Week 75: What I Carry in My Heart
Dear Loved Ones,
Everytime I've left an area, there'sbeen an eleventh hour miracle. In Idaho, I finally got to see some people I'd been trying to see for a long time. In Hickory Hills, Fia's baptismal date got upped and I got to see it before I got transferred. In the Independence YSA, I met someone I connected with a few days before transfers. In Raytown, I was able to see Saydi one last time after her home life situation changed. I knew something would happen here in the final days and I've been biding my time to see what God had in store this round.
I mentioned a girl, Lexi, who was all ready for baptism but waited out the quarantine for a very long time. Her original baptismal date was back in March and she's had to move it three times in the past months. A few days ago, she messaged me and said she's getting baptized the day I leave! Not my last proselytizing day, this Wednesday, but Friday morning as I'm heading to the airport. I'm determined to Skype in somehow.
I scrambled to put together a baptismal present and tore apart my half-packed apartment looking for this baptism necklace my mom gave me way back in November when she shipped out a couple of options for my last convert. I finally found it after an hour. Then I pulled out a canvas and some acrylic paints a previous companion left behind, decided I was an artist, and spent most of the day figuring out how to paint the Kansas City Temple. We dropped her presents off the next day. I didnt actually get to teach Lexi much and she's getting baptized in another ward, but she was happy when I came by and that the little I've been able to do during covid has meant a lot. When church shut down, Lexi kept quietly doing Come Follow Me on her own every Sunday. She said she appreciated the times I was able to study with her over videochat.
Later in the week, I had an in person outdoor lesson with a recent convert. We've been trying to teach his parents and I wasn't even sure his mom and dad would be there. But they did, his mom brought up baptism, and I found an opportunity to pop the question. She's now on date for baptism next month, if everything goes smoothly.
Last week you got my quarantine rant (sorry) this week you get my mission-in-review. Here are the things my mission has given me that I'll carry in my heart as I go home.
-I know how to love people.
I have my family, and of course I always had friends, but I never knew how ferocious and protective and long-suffering love could be until I saw the people I teach in rough situations. I would do anything for the people I came here to serve.
-A love of Zion
I spent six months in the visitors' center and fell in love with the stories of the early saints. Independence is a place of second chances, for them and for me and the church as a whole. I see the key message of the Book of Mormon a testifying that the Americas is the Promised Land.
-A proper understanding of the plan of salvation
Somewhere along the line, in all my years of Sunday school, I had it misexplained to me or misunderstood on my own that the Telestial Kingdom was the final resting place of people who knew the truth or became members of the church but turned away from it later in life.
At the beginning of my mission, I fell quiet when explaining the three kingdoms and had my companion pick up the slack. I wasn't even sure I understood that. But now I know that the terrestrial kingdom is where people go when they don't accept the fullness of the gospel. And before then, the plan of salvation is a plan of second chances. Adam and Eve fell, and mankind fell with them, but Christ's atonement gives us a second chance if only we claim it and accept the necessary ordinances. These second chances don't stop coming when we're dead. We have the chance to continue to learn and to receive them in the Spirit World.
-A knowledge that the Book of Mormon is not the only stone.
I wrote a few months ago about how the Book of Mormon may be the keystone of our religion, but it is not the only stone. A keystone, if removed from the arch, pulls the whole arch down. But most of the arc crumbles if you take out any piece. We need the doctrine of covenants for basic church structure, the pearl of great price for our temple text, the family proclamation to guide us in troubled times, and, most of all, modern prophets and priesthood authority.
-A hunger for church history
From my very first week in the visitors' center, I wanted more knowledge about our history than I was able to glean from the book Saints and our little spiral bound site guide. I'd pepper the senior elders with questions and borrow their tablets for fact-checking. I wanted to learn more about the war in Missouri in 1838. I'm also getting curious about Missouri's role in the Civil War. I found little hints of stories I want to explore, like when I found a certain woman's name among a list of early Jackson County converts and her brother's on a list of mobsters. There's a story there. I never did get to serve properly at the Liberty Jail, so I want to read more up on that.
-A connection to Liberty Jail
I have reconciled myself to Liberty Jail. In my college years, I hated Liberty Jail and saw it as a symbol of misunderstood, uncomforted suffering. I thought Joseph's four and a half months of imprisonment couldn't honestly compare to trials of other kinds that lasted years. After being quarantined across the parking lot from the jail, I have a very different view. It will also always be special to me as the site where Fia decided on her baptismal date.
-Good experiences with bishops
I had multiple bishops hurt me in my college years and a few I just avoided i fear. I never had an entirely positive experience with a bishop (though I do like the bishop who approved my temple endowment, Bishop Van Wagoner) until my mission. I've seen them be kind to less active people who had been hurt by ward members or fallen of the spiritual grid. I became especially close with my bishop in Raytown, who made our Sunday night correlation meetings a party and really cared about us. He and his wife drove us home when we were under the influence of muscle relaxers after our car crash and figured neither of us should be behind the wheel.
