turning out... not in.

Dustin's letter was so uplifting to me this week that I had to share. He amazes me as he continues to grow as a missionary and I can feel his spirit stretching. Keep writing to him. I will post his new address as he leaves and settles in Italy.

He writes....

Buon pomeriggio mia famiglia!

I hope that you are all doing well and everything is good at home! Just got back from the Temple and some good ole Temple breakfast. (Really good) I am feeling well and myself and Anziano Malan are doing well this morning. We have already done our Laundry, gone to the Temple, eaten breakfast, and after we e-mail Anziano Malan is going to get a haircut, after that we are done for the day and can write letters and sleep!! I will try and write most of you. but if the letter doesn't get mailed today just know that it will be there the next day. I can write until P-day ends at 6:30 but the mail gets picked up at 3:30 so i have to send what i have done and then do more! I got your packages and had a really good Giorno di San Valentino! I love the tie and candy and all the other stuff i asked for. It was all perfect. Thank you all for the letters, as I think i have said before, they are like water in a dessert. so keep sending them.

The MTC is going really well, and time here is fast coming to a close. We just recently started teaching each other (Anziano Malan and I teach Anziano Money & Treadway.) and they pretend to be people they know who are not members. It is really fun and i enjoy having an opportunity to act. It's also a great opportunity to see how it is as an investigator. I have learned a lot of things just by being taught something or by NOT being taught something. Because you are so focused on playing the role of someone who knows nothing about the Gospel as we do. It really helps to see that you need to explain like EVERYTHING to them. Every Gospel term that we take for advantage. Like Priesthood, or Apostasy, or what a Profet is or what the Atonement was, or how to pray, or What the Holy Ghost is. It's hard for me having grown up in the church to understand that they dont know all the things i have known all my life. As the time goes on here at the MTC and my language improves I begin to love to teach more and more. At first I dreaded teaching and was so worried and teaching felt like such a burden. But now i am learning how to do it and enough of the language that i can struggle through almost any LESSON. (The rest of life maybe not so much.) I enjoy getting to know and relating the Gospel to these people we teach. (Even though they are made up characters played by the other Anziani or our teachers) I have even come to love them in a sense, even though they are not real.

We had an amazing set of Devotionals this week. On Sunday we had the amazing opportunity to hear from Elder Bednar!! He gave what may have been the single most life changing talk (for me personally) that i have ever heard. Or at least so far as the Missionary Field is concerned. It was about the Character of Christ and how we can become more like him. The thought he shared was that in the scriptures there are countless times when the Savior has just endured some amazing burden or injustice and the first reaction is to turn outward and care for others. For example after the Judas betrays Jesus there is a brawl that breaks out and one of the guards loses an ear to the blade of Peter. After just having been betrayed and doomed to death It would have been easy and justified if Jesus had been worried or thinking of himself. But he reaches out and heals the ear of the guard. Even after betrayl by his own Apostle he thinks of others and not himself. and he gave several more examples of how Jesus in the greatest times of distress always sacraficed himself for others and never put his own needs in front of others. The Idea is that as a Natural man we tend to worry about us and turn inward when a trial arises. We worry about us and how we are going to get through it and what we can do for ourselves and how we achieve more or what we want or how we could feel better. But Jesus always turns outward when the natural man turns in. It has changed my life since the short 3 days i heard it. I now think to turn out and not in. I find myself doing more charitable things and my goal is to never think of myself. I feel so great. This SIMPLE principle has brought me so much closer to God and SO much happier since i have started to apply it. So famiglia! Turn out. Not in!

Also we had Don R. Clarke come last night (Member of the 70) and he talked about having a love for the people and praying constantly for them and being obedient.

He told a story of a young missionary who had a companion who didnt wake up at the right time, who didn't study with him, who didn't want to do any work, who stayed too dinner to long, and went home at night too early. He however was doing everything right and was ready to study without his companion and worked hard in everyway he could ( as the Junior Companion) and the Mission President asked him "Is is hard when your companion doesn't want to follow the rules." and he said "It's very hard being the only one who is doing what is right, when everyone around you is doing what is wrong." the Misison President then asked him "Why are you so obedient if it would be easier to follow the lead of your companion and slack off." the young missionary then said something which i hope to never forget and i think is just as much applicable to me as it was to him and all missionaries. he said "President, at home i had a car, i had a good job, i had a girl i loved, i had a place to live, i was going to a good school, and i did NOT give all of that up to come out here and be half-obedient, to serve half of a mission, to struggle through each day not wanting to do the work. I refuse to have made all of those sacrafices for nothing, this mission needs to be worth everything i gave up. And it won't be that way if I don't do all i can every day. Because those things i sacraficed meant alot to me and this mission needs to be greater than those things or i wouldn't be here. I won't let anyone else decide my mission for me." I in nearly every aspect have left everything that missionary left and i will never forget those words. Yesterday i got a letter from my Mission president (We all did) and he wanted us to write a page about our goals for the mission. I think i will inculde that sentiment somewhere. I am also going to ask him to give me a trainer that will work me into the ground, the hardest working missionary int he field. The missionary that is going 100% from sun-up to sun-down. Because if im going to suffer through everyday, dreading and not wanting to do what i came here to do then i might as well go home. I want to work hard and do everything possible for the Lord. at time i don't want to work and i just want to sit there and tell stories and laugh and be lazy, but i'm praying for the Lord to change me so that i can be focused all day every day. Please pray for me in that aspect.

Well, time is running short, hopefully i will get letters to most of you and the everyone next weekas it will be my final P-day here at the MTC and then you probably wont get any handwritten letters.

I love you all and pray fervently for you ALL every night.

Vi amo!

Anziano Memmott.