ELDER OLDROYD: APPLES

It’s truly is better to be busy doing things you like than not having anything at all. I would 100% of the time want to be way too busy than not at all. If you’re not busy, you’re not getting things done and having fun! Speaking of being busy, this was the busiest week for us and this area has never seen it this busy for this week. So, as a mission we set a Standards of Excellence and we set a goal to teach a total of 20 lessons per week to Investigators, less-active members, recent converts and members. Well when I was with Elder Jensen he was having some really hard problems and it was hard for us to go out and work and it was just bad. He was going through a really hard time and it was truly hard on me as you could imagine! When Elder Shin and I became companions, we switched this area around! We starting doing “dirty work” how I like to call it. There is a lot of records that missionaries have in what we call the “Area Book.” We take it around everywhere and in it we have records about all of our investigators, less actives, directory, and things to know about the area. Really everything you need to know. Well there was a lot of slacking missionaries that didn’t keep good records at all! Sure I have had my fair share of not being perfect at keeping records. But I got a solid testimony of it a long time ago and have been a lot better at it. There are people who don’t have any reason why they were dropped, if they live there. Whatever it may be. So we took the time to organize that Area book about 5-6 weeks ago and it has been so good for us. We have also been trying to see everyone in our area and it’s working out really good for us. We have also made a Google Document to have information about the people we see and their background a little bit. We have been able to show the leader of the Lisbon Ward and they are loving it. We ended up getting 30 lessons this week and we were stoked. Like I said, this area has never ever seen this! We worked our cans off and we made things happen for us this week. Well truly it wasn’t us, it was all Heavenly Father, he made it happen and we saw the people he wanted us to see. We also found 3 new investigators and things are looking really good for this work to move forward!

We took our Stake President out teaching with us on Saturday.  That is something!  Having the chance to call your Stake President to take him teaching with you is absolutely amazing! It was a very neat experience. We have a meeting with him this Tuesday with our Mission President, President Vellinga. We told him on Saturday we made this Google Document about the members in the Lisbon Ward and we would like to show him on Tuesday. You should have seen his face! He got the biggest smile on his face and said I would love to see it. When you talk about the Stake President’s members and that you’re really taking good care of them, they want to know about it!  We went and visited with a lady named Tonya Wallace. Super less-active. Has depression and has a huge record since she was a kid with drugs and alcohol. Well she started smoking marijuana again and drinking. We showed up at her house the other week without calling and she was super high ha-ha. She was open about it and didn’t think we have run into it at all on our missions, well that’s false ha-ha we run into it all the time. What was really cool about the lesson we had with her and the Stake President was that President Kirk has a beautiful Orchard.  His apples are huge and truly there is no other apple that has tasted better truthfully. What he said is that Heavenly Father has created this apple tree and all I did was put in into an environment that it could grow and to nourish it and give it what it needs and the tree does the rest of what God intended to have it do. Also, Heavenly Father created worms, bugs, things that destroy apples if you don’t take care of it. But he also created treatments you can use to prevent bad things to happen to these apples. Certain treatments only work for certain things to cure it. You can’t take weed killer and expect it to kill the worms on the apples right?? You need something that’s made just for worms! But first, you have to figure out what the problem is and what is ruining these apples. Then you will be apple to make the necessary steps to help these apples throughout the orchard. How can we relate this to our lives? Do you think you know what steps you need to take to make (the apple) your life be nourished and grow to be something extraordinary?? There isn’t just one solution to every single problem in our life, there are multiple. You need to find out what your “worm/bug” is. And then take the precautionary steps in life to be better. You can’t be a certain apple on a tree looking at a better looking apple and “wish” you were more like that apple. Sure you may have spots on the outside of you and it doesn’t make you look to good, but worms make one small hole and actually make it to the core and eat the core. Which who eats the core of an apple? It may seem that apple looks perfect because they don’t have spots on the outside, but you can’t see the inside of them. Who knows the worm may have eaten the whole core? Find out what cure you need and spray the heck out of it and make sure it never comes back! This is Elder Oldroyd’s version of the story, but I’m glad my Stake President was able to put it into perspective and I just loved that analogy that I will never forget!

I hope you enjoy this letter and I hope it finds you well! Have a great week!! I love you!

Love Elder Oldroyd