I experienced one of the baggiest moments in my mission this week. In order to understand exactly why this was this was, one has to understand a few things. During all of my time on the mission I have never been in a ward until now. Twenty months ago I began my mission in the Rama La Verde and from that branch I moved all across the mission going to some of the most unique branches of the mission. Their buildings, the benches in the church, the amount of people, all of these things have always formed a sort of mental gap and because of this I have never truly felt as though I were in my ward. The second thing you have to understand is before I came into the mission, for almost all of my time in the young men's group we had few young men, and I was one of the only young men of my age who was truly active in the church. In fact, the young man closest to me in age has always been my little brother who is almost exactly two years younger than me. It created many definning moments, and there were many things that I learned from experiences in YM. From the day I became a Priest, in my ward I was up on the stand blessing the sacrament, until the day that I left for the mission. Few, if any, weeks passed where I was not up there on the stand, if not by choice then by necessity. There was even a time when my friend was investigating the church and he was in another ward and to support him (even though he didn't need it - he's a lot more pillas than I am) I would go with him to church in the morning and then leave, flying across our little town to the stake center to go to my ward. My Dad had said I could go to his ward as much as I wanted, but I had to be back in time to fulfill my responsibilities in my ward. Dad always said,"you need to be where you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to be doing when you are supposed to be doing it." Whether I like it or not, it became drilled into me, and has been, and is, one of the reasons that I do a lot of the things that I probably otherwise would not do, like going to church twice a day. It might have been something I didn't like doing but it was what I was supposed to do.
Now fast forward to 28/2/2016, I am in the Sacrament meeting of the Ward Reu 2 (that is "Dos", if some of you just said "two" in your head). My first ward and probably last area of the mission. We have a few investigators at church today, things are going well. My companion Elder Taylor is sick with Zika and has been suffering a little bit the last couple of days. Everyone is silent, the type of silence that only comes in church right as the sacrament prayers approach. Today there was only one priest on the stand so they had asked me to bless. The sacrament song began and we began to break the bread, As we finished, I knelt down and began to speak the prayer, however in this moment, it was as though I were back home in my ward blessing the sacrament like so many times before. As the words of the prayer left my mouth, for a moment I became so lost in the vision of home that I almost began to say the prayer in English. As I finished the prayer I couldn't raise my eyes to the crowd, I don't know if it was because I couldn't withstand the thought of seeing the families or because I couldn't withstand the feeling of not seeing my ward. When we finished blessing and passing the sacrament I finally looked up, it was so weird to look out over the crowd and not see the Southwells, Bruces, Lovells, Lahodas, or the Sobecks, or the other Sobek's or even the other Sobek's (I am not stuttering) or the Raleighs, or even my own family in their places where they always are. It was even weirder that there just simply weren't people in their spots. During my 20 months in the mission I don't believe I have ever been home sick. That day, I definitely was.
Anyways off of the baggy note, six more mini missionaries just got here and we drew the short stick and get to drive them to Mazate. At least, we will be eating good tonight!
No comments:
Post a Comment