Insights from the Islands: the Musings of Elder Massey: Take It or Leave It

Matt Shultz of Cage the Elephant once sang out, 'Oh why won't you make up your mind?', and directing a command, 'stay with me or cut me free'.

Something I've been learning a lot about this week is how we get to decide exactly what we get out of anything. In each and every one of our lives, Heavenly Father gives us the option to 'take it or leave it', and it determined upon us to decide whether or not we want it; all Heavenly Father asks for us is to make up our minds! Do I reaaaaaally want to put all I've got into what he's offering, or would I rather just leave it?

This week, we've been working a LOT with one investigator, named Djone (no, not Da-jone, it's pronounced like Johnny. Kinda weird, hey?) and he's basically a mega boss. He's a guy from Praia that's been living and working here in Cova Figueira recently, and he's been very accepting of the gospel. It's funny, because he has basically nothing; where he lives is just a small room, with the sole furniture being a mattress on the floor, as well as a propane tank to cook with, and some various food items on the floor to cook, yet he's always got a smile on his face. WE've been teaching him a bunch, and working to have him baptized this coming Saturday. Something I kinda learned in teaching him though, happened when we taught him about the Law of Chastity. He's very accepting of everything we've taught him, but this commandment made him worry just a bit, because he wants nothing more right now than to have a kid, and if he has to do it in the confines of marriage, he knows that's going to be difficult, because not a whole lot of Cape Verdeans are married. Both Elder Pettingill and I were impressed to tell him that if he were to keep the Law of Chastity and be baptized, that Heavenly Father would help him find the wife that he wants, and in doing so, made me think, that when we 'take' that which our Father has given us, he is SO much more willing to bless us when we make the decision to do exactly as he's asked! In doing so, Heavenly Father kinda gives us the same proposition, that we can stay with him, and he will help us, but we can also make the decision to cut free. Everything we get is basically based upon our choices first.

OKAY, so that's probably good for ranting for today, wouldn't you say? I apologize for excessive ranting at times. TIME FOR SOME FUN STORIES :D

So, in our area, we have an AWESOME Ward Mission Leader, whose name is Danny. Danny is a boss in that he basically waits for us to come by everyday and get him to come teach with us; he LOVES going out and talking about the gospel with us.

Danny the Ward Mission Leader

The only problem, is that sometimes, he gets a liiiiiittle bit spacey, and will go off on tangents in lessons. We had it happen once, where we turned it over to him to testify about the Restoration, and he went off about the Resurrection, Judgement, and such, which usually would go with the 2nd Lesson in Preach My Gospel, and at the end of his little teaching, turned to us and smiled, kinda to say, 'There you go guys :) I did it'. Another time, we were teaching a 14 year old girl about receiving an answer about the truth, and we were trying to keep everything on a happy note more or less, and Danny shares a scripture that says, more or less, if you die in your sins, you're toast, and it just got like suuuuper heavy cuz of what he said. When he turned it back over to us, we were like,'ooooookay, thanks Danny, good job', and had to figure out a way to get everyone smiling again. With that said, he is a total boss. One night, we were walking in our area, and EVERYONE was partying, and we saw him out in front of a house with our investigator, Djone, and he had his guitar with him, so I asked if I could play, and we ended up sitting down there and jus singing hymns and stuff while the rest of the world indulged in iniquity :) it was a lot of fun.

Also, another funny story. Dogs here can go either way, they can be super nice, or super mean, so you gotta be careful. Yesterday, there was this cute dog chained up, and I went to go pet it. It wasn't being apprehensive, so I figured I was good (and it was a really cute dog) so I was like, 'Elder Pettingill, look at this dog!' (cuz he likes dogs too) and right as he looked, I could see the change in the dogs eyes go from not-really-caring-about-the-white-guy-petting-him to pure fury. Thankfully, it was chained up, so when it juped at me with teeth bared, it couldn't jump too far. Thanks to my cat-lie reflexes and incredible intuition, I was able to dodge the attack. It was pretty comical to watch though.

Elder Massey and his Cape Verdean "Mom" - Aninha

That's about all for this week, but I wanna throw a shout out to my brutha Elder Penner (Penbaby Sunshine) who had to go home for surgery, and even though he's totally messed up all our plans to dorm together at BYU after our missions, I really hope he's doin' all good, and that my prayers go out to him and his family. Elder Penner, you're a mega boss, and I can't wait til you're back here in a few. Bejinhos you beautiful man.

Love y'all!

Elder Massey