10 years mission reunion

So I am reflecting on my missionary journals.  I'll update this as I read them.  Its so interesting to see how much I changed.

First of all MTC.....wow! Mind not on the sidewalk thanks to good old Pendleton and sweet ole Dedrickson.  The people who literally made my MTC experience normal.  Even though one is an elder, and the other was not even my companion, I gleaned so much from them for support.  I lacked a companion who would help me enjoy my mission from the start.  Only later I realized it lies within myself to find out who I was as a missionary, as a person.  My MTC experience was all but normal.  My district never got along, we were constantly off-task, and missionary work was the last thing on some of our minds.  I cannot speak for the others, but I was definitely embarrassed and a little ashamed that I wasted so much time in a place that I could have grown so much from.

I did eventually find my groove in the MTC.  It was hard with a companion with whom I felt struggled to want to be there, but I eventually told myself I was not there for her.  I came because I loved what I believe and I wanted to share that with others.  My best experience there was in the TRC, the Teaching Resource Center.  This is where "Fake investigators" come and hear lessons that we practice on them.  Well I did not know this the first lesson we taught.  I was convinced our "investigator" was really not a member.  She looked so interested.  She said she did not have a Book of Mormon and so I left the room desperate to find a Book of Mormon.  No one had one, and finally, my companion rudely laughed me to shame and told me they were volunteer members.  Well the experience was ruined, but I will never forgot that one authentic experience that excited me about what I would be doing for the next 18 months.  I was ready at that point to start.

After I endured the MTC, I made it to the greatest mission in the world.  Casinos everywhere as I stepped out of the plane, elders dodging every pornographic wall.  Welcome to Vegas.

At my first Transfer Conference I was scared to death.  I saw the elders that were going home and thought, "Man, that is going to be me...in a long time."  I knew the sister who sung at the meeting would end of being my companion. She smiled at me alot with her very wild red lipstick.  She was eccentric from the start, bless her heart.  As I re-read all the experiences I had with Sr. Wiggins, I can't believe how much she prepared me for the rest of my mission.

One of the comments she told me at one of our companionship inventory, which I resented at the time, but now understand.  She said I was a fireball that needed to be aimed.  There are so many little things I learned from Serenity.  I remember how much we sang together, how much she tried so hard to follow the Spirit, and how she tried to be positive in everything that she did.