It Just Doesn't Seem Right

Dekan's email address: dekan.blacker@missionary.org

He also spoke in church Sunday, so I attached his talk if interested.

  Yeah, this week I found out just how disobedient Utah missionaries are. I've been told ever since I got here that Utah is known for having the most disobedient missionaries which is weird because you have people telling you not to have surgery outside of P day. I still can't get over that. 

      So we had President Pierson who's the area authority over our area and part of the quorum of the 70 come and speak to us. At one point he asked everybody to raise their hand if they had done Personal and Companionship study everyday this week. I saw only 6 hands go up. We had about 150 missionaries there, not good. I'm included in that too, I couldn't raise my hand. It was awful seeing my mission president's face because the last couple weeks he was feeling really great about the mission and kept telling us so. Then that happened and his face went from smiley and hopeful to a God-fearing look. We definitely have let him down. 

      The next day our Zone Leaders were replaced just out of the blue and that doesn't happen unless you do something. We don't know what happened, but it just adds on to the Utah missionary disobedience narrative. Then, we got a letter from President Johnson saying that he was going to start sending missionaries home for not waking up on time. This was after the fact that I learned 2 missionaries are going home early this transfer bringing the total up to 5 missionaries I know who are/have gone home early since being here and now it seems like even more will be soon. It all feels very ominous and the mission as a whole just feels off. Something is not right and it's probably a result of the disobedience, but the mission just feels dark. 

      Also when President Pierson spoke, he chastised us. I know that he's called of God and I know that I don't know everything and what he said very well could've helped somebody else, but it just rubbed me the wrong way. He flat out told us that we shouldn't be struggling because he had a much harder mission than us. Which doesn't make any sense to me to tell somebody that, even if it's true, but whatever. He also told us some other weird stuff I won't get into, but I am so against the notion of telling somebody they shouldn't be struggling.  I just can't get behind that. 

      In other news, I got my splint removed and I'm now in a cast. It's good, it protects me from myself. I absolutely tore the splint to pieces and was able to take it off and such. I even slept without it one night, admittedly not the safest thing. Still, it's healing as it's supposed to; so in 2 weeks I'll have the cast removed. 

   Also you know you're in Utah when you show up to a soda shop and there's a wall of all the missionaries who have showed up to the soda shop. It was so cringey. It's stuff like this that makes me not want to live here forever. I know this email sounds negative, but I'm really doing ok. I got In-N-Out again (yes that's going to be noteworthy to me every time) it's just one of the little things that makes me happy.

                  Keep on keeping on, Elder Blacker 

Dekan's talk:

Hello everybody, my name is Elder Blacker and I was asked to use this last General

Conference to talk about missionary work. When I first heard about this talk I was pretty

sure I misheard the topic because I listened to every conference and I don’t remember

anyone mentioning missionary work once. Obviously I’m kidding, this General

Conference missionary work was stressed so much it had me going. I’m so glad I’m

serving a mission right now otherwise I’d be feeling some major major guilt right now.

Luckily though, I’m here and now I’m going to be giving a talk about why you should be

doing missionary work and for young men and young women why you should prepare to

serve a full time mission. Honestly though, I hope my talk has little to no impact on your

lives. You might be thinking, huh? Why wouldn’t he want this to impact us? Is he saying

I can cave in and take a nap? No, the reason I hope this has little impact on you is

because the living prophet on the Earth today who’s received direct revelation from God

just made a point by emphasizing the importance of missionary work for all of us. If my

talk inspires you to do missionary work, it begs the question, why are you listening to

me more than the prophet and the twelve apostles? Now with that being said, hopefully

my talk can help you in one or two small ways, but if you’re not doing missionary work,

get on it. The prophet has told us to do so. In Russel M. Nelson’s opening remarks he

said, “every person who has made covenants with God has promised to care about

others and serve those in need.” We have made a covenant to help those around us. In

the same remarks Russel M. Nelson said, “ the gospel of Jesus Christ has never been

needed more than it is today.” So we made a covenant, a two way promise with God, to

help those around us and the prophet just said that nothing helps more than the gospel.

