Alright you guys, what a week haha. The time is actually flying by, Less than two years to go baby!!! This email might be a bit long but I promise that you’ll feel the spirit if you read it all. JUST KIDDING most of this email is just funny stuff that happened this week so if you like true comedy, you can read it haha. Don’t worry though, I’ll add a spiritual thought at the end so you can all walk away feeling spiritually edified. My emails won’t be this long in the field, but I’m very bored and have a lot of time on my hands soooooo I figure why not just tell you guys everything haha.
1 - Meeting my district
2 - Music problems
3 - Serving the people of park city
4 - Zoom experience
5 - New investigator
6 - Testimony
1 - This week was actually really neat and I have some funny/cool experiences to share. So last P-day me and my district met up in person. It was the weirdest thing ever. After staring at their faces for two weeks and seeing them in person, it felt like meeting celebrities. But it was also whack because you don’t know how tall each elder is on the zoom call, and you just subsciously assume they’re a certain height based on the length of their face so seeing their actual heights was terrifying. To prepare myself mentally, I tried to ask how tall everyone was, but I mixed up two of the elders who told me their heights. I thought Elder Nelson was 5’4’’, and Elder Willis was 6’4’’, when in reality elder nelson is a giant and elder willis looks like a little irishman. Anywho, a lot of our P-day was spent with me just trying to comprehend that mixup.
2 - Another funny thing this week has been my music. So as you all prolly know I can’t go a day without listening to all my favorite songs, but have had to for the past couple weeks because I’m a missionary. On Sunday, I listened to music for the first time in two weeks, and it was “For The Beauty of the Earth” by MoTab (or TabCoAtTempSq). It brought tears to my eyes haha. I’ve never heard anything so beautiful in mi vida. But in my library, the song that plays right after “for the beauty of the earth” is “The Force Theme” by a band called “Galactic Empire”. Galactic Empire is a band that just does remixes of star wars music but it’s all heavy metal guitar, so right after I’m feeling the peace of Motab, galactic empire comes in insanely loud playing irreverent music and every time I get a mini heart attack. It gets me every time.
3 - So in my email last week I mentioned how I wanted to do a better job of “representing Christ”, which I got the opportunity to prove it this week. So my whole fam and extended family was headed up to park city to the marriott mountainside resort, and since I can’t be alone and my grandparents were going too, I had to come up as well. I had LOTS of opportunity to get weird looks. In the lobby my gpa asked me to stay with our luggage while he got the room keys, so I was standing right by the elevators for 15 minutes while lots of people moved in and out. One kid whispered very loudly to his mom “mom, look, it’s a missionary!”. Not gonna lie for a second I felt like superman, the way he said it. But most people just looked at my nametag, looked at me, and then tried to avoid interacting with me in fear that I would try and give them a book of mormon or challenge them to be baptized. Even a baby someone was holding, no joke stared at my nametag for a sec, and then looked at me directly in the eyes in the most judgmental way possible. I was like “what the heck kid” but I got over it real quick so don’t worry. But I stopped minding it. I’ve had a whole hotel room to myself, so it’s nice and quiet and I’m mostly just in there most of the day. I do have to walk through the main area of the hotel to get food at my grandparents room, so I see random people then. The other day I was going to get food, and no joke there were like 10-15 girls my age in bikinis about to go swimming or something gathered right through the area I was about to walk through. I stopped, not knowing what to do, and they all looked at me. A couple of them started giggling and whispering, and I wanted to die. I couldn’t just walk away, so I said something hilarious like “howdy” and walked through them trying to stare straight ahead and avoid any sort of eye contact. It was horrible. I need a companion. My older bro Joe came in town for the week though, so in the mornings we went and played frisbee. Joseph also was able to share with me a lot of stuff to help me on the mission. If you watched “The House” video, you saw how desperate he was to teach me. If anything this week our roles got flipped. He was sitting on the couch (lazy bum) on his phone, while I was in a white shirt and tie asking him when we could go over stuff. Dad, you need to put a time limit for “mutual” on his phone. That app is bad news.
4 - As far as zoom goes, this week was also pretty good. I had a call with one of my teachers yesterday and she told me that I’m “the leader of the group” and that when I’m focused spiritually, so is everyone else. Buttt, when I’m not focused nobody else is either. I think I got everyone’s respect when I beat them in spikeball and ultimate frisbee last week, but I agree that I seem to be able to control the dynamic of the group pretty well. So I need to be more focused haha. There’s this light behind me in my hotel room that I pretend to eat during class, and I guess that can be distracting too.
One elder made a meme about it.
Since I’m the one known for having fun, when someone else takes it too far, everyone thinks it’s me. I’m pretty good at knowing when to have fun and when to be serious most of the time. Yesterday Hermana Israelson was sharing her screen with us going over spanish, and some dude (cough cough elder farley) posted the entire “tragedy of darth plagueis the wise” all over the screen. If you don’t know what I’m talking about go watch revenge of the sith or just google “tragedy of darth plagueis the wise”. It’s a tragic story haha. Normally I would have thought that to be hilarious, but she was already annoyed with us so that about did it. She stopped screen sharing and looked at all of us and it was dead silent. Then elder snow was like “my money’s on elder wride” and I was like “I swear it wasn’t me” but nobody believed me and then I interrogated everyone and found out it was elder farley. Then (don’t tell elder f) I messaged hermana israelson and ratted him out haha. Had to clear my name.
