Week 21- The Prideful One

 Aloha 皆さん、

SORRY I FORGOT TO HIT SEND LAST NIGHT. Was super busy with stuff my bad my bad. Also join this brah

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AHMSwiJyAjcEjecb7

Well one thing is for sure, the week was crazy. I guess I'll start off this email with the struggle of this week and what it taught me. So I don't know if I would consider myself an extremely prideful person, well maybe when it comes to competitive sports or games but overall I think I'm not too bad. But I was on Zone Leader exchanges this past week and we talked about how humility is being able to submit yourself to Heavenly Father. In the sense that you are able to trust in the lord and trust in the keys of his servants and their decisions. The opposite of humility is ofcourse pride. I was able to learn from my ZL that a missionary was talking bad about me behind my back and the whole week I was faced with a battle between my own pride and my humility. I really wanted to give into my pride and absolutely go off. But as I reflected I was able to see how that would inevitably end up benefiting no one other than my own ego. I was able to gain some perspective reading in PMG Section 6 (Christlike attributes) and came across Proverbs 13:10. 

10 Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.

Through my own pridefulness and ego I would have created an even worse situation where no one would grow and only contention would remain. Believe me I wanted and still do kind of want nothing more than to let myself be prideful and absolutely drop a “I'm better than you” bomb, but that wouldn't help me, that wouldn't help the Elder. In the end it would only stray further away from the person I want to be. I'm definitely still working on how to help this person as well as myself in this situation but I thought I'd share. Pride only brings contention, the opposite of pride however brings you closer to Heavenly Father and strengthens your faith in him.

Highlights🗿

-Exchanges

-GYMMMM

-Zone Council

-Yonutz/Not a thrift store

-Making some good friends

-LIFFERTH FAM

Exchanges:

So I had Zone Leader Exchanges this past week and honestly it was super fun. Elder Maxson is a super interesting guy and he is a really good missionary. I was able to learn a lot about member work and how I can better use multiple scriptures in my spiritual thoughts to make a message more powerful for other people. I truly had a lot of fun and that also had to do with the fact that the ZL's apartment is absolutely decked out sooo. Yeah that ties into my next highlight.

GYMMMMM:

IT FELT LIKE FOREVER. The Zone Leaders literally have their own gym inside their apartment like what the what. Anyways took full advantage of that and did a back workout and a chest workout with Elder Maxson. And Elder Maxson is pretty huge and he was a drill sergeant. Sooo yeah was able to get to bomb workouts in and definitely was better than just doing push-ups and resistance bands. I miss the gym :(

Zone council:

During the ZL exchange since I'm leaving for Japan Elder Maxson was telling me about the goal he was gonna drop at ZC. He showed me all the math and reasoning behind it so it was super cool to see and understand. So it was also super funny when the ZLs dropped 440 lessons with members participating as the February goal when our January goal was 150. Everyone's reactions were kinda funny but it was a really good Zone conference and they explained and taught really well. Too bad I won't be able to see what the zone ends up getting for LMP. But it was great because they also did role-plays about member work to further emphasize how to better utilize the members so we can make that goal happen.

Yonutz/Not a thrift store:

So we were at Yonutz because I really wanted to try their smashed donut before I left (a donut with ice cream inside heat pressed with cinnamon sugar). I kept seeing them on Facebook ads so I had to give it a taste. It was really good but then after we walked outside and I saw a school bus. It was this thrift store that drives all around Utah I saw on tiktok before the mission. I was so stoked because they had some really nice clothes. They were stoked because the missionaries coincidently found their bus and kinda filmed us. Anyways I bought a shirt which was a pretty nice old Nike shirt and we took some pictures (still waiting on those). And I might be on tiktok whoops.

Making some good friends:

As the UOM comes to a close and I start preparing for Japan I realized I made some pretty good friends. Especially Elder Willis and Elder Lifferth. Absolutely live those guys and they are such good missionaries. I honestly wish them the best of luck, especially Elder Willis because in his third transfer he's gonna be a District Leader that's training. Big things brah🗿

LIFFERTH FAM:

YESSAH I got to see the Lifferth Fam and eat with them last Sunday. I felt so blessed to see them all again and even Nana was there too! It was amazing eating Uncle Ryan's smoked meat and talking with everyone. Also got to see Zach and we had a little arm wrestle which was pretty funny. But in all seriousness I felt super grateful to see them all before I went to Japan. It was definitely the biggest highlight of my week and my heart felt so so full. I really do miss everyone and I hope everyone is doing well❤️

Okay das all for now

SHOOTS!

エリス長老

TheRisingSon