Hope is Dope (July 8th)

What's good Davidson clan, 

This week was pretty good really can't complain. Stomach pulled it out for me after about 10 days of funny business we're back to normal operation. Thanks for the little package parents as well that was a very nice surprise. 

Bomb story of the week. Don't know if I ever mentioned but this but President randomly sent one spanish missionary to Hope arkansas (google it) to try and get things going because there were a few media referrals for spanish people down there. Anyways this spanish missionary is baptizing up a little storm down there by himself (hes got an english companion) theyve had a couple spanish and a couple english baptisms. I guess hope is about 10 000 people and half hispanic, litttle factory town or something. But they needed a spanish baptismal interview done this past week and I am the closest Spanish missionary that can do an interview so we split with the assistants and One of them and I drove down to hope. He's red dotted meaning he cant drive a car so I drove the assistants brand new V6 Tacoma from little rock down to Hope and back(again google it). I was skeptical at first didn't really want to drive a truck but man that thing was actually pretty fun to drive. It only had 1000 miles on it. Trucks are cool. I learned that this week. 

Other than that things are going about the same. transfers are coming up on the 17th. I'll probably stay one more transfer here finish training elder Meyers and then move somewhere else. I have been here for a while now. I would definitely like to go back to memphis again but we'll see about that who knows what could happen. 

Hope you all have a great week. 

Elder Davidson 

July 1st

Hey everybody,

 

good week down here other than a number of days of consecutive diahrhea cant complain. Haha I made that sound a lot worse than it is, doing great.

 

Santiago is doing allright, we're still working through stuff but he came to church this week again so that helps a lot.

 

CRAZY combined 5th sunday lesson covered - Homosexuality, Plural marriage. the fall (top to bottom), government policy and who knows what else. It was out of control.

 

People have been bugging me to talk about my new missionary here it goes. He's 19 (just turned it) his name is elder meyers. His favoirte colour is neon hes into singing and acting. He's already got a spot at the U to start medical school when he gets home with solid scholarship. He ran cross country I think. I dont know what else you want to know. He's kind of quiet. Really good hearted.  Hard worker.

 

We are currently teaching some of the smartest people I have taught on my mission and they are a 15 year old girl and her 11 year old brother. We left them a chapter to read and we came back and the 11 year old is like well sorry if I wasnt supposed to read more than the chapter you gave us but I read another chapter and then half of the next chapter as well. And he made up his own highlighting scheme and highlighted the scriptures. They were both prepared to share the verses they liked and why they liked them. I think there mom was a surgeon in guatemala. They are counsins of some members. They understand everything perfectly. its out of hand.

 

Dont know if I mentioned this yet but this upcoming transfer we are going from 6 zones all the way t o 10 so things are just going to be straight wacky here pretty soon. Already pretty sure what out zone is going to look like ish but still lots to be figured out.

 

We'll see what happens. Stay real family.

 

June 17th

Hey! Hope you all had a great week. Happy Fathers day. I think its a rip we don't get to talk on the phone but I guess that's alright.

 

Biggest news for the day. Havent been out for a whole year yet that will be on the 20th. But exactly one year from today I go home on the 17th of June. FREAK! That's still pretty weird for me to think about. Apparently this is when the time is going to just take off and then it's over. Still lots to be accomplished though. The first year you kind of figure out what you're doing the last year especially the last six months are when you've got to get it done!

 

Training is hard! It's tiring. The tough thing is finding a good balance of taking the lead and showing how things are supposed to be done and at the same time letting your little birdie fly. Haha its mentally exhausting. It's good though. Being naturally a little control hungry I am more than happy to show a new missionary how to do missionary work the way I think it can best be done. I'll be frank as well. No matter how much you think you may know, you always know less that you think you know. But you also always know enough.

 

I seriously just feel really tired. Between the heat and the training and the missionary working I'm not sure which is the biggest factor but we're going on bikes for the next week so this may be a good humbling experience haven't been on bikes since April. 

 

In other mission news president is going for it all at once and is going to open 4 new zones this coming transfer so we can be ready to receive all the new missionaries. We don't really have enough for that many zones yet but they'll just start a little small and then he'll let the mission grow into them. But that means it will have doubled since I came out from 5 when I got here to 10 coming up. That means a freaking ton more zone leaders and district leaders and readjusting boundaries and so on and so forth. Once again the value of being Spanish and being removed from all the leadership drama is quite nice. I went on exchange with one of my zone leaders this past week and we talked about it all. He's a good hard working competent missionary. The general sentiment expressed was who is going to fill all the new positions. We've got too many lazy and confused missionaries that already are in leadership and now we've got to draw from the remains to expand the leadership pool. He used some harsher words and though it wasn't the nicest thing ever I'll admit it would be difficult to disagree. I don't know why but our mission culture is just kind of lazy and not that obedient. It's improved a lot but it's still got a ways to go. Anyways just grateful to be Spanish.

 

Anyways thank for the letter I got that everybody had signed it made my day. I hope you are all still doing well.

 

Talk to you all next week.

 

Elder Davidson

 

 

June 10th

Hey,

 

I'll run you through a quick update of how things shook out after transfer week.

 

My knew companion is Elder Meyers from Kaysville Utah. President said he thought he was interviewing me when he interviewed him for the first time. There is someting similar about us still having put my finger on it. I think its physical appearance something in the face. Maybe eyes nose or something. Who knows.

 

He's 18 almost 19. He took college classes while he was in high school and then did some weird program where he had to go to the U everyday at 3:00  in the morning for a long time and then they judge the people in the program people something or other. All things said and done he's got a spot in medical school secured with a very sizeable scholarship. Pretty impressive for an 18 year old.

 

I'm still the district leader. President always makes trainers the district leaders. It's stressful. Our mission is bloodthirsty for accountablility. I'll let you make of that what you will. Its not really that bad.

 

The assisstants, as predicted, moved areas and are now our apartmentcomplexmates. It's nice. They're getting a new jeep this week. I know its awesome.

 

We're working hard and being obedient but we still haven't baptized since the end of March. Its frustrating. We'll get it figured out here pretty soon. The one thing that's hard is maintaining focus on the fact that we are here for people and not numbers sometimes. With all the pressure to be successful you've got to be really careful what your focus is. Because it's really about the atonementand repentence and helping others come to understand who Christ is. Now obviously baptism the focal point of all of that but they need to be people and not numbers. It's a line we walk most days.

 

Spiritual thought this week comes from Alma 34. I really learned this week about what it means that the Atonement is Infinite. 11 talks about how one person cant atone for the sins of one other person. 12 says therefor the atonement has to be infinite. 15 explains that because of the atonement Mercy thus was able to overpower justice. I listened to a Cleon Skousen talk about the atonement recently and he explained that the atonement was not "this much suffereing for this much sin" but because of the atonement christ suffered so infinitely that the mercy created can overpower the justice demanded. Then christ can say D&C 45: 4-5 (read it). Now there is also the enabling power of the atonement which goes along with the cleansing power of the atonement. Christ also suffered the pains and afflictions and temptations we will face (Alma 7:11-12) I've been pondering how it all fits together.... still working on it. However I bear witness that it is real. The events are real. The power is real. He is real. and we must come to know him better every single day.

 

I love you all and pray for you frequently.

 

Elder Davidson