First week in Foothills Ward

Wow, what a week! Definitely one of the most hectic if my mission.

Thursday was transfers. I am now in the Foothills Ward covering portions of Lakewood and Golden (see map). We're re-opening the area after missionaries have been absent for a while. Got a new companion (Elder Mooney), and got a car (2010 Ford Fusion). I'm rather excited about the car-- after 13 months on a bike, I've racked up enough cycling miles to get me to NC (and back) a few times.

View Larger Map

We spent 3 hours on Sunday making a large wall tracting map and a mini navigational map based on borders left over from previous missionaries, and then found out yesterday that our borders go MUCH farther than we knew-- we extend from Wadsworth to out past Lookout Mountain! So we cover literally scores of miles... and yet we only get 165 miles per week. Oh well-- we'll count our blessings.

Housing is fun, too. A ward family owned a sort of really, really old folks' home in our area. When the last resident, um... "moved on," they agreed to let the missionaries stay there. It's super nice-- it's the size of a mansion with 3 stories and more tunnels and passageways than a haunted house. It has 11 bedrooms-- perfect because at the moment there are 9 missionaries being housed there (my companionship, a threesome, the Zone Leaders, and the Kemptons, a Senior Missionary Couple)

It was really weird to come to because it still looks like an old folks' home-- shower seats and toilet assistance thingies in the bathrooms,oxygen tanks and wheelchairs everywhere, and the smell of a hospital.

The Kemptons (the Senior missionary couple) are fantastic. They've been working with less-actives and part-member families in this ward for several months and have really been a blessing. Sister Kempton is an angel-- she's always helping us elders out (although she says she feels like a frat mom sometimes). Elder Kempton is hilarious-- he constantly reminds us that people have died in our house, our rooms, and very likely our beds.

All in all, we're super-excited to get to work in this area. There is so much potential. Streets have gone many months since being tracted (contrast to Orchard South where they go maybe 2-3 weeks). We're already finding people who are expressing interest in our message. I've got a good feeling about this place.

OK-- Pictures:

• My new companion: Elder Mooney, from Chandler, AZ
• The Southglenn District after General Conference (Assistants included)

A big letdown

Choose You This Day Whom Ye Will Serve (Joshua 24:15)

Hello all:

This week has been the worst week of the best two years of my life.

Our triple baptismal service is canceled. It amazes me how quickly Satan can find chinks in the armor of otherwise strong people. I suppose it's true that when people set a baptismal date, a giant spiritual target immediately appears on them. It's the last chance the adversary has to throw everything he's got at them to try and scare them away from the best thing that they could ever do in their entire lives.

We've seen it happen yet again this past week. With both of our prepared, confident, earnest, sincere investigators, "that old serpent" has chosen to use his most powerful tactic to try and throw them from the path-- he uses the family.

Families are intended to be centers of spiritual strength, growth, encouragement, and support where members are bolstered and uplifted, but in the hands of Lucifer, they can be obstacles to God's work-- stumbling blocks to progress. When someone is standing at the gate of heaven (baptism), Satan loves to use the family. Family opposition is more potent than ridicule from friends and coworkers, anti-Mormon literature, and all the other forces of hell combined. How sinister to pervert the use of God's most sacred institution to discourage, demean, ridicule, terrify, and even threaten a sibling or spouse who has chosen to covenant to follow Christ!

More ironic still, such attempts at dissuasion are usually preceded by heart-wrenching statements to the extent of "If you really loved us, you wouldn't do this," and terminated with a cold, sneering "So which is it: Mormons? Or me?"

There's no easy way to answer such concerns. The closest I've heard is when two elders told an investigator facing complete disowning by his family, "You can not get baptized, and tell your family that you love them for this life, or you can make this decision and in reality tell them that you love them for eternity."

Well did Christ say: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law." (Matt 10:34-35)

We truly have seen that here in our area. But we all have agency, and though our judgment is often clouded and our vision obscure, we must choose what we will do with our lives. Only on a mission have I ever come close to tasting the sorrow of others' decisions-- the sorrow of parents watching a son or daughter go down a "forbidden path" (1 Nephi 8:28), or even the sorrow of God Himself watching one of His precious children choose sorrow over happiness.

