Elder Mason Burk: Humility vs Pride

October 24, 2016

Hermano Cespeds

Thursday, my companion and I had weekly planning. That was awesome. We practiced a lot of new things. This whole transfer has been kind of a mess. We have travelled so much, that this is actually the first time we have had a good weekly planning. So that’s probably the saddest thing of my whole life. I really like weekly planning, that’s my favorite.

Today, we had a lot of plans to visit all the people we are working with, everyone that is progressing. But everything fell through—everything. All the people flaked on us. We usually have 5-6 visits a day, but today no one was home. We walked a lot. We taught our one investigator, Luis. He went to church this Sunday. He’s 18, and is super cool. He loves everything we teach him about the gospel. He’s so interested. He’s reading all the homework we give him, which is awesome.

After Luis, everything else fell through. By 8:15 pm, we went out and looked in a small, closed neighborhood of nicer houses. We went there to check on a family that is less active, but we ended up walking around and contacted a couple of people on the street. Then we walked by a house that felt like we should approach. A guy came out, wearing a green military uniform. We were a little concerned that maybe he was going to give us some trouble. He and his wife and his little daughter came out, they pulled up their chairs and we all talked. We talked about eternal families, a little about our beliefs, and gave them a pamphlet that talks about the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ. It was so great, so teach them, compared to all the other people we had talked to today. It was just this humble little family, willing to listen to two messengers from the Lord. As far as material items, they had what they needed, but their humility was something you could see in their eyes.

I was talking to my companion about humility and pride today in our companionship study, and was trying to think how those two things really worked. Before my mission I just thought that poor people in 3^rd world countries had the most humility. But my companion said that some of the most prideful people he’s met, live in the poorest areas that he has served in. I have now seen that too. It doesn’t really matter where you are, rich or poor neighborhood, there is pride and humility everywhere. Pride has isn’t determined by where you come from, or how you’re raised. It may magnify, or diminish your attitude, but it really is determined by your spiritual state.

I know that when you are born on earth you come here with special characteristics, and both pride and humility come with you. During this life you have the opportunity to tame it according to your life experiences and personal decisions. You can become humble like a little child, when you finally turn to the Lord and desire to do his will.

We had a really bad day, and we were really about to give up and go back to the house to go eat, but we kept going, we found the last house, and the very last door, and it ended up being a super awesome family! Plus… THEY’RE MARRIED. They are LEGALLY married, which NEVER happens in the coast! We always have to figure out how to marry every single family that wants to get baptized. Which is super complicated. But this is so cool! They have actually been married for 7 years! So we were so happy, and look forward to teaching and baptizing them.

This week was finally normal. We found a new investigator named Luis, he’s pretty cool. He’s 18, we’ve been working with him for a couple of weeks. He came to church again this week. We went on an exchange with elders from a little town that is about a 3 hour drive away. It is pretty expensive to have exchanges with them, but we went and it was great.

Saturday, we had a BIG rain storm, it was like a flash flood that came out of no where, and rained and flooded super hard for probably 40 minutes, then all went away. After 40 min, we were at a lesson, sitting on the front porch and it started raining. We were under the porch, so we kept teaching, until I am sitting there, and a cat comes out and is chasing something that comes close to my leg. I thought it was a mouse or something, so I kept teaching, But then another little thing ran by, and it was a BIG HUGE COCKROACH. So I looked down and there was another one, and another one, and more than I wanted to see in one place. And I guess I was right next to a little hole that was infested with cockroaches. It was gross. There were like 100 cockroaches, running all over the porch, and up our legs. The kids we were teaching, jumped up, and started killing them all. Then I stood up, and looked all around in a circle, and the kept pouring out of this whole, it was so weird. Then I looked behind me, and there was one on my shirt, some on my pants, the rain was pushing them out of their hiding spots. It was pretty gross. They were everywhere.

Tomorrow is transfers. I think I will probably be leaving. I’ve been in this area for 7 ½ months. I would love o have another chance to serve with Elder Compos. He’s pretty awesome. I guess we’ll see what happens. I’ll let you know.