Friday, October 9, 2015

Epistle of a Missionary

I thought that this was hilarious!

The First Epistle of the Elders to the Dead Letter Writers
Chapter 1
In the beginning was the 
mailbox and the mailbox was 
void of letters.
2 And the missionaries said,
"Let the box be filled," and the
box was not filled.
3 And the missionaries beheld 
the continuing void and were 
not pleased.
4 And lo, it was the first day
of the week and there was no
mail delivered, but this was 
good.
5 But on the second day was
the mail delivered; yet the box
remained empty.
6 Yea, even from the second
day unto the seventh was the
mail delivered.
7 Even so, the box retained it's 
void.
8 And yea, great mists of dark-
ness spread forth from the void
and enshrouded the missionaries. 
Yea, and did bring much sadness
to their otherwise cheery days.
9 Even the long hours of fruitless 
tracting, being attacked by 
the fowls of the air, and being 
pursed by the beasts of the
field were not as disheartening
as the lack of blessed objects
known as letters.
10 Yet they persisted.

Chapter 2
And, Lo, on the second day of
the second week the mists still
encircled the mailbox.
2 And on the third day, from
within the depths of the void
was a single postcard. 
3 And this postcard put forth a 
ray of light that pierced the darkness
and overcame the mists.
4 And the missionaries were
well pleased, and there was 
much rejoicing.
5 But, alas, their exclamations 
of joy were in vain. For the
postcard was for someone else.
6 But if their joy was so 
exceedingly great over someone 
else's mail, how great would be
their joy at partaking of their
own mail?

Chapter 3
But some will say, A letter.
A Letter. We have already
written a letter. We have no 
need to write any more letters.
2 Know ye not that there are
more days than one, and more
events than one in a day? Why
think ye that these events need
not be reported?
3 Yea, and ye need not worry
that your letters will go unanswered.
4 But you should say, I will go
and write the letter that a 
missionary requests. For I know
that he giveth no requests
except he be prepared to 
speedily respond.
5 And we give unto you the 
parable of the self-addressed
envelopes.
6 When the missionary
departed into the far off land he
gave a certain number of self-
addressed stamped envelopes to
his friends.
7 Unto one he gave five, unto
another he gave two, and unto
the third he gave one.
8 And while he was gone, he
that was given the five envelopes
wrote five letters, then in his zeal
wrote five letters more.
9 The same with him that had
two envelopes; He wrote two
letters and then two letters
more.
10 But he that was given the
one self-addressed envelope
became slothful and careless.
And he lost the envelope, even
that which he was given.
11 And when the missionary
came home he went unto his
friends. And he that had written
ten letters was warmly greeted.
12 The same with him that 
had written four letters.
13 But he that had written
none at all was given nothing
more than a fishy, wimp-like
handshake.

Chapter 4
And the missionary said unto
his friend; lovest thou me?
2 And the friend said, of 
course I love thee. then the
missionary said, fill my
mailbox.
3 He saith a second time,
friend, lovest thou me? And the
friend said, thou knowest that I
love thee. He then said, fill my 
mailbox.
4 He then spake a third time
saying, lovest thou me? And the
friend said, thou knowest all 
things, thou knowest that I love
thee.
5 Then the missionary said,
stuff my mailbox.
6 And the vision is become 
unto all as the words of a letter
that is sealed in the envelope
that men deliver to one who is
not serving a mission saying,
Read this, I pray thee; and he
saith, I cannot, for it is not
mine.
7 And the letter is delivered to
him that is serving a mission
saying, read this I pray thee;
and he saith, why sure.
8 Therefore, you should
proceed to do a marvelous work
for a missionary, even a marvelous
work and a wonder by
writing a letter.

The days have kind of blurred together but everyday has been a blessing! General conference was spectacular! I'm sure everyone was on the edge of their seats when our beloved Prophet Thomas S. Monson talked. I'm sure everyone in that building was praying for him and thousands around the world! A few days after General Conference we had Linda K. Burton come talk to us and she mentioned what happened at Conference and then asked the question, "Do we really appreciate our Prophet and what he does for us?" That was truly a wake up call for me! I always thought ,"If the prophet dies then another one will be called" but I have not been grateful enough to Thomas S Monson and how much he sacrifices for this church and I'm also grateful that the Lord would not keep us in the dark but allow us to have a prophet. Also right after Elder Hollands talk the entire MTC could be heard sniffling and coughing (trying to cover up crying) and I'm pretty sure everyone there had their eyes water.

Vocal point came and sang and talked to us which was pretty cool. Probably one of my favorite things here is volleyball. Everyday we go outside to play sand volleyball! We also had another wonderful lesson with Marco and it was just as heart felt as the other ones! I love teaching him! 

So I've had a goal to not eat sugar for 2 weeks and I made it a little over a week and then.....they had pumpkin pie for lunch and it's October and it's Fall and I'm not going to have thanksgiving for who knows how many years and I wont be able to eat pumpkin pie in Nicaragua! Those were almost all the excuses that I came up with to eat the pie...so I took a bite....and it tasted like leaves changing colors, like hot chocolate and sweaters, like cinnamon and pumpkins, like cool crisp air and IT WAS AMAZING!!!! I think it was the best piece of pumpkin pie I've ever had!

Words of Wisdom for the day:

It took Michelangelo twelve years - one brush stroke at a time - to paint his biblical scenes in the Sistine Chapel. It took Brahms twenty years - one note at a time - to compose his First Symphony. It took Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay eighty days - one step at a time - to climb the 29,000 feet of Mount Everest. 
                Word by word, brush-stroke by brush-stroke, note by note, step by step, problem by problem, prayer by prayer - this is the secret of Achievement.    -Author unknown


Hermana Partridge

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