Week 80- Your Next Middle School Secretary (Me)

 Hello Everyone!


Short Version: I sat in the office for a really long time. Also Mission Conference happened, woohoo!

Long Version: So I'm developing this nice love-hate relationship with the office. I love to be busy and the office sometimes keeps me really busy. However, it also can be SO SLOW. Sometimes I want to rip my head off because my companion is the office financial secretary. Our main financial Senior Elder was in the US for a "special assignment" (a fishing trip) so for the last 2 weeks my companion has had to be in the office full time and I spent a lot of time practicing my typing speed, or spinning in my chair, doing stuff on Facebook or reading in Lithuania. Note: My current average typing speed is about 50 WPM so I'm hoping by the end I can be a pro and not need to look at my fingers and not cheat on the keyboard using the wrong fingers for certain keys. Also, someone please go back in time and remind me how I was able to get through quarantine.

A perk of being in the office is the people who I'm around. I'm with the APs (elder Watson and Yeyna) and my companion Elder Adams. We all get along super well so that is amazing. 

Mission Conference was a huge success. It took a ton of planning but I'm pretty sure if someone called me to be a Girl's Camp Director I've got all the planning skills. I can also plan your wedding. Some skills you may be impressed to know I have that will convince you to hire me for your upcoming wedding:
- very talented at counting the number of utensils you will use.
- calculating the amount of ice cream your participants will eat and buying accordingly
- setting up tables and chairs
- creating an agenda
- making fancy spreadsheets to tell you how much everything will cost

The best part of the Mission Conference was seeing all the other missionaries. The Lithuania zone will always have my heart. We had a field trip day which was hype. We took a bus to Cesis, Latvia and visited their castle. It put Gedimino Tower in Vilnius to shame. They gave us lanterns and then we got to explore the castle freely so it felt like being Indiana Jones, just without the Ark of the Covenant at the end. I'm glad I don't live in the medieval era because their stairs are so much harder to walk down. I slipped a few times because their stairs are so steep and in the tightest spiral. 

We had an informal competition of who could eat the most pizza and you'll be happy to know I crushed it. I had 7 pieces of a 42cm pizza and the 2 two closest only had 5 pieces. I didn't feel so good for the rest of the day surprisingly, but the pride made up for it. Another super fun part was playing basketball with all the ballers from the mission. President Huff tried to post me up and it was hilarious. I wish I had a picture to show you.I almost made him fall over when I knocked the ball out of his hands and then he almost ran into the wall. I would've felt bad if he had gotten hurt but he didn't so I'll just chuckle at the video in my head of him almost falling over.

There was a Ukrainian family who had to flee their home and came to stay temporarily in one of the empty mission apartments. The APs usually take care of stuff like that but they were in a different country for exchanges so it was me and my companion. We were told the first time they would arrive at the Riga airport at about 9pm and we'd pick them up, buy some groceries with them, and then take them to an apartment in a suburb of Riga (Imanta). Our work hours were long over so we were just playing monopoly deal waiting to get a call from them. After an hour of Monopoly Deal, we decided to go home and wait there because we were both pooped. We got a call that they'd had problems at the Russian border so they got held back and they'd arrive closer to 3am. We slept for a little but not very well because we were expecting a phone call at any moment that would pull us out of bed. But we again heard nothing from them once it was 3am that morning so we slept some more. They finally got to Riga about 16 hours later than expected so we spent a lot of time being alert and got a lot more tired than I would have liked when we could have been chilling and doing our regular thing. But that's also our job so I can't really complain. It was really satisfying to help them once they showed up. I could not imagine being in their position. I see their kids and they are no different than any back at home other than being from a different country. The longer I'm here, the more lives I see of other people and just realize how easy I have it in a lot of ways. Another funny thing is that Elder Adams, who drove, does not have an international driving license so it was definitely illegal for him to be driving. President Huff told him to, knowing he didn't have a license, which I don't think makes it any more right, but sometimes you do what you gotta do. 

It's been really hard to be in the Russian branch because I speak nobody's language. I've asked people if they speak Lithuanian a couple times but surprise! they don't. I might start picking up Russian more intentionally or learn some Latvian basics. Russian would be useful, but the cyrillic alphabet hurts my eyes. Maybe I'll come home semi-not-fluent in three languages, wouldn't that be something. I would love to go back to Lithuania just for the sake of being around people I can talk to and understand. I always have someone who can translate for me so it's not like I'm clueless but it's not fun. I wouldn't say I'm good at Russian but I understand a good deal. It's really funny because sometimes younger missionaries who don't know I studied Russian in the MTC will translate for me and I usually don't' tell them to stop but I already know what's being said as much as they do. 

A nice quote a friend sent me a few weeks ago:

"If we hear any principle taught from the stand that we do not understand, let us seek to comprehend it by the Spirit of God. If it be not of God, we have the privilege of knowing it. We are not required to receive for doctrine everything that we hear. We may say, “I do not know whether this is true or not; I will not fight it, neither will I endorse it, but I will seek knowledge from God, for that is my privilege, and I will never rest satisfied until I have obtained the light I require.” If you hear a doctrine that does not agree with your feelings or that you do not believe, take this course; do not reject nor endorse hastily without knowing or understanding. By taking this course you will develop the principle that God designs we should possess, and we will thus become a wise and understanding people, for we will be based on the rock of revelation." (Apr. 21, 1867, JD 12:46) – President George Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth, 270

This is hard. There's a lot of things I don't understand and not fighting those goes against my nature a lot of times. It's an effort but I think developing an ability to just sit with uncomfortable things or just be okay not knowing everything yet will benefit me in the long run. I also think it's important to notice that he mentions not to endorse things so quickly either. Personal conviction makes things so much more meaningful. If I could go back in time I would tell younger Elder Smith to figure himself out. I'd tell him to not be so quick to say "I know" to things he was honestly unsure about and tell him that nobody ever said he had to know everything. "I believe" has become a more and more powerful statement the longer I'm out on a mission. There's a short list of "I know's" but a giant list of "I believe's" and "I hope's". Notice as well how all but one of the Articles of Faith start with "we believe". 

Čiao,
Vyresnysis Smitas

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