Hello everybody! Thank you all for the birthday wishes, presents, and cards this week! I can hardly believe I’m 21, personally but that’s what it says on my driver’s license so it must be true!
This past week was great. To celebrate my birthday, my companion and I got up on the roof of our apartment to plan for the night. My parents had sent me a 50-pack of glow sticks, so we brought those up, too. It was a party, let me tell ya!
Besides the roof party, we had a great week in terms of missionary work as well. This Sunday was invitation Sunday, and we had plenty of investigators attend, including a younger couple who are considering baptism. We taught that couple on Saturday the day before, and they are just so cool. David, the husband, let us try out his throwing knives after our lesson, and I got the second one I threw to stick in the target! Too bad that was all I got the whole time, hahaha. David also got us started into making obsidian arrowheads. We’ve been chiseling away at pieces of obsidian when we have a little bit of time. It’s really cool but really dangerous too. Obsidian is as sharp as broken glass, so I always wear safety goggles when working with it. I just wish those goggles protected my hands too!
We also got to speak in sacrament meeting over in Cedarville. Elder Campbell gave a talk on the Restoration of the Gospel, and I spoke about the Savior, Jesus Christ. It went really well, and I learned a lot from preparing it! Like that Christ is constant throughout everything we teach and do, and when we fail to relate things back to Him, we really miss the whole point. Fast offerings, tithing, the word of wisdom, the Spirit World, the Fall of Adam and Eve: all of these ought to remind us that we are totally dependent upon Jesus Christ—someone who loves us and won’t let us fail. He is always there for us, and will help us through everything. We will “be able to endure all things” through Him (see Article of Faith #13).
I got to travel up to Lakeview, Oregon on Friday for an exchange. I hooked up with Elder Flora, who I haven’t been on an exchange with for about a year now. We had an awesome time, taught a lesson to two of the coolest people I have ever met (they’re real close to getting baptized, too), and he took me by a couple of the sights around Lakeview, including a pretty sweet geyser. Saturday morning, before we exchanged back, he and I went to a service project to help someone in the ward move. Unfortunately, the guy moving had loads of stuff. Practically everyone in the ward who owned a truck showed up to help out, and we were moving things out of his shop that were heavier than anything I’ve ever tried to move: heavy machinery and solid steel. Elder Flora and I got assigned later on to remove a wire fence, which would have been fairly easy except that we had to pull the posts out of the ground by hand. They were those big green metal ones with some wings on the bottom to hold them in the dirt better. The first two I really struggled with, but eventually we got it down to a science where we would move the posts around until the dirt was loose, then pull them out. Regardless, I was exhausted by the time I got back to Alturas.
Another service project Elder Campbell and I took part in was on Thursday. We were out in Cedarville with the Branch Mission Leader there, Brother Oilar, and were visiting a Recent Convert in Nevada. We had brought our service clothes along so we offered to help him move some boulders with his tractor. Sounds simple right? Wrong.
As most people know, tractors have only one seat. We piled four people onto it. The recent convert drove, I stood on the step up to the driver’s seat, and my companion and Brother Oilar stood on the back thingy (I don’t know what it’s called but it looked like some kind of scoop) and hung onto the bar between themselves and the driver’s seat. The ride itself was already over dirt, but then our recent convert hit a rock the made the tractor prop up sideways. We about tipped over. When we came back down, I just about fell off but was fortunate to have good footing to catch myself. Brother Oilar had a death grip on the sturdiest part of that bar I mentioned, so he was alright too. As for Elder Campbell, he was not so lucky. He had worn leather-soled shoes and didn’t have a tight grip on the bar, so when the tractor swayed like it did, it threw him off. He had just enough time, thankfully, to jump, do a 360-degree spin, and land on his feet about half a yard from the tractor. The only injury he got was from his momentum, which carried him into a barbed-wire fence where he scratched part of his knuckle. It wasn’t so bad, though, so we loaded up three great big boulders, came back down to unload them, and then carried on our way!
So there you go, now you have lived through part of my week with me! It was really fun, and hopefully this week will go just as well. We have a lot of appointments lined up, so we’re excited!
Much love,
Elder Rushton—Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
It is good that you are in good shape so you can help with the projects that you have been doing! I was interested in your working with obsidian. When you learn about it, you learn how very sharp and tough it is. It was used by the Indians for arrowheads and for spears. It was also used for ceremonial knives ( such as in sacrificial knives)because of its sharpness. Think about the sacrifices in the Book of Mormon committed by both the Lamanites and the Nephites. Think also about the sacrifices in the ancient Indian groups like the Incas, Aztecs, and the Mayans. Pretty scary, huh?! There is a mountain of Obsidian in Idaho or Wyoming (I think that it is in Wyoming). I saw it once when we went to Yellowstone. Anyway, enough of earthly matters! I am glad to hear of you missionary work. Time has really zoomed by, hasn’t it? God bless you always–keep us the good work! We love you lots!
Uncle Darrel and Aunt LeAnn