question as they wanted too, and then we helped them to see how their answer is right or could be improved their understanding and appreciation for what is taught greatly increases.  With out experiencing failure they will never know success.

Mormon.org!

The worms are coming out of the wood.  By that I mean the reality that people really don't know what a Mormon is blows me away.  As the campaign is picking up steam more and more people on the street are asking us questions and you see how little they really know about us.  One woman we spoke with honestly thought Mormon's was spelled "More men".  It can be almost frustrating that something as simple as a nickname can cause so much confusion.  Goodness!  We do almost everything else other people do, we just base all of what we do on the teachings and belief in Jesus Christ.  Is that so strange?  Maybe if everyone would just come and see they would understand a little more about who we are.

I love everyone back at home and where ever you are.  Hope you have a wonderful Halloween.  Till next week this is

Elder Davidson

Signing off.

Much love <3

(photos to be posted)

Best Sunday ever!  And 1/4 of the time up. 1/100 of who I want to be.

 

When you're a missionary you have the privilege of attending three primary programs in one Sunday, it was without a doubt the most entertaining Sunday of my mission.  I learned a lot of good lessons from those kids, especially when you have a resounding chorus of "Scripture Power!!".  There was one little kid about 4 years old, and you could barely see his face over the podium.  He was wearing a sky blue bow tie and big black glasses.  It was really one of the cutest things I'd ever seen.

 

Right so since some of the letter most of you don't have time to read I'll get to the interesting stuff. 

 

6 months almost gone!  It is time for me to set some goals for the upcoming months.  I feel like this is the greatest time in my life to learn and to grow.  There was an interesting phenomenon this afternoon.  We were next to a Sonic and some music was blasting and I didn't know the song!  Even weirder was I didn't want to know the song, it just wasn't important to me.  The world really is turning around me and I'm just standing in one place.

 

This afternoon Elder Marco and I decided to test our walking on water skills.  The house we're staying at has a net to protect children from drowning and apparently you can drive a car over it.  Elder Marco and I thought "I wonder if we can walk/roll across the whole net and not get wet?".  The answer from the pictures is pretty obvious, if I tried to roll across it I would definitely be breaking a rule.

 

I need to repent.  This past week not one but three mothers of missionaries told me that they hate it when their questions aren't answered, and I realized that I have not been answering my Mothers questions.  Last week she asked what are some things I would like to have in my own family some day, which made me really think.  There are a few things I've learned.

 

    First is that as a Future parent I want my kids to know I love them and that Heavenly Father does too.  In all the homes we go in, that is the number one thing that I admire is when children know that their parents love them.  It also seems to be a good sign of how strong the family will be later in life.

 

     Second I want my children to know how to work in whatever they do, and make it fun.  It is a lesson that my Dad took a lot of time trying to explain to me.  Work can be fun if you just have the right attitude.

 

     Third and one of the most important is I want to allow my kids to fail.  I mean that in the most loving way.  When we teach children some of their parents have become so disruptive to their learning that we can't ask a question without the kid turning to the parent and waiting for their parents to answer for them.  It is painful to watch as the child's brain is so under utilized as they sit and have thoughtless information go in their ears and out their mouth with out even the slightest amount of consideration for the importance of what was said.  If they were allowed to answer the question as they wanted too, and then we helped them to see how their answer is right or could be improved their understanding and appreciation for what is taught greatly increases.  With out experiencing failure they will never know success.

 

Mormon.org!

The worms are coming out of the wood.  By that I mean the reality that people really don't know what a Mormon is blows me away.  As the campaign is picking up steam more and more people on the street are asking us questions and you see how little they really know about us.  One women we spoke with honestly thought Mormon's was spelled "More men".  It can be almost frustrating that something as simple as a nickname can cause so much confusion.  Goodness!  We do almost everything else other people do, we just base all of what we do on the teachings and belief in Jesus Christ.  Is that so strange?  Maybe if everyone would just come and see they would understand a little more about who we are.

 

I love everyone back at home and where ever you are.  Hope you have a wonderful Halloween.  Till next week this is

 

Elder Davidson

Signing off.

 

Much love <3

 

 

Happy week

One wonderful week.  So I had interviews with the mission president this past Tuesday, and it was a great experience.  He helped me to see that there are so many things to do in this area, that we haven't tried.  He compared missionary work to his little granddaughter who on walking into a room would immediately find something to play with.  We must be like little children totally ADD in finding something to do...no problem.

Outside of one awesome interview we had a bad rerun with someone we met last week.  He insisted on trying to convince us that he was right, asking questions made to catch us in our words, like "what do you know about the Book of Matthew?" and my personal favorite "your family is Free Mason, you just don't know it".  It was rather boring really, because we refused to get in an argument, and when he was getting really abrasive, we calmly said "we really don't like causing contention".  When we said that he immediately responded "It's not contention, I'm just getting excited".  When trying to leave, he said "by leaving you're proving me right, and you're running away from the truth."  All in all not a very fun situation.  That evening/afternoon was amazing though, we visited a less active member of the church who had been through some really trying times.  One of her friends, was literally on a bed dying.  And 3 months ago she was brutally attacked, because of the nature of the attack she felt that she couldn't go to church, and actually apologized.  I have never felt more humble than when she was asking for forgiveness in prayer and had done nothing wrong.  Those are the moments when you know that someone was lifted that day.  The rest of the evening was wonderful as I shared with someone how I feel about marriage, and she gave me some really good advice on how to make a relationship work.  It was fun because she could tell that how I felt came from what I believe.

