Chapter 43: An Interesting Sense of Charity

 *GaAah, the readers are probably looking for an interesting intro to catch their attention and smoothly transition into the body of the email…*

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*uuuuuuhh*

Whoa! Look over there! What in the world could that be?!

~Skips to just talking about the week.~

*Distraction tactics for the win! Never go in against a Sicilian when email composition is on the line.*

SO, things at the Global Service Department are chugging along. I’m gradually feeling more at home, a.k.a. participating in more missionary shenanigans. I had my first graphic design opportunity, which was fun! A refreshing change in the projects I normally work on. I’m pretty much fully trained in the two areas I offer tech support for, just working on gaining more experience, but one day I joined my team lead to go up to the second floor and chat with the employees (bottom floor is almost entirely service missionaries and the rest of the building is mostly people who actually work at the GSD), and there I was told that soon I’ll be trained on a third platform. That’ll be wild! Naturally, there’s always more to learn.

Another note about that assignment: it’s super satisfying to be able to go into the missionary mobile device system and manually revoke restrictions / settings that are causing problems for a missionary. “OH, something’s keeping you from downloading apps?? Well *BOOM*! That something just got blown to high heaven! Target eliminated! Aaaaaahahaha! Have a great day my good servant of the Lord!”

And now for the namesake of the email. This past time at the Road Home mostly consisted of sorting through and organizing donations. As such, I had ample opportunity to observe what people try to give the residents at the shelter, and some people have...let's say an interesting sense of charity. When one is struggling for fundamental needs in life, I would say their need for...certain types of clothing is not that desperate. I guess charity is still charity though? It was funny; Gayla, my manager, warned me of the curious donations they sometimes receive, and only a little ways into my second shift I discovered a huge bag of articles that had us laughing and cringing.

Plenty of donations to sort through.

We sadly don't accept stuffed animals at the Midvale location, 
but I wanted to acknowledge this one.
Gayla laughed at my expression when I first saw it.

District council was excellent this week! I had a training planned on increasing understanding of repentance, and another district in the zone found themselves without a plan for the meeting, so they combined with us, and we had twice the discussion power! Also, our zone is going to be splitting soon, so my district will be saying goodbye to the Lindseys and welcoming the Alstons as our new service mission leaders. We met Elder Alston that evening and he joined us for our district's discussion. He also dropped by a game night a few of us held the following Saturday, so he witnessed some of our madness.

Yet another game night!

One day while sitting at the train station waiting to transfer between lines, I was given a bit of a divine rebuke. A man sat down next to me and we started a conversation. I soon learned he was a member of the church, though inactive, and we talked a little bit about feeling the Holy Ghost. He began to open up about the hardship he was going through, and through tears asked me if I had a copy of the Book of Mormon. It was then that I was struck with the brutal realization that I wasn’t in the habit of keeping a copy on me while in transit to assignments. I had my study materials, but nothing to hand out, and for whatever reason the ComeUntoChrist website fled my mind. I tried to direct him to the temple square missionaries just a few blocks away, but he didn’t seem to understand. I resolved to never again leave a space in my bag where a Book of Mormon should be, but it occurred to me that I really had been harboring the belief that it was unlikely anyone I met in Salt Lake County would ask me for such a thing. That belief had just been utterly disproven. Heh, proselyting missionaries would probably tar and feather me for this slip-up, but I’ll take it as a firm reminder from the Lord to prepare me for future opportunities.

I had a cool little experience in the temple on Friday. Being an ordinance worker can make it easy to overlook attending as a patron, so I resolved to do so at some point that week. I managed to find time for initiatories on Friday evening, and after finishing them I felt like I should spend some time in the celestial room, which prior to that I’ve only ever done after endowment sessions. In my time there I briefly ran into two other service missionaries I knew. Not sure if there’s any deeper meaning behind that, but it was cool we just happened to be there at the same time.

One other temple related thing! Over the past week I've become increasingly conscious of my temple slippers--more specifically of the black footprints that have developed on the bottoms of them. The temple presidency periodically reminds us to clean the bottoms of our shoes both for the sake of the carpets and for the sake of demonstrating cleanliness. I finally got around to that, and since starting this email, an irony in that has occurred to me.

Within the temple, there is a strong emphasis on donning white clothing. This is true in each of the ordinances there. It's a symbol of cleanliness. I suppose you could look at it as either us sanctifying ourselves as we enter a sacred place, or as us becoming sanctified by entering a sacred place (with all the effort and commitment associated). Either way, we have the idea of "clean thing dwells in clean place". Yet despite there being purity all around, the bottoms of those temple slippers--never worn outside the temple--still darkened over time. Dust transfers from the air to the ground, and people dirty the floors as they enter the temple. Sacred places and sacred things can exist in a fallen world, but they don't remain untouched by it, especially over time.

Whatever we sanctify--time dedicated to scripture study, effort put into a calling, conviction put into a testimony--will pick up dust over time. Dust that, while initially not a problem, can soon turn white clothing black. This dust can sap the meaning out of a positive routine or inject pride into a good natured belief. Entropy isn't limited to thermodynamics.

As ominous as this language is, all I mean to say is even the best things in our life need maintenance, just as from time to time you need to wash and even replace a rag that itself is meant to do the cleaning. This might seem like a taxing addition to our to-do list. The one-fronted battle of cleaning up the messier parts of our lives has turned into the two-fronted battle of also preserving the things that are supposed to be our clean sanctuaries. Keeping the vain repetitions out of prayer, keeping relationships brimming with love, and keeping callings as intentional as possible. I wish I had some reassuring tip to lighten that half of our burden, cause it's a tricky undertaking which we have to juggle with the rest of life. But here are two thoughts.

1. With the Lord, there is always enough time. It just takes taking a step forward in the moment where we think something can't be done.

2. Take after Captain Moroni, and prioritize maintenance over conquest. Shore up the cities you have before you spread yourself thin by conquering others. Maybe not all my clothes are spotless, but ensuring my temple clothes are as white as I can make them will be the first thing on my mind. For another example, maybe your thoughts aren't virtuous all the time, but you can start by just making your prayers more earnest.

In the commotion of all you deal with in life, remember to take care of the most important things. If you do, those things will continue to strengthen you in the face of everything else.

A final item of news which trumps all other news: my dear nephew had his baby blessing this past Sunday! He did a fine job, letting out all his nervous lamentations just beforehand but remaining perfectly content throughout the blessing. He has begun to put on the armor of God. (You're all invited to imagine baby William in shining armor).

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Random sky photo.

Random sky photo: leafy edition.