Jack - March 26

Hello Everybody! 

It´s been a while since I´ve started in English I think.

This week was, I don´t even know, it went pretty quickly, and slowly.

I had exchanges twice this week so I wasn´t in my area for a good chunk of the week, and in both of the exchanges not a whole lot happened. In the first one the zone leader had to make a bunch of phone calls because someone was having a ton of stress, and in the other it was with a new missionary leading his area for the second time, so we did a lot of walking because he still doesn´t know it all that well.

We find out transfers next week and it´s likely I´ll be transferred, I´ve been telling everyone my guess is the Zone of Quillota (I just chose a name and stuck with it), but then I heard that´s where basically all of the avocados in Chile come from so.... fingers crossed, am I right? I heard people literally just give it out in the street.

I received some personal revelation this week, and it is awesome. It helped me out so much, so I figured I´d share it. I was listening to all the drama the zone leader had to deal with during exchanges, and we were talking about it, and the whole time I had a distinct feeling there was something I had to learn from it. At one point we were talking about some of the things that were causing this other person so much stress, and part of it was due to some comparisons they were making with their area and the success of other people (Sounds a lot like all of my stress, and my area is worse off than theirs, but anyways...) And suddenly it seemed like words just came out of my mouth, but they were talking directly to me, it was so weird. I said, " But there´s no point in stressing over that, that´s not your mission." 

That´s not your mission.

All of the stress and disappointment over comparing my area and my mission with the success and progression other people are having doesn´t mean anything. That´s not my mission, it´s not that we´re doing the same thing and they just do it better than me, we´re doing different things, however similar. I´m the only one doing this work I´m supposed to do right here, right now, in only the way I can do it. There´s no point in comparison. In the end it comes down to our works or actions alone, not how they match up with somebody elses. For example, as missionaries we have 30 minutes for exercise in the mornings, and after exchanges my companion told me the elder he was with was curled up in a blanket on the floor, so he felt like his exercises were good. But just because someone else doesn´t do exercises doesn´t make any half-hearted exercises my companion did a good workout. I hope that makes sense. But yeah, I basically learned not to compare things. I´m not saying I´m perfect at it now, but I understand it better. Be happy for other people, and don´t let it get you down. What you´re doing is something only you can do. Only you can live your life. 

I hope everyone had a great week this week, until next time!

-Elder Blaylock