Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Four of six missionaries have talks and they all forgot?

There's a book for that! Disregard the fact that you all remembered
just before sacrament meeting starts, just gather around and get some
inspiration! Afterwards the first counselor complemented us all on
being so prepared and sharing way cool scriptures. He actually was
pretty stoked. The Book would be the Book of Brooksby, in case it
wasn't obvious haha

Heyo, peoples of the earth!

There were no questions this week, but that's okay! We need the bad to
comprehend the good, right?

We went to a firework show on Saturday with our 82 year old
investigator and it was pretty fun, but there was a bit of unfortunate
planning that had us walking around much longer than we had planned,
although we met a random German guy that was pretty cool.

Random Story Time!
Elder Parks had mentioned several times a rice desert thingy he wanted
to make and he told me the ingredients several times, but for some
reason he didn't get around to making it until last night. He pulled
out the bowels, threw in some rice, poured milk over it and mixed in
some sugar, then topped it off with some cinnamon and said "Here is
Horchata!", and I didn't have any idea what it was until he started
mixing it around and I was just like "Wait, I know what this is... It
can't be! Is this rice cereal?!? I used to eat this almost every day
with my family!" I had completely forgotten all about it, but my
family used to call it rice cereal. The only thing we did differently
was that we would put in butter, too. It was crazy how I forgot
something like that.

Okay, this next bit is really logical sounding and just a bit
confusing. I copied it almost word for word out of my journal and my
journal is confusing, but I thought that if there's anyone out there
that enjoys math, they might need some help in this fashion, right?
For those who don't understand math too well, but still want to
understand, the "value" or numbers basically mean your enthusiasm or
energy.



One of my favorite things that I've learned out here is that
relationships are like equations; if you are both -1 and -1 then it

just comes out to -2 and lowers both of your values and you both
become -2, then -6, -12, etc..., but if you are +1 but your companion
is -2, the equation still comes out at -1, so what most people will do
to solve the problem, something I would do, would be to point out to
them that it's a negative equation because of their influence, which
just gets people defensive and making excuses(And really is just
asking them to be the one to improve because you aren't willing to),
so the truly best thing to do is to make yourself a +3, so after that
the equation will come out to be a +1 and your companion will become a
-1, and if you keep up your +3 then the total is +2 and your companion
will become a +1, and so on and so forth. You just need the strength
to maintain yourself.


Even though I've come to understand that, sometimes I let myself lose
value in the equation, not that that means that my companion is an
excessively negative number either! The situation is also part of the
equation, but the way you change the value of that is to change your
perspective of the situation, which in turn changes your value, which
changes your companion's value and both of you together can then
effectively change your circumstances.
Even as early as this morning I've failed to live up to that
awareness. We set some goals to improve our relationship. My companion
pointed out, as people often do, a way I was being a negative in an
activity that we frequently do, and so I also behaved in a way that
people normally do and excused my negative by pointing out his
negatives in that same activity, and only later did I comprehend that
he was asking me to provide that positive for him so that he could
also improve.


We ourselves should always be willing to admit that, while we may not
be causing the problem, we may and probably actually are at least
contributing to it. It's the times that you fail to be your best self
that you truly fail. Lucky for us on this earth, we can get up every
time we fall, because we have been given the means to do so.
I hope to always do my best to do my very best, and that includes
finding better bests.



Thanks for reading! Peace!
Younger Elder Brooksby

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