5 - Alright it’s time to get spiritual. So this week my dad was on whatsapp with someone from my older brother Jose’s mission who speaks spanish, so my dad told me to say something in spanish. I told him my missionary purpose in spanish and then at the end challenged him to be baptized for whatever reason. He’s not a member of the church, but made good progress with joe while he was down there. Anywho, one thing led to another and next thing you know me and elder H were teaching him in spanish. My spanish is honestly not bad. We talked the whole time in just spanish, and at the end we asked him if he had any other questions. He said no, so I said “como podemos ayudarle a prepararse para el bautismo?” Or in english, how can we help you prepare for baptism? I mean if he had no questions, it made sense to ask him that. We talked about it for a bit more, and I told him to read 2 nephi 31 and pray to God if he should get baptized. We are gonna follow up with him next week. If he says yes, i have no idea what we’re gonna do.
6 - This week like the last two has been one of the strongest times I’ve felt the spirit. It’s also been some of the most temptation I’ve ever felt in my life. Me and my man Elder Hansen were talking about this too. We both thought that becoming a missionary would save us from temptation, or at least decrease it. I thought it would be easier I guess, but sadly have discovered that it is wayyyyyyy harder. Satan knows the good that missionaries do, and he’s still gonna give it all he’s got. That’s why now, more than ever, I need to do those things every day that invite the spirit, because I got little devils trying to get at me every single day and if I’m not constantly nourishing my testimony, I’m gonna lose it. Thomas S. Monson said “Regarding one’s testimony, remember, that which one willingly shares he keeps, while that which he selfishly keeps he loses. . . . Teach and testify. There is no better combination.”
1 - Meeting my district
2 - Music problems
3 - Serving the people of park city
4 - Zoom experience
5 - New investigator
6 - Testimony
1 - This week was actually really neat and I have some funny/cool experiences to share. So last P-day me and my district met up in person. It was the weirdest thing ever. After staring at their faces for two weeks and seeing them in person, it felt like meeting celebrities. But it was also whack because you don’t know how tall each elder is on the zoom call, and you just subsciously assume they’re a certain height based on the length of their face so seeing their actual heights was terrifying. To prepare myself mentally, I tried to ask how tall everyone was, but I mixed up two of the elders who told me their heights. I thought Elder Nelson was 5’4’’, and Elder Willis was 6’4’’, when in reality elder nelson is a giant and elder willis looks like a little irishman. Anywho, a lot of our P-day was spent with me just trying to comprehend that mixup.
2 - Another funny thing this week has been my music. So as you all prolly know I can’t go a day without listening to all my favorite songs, but have had to for the past couple weeks because I’m a missionary. On Sunday, I listened to music for the first time in two weeks, and it was “For The Beauty of the Earth” by MoTab (or TabCoAtTempSq). It brought tears to my eyes haha. I’ve never heard anything so beautiful in mi vida. But in my library, the song that plays right after “for the beauty of the earth” is “The Force Theme” by a band called “Galactic Empire”. Galactic Empire is a band that just does remixes of star wars music but it’s all heavy metal guitar, so right after I’m feeling the peace of Motab, galactic empire comes in insanely loud playing irreverent music and every time I get a mini heart attack. It gets me every time.
3 - So in my email last week I mentioned how I wanted to do a better job of “representing Christ”, which I got the opportunity to prove it this week. So my whole fam and extended family was headed up to park city to the marriott mountainside resort, and since I can’t be alone and my grandparents were going too, I had to come up as well. I had LOTS of opportunity to get weird looks. In the lobby my gpa asked me to stay with our luggage while he got the room keys, so I was standing right by the elevators for 15 minutes while lots of people moved in and out. One kid whispered very loudly to his mom “mom, look, it’s a missionary!”. Not gonna lie for a second I felt like superman, the way he said it. But most people just looked at my nametag, looked at me, and then tried to avoid interacting with me in fear that I would try and give them a book of mormon or challenge them to be baptized. Even a baby someone was holding, no joke stared at my nametag for a sec, and then looked at me directly in the eyes in the most judgmental way possible. I was like “what the heck kid” but I got over it real quick so don’t worry. But I stopped minding it. I’ve had a whole hotel room to myself, so it’s nice and quiet and I’m mostly just in there most of the day. I do have to walk through the main area of the hotel to get food at my grandparents room, so I see random people then. The other day I was going to get food, and no joke there were like 10-15 girls my age in bikinis about to go swimming or something gathered right through the area I was about to walk through. I stopped, not knowing what to do, and they all looked at me. A couple of them started giggling and whispering, and I wanted to die. I couldn’t just walk away, so I said something hilarious like “howdy” and walked through them trying to stare straight ahead and avoid any sort of eye contact. It was horrible. I need a companion. My older bro Joe came in town for the week though, so in the mornings we went and played frisbee. Joseph also was able to share with me a lot of stuff to help me on the mission. If you watched “The House” video, you saw how desperate he was to teach me. If anything this week our roles got flipped. He was sitting on the couch (lazy bum) on his phone, while I was in a white shirt and tie asking him when we could go over stuff. Dad, you need to put a time limit for “mutual” on his phone. That app is bad news.
