eMail from January 17, 2022
Hi Friends and Family!
How’s everyone doing this week?! It’s crazy that it’s already been another week, because if this is how fast time goes as a missionary, then they aren’t lying when they say long days, but the weeks go by so fast!! It has been super busy and productive this week, and a bunch of our friends are learning new principles better than ever!! 🙂 It really is amazing to see all of the miracles that come from being a full time Missionary, and it really is great!
This week, we had a lot of service. We went over to some branch member’s houses and one of them, we helped them move some furniture and bookshelves and chairs. Before, they had plastic shelving units, and so they got wooden shelves, and they look really nice! Then we also went over to another member’s house, where they are actually going to move in to this house, because it is their dream house, but the people before them didn’t quite maintain it how they would have liked. So Elder Harmon and I got to help paint and do some yard work!
More on the yard work though, it was really cool because there was definitely a miracle that I saw! Part of the cleaning and yard work that we did was digging a ton of dirt out of the entrance to the crawl space, because it was really full, and caused issues with water, and made it hard to get down there! Well, by the end, we had a really big pile of dirt, with glass and other mysterious things in it, and this member really had no need to keep a bunch of dirt, because if it were to rain, then it would have just washed away right back into the hole! I guess long story short, she had 5 big black garbage bags that are like the yard work kind, and she’s like, “I hope this is enough” but I knew that dirt gets heavy fast, and it would be very close! We actually ended up filling the bags to the very max, all 5 of them, and barely got everything to fit! It might seem simple, and I guess you could say it is; but I know that Heavenly Father was looking after us and this member, because there is no reason that dirt should have fit in the bags, except by a miracle! 🙂 The whole time I was thinking about the “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Loaves and Two little fishes” and it was a really cool experience!
Service happened last Monday and Thursday, but on Tuesday we ended up going about a hour away from the apartment to the very edge of our area, to a tiny, tiny place called Abbeville. Someone that turns out they are a member, requested a Book of Mormon last week, and so we made the trek out there, and it was quite the experience! Abbeville is such a tiny little place, which literally one big building, the county court house, and it is just so small! To my family who knows the size of Fernley, it was so much smaller than that! The only two stores that they had there were literally a dollar general and a piggy wiggly. There was one Ma and Pop food place (that was pretty good actually), and that is the entirety of Abbeville! It was very old and historic, and I could belive that maybe in the 1930s it was the place to be! ? There was so much history there!
Wednesday was a pretty normal day, we ended up going to some peoples houses in person which is always fun, but before we actually got to their houses, there were some people sitting on their porches, and they stopped us, and we had some good conversations! I’m not going to lie, I don’t know what half of the conversations we had were about, but I do belive I’m starting to be able to pick words out here and there to have at least SOME context clues as to what’s going on ??. They said that they would come to church next Sunday though, so I am excited to see if that ends up happening lol ?.
Thursday was that service project and weekly planning, and it was actually really productive, so that was good.
Friday was a day of travel and good information! We had a meeting called New Missionary Training, and it was all the way up in Peachtree city, about 2 and a half hours away! We ended up waking up and going on the road right away so we could make it on time! New Missionary Training was a really nice meeting, and a bunch of questions that I didn’t even know that I had were answered, and so that is always nice! We talked a bit about social styles, and how we can better read people and predict how they will react, and it was actually really interesting! Another part of the meeting was about Facebook and how we can use it as a tool for Missionary work, and that in the last two years the number of people we have reached is insane!! We went from about 1500 to 20000 referrals from social media, which I think is a miracle in of itself!
On the note of Facebook, something us missionaries do is LCS (Like, Comment, and Share…pronounced ‘Licks’) to try to reach as many people as we can. Turns out, this is very effective for the Facebook Algorithm, and so we were told to tell everyone to go to your local Missionary page and start doing LCS today! ? ? (my zone page is Finding Christ along the Chattahoochee)
After New Missionary Training, we had District Council, which is always fun, and so we had that and then went to Red Robin, which was actually really good! We ended up staying in Columbus with the ZLs again because we wouldn’t have had time to make it back to Americus by the time all of that was over.
Saturday, we drove back to Americus, and I think that it was pretty much a normal day with a couple lessons and contacts? I don’t remember much from Saturday, except for looking at Next Week’s schedule and realizing that I am going to be in Columbus for like 4 days next week?! We have exchanges, then interviews, and then there’s another meeting that Elder Harmon has……but thats all for next week ??
Sunday, we had our friend come to church again, and they really seem to like coming to church, so that is amazing!! We really need to just set up lessons with them, because I think they are such a great person! We haven’t been able to because they’ve been busy, but I am really excited for them! There are more people that we’re teaching who actually did get a car, they just need to fix it up, and then they can come to church too! They are super excited!!
Overall, it has been super busy!! So many referrals, and so many things to do :). It is pretty great!
I’ve thought a lot about the spiritual thought for this week, and I came up with a bunch, but I think that for today It’s going to be on action. As a missionary, there is a schedule guideline that we should follow each day, and this week I’ve been thinking about the study time vs other time. You would expect as a missionary, you would have all the time in the world to study! If you aren’t doing anything, then you read your Scriptures! And while that would probably be true, I am quickly learning that there is no time other than in the morning that we actually do get to study! This last week, we barely had enough time even in the morning (as we were traveling a lot lol).
I guess my point being is if as a missionary, we really do only get 1 hour a day for personal studies, then is it the studies that actually matter or are important? To answer my question, I say yes! They are important! But something that I am learning, is that it is what you do with the knowledge that you’re gaining that really matters! We all have agency, and that is probably one of the greatest gifts that we have! To choose what we do and master the natural man.
While learning and studying is so important, I am learning that your faith and growth actually happens when you are applying what you’re learning. Most, if not all of the time, this is really hard! As we go throughout our day, it is when we are actually applying the principles that we are learning that we are going to have to choose to do what is right. You can know to do something, but unless you actually do it, there isn’t really any gain. You might have heard something like, “you can have all the knowledge in the world, but unless you use it, what’s the point in having that knowledge?”
I hope the point that I am getting across is that living the gospel really is a life long persuit! We need to study and learn every single day, because then we can learn how to make good decisions and follow the council from the Holy Ghost. It is as we are living in this way that our faith will grow, and we will be able to become better diciples of Jesus Christ!
None of this change, none of this improvement would be possible without Jesus Christ. Literally every single thing in our lives turns back to him! We must focus on him, because his rock is sure, and his rock is unshaken. It’s not going to move and throw us for a loop, but rather be firm and strong. We will find joy in this because this is who we are meant to become. Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can all repent, we can all change, and we can and will be forgiven if we truly have the desire to learn and grow, It will be good enough :). It is somewhat a daunting and humbling task that we have ahead of us! But we can do it; With the help of our Savior, Jesus Christ, we will be successful!
I love you all and hope y’all’s are staying safe! I wasn’t expecting to write a whole miracle about dirt in bags, but I know that Heavely Father is watching out for me! Thank you all for the emails you’ve sent me! I have read them all, I just haven’t been able to respond to them. I am working on that as fast as I can! 🙂
Love ya,
-Elder Claussen
