Sometimes we are satisfied in our life with just being hot water.

Hi everyone,

Another week has flown by and it seems time is going faster than ever right now and I don’t know how to deal with it. I have been told that two years on mission goes by faster than you will know. I never dreamed it would go by this fast. I used to think two years would take forever but not anymore.  I can add my testimony to that now, in the blink of an eye it will come and go. I got a lot on my mind and things up stairs for me right now are a bit foggy today so bare with me, this letter might be jumbled.

Last Monday we had a small mission tour with Elder Callister, Elder Evans, Elder Dickson, Elder Sitati and Elder Curtis. It was a really good meeting and I enjoyed it even though it was super hot and long. Ha-ha! Elder Evans who spoke in general conference this last time is actually Elder Orchards uncle. It sounded like he told the story of Elder Orchards dad coming in to the church at conference. He is a really good guy and he talked to us a lot about the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel.

The talk that I got the most out of was from Elder Dickson. He started off by asking us at what temperature does water boil. The simple answer was give that it boils at 100 c. Water boils and produce steam which creates great power at 100 c. He then asked what is water at 98 or 99c?  It was kind of a trick questions but the answer is that it is just hot water. He then compared it to missionary work and asked what kind of missionary work is a missionary doing if he is only at 100 c? He is right there and very close but he is not producing any "steam" or “power” that he could be if he just changed by one degree then the missionary or whomever would start to producing steam at 100c. The difference in temp is only 1 degree but the outcome is much different.

Sometimes we are satisfied in our life with just being hot water.  99 degrees is hot and it will probably burn you but it is still just hot water. Sometimes when I am cooking my oats in the morning I lose my patience and pour in my oats before the water reaches the boiling point of 100 c.  It seems to get the job done but is it good enough.

Early in my mission we would work really hard during the day to reach all of our numbers so we could go back to our apartment early and rest. We would still teach as many lessons as we needed to and see all the people that we needed to in order to get baptisms so we were still working hard and doing all the right things and we were baptizing we were just not staying out until nine.  Sometimes we would come home at 8 or maybe even 7 but the work was still getting done. At this point I was just a pot of hot water not at the boiling point not producing that great power that comes from steam.

Thankfully for the atonement, I repented and change my ways. I have tried taking things up another degree in temperature and even going the extra mile staying out later even when I have seen all the people I need to see, knocking on those gates at 8 30 trying to find the elect. The difference that I feel in my life and in my mission from my early months from simply coming home early to now going an extra mile and raising the bar is hard to describe. The principle of obedience can never be justified.

Out of all that I hope that you got the point, Elder Dickson kind of used his own things and I used mine. The main thing that he tried to point out that there is not much difference between 99 and 100 but the out come is greater. He wants us to go the extra mile as missionaries and not just get the job done and go home, but to do it the Lords way, out of love for him and the people that we serve and doing those little extra things when people are not watching.  

We also had a zone conference on Friday but I am out of room to talk about that. Maybe next week!

This Sunday we had more white people in sacrament meeting than black. Ha-ha! It was kind of weird. We had a whole crew of people from BYU here doing something. We also had a few from the area office.  In the third hour I sat behind the Powell’s that Grandma and Grandpa Berry know.

Love Bbear