4 - As far as zoom goes, this week was also pretty good. I had a call with one of my teachers yesterday and she told me that I’m “the leader of the group” and that when I’m focused spiritually, so is everyone else. Buttt, when I’m not focused nobody else is either. I think I got everyone’s respect when I beat them in spikeball and ultimate frisbee last week, but I agree that I seem to be able to control the dynamic of the group pretty well. So I need to be more focused haha. There’s this light behind me in my hotel room that I pretend to eat during class, and I guess that can be distracting too.
5 - Alright it’s time to get spiritual. So this week my dad was on whatsapp with someone from my older brother Jose’s mission who speaks spanish, so my dad told me to say something in spanish. I told him my missionary purpose in spanish and then at the end challenged him to be baptized for whatever reason. He’s not a member of the church, but made good progress with joe while he was down there. Anywho, one thing led to another and next thing you know me and elder H were teaching him in spanish. My spanish is honestly not bad. We talked the whole time in just spanish, and at the end we asked him if he had any other questions. He said no, so I said “como podemos ayudarle a prepararse para el bautismo?” Or in english, how can we help you prepare for baptism? I mean if he had no questions, it made sense to ask him that. We talked about it for a bit more, and I told him to read 2 nephi 31 and pray to God if he should get baptized. We are gonna follow up with him next week. If he says yes, i have no idea what we’re gonna do.
6 - This week like the last two has been one of the strongest times I’ve felt the spirit. It’s also been some of the most temptation I’ve ever felt in my life. Me and my man Elder Hansen were talking about this too. We both thought that becoming a missionary would save us from temptation, or at least decrease it. I thought it would be easier I guess, but sadly have discovered that it is wayyyyyyy harder. Satan knows the good that missionaries do, and he’s still gonna give it all he’s got. That’s why now, more than ever, I need to do those things every day that invite the spirit, because I got little devils trying to get at me every single day and if I’m not constantly nourishing my testimony, I’m gonna lose it. Thomas S. Monson said “Regarding one’s testimony, remember, that which one willingly shares he keeps, while that which he selfishly keeps he loses. . . . Teach and testify. There is no better combination.”
I know that I will be able to resist temptation during my mission. I’ve been living a certain way my whole life, so Satan will have a lot harder time getting at me through that. His most effective way to keep me from sharing the gospel is by keeping me from opening my mouth. If I don’t share my testimony, I’m gonna forget I have one. I’m here to preach the gospel, and it needs to be something I’m always doing. It remind me of a scripture from JSH that says,
“It seems as though the adversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom; else why should the powers of darkness combine against me?”
That gave me chills when I read that for the first time. It’s apparent to me that I’m going to be a great annoyer of Satan's kingdom as well, and he would love for me to forget what I know to be true.
If there’s one thing that the MTC has taught me so far, it’s that the Book of mormon it true. I promise it’s true. THE EVIDENCE IS OVERWHELMING. It’s everywhere, and people start to forget that’s true when they stop reading it. It’s all about Jesus Christ. Multiple times this week I’ve read or heard something that gives me chills and I get continuing confirmation that this is real. And if the BOM is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet (which he was), and if Joseph smith was a prophet, the restoration is real, temples are real, the priesthood is real, and everything falls into place. If you love Jesus, you’ll love the BOM. This church is like a light in the darkness in this world, and Jesus Christ is going to come. The signs of Christ’s coming are evident everywhere you look, and there’s a lot more death and crazy stuff that needs to happen before then. Christ also needs a people that will be ready to receive him, which is why I am doing this. I said last week how being a missionary is hard because of the person I’m representing, which is true, but the mission is also the best because of that too. I am able to make promises to people that, if I am guided by the spirit, will come true. I have that authority right now to teach, preach, and baptize. I’m so excited to do that. The church is true, and if you want to know if it’s true you will.
I read a really cool scripture in Alma during my personal study. This is right after King Lamoni has returned from his deep sleep and spiritual conversion. It says:
“[Ammon] knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness- yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that his had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God-”
This exact feeling that is described here is found in the knowledge that Jesus Christ is our savior, who atoned for the sins of the world. That feeling is found in what this church teaches. I promise that, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!
As always, I’d love to hear from any of you guys. Love you all
- Elder Wride
PS - Just wanted to add a couple of neat spiritual things I found this week. The church's youtube is fuego. I spend an hour a day at least just watching these videos. If you're bored and want spiritual vibes, give them a watch
Plan of Happiness
The Second Coming pt. 2 - side note, the stuff in these second coming videos comes from D&C. It's cool to see all the prophecies made start to get checked off the list, like how when Joseph Smith predicted the civil war in an insane amount of detail in D&C 87.
I could post dozens of more videos but I'll start with those
Love you guys and have hope you have a fantastic weekend
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