So if we want to make the most of our promise with God, we need to share the gospel. Trust me, I know that it’s hard to share the gospel. I also know that it’s really hard to

commit yourself to a full time mission. It was really hard for me to commit to it. I’ve

always been a very chill guy, I’m very go with the flow because I trust that it will all work

out. I’m like this so much so that I ended up graduating high school with no idea what I

wanted to do next because I wasn’t concerned and didn’t think about it. Never in my life

have I had more than just butterflies in my stomach. That was the extent of any

nervousness or anxiety that I had in my life. Then I got my mission call and then it got to

the point where I had 2 weeks before I would leave. In those 2 weeks I had 3 separate

panic attacks. Real ones where you can’t control your breathing, you’re shaking

uncontrollably, your body starts to go numb. Some super not fun stuff. A mission was

the first thing that I was truly afraid of. I was so scared to give up the life that I had for 2

years to embark on this new life here in Layton Utah. So fast forward a couple months

and we needed a car so I made the noble sacrifice and let Elder Stewart break my wrist

so that we could get one. What actually happened is we were biking and I fell off, on the

sidewalk, while going uphill, so it wasn’t even fast, but that story’s too embarrassing to

tell. Anyways, I broke my wrist and ended up needing surgery and my mom was

allowed to fly down here for the surgery. So I had the surgery, which it went well by the

way, and then I stayed at a hotel room with my mom for the next couple days so she

could take care of me. I was actually doing fantastic after the surgery, I was walking

around doing well so me and my mom basically got to hang out for 2 days. We played a

lot of card games, got to go to the tabernacle together, which I highly recommend, and I

basically got to have the life I left at home for 2 days, granted while following mission

standards. I realized though that I no longer wanted that lifestyle. I now wanted to be

here, serving the Lord. My family went to Mexico last week and they felt bad that I

wasn’t there, but I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be here, serving a mission and I

hope they had fun, but I really don’t care where they go or what they see because I’ve

learned that I want to be here on a mission. It’s really hard to leave on a mission, but it’s

so worth it and the Lord is asking us to go and gather his children and again that applies

to all of us, not just those on or preparing to serve a mission. As I was preparing for this

talk I read the story of the Zoramites. Now the story of the Zoramites is that Alma,

Amulek, and essentially the Book of Mormon avengers, to steal a term from my

companion, so all these great missionaries, they go to a land called Antionum to go

preach to the Zoramites and when they get there they see the Zoramites practicing

religion in a very odd manner. Essentially, they would go up this tower, the

Rameumptom once a week and pray to God which was really them boasting of their

own strength and then never speaking of God again until the next week. I think that we

tend to be like the Zoramites in 2 big ways. First, we tend to only talk about God and our

beliefs only when we are at church. Just like the Zoramites only spoke of God when

they were in the Rameumptom. It’s not that hard to talk about religion with other people.

I worked with somebody who was a Catholic and he wasn’t interested in the church, but

he said to me one time, thank you for talking about religion with me. It’s so nice to have

a discussion about this stuff. People don’t tend to mind talking about their beliefs. I’ve

learned that the key to having good, everyday, almost casual conversations with people

about religion is to focus on the similarities and not the differences. Don’t shy away from

talking about the differences, but focus on the similarities. It can be done with every

religion, I had a couple conversations focused on similarities with someone who believed in a church based in India and another one with someone who believed in

multiple lives with reincarnation and some other really interesting stuff that you don’t

hear about very often. So talk to those around you when the opportunity arises. The

second way I believe we’re like the Zoramites comes from the prayer that they would

say. Alma 31 verse 16 reads, “Holy God, we believe that thou hast separated us from

our brethren, and we do not believe in the tradition of our brethren which was handed

down to them by the childishness of their fathers; but we believe that thou hast elected

us to be thy holy children.” The verse continues and it talks about how they didn’t

believe in Christ, but if you’re refusing to do missionary work when the opportunity

presents itself, what are you saying? What are you telling God? Eh, I don’t believe that

they would accept the gospel, they’re too addicted to smoking or excuses B,C,D all the

way down. When you don’t share the gospel because in your opinion they wouldn’t

accept it you’re saying, thank you for electing us to be your holy children. That man I

work with or my neighbor, they aren’t elected as one of your holy children. It’s not your

decision to make. And if you don’t even have the desire to share with others, what are

you saying? You’re saying, thanks for separating us from our brethren. I’m glad I have

this, but I don’t want anyone else to have it. Let’s make sure we’re putting away our

pride and go and share the gospel. I’m going to end with the prophets’ testimony

followed by my own. The prophet said, “you are vital to the Lord. He has held you in

reserve until now to help gather Israel. Your decision to serve a mission will bless you

and many others.” Brothers and sisters, I know that sharing the gospel and going on a

mission are not easy things to do, but they are things our prophet has commanded us to do and I know that as we set aside our fears and our pride and make an effort the Lord

will bless you and help you to accomplish his work in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.