Well, I'm sure there's hope yet. God will still win the war, and the work must go forth "boldly, nobly, and independent." The designs of men and devils cannot frustrate the work of God. Next time I need a reminder of that, I'll take Joseph Smith's analogy to heart and try to dam a river with my own puny arm (D&C 121:33). Until then, I hope all goes well with all of you, and pray that as we each labor in our own parts of the Lord's vineyard, we will find success, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
--
Elder Watkins

Choose Joy

Hello all:

Hope all is going well all over the world. not a whole lot of time to write today, but that's OK because there's not too much to report today. A lot of tracting and not a lot of success. It's just been one of those weeks, I suppose. The Lord allows us to experience them every so often to remind us that we need Him. All we can do is do our best, and put on a happy smile. Then, no matter what, we can find joy in the journey.

That's really what it's all about, right? "Men are that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25). So the work may be rough at times, and the weather my not be cooperative, and people may not have the slightest idea how important the message is that we're sharing, but we find the joy, and sometimes the joy comes when life is hardest. We are to have joy-- not have constant ease.

I love serving here. I love the people. I love Pres. Maynes. I love working until I feel like I just can't work anymore. When I come home tired, ragged, and completely void of energy, that's when I know I'm a missionary, and that the Lord has accepted what I have given-- my all. Some this makes missionaries get pretty trunky*, especially in harder areas. They daydream of going home, they find it harder and harder to maintain a cheerful outlook, and they start to strive less and less. Happiness becomes more and more fleeting.

But if there's anything I've learned from serving a year in one of the most difficult jobs on earth, it's that happiness is a choice! We can always choose joy. We can always choose to be pleasant. We can always choose to enjoy life. Without simply choosing happiness, we cannot muster through this life. As I always like to say [as does a certain someone else :) ], "You must be happy, do you understand?"

May we always choose happiness, I pray, even when times get rough, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.


*trunky (n., miss. sl.): To be homesick or lazy, referring to packing a trunk or suitcase with the idea of leaving.

Triple Baptism

Hello all:

We now have 2 investigators with a baptismal date! The North elders also found someone out of the blue, and set them for date. So, if all goes well, we should be having a triple baptism on October 9th. This is what missionary work is all about-- watching people make changes in their lives and come closer to God. How wonderful it is to hear someone accept the commitment to be baptized for the remission of sins. Wow-- what miracles are taking place in the Orchard Ward! I'm so excited to be a part of that.

The mission is going well right now. Pre. Maynes has asked us to continue inviting members to pray for missionary opportunities and for peoples' hearts to be softened. Lots of times, we come up with our own plans, and fail miserably at our own member missionary work (or at least I do), because we forget Nephi's words that we "must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place [we] shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he may consecrate [our[ performance to the welfare of [our] soul[s]" ( 2 Ne. 32: 9). Missionary work definitely falls under the "any" category.

I issue the following invitation to everyone reading this: "Will you pray for missionary opportunities in every prayer you offer (including over meals and the quiet silent prayers of your hearts)? I promise that if you do, and quietly offer up petitions to the Lord for the opportunity to share the Gospel (which is simply the 'good news' of the Atonement) as a small part of every prayer, you will find that the Lord will place opportunities in your path that wouldn't have had otherwise."

But don't forget 2 N. 32:8, which reminds us that the devil "teacheth man that he must not pray," and if I can take a little bit of literary license, sometimes "teacheth man that prayer is not a must." You can be certain that when you commit to pray, the devil will do all he can to keep us from remembering, meaning, or seeming to have any time. Don't let him win.

That's where it all starts. If there's one thing I can ask, it would be that-- pray, pray, pray. Don't pray for us to find missionary opportunities so much as for yourself to find missionary opportunities. Hope all goes well-- keep up the good work and pray always.