In other news the last heat wave is supposed to be over and it should drop down to 80 sometime soon.  The other day I shamefully had goosebumps at 75 degrees.  Today Elder Marco and I are supposed to be on a hike with the rest of the Zone, but we forgot to find a ride until last night, and now we're just taking it easy the rest of the day.  We might try to play some basket ball.

Oh man I love it here in Arizona.  Every day that goes by is just another life lesson to an eternity, and that's worth a lot to me.

Totally selfish request, but if anyone is bored letters to missionaries are a good way to occupy your time :-).

Love you much,
Elder Davidson

How to make your mom feel good

Dear Friends and Family,

 

I've decided that for my first meal home I'm going to have a roast chicken made by my mom.

 

It's been a fun filled week with more or less the normal activities that take place for a missionary serving in Mesa Arizona.  This morning I got my ears cleaned, because I wasn't hearing as well, and Elder Marco and I had a good time making jokes about what we could do when the doctor came in.  He suggested we make a fort out of the medical bed and put on some paper hats so that when the doctor came in we could yell "intruders!".  We didn't end up doing anything, but it turns out the doctor is a cousin to the Dances back at home.

 

We had a wonderful little miracle this past week.  Through out the week it was going pretty slow and everyone we met was either angry with us or just plain rude.  Finally one night we said "Hi" to a guy named Marco getting out of his car and struck up a conversation.  After a while he just asked "How do you guys do this every single day?".  It was an honest question and he wanted a sincere answer.  We explained that one major reason is that we know that what we have to share with people can help them in every part of their life.  Following an exchange of information he invited us back to tell him more about what we taught.  I'm really looking forward to meeting with him this Wednesday.  His sincere question was a nice contrast to some one earlier in the day who flat out interrogated us about the bible and our beliefs, trying to prove that what we had to say was wrong.  It really made me appreciate how much it means to be sincere and kind to everyone.  Even people who don't want to hear what we have to say take the time to at least listen to me as another person rather than just ignoring us.  I hope to show more patience and understanding when I get home, because I really appreciate it from others.

 

In response to questions about if there's anything cool to do on P-day, the answer is yes if we're not dead tired.  One of the neighbors has a basket ball court where it's fun to just go and shoot some hoops.  If we had a frisbee and the temperature was lower we'd probably go out and play some ultimate.

 

The people here are wonderful.  Most of the time everyone is really happy to see us.  On occasion they'll be someone working out in their yard that could use some help, so we bike up and ask "would you like some help?".  It is funny to watch the reactions of people.  Some just ignore us, so we ask louder, others look up and politely say "no thanks", but the best is when they cut us off before we're finished asking and start yelling and waving frantically "No, No, Go away".  I never thought that people would be so afraid of two nineteen year-olds.  At the end of the day this week has been one full of personal experiences that are hard to describe with out pages and pages of text, which I'm sure would take too much time to read so for now I say farewell.

 

Love you all

Elder Davidson

Sugar overload

"Hello"

-President Thomas S. Monson

Well that was without a doubt one of the best conference sessions I've ever watched.  That may be due to the fact that it is one of the only conferences that I've stayed awake the whole time.  Some great messages that helped me get up and do some more.  I think my favorite talk was by Elder Eyring at the priesthood session.  Of course our eyebrows were all burned by Elder Holland

Any way I'm sending pictures of my companion and I for everyone to see.  There's a funny story about my companion.

Elder Marco is a very healthy eater so when he received a large package with over 16 boxes of candy he wasn't very happy.  Then in another package he got even more candy.  His birthday was on the 30th so that's why he was getting so many sweets.  Well that morning while we were planning I smelled cake coming down the hall and sure enough we came home and there was a cake sitting on his desk.  At this point he was literally dying from all the candy.  That wasn't the best part.  When we went to dinner that night the family pulled out a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate ice cream.  By the end of the day he was just dead.

In other news we've reached Oct 1st and it is still over 100 degrees.  I'm starting to doubt that I'll ever feel cold again.

The work in this new area is really picking up.  Most of the whole area is residential and not a lot of new people around.  That being said I've found that usually the most unhappy people are the ones that live in big houses and have cars and almost everything they need.  They will usually be the first to complain about some little thing where as in the apartments and trailers there was one guy who was sick, his motorcycle got stolen from his stall in a trailer, and yet he was still happy.  It made me think a little bit more about what I thought was going through a hard time.

I guess the biggest thing I learned this week is to drink from the scriptures, because they can be your best friends.

To all friends and Family I love you all and look forward to another great week.

-Love Elder Davidson