Ah! I'm Becoming A Missionary

      Sheeeeesh, this week went by quickly. Elder Titus and I have continued to get along phenomenally. Turns out we have almost the exact same sense of humor, so we're always having fun and being goobers. 

       I can tell though that I'm reaching the point of being fully submerged in this work. You know how people who learn a foreign language say that they know they've got the language down when they dream in that language? Well this week I woke up in the morning 4 times and realized I just had a dream where all I did was missionary work. So I'm now doing missionary work all day and night. It's also becoming harder for me to remember what it was like being home. The thought of working at In-N-Out or going to school or being goobers with my friends instead of sharing the gospel and growing my testimony is becoming increasingly more odd. I'm starting to see how missionary life can, in fact, be as awesome and amazing as everybody says it is. 

      The amount of missionaries in our mission literally doubled yesterday. Our mission president was only given a 10 day notice about this too, so he's been incredibly busy for sure. We found out yesterday that the Layton Utah Mission is going to be one of ten missions that will pilot (because they always use this mission to pilot new ideas) incorporating service missionaries into our proselyting efforts. Most of the places that are piloting this will have as little as 5 service missionaries, but our mission boundaries has 140 service missionaries. Our mission president also was given almost no guidance on how to go about this, so he's literally had to almost pull all of this out of a hat. 

       Basically though, anyone doing a service mission would be called as a service missionary in the Utah Layton Mission or wherever else they end up going now. So they can now join with us during our studies and even have the choice to go and participate in lessons and proselyting efforts. It's really cool, this feels very right. 

       The change just keeps on coming, but we adapt and move forward. Also, "driver i" is no longer a thing. That's fantastic, it will not end up getting incorporated anywhere. It was so annoying, I already like the old system much better. That's both sides of being able to pilot everything though, you get some really awesome ideas that will benefit the work and some ideas that you test out and realize that it's just not going to work out. 

       Other than that, I got to carry a 60ft by 30ft American flag for a parade. It was really cool, but unfortunately we walked one way and not in a loop so we had to walk back to the car through the parade because we were at the front. I kinda hated it - everyone would give us handfuls of candy just because we're missionaries. We just got handful after handful of candy, bead necklaces, Otter Pops, Frisbees, you name it. It's a weird thing to complain about, but I don't like being treated differently just because I'm a missionary. There are 2 exceptions to this: 1) If I know you and you're someone I consider a friend. It feels like a friendly gesture as opposed to special treatment. 2) If I'm in a home and they offer something. This feels more like hospitality more than anything else. I don't know why it bugs me, especially because it's 1000% hypocritical. If I saw missionaries in the street, I would try to help them out by giving them whatever it was that I had in a heartbeat. 

       Final thing because this is getting long. I learned this week that you can trust the Lord. He won't let his work get messed up. If the devil can't mess up God's plan, than I'm certainly not going to be able to, especially since I'm trying to do good. So follow promptings, the Spirit is guiding you to something good and you have no need to fear that you'll mess something up. 

           It's getting exciting here, Elder Blacker