Let the games begin!
There aren't a whole lot of events to convey from this week. Well, I suppose I could grace you all with a montage of missionaries struggling to sign into Preach My Gospel, having issues with their teaching records, and wrestling with restrictions on their devices, but I’d have to pull out a lot of creative stops to make that worthwhile........it seems sitting in the Church Office Building eating tater tots and soup is not particularly conducive to creativity. Hang on! Are there foods that make you feel more creative?? If so, please reply with the requested information (that's a phrase I'm typing a lot lately). That’d come in handy! Point being, teaching people is a whole lot more engaging to write about and read than IT cases are, so I’m either gonna have quite a bit less to write about for the time being, or I’m gonna get really good at multiplying the morsels of story I have to convey.
Here’s a thing though! This past Wednesday was my first day serving at the Road Home shelter! I'm at the family shelter in Midvale. It was such a treat for me! Why? One word.
O R G A N I Z A T I O N
(That was supposed to be read with a deep, echoey announcer voice.)
Sorting, organizing, and tidying are such relaxing activities for me, and it's looking like that's one of the main things they need help with there. They haven't got a whole lot of room at that location, they need things easily and quickly accessible for the residents, and there is a mountain (mountain I say!) of donations in the receiving area that need processing. I spent the majority of Wednesday doing what I snicker to call an "anti-service project". I shall explain.
What's a common service project youth groups and communities get together to do? Assembling kits for the homeless and less fortunate. Great simple activity that can make a big difference in the lives of many children of God. However, several such projects set their sights on the Road Home shelter as the recipient, and the thing about them is that their supplies are meant to be constantly accessible to residents, not just grab & go. So, issue number one is that if a resident were to receive a hygiene kit and start using it, they would run out of different things at different times, and replacing them by grabbing another kit would give them a lot of extra stuff they don't need. Issue number two is that the people have a specific set of needs, and the kits don't always cover all those needs, leading to either seeking out individual products, or grabbing an additional kit with a different combination of contents. So, my job? Undoing the work all these kind-hearted people did XD. I disassembled a heap of hygiene kits and stocked the Road Home's shelves with them, screening the occasional mess from shampoo bottles leaking.
With school starting this week for the kids there, I also got to help organize classroom materials and make those available. I'm already enjoying working with the employees there as well. They are incredible people providing desperately needed service.
As for the Global Service Department, the main item of news is that we just lost 3 missionaries on the mission support team, 1 to an assignment transfer and 2 to the completion of their missions, leaving just me and my team lead, Elder Shupe right now. Thankfully, a new missionary will be joining us soon, but the next few weeks might be a trial by fire for us all.
This past Saturday our zone got together at the Lindseys' for a barbecue. We got to meet Brother Young (soon to be Elder Young), who we'll eventually welcome into the zone, and we had an all around good chaotic time. I brought peach crisp, which recipe I learned from our mission nurse back in my second area, and it was well received! Thank you Sister Smith!
I was made hearty fun of for showing up in a white shirt and tie (I had to go from my temple shift, to baking, to there), and at first I proudly accepted the role of Mr. Ever-professional Missionary Man, right up until I discovered that we'd be playing water balloon volleyball. "It's okay," I told myself, "the likelihood that I'll actually be hit isn't all that high." Then Sister Barrow had the hyper intellectual idea of, instead of passing the water balloon back and forth, just throwing it at an opposing teammate whenever your side managed to catch one with their towel. I volunteered as tribute before I had time to think about it, and spent the rest of the evening drying off in full missionary attire (minus the tie).
A couple weeks ago during district council, we focused our discussion on the fascinating and kind of mysterious topic of spiritual gifts. The concept itself is not hard to grasp; during our premortal lives we were each endowed with unique talents and strengths that would equip us for all the things the Lord has in store. These gifts flourish based on our faithfulness, God's timing, and His servants' use of the priesthood. But let's shake up this understanding a little:
Firstly, a baffling item of intrigue in many of our lives is the spiritual gifts declared or pronounced upon us during our patriarchal blessings. It's funny how some of the things we hear we are blessed with can go completely unobserved by us, or better yet, when they are things we believe we are actually the weakest at. "Sir, if I'm blessed with that gift, then one of Superman's powers must be resisting kryptonite."
Secondly, with the counterintuitive subtleties of some of the gifts the Lord gives, and with the word "inadequacy" pretty much stamped across the whole of mortal life, we often wonder, "What spiritual strengths do I have? Not just on an anecdotal level or by vague observation, but objectively and unequivocally, where does my Spirit shine?" ("...if at all", many of us add in a bitter whisper).
Thirdly, we can't always tell where exactly these gifts work in our lives. Are they "special abilities" our spirits have, surging with fine-tuned power whenever the Spirit needs to work through us? Heh, that's sometimes how I think of them. Do they represent all of our talents and abilities, pretty much intertwined with every action we're able to take? It's not like there's a pie chart somewhere entitled "The Source of Your Abilities" with one portion labeled "Spiritual Gifts" and the rest labelled "Your Standard-Issue Capacity".
These questions have developed a lot in my head, but I can only offer primitive answers. Well, not answers. More like...thoughts. Give them as much credence as you would the contents of a fortune cookie XD. Only valid inasmuch as you find yourself inspired. I'll go point by point.
Firstly, I don't expect to fully understand these things any time before the millennium, but when it comes to confusing declarations of blessings, it might be helpful to tweak your definition of what a blessing or gift is. Let's not consider it to be God saying, "Guess what? I've actually made you super good at this thing!" And instead think of it more like, "Any effort you put into this thing will have my blessing on it--my approval, just as a parent gives their blessing to a marriage. So please just try, and if you take this path, I will doubly consecrate it, whatever the results may be." And who knows, maybe He really has given you spiritual superstrength in that area, and you just have yet to find out.
Secondly, just as people struggle with pride, we can be pretty blind to when we're actually good at something. On the topic of looking for gifts, this list of ideas came to mind during that district council.
- Read and reread your patriarchal blessing.
- Listen to the positive things people say about you, and instead of dismissing them, express gratitude for them.
- Try new things. Expose yourself to situations where unfound strengths may be required to reveal themselves.
- Ask Heavenly Father in prayer.
- Here's one I don't think about a lot. Desire new spiritual gifts. "But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way." (1 Corinthians 12:31)
Pray for help with something you feel you're already good at...
…first of all because you are counseled to perform all things unto the Lord (Alma 37:36-37), not just the ones you're worried about, and second of all because it would be a profound admission that whatever your supposed talent may be, you're reliant on the Lord's gifts in all things. We're not incredible, we're much obliged. We hold onto our success only by ever striving to be a worthy recipient of it.
Isn't that a beautiful demonstration of humility?
God be with you,
Elder Tolman
Board game madness at the zone barbecue.
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