Happy New Year (Almost)

December 26, 2016

Hi guys!

Hey, I hit my 23 month mark this past week. Crazy!

Well, this week was pretty good, though things definitely didn't go as planned. In terms of lessons, the week started out great. But then after Tuesday it just went out the window. A couple appointments

cancelled, but the worst thing was that our baptism fell through.Quentin's family decided to go to Kingman, AZ for the holidays. The baptism still going to happen before I go home, but we were just

really looking forward to it being on Christmas Eve. Now it'll be on the 14th of January, the same day as Ashton's baptism.

The really tough part of last week is the effect on this week. Now that Quentin and Ashton are out of town for a couple weeks, we only have the Daltons, who are not the most solid of investigators in fact

we may need to drop them this week, if we can even get an appointment that is. So yeah, this week is looking kinda rough. And we've gone through most of our potential investigators, and we're not getting many referrals. There are a couple people we might be able to pick up, and hopefully that pans out. And next week should be better, Ashton will be back, and to get him ready for the 14th, we'll be meeting with him often. But until then, hopefully we can hang in there and find some more people while we're at it.

The rest of last week wasn't terrible though, even though a lot of stuff fell through. We tried contacting potentials, which was unsuccessful, but we were doing something. We also did a lot of

service. We did service making wooden toy cars at the Happy Factory. And we did some Christmas caroling with other missionaries in the zone.

And one of my favorite things we did was rescue a a really cool bird. It's called a Grebe and they migrate from Canada to warmer climates during the winter. They are water birds, and in fact they can only take off in the water. The problem is, and this happened in Cedar City a couple years ago, that during a storm they'll try to land but they'll mistake wet icy parking lots as ponds and lakes. So they'll

land but then not be able to take off again. Anyway, we found one in the parking lot of our stake center one morning. We didn't really know what to do, so we stayed around it and made sure it didn't scuttle away (run really isn't the correct term) or go into the road. We called around and eventually got in touch with an animal rescuer/nature dude and brought the bird to him to take care of and release. It was pretty fun. And it was a really cool bird. I'll send some pictures.

On Saturday, we had a zone Christmas activity. It was pretty fun. President Smith was there and he kind of played Santa and let us tell him our dream transfer calls. We had food and a couple games, but a lot of time was playing "Beanboozled", a rather terrible, but still kinda fun game. It's by Jelly Belly, and it consists of jelly beans that for each color has two possible flavors, a good one and a bad

one. For instance. Green might be lime or grass clippings. Orange-ish could be peach or barf. Brown could be chocolate or dog food. White could be coconut or spoiled milk. You get the idea. Anyway, we all sat in a circle and when the little container cane around it dispensed two beans, which we had to choose between. And if we did get a bad one, we had to swallow it, or else we were out of the game. It was kinda terrifying. Some weren't too bad, like the grass clippings. But some, like dog food, were pretty nasty. I didn't get a barf, dead fish, or rotten egg flavored one, but a few people did and I heard they were the worst. At the end, somehow the ZLs convinced President and Sister Smith to play, and they both got bad ones. But anyway, it was a pretty fun activity.

And then of course was Christmas. That was awesome. We went to a few wards for church and they all had nice Christmas programs. We were invited by some members to share a Christmas message with their grandkids, and that was fun. And then the highlight of the day was getting to Skype home. It was a really great day, and a good spiritual recharge with all of the focus on Christ.

I hope you all had a great Christmas yourselves. Now have a happy New Year, and focus on making it better than this one! It's a great opportunity to try to improve and accomplish things with new motivation. And my suggestion might be to, as a good friend of mine, Sam Howard, recently discussed with me, focus more on "systems" instead of traditional quantitative goals. For instance instead of saying "I'm going to study the scriptures for 1 hour every day" say "I'm going to read and ponder the scriptures every day". If you set yourself a very specific quantitative goal like the first one, you are setting yourself up for failure when you inevitably don't get a full hour some day. The second statement on the other hand is more flexible and allows you to feel good and stay motivated even if you don't read for a certain amount of time. Maybe it was only ten minutes, but hey you did it. The system method of goal setting focuses more on progress than on specific end results and deadlines. Another example is saying "I want to lose 70 pounds this year" vs "I want to lose weight this

year and eventually lose a total of 70 pounds". While it might be appropriate sometimes to set a specific goal for things, statements like that first statement can be kind of loaded. It's lofty, and if

you don't hit it, you failed. But if your goal is just to lose weight that year in pursuit of eventually getting to your ideal weight (no deadline though), then even if you only lose 20 pounds that year, it's

still an accomplishment and you can feel good that you have fulfilled your goal.

Now, this being said, still push yourself to accomplish things, and if specific goal setting is what works for you, then do it. Don't use this alternate way of setting goals as an excuse to not really set

goals for yourself. And there are some things, like sins and bad habits, that we really just have to try and stop ASAP. That's not what I'm referring to. Generally, if we are doing something wrong, we can't wait or be lenient with it, we just need to stop it. But for most other kinds of resolutions, remember that progress is progress and hold yourself accountable for that and make that your true goal, rather than focusing so much on specific, and often lofty and unattainable goals. This is the gospel method. Living the gospel isn't a checklist. Christ doesn't expect us to become perfect right away. It's a lifelong process, a system of becoming. We want to be better, so we follow Christ. And sometimes we don't accomplish nearly as much as we wanted to in our spiritual development, in testimony building, in overcoming weaknesses, or whatever. But God looks at progress. Even tiny progress. I've heard it said that God is easy to please and hard to satisfy. He is pleased by even the slightest bit of progress despite our failings, but He will not be satisfied until we are perfect. I think we ought to set our personal goals that way. Focus on the progress, and don't get bogged down in specific goals; be pleased at even the smallest amount of progress, but don't be satisfied until you have reached the ideal you are seeking after. So back to New Years resolutions. Whether they be spiritual goals, health goals, or whatever goal you may set for yourself. Have an end ideal in mind, but instead of attaching a deadline to it and making that your New Year's resolution, I'd recommend setting goals to progress in that direction over the course of the year, rather than meeting your end goal in the course of the year, because you might be setting yourself up for disappointment, which in turn can lead to lack of motivation, which may halt any progress you were making, not to mention, you won't be as happy.

But regardless of how you set your goals for the new year, definitely set them. Use it as an opportunity to be better than you were last year. It's kind of an opportunity to repent if you think about it. And what a great opportunity it is.

Happy New Year!

-Elder Oswald

Some pictures from the zone Christmas party on Saturday. I forgot to mention that Elder Cockerham and I borrowed some hilariously festive suit coats from a really cool member.

This is the bird we rescued. It's called a Grebe.