This was a very exciting week. We have had some pretty random
events happen that have brought a lot of learning. But first off, my new
companion is Elder Matthew Kelly Anderson, who is from Bountiful, Utah. I
get another Utah missionary to serve with to help bring to the light and
knowledge that Utah is not the only Zion. Elder Anderson served in Miami two
transfers after me and baptized the M's who I found while I was there. I
have been on many exchanges with him over the past seven months and know
that we will be great for each other. I can foresee that he might not want
to keep up with my eating and exercise habits, but that was one of the
challenges I had with Elder Hancock that I finally won after several months
of being persistent.
It always seem that in the last few weeks of serving with a
companion all my questions get answered and I begin to realize what it is
that the Lord has been trying to teach me through the trials. As I have been
serving with Elder Hancock, I have been taught how to get along with someone
who is the complete opposite of who I am. If you sat down and took both of
our life stories and compared them, you would see that we lived in different
worlds before we came out here. I know that it was only through the
inspiration from the Lord that we were supposed to serve together; I would
have never guessed in a million years that we could have served together,
much less for six months. I'm not complaining, but I'm just telling you how
it was. Sometimes the only thing that got me through the tough times was the
confirmation I got one day that Elder Hancock was called by revelation to be
my companion. Things were just started to come together this past week until
we got a call on Wednesday from the Tulsa zone leaders telling us about a
missionary companionship that had gotten into a little fight. The only
reason why I even mention this detail is to explain what I learned this
week. Before we got the call on Wednesday we had just gotten over some of
our communication differences and began to really become solid. We knew how
to better get along and we were really able to communicate. Well, after this
call on Wednesday we ended up with a third companion who brought a new
element to our companionship that we weren't able to handle at first. This
third companion came with a negative spirit that could be felt by us and
which really made it more difficult. Something happened during Wednesday
which created some resentment that we each kept bottled up for two days
because we couldn't find time to get alone and talk things through. On
Friday we had to make the time. I don't know how it changed things, but it
really did. It's hard to explain what I learned from this experience in an
email. It's been a lesson that has been culminating for the past six
months. I can sum up the whole lesson in one sentence taken from "The
Family; A Proclamation to the world." I read this one day after searching
for an answer as to what I was to learn from my time serving with Elder
Hancock. "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained
on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love,
compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." Of course I am not
married, but this companionship has been the closest thing I will ever get
until I actually am. I figured that if I wanted to have a successful
companionship with Elder Hancock I needed to practice these principles. I
have tried my best to put into practice these principles in my relationship
with Elder Hancock and it has made a world of a difference.
Well, to keep building off this story, today I learned in more
detail why I have had some of the experiences that I have. I learned that a
leader is going to go through special trials that will allow them to know
how to help others. I was sitting with my third companion today in church
and was thinking about what purpose I can serve in helping him. As I thought
about this, I began to understand that a lot of what I had been through with
my current companion has given me the tools and know how to help this
missionary. I think that's what Alma 7:12-13 teaches; Jesus Christ knew how
to succor us because he knew it by the Spirit, and his suffering for us that
he might know how to succor us according to the flesh; also blot out our
transgressions. I learned that a leader will go through that same process,
not to blot out transgressions, but to know how to succor those he serves. I
guess you can say that this is one of the greatest leadership lessons that I
have learned here. This helps me face trials and adversity with so much more
confidence. Every trial that I have had on my mission prepares me for the
future.
I can really see how my mission has taught me things in stages.
If I had learned this lesson with my first companion I wouldn't have had to
go through this, but I have had to go from line to line, precept to precept,
and be tested all the way.
That's all for this week, I got the Ensign you sent, thank you!
Now I have something to read while in the car!
Love
Elder Kelly Conrad
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