-An understanding of my own struggles
I have learned that I'm a very paranoid person. wanted not to hurt anybody, see myself as a person who can act and not just be acted upon, etc.
-Better familiarity with scripture. i read hrough the doctrine and covenants in chronological order and completed all the post-four gospels New Testament as a missionary.
-Love for Kansas City (I'm coming back here someday)
-stronger relationship with my parents
-Correction of Missouri myths and misconceptions about other Latter-day Saint tradition churches.
It is a false understanding that all Saints need to gather back to Missouri. Independence Stake is still the center stake of Zion, but we were actually never told to all gather to Jackson County. The Lord specifically told Joseph that the saints were not to gather in haste to that place at that time. Now we are commanded to establish stakes of Zion throughout the world. I have also come to see the diversity of the Mormon diaspora.
The first time I tracted into a person who identified as RLDS, I scoffed to my companion because I thought the church was called the Community of Christ now. The religious landscape in Independence is very complicated.
Every once in a while, some member of my Utah ward would go to Missouri or Kirtland and come back thinking they knew a lot about these people. They'd bear testimony or teach lessons lumping all these different churches together, and they really can't be. I gave a tour to a woman who said her church rarely used the Book of Mormon, did a few visits with a minister who loved the Book of Mormon but discounted the doctrine and covenants and believed Joseph was never called to be a prophet, and my dear Coney family love all of those books and have most of the pearl of great price (except the Book of Abraham) in their canon. Please, do not simplify or generalize these churches into one lump, especially in regard to their devotion to the Book of Mormon.
-Friendships
Soon after I arrive home, I'm taking off to Lake Powell with one of my former companions, Sister Moritz. She is one of the companions I now count as friends and plan on touching base with. And of course, my most important friendship is with my convert Fia. I haven't seen her in the flesh since August. I've only called her once. But I messaged her last p-day and told her i'd soon be able to call her when i'm off, and she told me, "You were a real friend, not just a teacher." If anything pulls me back to Kansas City for a visit, it's her.
-A desire to serve a senior mission.
I have worked with and around many different types of senior missionaries. I often felt the MLS (member leadership support) seniors were more useful to the ward than we were. When the number of senior missionaries was slashed for covid, I watched the visitors' center senior couples step up and take on a lot more work (tunning the office and laying mulch and hauling around mattresses) at a time when all young missionaries were doing a lot less. I now have the desire to serve a senior mission in the far future. I would not be opposed to serving as a mission president team with my husband.
I'm toying with the idea of sending one final weekly on Sunday night, June 14th, but this is my final email as an authorized and set apart missionary. I am now, one last time, your sister in Zion.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
Everytime I've left an area, there'sbeen an eleventh hour miracle. In Idaho, I finally got to see some people I'd been trying to see for a long time. In Hickory Hills, Fia's baptismal date got upped and I got to see it before I got transferred. In the Independence YSA, I met someone I connected with a few days before transfers. In Raytown, I was able to see Saydi one last time after her home life situation changed. I knew something would happen here in the final days and I've been biding my time to see what God had in store this round.
I mentioned a girl, Lexi, who was all ready for baptism but waited out the quarantine for a very long time. Her original baptismal date was back in March and she's had to move it three times in the past months. A few days ago, she messaged me and said she's getting baptized the day I leave! Not my last proselytizing day, this Wednesday, but Friday morning as I'm heading to the airport. I'm determined to Skype in somehow.
I scrambled to put together a baptismal present and tore apart my half-packed apartment looking for this baptism necklace my mom gave me way back in November when she shipped out a couple of options for my last convert. I finally found it after an hour. Then I pulled out a canvas and some acrylic paints a previous companion left behind, decided I was an artist, and spent most of the day figuring out how to paint the Kansas City Temple. We dropped her presents off the next day. I didnt actually get to teach Lexi much and she's getting baptized in another ward, but she was happy when I came by and that the little I've been able to do during covid has meant a lot. When church shut down, Lexi kept quietly doing Come Follow Me on her own every Sunday. She said she appreciated the times I was able to study with her over videochat.
Later in the week, I had an in person outdoor lesson with a recent convert. We've been trying to teach his parents and I wasn't even sure his mom and dad would be there. But they did, his mom brought up baptism, and I found an opportunity to pop the question. She's now on date for baptism next month, if everything goes smoothly.
Last week you got my quarantine rant (sorry) this week you get my mission-in-review. Here are the things my mission has given me that I'll carry in my heart as I go home.
-I know how to love people.
I have my family, and of course I always had friends, but I never knew how ferocious and protective and long-suffering love could be until I saw the people I teach in rough situations. I would do anything for the people I came here to serve.
-A love of Zion
I spent six months in the visitors' center and fell in love with the stories of the early saints. Independence is a place of second chances, for them and for me and the church as a whole. I see the key message of the Book of Mormon a testifying that the Americas is the Promised Land.
-A proper understanding of the plan of salvation
Somewhere along the line, in all my years of Sunday school, I had it misexplained to me or misunderstood on my own that the Telestial Kingdom was the final resting place of people who knew the truth or became members of the church but turned away from it later in life.
