Motivation

 9/25/16

        Last week one of the Elders that lives in our apartment asked me to study motivation for him. I think motivation is something we all struggle with at some point in our lives, and missionaries are no exception. I find it interesting that motivation is not something that we just either have or don't have, but rather that it often fluctuates. In other words, if we are motivated we have to keep motivating ourselves, and if we aren't motivated there are always ways to help us become so. As I like to do, I started studying motivation with a dictionary. Though I can't remember the exact definition (you can look it up), it goes something like this: "the effect of a motive." I hate those definitions. Not to be deterred, I then turned to 'motivate': "to create a desire or need that brings one to action." There it is. After studying 'desire' and 'need' in the Topical Guide of the scriptures and skimming through various sections of True To the Faith, I came to this conclusion: a deeper study and thereby understanding of the principles and doctrines of the gospel increases the need to live the gospel, and further application and thereby experience with those same doctrines and principles leads to an increase in desire to follow Christ.

       A great example is our current investigator who I mentioned in last week's letter named Peter Pan. He is so awesome! He accepts everything we teach him and seems really excited to continue learning. Through meeting with us missionaries, his knowledge of gospel principles has increased and he is more motivated meet with us again and prepare for baptism. After talking with him however, we discovered he had been praying but not praying specifically about the truthfulness of our message. He committed to doing so, and I know that when he does, he will experience the power of God's love and be even more willing to work towards baptism.

     My letter this week is a little backwards from the normal ones I send, but this last week I felt like I have really learned how better to motivate myself and hope we can all increase our understanding and application of the gospel in order to better live the way God would have us live. I love all of you guys and hope you have a great week! Pray that the incoming typhoon is crazy big, hits Hualien dead-on, and doesn't do any damage!

---------------------------------------------------------

I'm sorry I'm not doing well about describing basic things. I just sit down at the computer and don't know what to talk about. If you send me specific questions in your letters, I can usually think about those and then write a pretty good response, but otherwise there just isn't enough time for me to sit back and think what I should be telling you guys about. Sorry about that. My companion is Elder Dickson from Missouri. He is 18, straight out of High School, and the son of a Stake President. Being a trainer has been super rough. I'm not sure why, but he just drives me up a wall. He isn't even a bad missionary. In fact, he is a really good one. He already has an incredible understanding of how the work is supposed to be and what he needs to do to make it happen. I think part of the problem is that with that knowledge brings a little bit of pride. He sets most of the goals in our companionship about what we need to improve in and what we need to do better. He is constantly writing down in his planner better ways to follow Preach My Gospel and be more effective. Everything he does is super awesome, but for some reason that I cannot explain, I can't stand it. He doesn't follow much of what I say, and disagrees with a lot of what I do. Everything he encourages me to do (which are really good things) just makes me want to do exactly the opposite. Before he came I was always worried about how we started companion study really late because we were too slow to get started (getting distracted in the middle with the other Elders). I thought about lots of different ways we could make that transition better and smoother. Now, however, when Elder Dickson does little things to get that transition faster (starting to sing the hymn while we are slowly making our way to being ready) it only makes me relish when we do things that make that transition slower. I don't know what the problem is, because everything he is setting goals for and encouraging me to do is backed up by Preach My Gospel and the Missionary Handbook. I find myself arguing with him against my own personal opinions, just because I can't stand the way he says things. This last week was probably the most stressed I've ever been--especially Friday and Sunday. Sunday night I was literally numb and out of it because of how stressed and sick of missionary work I was. I really don't want to complain or anything of the sort, but lately has been so hard and I don't want it to continue like this. I have an unending task list that doesn't get done because I don't have any personal time, we struggle to get progressing investigators and meet the standards of excellence every week, my relationship with my companion is bad and I don't have any desire to make it better, every time I ask President Jergensen or others about missionary work I feel misunderstood, I keep having to take Elder Dickson's big and grand ideas, present them to the ward, and take all the heat for why we are even thinking about those kinds of things and why it is out of our responsibility, and overall I am just stressed mostly because I am stressed. I want to be so focused on other people that I stress myself out because I'm not. I'm sorry, I just really want to express how I'm feeling because I really want to not feel like this. I've tried the whole "forget yourself and go to work" mentality but it just makes me more stressed. Do you know of anything I can do?

Don't stress about me being stressed though ;) just let me know if there is anything I can do. It isn't every day that is like that. In fact, today I don't feel like that at all. I am just trying to remember feelings from yesterday and last Friday to see if there is any suggestions you have for future occurrences. In the middle, on Saturday, I had such a great day. I just went out with the attitude that I was just going to be a quiet, loving missionary. The problem is that the next day I totally lost that perspective. I still have hope that I can become that missionary I want to be, I just have no idea what the next step is.

Photos: two blurry pictures I took before realizing my focus was off. A beautiful photo spot i found while biking. Fifth...sometimes we have too much fun at the apartment.