An Apostle of the Lord & Apples vs. Onions

The highlight of this week was definitely that the KWM received a visit from Elder Holland. It was an amazing experience. He came and spent 2.5 hours with us. At the beginning he had all the missionaries come and shake his hand and tell him where we are from and our name. Afterwards he told us that in the olden days of yore, every missionary in the world used to receive a personal interview from a member of 12 every year. He then expressed we can't do that anymore after reporting the numbers of missionaries and missions worldwide. He told us he just had a personal interview with every missionary in the mission though. He told us he had us tell him our name because he was looking into our eyes not at our name tag. When he said that I was like whoa...

It turned out to be such an amazing meeting. His remarks were related a lot around his Feed My Sheep talk. He stressed how tragic it is for there to be one less active returned missionary out there. He doesn't understand how someone can do what we are doing and then go home and seem to forget all of it! He told us that our missions would be the most important things in our life, or at least they should be. And if we let it affect us correctly it will affect every choice we make afterward.

I really love too what he expressed about why missionary work seems to be so hard. In his own words, "Salvation is not a cheap experience! It was never easy. It wasn't easy for the Savior, so why should we think it would be any easier for us?" Missionary work is hard, but it's worth it.

The youth had a fireside with Elder Holland as well so this week a lot of the youth in the branch gave their testimonies about Elder Holland and how cool it was, and then a recent convert gave her testimony about how she didn't really know how true the church was before, she believed it was true but it was a hard church and she didn't know if she wanted to do it anymore. Then during the testimony meeting she had received her answer that the church is true. It was a very spiritual meeting, one of the better fast and testimony meetings I have been to before!

Since today is Star Wars Day, I think I will share a story I've heard out in the mission. First the Star Wars quote that relates to the story: "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate". (I think it's Yoda's quote about the darkside from the movies I can't remember it word for word. The story is as follows:

There were these two neighbors that lived out in the vast fields of Kansas. They were both farmers and they lived a few miles outside of the town. The one neighbor told the other that the onions he was growing tasted just like apples. The farmer of course did not believe his neighbor, at least not at first. His neighbor continued to tell him that his onions tasted just like a fresh, sweet apple of the tree.

One day the farmer had been plowing his fields for several hours, and he was hungry, he had forgot to pack his lunch that morning. His neighbor had just harvested the so called "apple-onions" and some onions were left laying on ground in the neighboring field. The farmer imagined a cool, crisp apple would taste pretty good right now. He could just imagine taking a bite and the cold sweet juice of the apple dripping down his chin. He had to try it! He went and grabbed an onion and closed his eyes, and bit into it. His face of anticipation quickly turned to disgust. The onion was nothing like an apple! It was sour and strong flavored and the juice that dripped down his chin stunk and made his eyes water. Having no gum or toothbrush he had to finish plowing his fields living with the consequences of stinky breath in his tractor cab.

The moral of the story is that and Onion will never be an apple. And what we can learn from an Apple vs and Onion is that we either get better or we get bitter.

Hope you all have a fantastic week!

Be Good! Live Well! Love a Lot!

Love,

Elder Waldron