At the beginning of my mission, I fell quiet when explaining the three kingdoms and had my companion pick up the slack. I wasn't even sure I understood that. But now I know that the terrestrial kingdom is where people go when they don't accept the fullness of the gospel. And before then, the plan of salvation is a plan of second chances. Adam and Eve fell, and mankind fell with them, but Christ's atonement gives us a second chance if only we claim it and accept the necessary ordinances. These second chances don't stop coming when we're dead. We have the chance to continue to learn and to receive them in the Spirit World.
-A knowledge that the Book of Mormon is not the only stone.
I wrote a few months ago about how the Book of Mormon may be the keystone of our religion, but it is not the only stone. A keystone, if removed from the arch, pulls the whole arch down. But most of the arc crumbles if you take out any piece. We need the doctrine of covenants for basic church structure, the pearl of great price for our temple text, the family proclamation to guide us in troubled times, and, most of all, modern prophets and priesthood authority.
-A hunger for church history
From my very first week in the visitors' center, I wanted more knowledge about our history than I was able to glean from the book Saints and our little spiral bound site guide. I'd pepper the senior elders with questions and borrow their tablets for fact-checking. I wanted to learn more about the war in Missouri in 1838. I'm also getting curious about Missouri's role in the Civil War. I found little hints of stories I want to explore, like when I found a certain woman's name among a list of early Jackson County converts and her brother's on a list of mobsters. There's a story there. I never did get to serve properly at the Liberty Jail, so I want to read more up on that.
-A connection to Liberty Jail
I have reconciled myself to Liberty Jail. In my college years, I hated Liberty Jail and saw it as a symbol of misunderstood, uncomforted suffering. I thought Joseph's four and a half months of imprisonment couldn't honestly compare to trials of other kinds that lasted years. After being quarantined across the parking lot from the jail, I have a very different view. It will also always be special to me as the site where Fia decided on her baptismal date.
-Good experiences with bishops
I had multiple bishops hurt me in my college years and a few I just avoided i fear. I never had an entirely positive experience with a bishop (though I do like the bishop who approved my temple endowment, Bishop Van Wagoner) until my mission. I've seen them be kind to less active people who had been hurt by ward members or fallen of the spiritual grid. I became especially close with my bishop in Raytown, who made our Sunday night correlation meetings a party and really cared about us. He and his wife drove us home when we were under the influence of muscle relaxers after our car crash and figured neither of us should be behind the wheel.
-An understanding of my own struggles
I have learned that I'm a very paranoid person. wanted not to hurt anybody, see myself as a person who can act and not just be acted upon, etc.
-Better familiarity with scripture. i read hrough the doctrine and covenants in chronological order and completed all the post-four gospels New Testament as a missionary.
-Love for Kansas City (I'm coming back here someday)
-stronger relationship with my parents
-Correction of Missouri myths and misconceptions about other Latter-day Saint tradition churches.
It is a false understanding that all Saints need to gather back to Missouri. Independence Stake is still the center stake of Zion, but we were actually never told to all gather to Jackson County. The Lord specifically told Joseph that the saints were not to gather in haste to that place at that time. Now we are commanded to establish stakes of Zion throughout the world. I have also come to see the diversity of the Mormon diaspora.
The first time I tracted into a person who identified as RLDS, I scoffed to my companion because I thought the church was called the Community of Christ now. The religious landscape in Independence is very complicated.
Every once in a while, some member of my Utah ward would go to Missouri or Kirtland and come back thinking they knew a lot about these people. They'd bear testimony or teach lessons lumping all these different churches together, and they really can't be. I gave a tour to a woman who said her church rarely used the Book of Mormon, did a few visits with a minister who loved the Book of Mormon but discounted the doctrine and covenants and believed Joseph was never called to be a prophet, and my dear Coney family love all of those books and have most of the pearl of great price (except the Book of Abraham) in their canon. Please, do not simplify or generalize these churches into one lump, especially in regard to their devotion to the Book of Mormon.
-Friendships
Soon after I arrive home, I'm taking off to Lake Powell with one of my former companions, Sister Moritz. She is one of the companions I now count as friends and plan on touching base with. And of course, my most important friendship is with my convert Fia. I haven't seen her in the flesh since August. I've only called her once. But I messaged her last p-day and told her i'd soon be able to call her when i'm off, and she told me, "You were a real friend, not just a teacher." If anything pulls me back to Kansas City for a visit, it's her.
-A desire to serve a senior mission.
I have worked with and around many different types of senior missionaries. I often felt the MLS (member leadership support) seniors were more useful to the ward than we were. When the number of senior missionaries was slashed for covid, I watched the visitors' center senior couples step up and take on a lot more work (tunning the office and laying mulch and hauling around mattresses) at a time when all young missionaries were doing a lot less. I now have the desire to serve a senior mission in the far future. I would not be opposed to serving as a mission president team with my husband.
I'm toying with the idea of sending one final weekly on Sunday night, June 14th, but this is my final email as an authorized and set apart missionary. I am now, one last time, your sister in Zion.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
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