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Riley #7 - One More Week, Parable of Unprofitable Servant, My Companions
February 26, 2013Dear Family,
One week left until I leave the MTC! I have to be at the travel
office at 5:00 AM next Wednesday. My flight will be leaving around 8:30am
and should arrive in LA around 9:30 am California time... so I would imagine I
would be able to call sometime around 8 am, though I am not really sure. It
is only a 2 hour flight, so I should have a full day ahead of me when I
arrive.
Tell Elena
congratulations for me if you get to see her. She always seemed to be
looking forward to being baptized every time we saw her. It's great she
is getting baptized.
This next week will probably be really busy for me
as I get ready to go. I have In-Field Orientation Thursday, in which I apparently sit through 8 hours of orientation.
Also, tomorrow we will be
helping with the new missionaries coming in. I think that we will end
up directing traffic from the looks of things.
I have also been trying to finish Jesus The Christ before I leave the MTC, which I am not sure I will be able to do.
I still have a few hundred pages left and this next week looks busier than usual. It is a great book and really helps me understand the setting behind the New Testament.
Today, when I was reading it, I read the parable of the unprofitable servant. It is found on page 470 of Jesus the Christ and Luke 17 in the New Testament.
I
really liked the parable, because it is easy to relate to right now. It
talks about how we, as servants of God, are expected to always ready to
serve. After a particularly long day here, it is sometimes easy to just
want to go straight to bed, but if there is more we need to do it is our
duty to do it. Our actions and service during the day don't excuse us
from other responsibilities. Always doing whatever God requires of us
doesn't make us great missionaries worthy of praise, it is simply what
any missionary should do. Our greatest effort is what is expected and
the minimum requirement to fulfill our calling as missionaries.
Now about my companions. They are both going to the
Arcadia mission and both went to Utah State for a semester. Elder George
is 18 and is really into wrestling. He is a great companion and really
pushes us to do everything we need to do. Although he didn't have a lot
of experience with Chinese coming here, he never let that stop him from
speaking or trying to teach. He is a hard worker and can stay focused
even when the rest of us don't. Even so, he is upbeat, cheerful, and
outgoing, always meeting new people.
 |
| Elder Smith is on the left and Elder George is on the right |
The two of them balance each other well and look at
thing differently, but don't let that cause friction between the two of
them.
Love you,
Elder Bowman
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