Missionary Moment

Elder Gale with Pres. and Sister Satterfield~Georgia Atlanta Mission

Our Elder Gale made it safely to the mission field last week. We got TWO letters from him yesterday--an email and a nice, long hand-written letter--yay! He is very expressive in his writing and thus very generous with his use of exclamation points!! I also have noticed that his emails are one long sentence with the exclamation points sprinkled throughout but his letters are neatly written with proper punctuation and capitalization. Since he was homeschooled for most of his education, I am relieved to know that he does know how to write a proper letter. Here are some highlights:

"I am officially in the field! Georgia is stinkin awesome! It reminds me of Washington with all the trees, although the dirt really is red! Kinda cool.  I'm serving in the Rivercrest area, about ten minutes from Alabama! It's one of the only biking areas in Georgia. Lucky me! My trainer is Elder Baleiwai, he's from Fiji! His name translated means something like: "William moves around a lot becomes a grandpa has two eyes and falls in water." Pretty outrageous, but he's super nice and is a great missionary!

We have this huge map in the apartment covered in pins of potential investigators, so we don't have to actually tract much if at all, which I'm happy about! We have a pretty full day planned today. Hopefully we can make some of these "potentials" into full 'gators! (investigators) We'll see, I've still got pretty high hopes to baptize 1 million people, so I like to think they'll all become 'gators and get baptized!

Positive attitude makes all the difference! I'm just gonna work my butt off whilst I can and do what I can for the people here! Human souls are at stake, yet they have their agency, it's just my job to give them the opportunity!

The apartment is purdy ok and I'm healthy and happy! So don't you worry mother! I love you and miss you all but this is where I need to be!

 A quick note for Sam and Shane: Make serving your goal now and plan everything around it! Nothing else will be as important as building God's Kingdom and saving souls! There is no greater duty, honour or privilege you'll have than to join the tiny percentage of the world's population authorized to be official representatives of Jesus Christ! Not to mention we owe it to God to sacrifice and serve him!

And here Gentle Reader, comes the hallelujah every parent hopes for-- please forgive me for basking in this moment of parental redemption....

Listen to Mom and Dad! They know what they're doing and are the greatest blessing in our lives! You punks are lucky and have so much (both temporal and spiritual) and you have an obligation to act on your knowledge. "To whom much is given, much is required." Elder Holland said, "We expect a lot from you and we do not apologize". We have nearly 200 years of missionary tradition to uphold and you both are directly responsible to save certain people who are this minute being prepared and are waiting for you. Don't blow it. If you are already planning, great! Keep it up, but don't ever pass up the opportunity. I love you and will see you soon! Just remember who you are, where you came from and what you have been foreordained to do and become! The church is true, everything about it. Don't ever doubt it and never think you know better than Mom and Dad, and you'll do all right....

Love,

Elder Gale

Redeemable

A Mother's love is powerful, but it doesn't cross the line of free agency. That is a harsh reality that I have a hard time accepting. I would gladly save my children the heartache of wrong choices if I could. Which is probably why their free agency is protected from that motherly instinct. I teach them correct principles and then I worry and agonize over them day and night as they figure out for themselves whether they will follow those correct principles. I know I shouted for joy along with everyone else as the Plan of Happiness was announced. That's because I understood it in theory and had not experienced it in practice. When you are raising teen-agers, there are times when Satan's plan seems like a good iea. It is also easy to fall into it as a parent (or "Benevalent Dictator" as I like to call myself). I don't turn their free agency over to them completely, but I realize I have to let them try it out and learn from their experiences. I am learning as well--some just won't believe you when you tell them the stove is hot, they have to touch it themselves. It surprises me that I still feel for them and grab the ice to soothe the burn. That's the power of a Mother's love.