We're Storming Now!

 

Houston, Texas Skyline

A colleague of mine, Ulf (he's originally from Sweden), once told me that on any project you can expect four stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. After you have established the overall project goals and purposes, and pulled together a project team (forming) there will be a period when the team fits and fights and stumbles on how to accomplish those objectives (storming), but they will eventually settle into a working routine that allows them to grow more comfortable with their roles and efforts (norming), until, finally, the team is able to function well and succeed (performing). I think I’m currently storming through and trying not to be a tornado! 

We have been working to better understand what our mission will look like while here in the Melbourne Ward. That may be a surprising statement to some because as a young missionary there tended to be a fair amount of clarity on the general direction and purpose you had each day, including what you might do if you didn't have teaching appointments. As a senior Member and Leader Support (MLS) missionary, the most consistent thing we heard as we approached it and then at the MTC (in our forming stage) was to "stay flexible!" We are learning just how true that is.

If any of you are considering a senior mission, one thing to think about is your comfort level with being unleashed to make your own way through it. In an MLS role, your mission will definitely be what you make of it. From my observations so far, office missionaries seem to have a regular schedule when the mission office is open and appear to have more well-defined, regular tasks and duties. I assume Military Relations missionaries are a bit more like MLS since they are largely ministers to the Armed Services members. I’m not sure if any Humanitarian missionaries actually get to “dig wells,” but people we spoke to about it described the Humanitarian missionary roles as more administrative and community interactive than putting in the sweat. So, I think Stephanie and I were called to the right place and mission type. We had considered Humanitarian because we wanted to work with and help people, and so far, that is what it is becoming for us. We will be setting up the Healing Through the Savior program here in ward, we are supporting the English Connect program previously set up here, we will look into re-establishing a Family Home Evening group at a senior living facility, we will be helping to pick up and deliver food orders from the Bishop's Storehouse, we are visiting people and helping them when and where we can. 

So far, so good, I think. While it comes with the not-unexpected difficulties of completely rearranging one's life and setting aside most of the things you have done for 30 or more years, the end of each day has left me with something positive to look back on and with an overall sense of joy and cheerfulness.

And, of course, life continues beyond the mission. My dad was just diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and has only a few months remaining. He’d like to see his kids, so we are arranging with my siblings to visit. The thing about knowing early, is that it gives everyone time to prepare a little. That won't necessarily make the current support or coming separation any easier, but it's usually a bit easier to carry a heavy load when you get a chance to brace for it. At least we know where he is going, that those who have gone before will be there to greet him, that the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ are real and active and effectual, and we have the hope of joining together with him again someday.

At times like this, I find comfort in the words of the prophet Alma recorded in the Book of Mormon

Therefore, there is a time appointed unto men that they shall rise from the dead; and there is a space between the time of death and the resurrection ... Now, concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection -- Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men ... are taken home to that God who gave them life. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. (Alma 40:9,11-12)

There is, of course, also great comfort in trusting in the words of other angels that were spoken long ago on that first Easter morning at the empty tomb:

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. (Matt 28:5-6) 

 Or as told by Luke

... two men stood by [the women] in shining garments: And ... they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee. (Luke 24:4,5-6)

Then couple that with what the Lord himself told his disciples just a few days before:

 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. (John 14:19)

Along with the doctrine of repentance -- the opportunity and the ability to change and be forgiven through the Atonement of Jesus Christ -- the doctrine of the resurrection is among the more comforting to my soul. I have trusted in these for many years and for many reasons, both for myself and for those that I have loved and served. And I feel to cry like Alma:

O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth. But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me. (Alma 29:1-3)

And so, I will be content for now with my missionary labors and this little blog to invite others to "Come and see," to think and explore and consider things beyond just the raucous, daily grind of the world that we trudge through to find a promised peace that is not as the world gives (see John 14:27) and that "passeth all understanding." (Philippians 4:7)