HARRISON’S
MISSION LETTER
July 21, 2015
Harrison, we had a great day so far today. Watching you
perform baptisms for your friends was a great experience for your mom and I.
Having you organize it was also was
impressive. It shows the change from selfishness to selflessness. This is a
great time for this to happen as you go into the mission field. Your life as a teenage pre mission high school
kid will change dramatically as a missionary as you perform the selfless acts
of service during the next two years. I wanted to write you this letter in
hopes that you will keep it near to you and refer to it when you need a little
pep talk from your dad.
You are about to embark on the MOST DIFFICULT TWO years of
your life. Life can have its challenges and you will definitely have some
during your mission. Some challenges can be very difficult, like no food to
eat, no place to sleep, no money to live on, a loss of a loved one or many
other things that people face every day. You most likely will not have these
challenges.
Your challenges will
be long hard days. These days as we have talked about, will be like two eight
hour work days in one. No matter what you are doing, that is a lot of time to
be doing it. You are going to put the time in anyway, so what you get out of
that time depends on you. Please get the most out of the time you spend on your
mission.
Try and focus on the things you can control.
1)
Knowledge of the scriptures: You will have
scripture study every morning. How great would it be if you became a
scriptorian when you returned home. You
can control what you get out of your scripture study. Start each study period
with a prayer to understand what you are about to read and how to use it. The
spirit will bring to your remembrance that which you have read when you need
it., Just like you AFY experience. You will most likely not have this kind of
time to study the scriptures again until you are old and done with raising kids.
What a blessing it would be to have the knowledge while you are in the trenches
raising your family than at the end of your life. YOU CAN CONTROL YOUR EFFORT
IN SCRIPTURE STUDY.
2)
Relationship with Heavenly father and the
spirit: The sharp missionaries that report back home, have talked about how
much they grew in that area. They relied on the spirit every day to guide and
direct them. You will be on the lord errand serving him. He will guide you
through if you listen. YOU CAN CONTROL THIS by being clean and pure and having
a desire to have the spirit teach you and guide you. Knowing how to listen to the spirit will help
you immensely later in life when you will have lots of distractions around you.
During the next two years, you should not have any distractions and so it
should be easier to feel the spirit guide and direct you.
3)
Learn to LOVE unconditionally. You already have
a great capacity to love. You will now have two years to love the people you
serve in Tacoma and the missionaries you serve with. Love the members and they
will help you. Love the investigators
and they will feel of your sincere love for them even if they are not ready for
your message. Love your fellow missionaries and know that you are on the same
team. Have compassion and patience with them. Learn from them and teach them
and your mission will be more rewarding. YOU CAN ALSO CONTROL YOUR PURE LOVE OF
THE PEOPLE.
4)
Learn to be humble. We all can have trouble with
this from time to time. Learn to be humble and teachable. You will make more
friends that way. You represent the lord and he wants humble servants to spread
his word. It might be hard when challenged sometimes by investigators or
members that don’t have your enthusiasm for missionary work, or other
missionaries that might be annoying. Be humble and kind and that will get you a
long way.
5)
Lean to be disciplined. Much about the mission is about discipline
and habits. A good missionary will have great habits and good discipline. You
will have lots of timelines to follow, lots of reporting back and lots of
rules. Learning how to cope with this will make you that much better to enter
into the real world when your two years is up. I am looking forward to seeing
what you have learned regarding this, being put into action.
As you can see, there is lots that
you can control in your mission. You can have a plan to succeed in all these
areas and your mission will have been a great success. There are things that
you can’t control as well.
Some of the things you can’t
control
1)
Baptisms: every mission is different and you
should not measure the success of your mission but baptisms. What the lord
wants of you is to work hard and deliver his message in a Christ like humble
manner. As long as you do that, you have done your job. There will be some that
are prepared and ready to receive your message. That will be fun for you. Most
will not be. The rejection will not be fun. Learning how to deal with rejection
will be your challenge. In sales it might be said that you need to get 9
rejections before you get someone willing to listen to you. Out of the 1
willing to listen to you, it might take 1 out of those 10 to progress in the
discussions. That is 1 out of a hundred that you speak to. I don’t think those
numbers are accurate, but you get the picture. You are looking for that ONE who
will listen. If you look at all the no’s as steps towards the yes, then it
might be easier to handle the rejections. Rejection is part of the plan.
2)
Companions: you can’t really control your
companions. There will some great ones and some not so great ones. Remember you
are all there to spread the word of the lord. Some will be more dedicated than
others. Some will know the gospel better than others, some will dress better
than others, some will not have any social skills or even worse horrible social
skills. You cannot control that. Think of this as opportunities to learn how to
work with many types of people. I can see you being really great at this if you
have the proper attitude. Help those with weaknesses that are your strength’s
and learn from those that have strengths that are your weaknesses. Living with companions will be some of the
best training you will get on working with people. You will not have a choice
of who your companion is. When you are in high school, you choose your friends.
This will not be the case.BE A GREAT COMPANION and people will be excited to be
paired up with you.
3)
Leadership: you cannot control who your senior
companion or district leaders or even zone leaders are. Respect the position
and humbly take direction from them. If you get called to a position of
leadership, be a humble leader. Lead with love. Learning leadership skills will
carry with you the rest of your life.
I could go on and on and probably will during my weekly
emails. I want you to know how proud I am of you and how much I love you. You
have GREAT potential and I have always seen that in you. The couple of weeks we
have had lots of joy seeing you transform into a missionary. You know what to
do and now is your chance to prove it to yourself and to our father in heaven.
DON’T give up. It is going to be hard. That is what is going to shape you as a
person. Know that I believe in you probably more than you believe in you. I
have seen a huge turn around since you were 15 and I am well pleased. Use this
time to make the same progress as you have the last three years and you will be
off the charts.
I am going to miss you very much. You have been more than
just a son to me. We have shared lots of fun times together at the dunes, lake
,beach and sports. We have also share the love of real estate which has been
fun for me as well. We have also gone through some rough patches also. Because
of this , I know your potential. LIVE UP TO YOUR POTENTIAL
I look forward to seeing you in two years tired and worn
out. With holes in your shoes from traveling and holes in your knees from
praying.. Imagine your reporting back in two years and all of the great
experiences and lessons your will have learned , and then make them happen.
Keep a good journal. Write every day. I want to get an email each week letting
me know how you are doing. Write good letters, remember that your letters will
teach people here at home. They can be of great influence to many people
You can send a family email for all to see, but if you are
struggling (which you will ) and want to send one privately , please do..
I will be thinking of
you EVERY DAY.
I love you very very much.
Wear yourself out in the service of the lord. I can’t wait
to see you again.
DAD
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