Dear Family and Friends,
I’m exhausted.
This week has been so crazy and so stressful and difficult. Really the only thing keeping me sane is my companion Elder Erickson.
Flirting Sisters
To start off, we have a huge problem with flirtatious young Sisters and it is really annoying me. They have been texting certain elders like crazy and getting on Facebook and what not … I love the new enthusiasm about missionary work, and how there are so many new sisters coming out to serve. But if you are just going on a mission because it’s the fad or because it’s the new cool thing to do, you should just stay home. You will save a lot of other people a lot of headaches. Find out why your here and stick with it. Don’t come on a mission to flirt. That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve seen. Sorry, I just have been really fed up with that.
How to be a Leader
Something else that has been hard for me in a leadership position is correcting people. Elder Erickson and I are afraid that people will begin to hate us for correcting them so much as we are. We are trying to do so in an appropriate way and with an increase of love but we have found that there is a line between being a “popular” and “well-liked” leader and one who is obedient and does the right thing always. It’s been really shocking to find younger missionaries accusing us of being “stiffs.” I think Elder Erickson and I are the biggest goofballs out there.
Zone Meeting
We spent a lot of effort this week into having a great zone meeting which was based around each area’s baptismal goal and the zone total of those goals: 35. We pointed out that if each one of our companionship prayerfully sought out their baptismal goals for this month then that must mean that our zone total goal is inspired. So we came up with a plan to make sure that happens. We talked a lot about obedience, hard work, having fun, and sacrifice. It was a positive zone meeting. I thought it was a spiritual experience. At the end, we took a moment of silence as a zone to reflect personally and write one thing on a card that is holding us back. One thing we can sacrifice. Today at our zone bbq, we will burn each one of those cards.
Ward Leadership
Another huge stress that I have experienced personally is our ward leadership. Our ward mission leader is a great man and has a lot of enthusiasm and drive but is brand new and I think he may feel overwhelmed. We have gone by his house and helped “train” him a bit, so hopefully that will help.
As far as our Bishop, I don’t know if it’s because he has never served a mission, but he isn’t really supportive to our missionary work. He is constantly brushing aside our suggestions, especially for a ward mission plan and for ward missionaries, and has even been openly rude to missionaries. At Ward Council yesterday we were talking about home and visiting teaching and he encouraged members to NOT visit their families monthly, but every 2 or 3 months, or even less often. I suggested that the visits should probably still be carried out monthly, and I thought I did it in a pretty respectful way. He looked at me pretty rudely said, “Elder, I am the Bishop. I have the authority and they keys and I say that that’s how it will be.”
Man, I’ll be honest with y’all – I had to bite my tongue hard. I just said OK and swallowed my pride. I am grateful for the patience I have learned on my mission. In another life I would have retaliated in an immature and disrespectful way. But I must be honest in saying that it is hard for me to love him. But I am trying.
Our Area
In other news, our area of Magnolia has been stressing us because we have’t had much time to work in it at all because of everything we have been planning. Tuesday we had a Mission Leadership Council in Kingwood and Wednesday we spent a huge part of the day planning zone meeting and Thursday was weekly planning. Friday was zone meeting and Saturday was exchanges. We didn’t get one full day to work our area and it is showing. We don’t have a ton of people to work with.
Teresa
Teresa’s dad died the day after she was confirmed. It was a huge blow to her, but she is doing well. Her whole family spent the week there. It was disappointing. They seemed to be commemorating the death with a week-long party. Nothing but drinking and bad behavior. She is taking a vacation to Austin for the week. It should be good for her she needs it.
Anyway that is pretty much all I got. I am trying to keep on going and forgetting how little time I have left. I want to keep sprinting so that I can just bust through that brick wall at the end of everything. This stuff is great. Sorry if my letters have gotten boring. I’m really just… tired.
But we gotta go cuz we still have a ton of work to do to get ready for this zone bbq!
Love y’all!
Elder Viitanen
p.s. no more bedbugs!!!