Hey everyone! :)
So President Phillips is like the best mission president
ever! :) (Well, he's the co-best, with President Patrick). We got to meet him
this past week and he is seriously so cool. His family are so awesome as well.
He brought three of his children, and they're super cool, and so's Sister
Phillips. Their testimonies are SUPER strong and I'm super excited to get to
know them better. President Phillips is a great teacher, and he knows the
scriptures really well.
Anyways, life is going well! We did a LOT of driving this
week. I used to really enjoy road trips... I'm growing to dislike them more and
more now. :P But it's been fun. We had a cool experience today in relation to
family history. We drove up to our chapel to do our emails, and there was a car
pulling out of the chapel. The woman inside wasn't a member, and I wondered
what she was doing there. But she turned around as we got out of our car and
drove up to us. She rolled down her window and asked us who we were. We were a
bit taken aback, but we explained who we are and she started to explain that
she'd heard we have a family history center and she wanted some help with her
family history. She wasn't a member, but she'd done some family history at an
LDS family history center in the States (she spoke perfect English as well as
French). She was super nice and explained that she is trying to help her
grandmother write her biography. While we were talking she kept saying how
crazy it was that we'd pulled up at the same time as she was there, and we had
all the information she needed. She'd been trying for a while with no luck to
contact the church. It was a nice reminder of how much the Lord values families
and growing closer to our loved ones.
These past few weeks have been pretty stressful for me;
seems like I've had kind of a constant headache. I'm not sure why; there's just
a lot of things on my mind and a lot of work that needs to get done. Sometimes
it can become a little bit overwhelming to deal with all of the different
responsibilities that come with being a missionary. I've been thinking a lot
about how to deal with stress, and I think the best answer that has come to my
mind is the one that everyone has always told me in the first place (crazy how
that works, right?). Simplify and prioritize.
I've found that the best way to simplify problems is to look
at what needs to get done now, what needs to get done in the next week, and
what needs to be done in more of a long-term perspective. For example, I don't
need to fix all of the problems in the ward council today. I don't need to find
fifteen investigators today. But I do need to call the bishop to set up an
appointment for this week so we can talk about his vision for the ward. And I
do need to call one of our members tomorrow to follow up on how they've kept
the commitment we gave them last week. As I am a very organized person,
thinking in this way has really helped me to stop stressing over ALL of the
different problems around me, and to deal with them systematically and calmly.
However, there are always moments where there is a
scheduling issue. My companion and I work hard, but we just can't be in three
places at once. And so we have to prioritize. Is it more important to plan out
some exchanges right now or to go contacting down by 1st Avenue? Is it more
important to visit this member family for dinner whom we've cancelled on
multiple times or to go see an investigator who is preparing for baptism? It's
a constant decision making process and sometimes it can get very difficult. But
all of this seems to become much easier to process and much less stressful when
I step back and remember why I'm here.
I am here to invite others to come unto Christ by helping
them receive His restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His
Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and
enduring to the end. As I simplify and prioritize the responsibilities I am
given to fit into this mold of who I'm trying to be, I have come to recognize
that life is not so complicated. Problems are not so difficult. And joy and
peace are not so hard to find. Somehow, almost magically, when I focus on why
I'm here, all of these tasks become much easier to accomplish and I become much
happier.
So this week, I'm going to focus on simplifying and
prioritizing. Here goes nothing! :)
Elder Bryan McOmber
A Filipino member gave us some insanely spicy chicken and rice for lunch after church. We almost died.
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