Lessons Learned

June 13, 2017

Lessons Learned

Hello Friends and family! Life's been treating me super well this past week!
So I had 2 experiences this week that taught me some pretty good lessons.

1) There's a less active member who lives about 45 minutes away from the church that we occasionally see on Wednesdays. Her daughter was baptized last year but since then they haven't been too active. Well come to find out she got sick again and told the bishop that she can't drive to Paris at all to come to church but she'd like people to come give her the sacrament. We talked to bishop Greenwell about it and he told us that we had permission to go give it to her. The thing that always bugged me about going to her house was the amount of excuses as to why she couldn't come to church, pray, read her scriptures, etc. I knew that whenever we went over to follow up on a commitment we extended to her she would always have 100 excuses as to why she didn't do it, and to make matters worse she would laugh and act childish while she would tell us her excuses and to us it just felt like this was all a game to her. So we got to her house and she told us she didn't have any water for the sacrament. I asked her if she could use some of her faucet water but she replied that her local cities water was smelly and gross. When she said that the thought came to my mind to let her have one of the water bottles in the back of our car. but because I was already a little salty towards this individual and we ourselves were low on water bottles I ignored that thought and told her she could drink just a little of her cities water and that it wouldn't kill her. well elder Jones stepped up and vocally told her that we had water bottles and he went and got her a bottle. We blessed the water and bread, gave it to her, and left. the whole car ride home I was peeved that she used and got to keep one of our last water bottles. well we get to the church to meet a sister in the ward who drops off dinners on Wednesday and lo and behold she gave us a big bag of water bottles. So me over dramatizing the fact of giving away ONE water bottle was all for nothing. the Lord had provided. So you'd think that I'd learn my lesson that day already with that experience but God had other plans.

2) while we were eating our dinner we got a call from a single sister in the ward. in the past she's asked us for blessings and a couple months back we went over to give her one but when we got there she had a son that was completely intoxicated and looked like he had a gun on him so Elder Haddock and I booked it outta there. Anyways while the phone rung and Elder Jones and I saw it was from her, I had the audacity to mumble "oh, what does she want?". Sure enough she needed a blessing so we ended our dinner early to drive out to her place to give her this blessing. We got there and I immediately felt bad for what I had said before I answered the phone. she was outside nearly in tears, and she started telling us all the terrible things that had happened that week and the reason she called for a blessing was to receive some comfort for the sure to be trying days ahead of her. she asked that I give the blessing but before I did, I prayed for forgiveness for my selfishness that entire day. It ended up being one of the most spiritual blessings I've ever given, and I truly felt the spirit tell me what to say to this distraught single sister. after the blessing she was in tears and thanked us sooo much for making the trip "so willingly" out to her place.

I felt like crap for a while because reflecting on the day's work I had been so incredibly selfish. I came on a mission to serve those in the Texas Dallas area yet here I was getting salty about giving away 1 water bottle and ending my dinner early to give a blessing. If theirs anything you should get outta this is that Christ's whole life and mission was for others. He served others everyday of his life and never got salty because other people weren't serving him back. His arrows were always pointed outwards towards others, while the natural man inside all of us wants our arrows pointed inwards towards ourselves. It's something that we all could work on. I hope this email made sense, and that the point was well made. The time I have on the mission is halfway over and this next year ill be sure to try my best to point my arrows outwards, like Christ, and worry less about myself, and my needs and more so the needs of the people in my areas!

love all of you!

P.S: Thank you all for the many Birthday wishes, 21 never felt so good!

Elder Hyatt :)

My mom called the Branch President and set them up to sing happy birthday to me on Sunday!
She also called the local bakery to make cupcakes for the entire branch!
She's the best mom in the whole world!