A Mission Isn't For You

(Here is Frasier's email from 10/29/17)

This email might be a little bit more serious than some of my other ones, but I would just like to preface with the fact that everything is still going good. I'm still alive.

If anybody ever says a mission isn't for them, they are right. If they ever say a mission is for them, they are wrong. A mission is not for you in several ways. First of all, I don't know if anyone would really want to drop everything, have very limited contact with family, work all day long, and have limited money supply. If you would prefer that you have something wrong with you and probably need to get that checked by a professional. It also is not for you because it is for everyone that you are out serving and talking to. You need to lose yourself in the work. Losing yourself means not being able to find yourself because it is hidden by all the other people's lives you are involved with. If you say that a mission is for you, your priorities are mixed up. 

Granted the missionary gets just as many if not more blessings than the people they are serving, but that's not what it is about. A missionary should always be focused on others. Be serving people because you want them to have the blessings of your service, not because God will bless you when you serve. President Hiatt said, "We need to remember who we are working for." Sometimes we lose track of who we are working for. We have a tough employer. He demands a lot from us, but to show our love for Him, we do it. When we want blessings for ourselves, feel lazy, don't do all that we can, get angry, frustrated, impatient, or anything else, we are forgetting who we work for. It is a tough job, but we are all promised a bonus at the end.

This has been kind of a tough week in a lot of ways. First of all, I've heard about a lot of things that are going on at home. Lots of little children soon to be running around. Congrats to all (even though Whitney let me down just a little by having a girl). Missing football is kind of hard honestly. Not being able to be home and comfort family and friends through trials is hard. Finding out Brother Gibbs Smith passed away kinda sucks as well. Much love to the Smiths. Also knowing that life goes on without me is kind of weird. 

I also broke my umbrella, got completely soaked, almost had an ingrown toenail (but I did self-surgery to fix it because heaven forbid I got to a Filipino hospital, and ingrown toenails just suck) and had little money to spend on food, still haven't used toilet paper, I've had to accept the fact that I actually want to have rice for meals, and my relationship with my companion could be better.

Companionship: I knew it would be hard coming to a different country with a different language and a different culture, but it is not what I expected. We struggle to see eye to eye sometimes. Remember that this is from my perspective, and I'm sure his story is different. I have honestly never said anything to intentionally be rude to him. There have been times where I have been serious or straightforward, but they have all been because I want to be the most effective missionaries we can be. He comes from a different background, but he doesn't like how I communicate with him. When I ask questions it bugs him. He has said I ask too many questions. When I try to suggest that there might be a better plan about how to do something, he doesn't understand what I am trying to tell him, and we end up doing what he wanted to do anyway. When we try to review lessons and I suggest that we could have done something better, he takes it in the way of he did something wrong which are not my intentions at all. He also doesn't understand social cues at all. So when I do or say something that I think means something, he doesn't get it or understand at all. That gets a little frustrating. When he gets bugged or frustrated, his "defense mechanism" is to just shut down and not talk to me, or acknowledge that I am there. That doesn't make things any easier. On the scale of fight or flight, he is very far on the flight side, and I am very far on the fight side. 

We have ended up meeting with President Hiatt a couple of times, and I have come to the conclusion that President Hiatt is not going to split us unless someone starts throwing fists, and I don't plan on doing that. Also, I don't really want to split either. I am going to do everything I can to work out our difference. I love and respect him even though we don't see eye to eye. I just want to be the best missionary I can be for these next two years, and I want him to be the best as well. We are yoked together, so we have to find a balance. I am trying everything I can do to be patient, loving, and caring. I always apologize and try to be better. I just hope that someday he can have the same love and respect for me that I have for him.

I realized one instance where we should try and leave a lesson as soon as possible this past week. We went to this referral house. He was outside fixing up his motorcycle, so he went inside to get on a shirt and wash up. He was very kind and seemed like a cool guy. He comes out with his Bible (1st cue we should have got out of there), he starts talking to us and seemed very interested. He asked if we had any training. We told him no, all we do is learn the language and the basics, but we are taught in all the doctrine. As we start trying to teach him he says that he feels like the Bible is correct, true, and he doesn't need anything else (2nd reason we should have left), we start trying to explain the Book of Mormon to him, and he was trying to make us give him hard proof about everything we were saying, but the proof had to come from the bible (3rd cue). Then he started reading us scriptures out of the Bible (4th cue). 

It went from good to bad to worse real quick. He then started going off on us about how he is interested, willing to learn and be corrected, but said that we needed to be willing to do the same if we were to ever come back. He told us that we had none of those qualities and that we caused it to not be a healthy conversation, when in fact it was him that was causing everything to be bad, he was totally being hypocritical to the greatest extent. I finally lost it after being so kind to him for so long. "Do you know what a hypocrite is? If you are going to tell us all these things about a healthy conversation and willing to listen, you have to do the same. You tell us all these things, but it goes both ways. You told us that you believe in the Bible and believe in God, but how do you know that?   You don't have any hard evidence that either is true or real, so how do you expect us to be any different. You will know our message is true if you are humble and willing to listen, but you haven't been, so there is no way you are going to feel our message is true." 

He then started trying to defend himself, we said a prayer, gave him our number if he ever wants us to come back, and then we left. I immediately regretted how I acted. I've repented and realized that I did not represent the person whose name I have on my chest. My companion was not very happy with me though. He thought that that guy was a "Golden Investigator". We got into a disagreement. I told him that I was not going to allow us to go and teach another lesson without solving our problems. We could either go back to the apartment or go to the president's office, it was his choice. He chose president's office. It was all around a bad morning. We got over it pretty quick and the president gave us some scriptures to handle that situation next time.

There was a baptism on Saturday, so we invited a bunch of our progressing investigators to come to it. Sadly none of them did. One was coming but was late because the baptism got moved forward. He missed the baptism, but my companion and I gave him a church tour along with the assistants. We were discerning to him and his wife all the paintings and the purpose of different rooms and whatnot. This brother was actually one of the investigators that we went and taught with President Hiatt and Elder Schmutz a few weeks ago. I texted President Hiatt just to let him know what was going on, and within a few minutes, he and his wife were with us taking the church tour with our investigator. (The mission home is on the same compound as the church.) That was really cool to have them with us. At the end, we went into the sacrament hall and said a prayer, and by the end of the prayer both of the Abads (our investigators) were crying, so I guess that is a good thing. Ha ha 

They also came to all of church the next day with their little kids. The kids went to primary and everything. It was awesome! Especially because Brother Abad's foot is all messed up. He got in an accident and broke his foot a while back and had a cast on it for 5 months. He got the cast of this past week and showed us his foot. All the flesh on his foot is dead and it is just nasty. Sister Hiatt saw it and had to walk away cause she almost threw up. Anyway, he can hardly move or get around, so it makes it even more special that he made the church trip twice!

Everything is going good here. It's not easy but it's good. I miss all of you who might be reading this. Odds are that if you are thinking of me, I've been thinking of you, so shoot me an email or a prayer or something.

Question of the day: Why does the heart of the banana not look anything like a banana?

Ingat po

(Added by Alayna: 1) I didn't even know there was a heart of the banana.  I had to Google it!  And, he's right, it doesn't look like a banana!  2) Ingat Po translation is: Be Safe)

--

Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!