Training

August 28, 2016

Hey!

Somehow I became a trainer this week. 

We were called on Tuesday night and told that I would be training a new missionary who would be coming on Thursday morning. It was all really, really fast. I said goodbye to my Young Single Adult (YSA) comp and said hello to my son, Elder Tuikolovatu. He is a  big 340 pound Tongan American who just barely came to the mission. He was a late-comer after having to go home to his family when he tore his meniscus in the MTC. Luckily he is feeling better and super blessed to be a missionary. He's a super nice kid and a lot like a teddy bear haha.  I think things will be fine. It just really took me back to day one! He has lots of questions and obviously will take time to learn the language, but I'm excited to be training.  I decided from the time that I was trained that I would be a good trainer if I got the chance. I remember those first months when I would bawl to Heavenly Father every morning for help with the language and the culture shock. Eventually it got better and training has already reminded me of how hard it was and how far I've come. 

Other than that, the branch where we work is a real challenge.  It's difficult to be a missionary when the members won’t fellowship.  Church is a great distance for most members and we have far too many less active members. We have a list of 1,030 members and legitimately had fewer than 50 members at church yesterday.  It's difficult because we don't know WHO to visit or WHERE they live because the member list has not been updated.  But we have plenty to do.  We should be having four baptisms this week, which will be nice.

Just a quick spiritual experience:

I finished the Book of Mormon for the third or fourth time as a missionary yesterday and had the strongest spiritual experience as I read Moroni 10 and prayed for the truth. I received such a solid definitive answer and it made me so happy. And then later that night we were teaching a lesson on the Book of Mormon to our golden investigator (a 30+ year old man) and I like legitimately teared up teaching Moroni's promise.  What the heckkkk?  I couldn’t have imagined this before my mission. 

Love you all,

Elder Parrish