Elder Martin D Mumford: The Countdown Begins

(Elder Mumford will finish his missionary service in just 28 days from now.)

Here is his e-mail from 7/6/10:

Dear Everyone,

First, thanks for all the updates. I love to hear about everyone's adventures. Also, I got the package in the mail yesterday! Woooo! Thank you so much for all the candies, almond joys, reces'ses peices, and CHEESE! We're actually topped off on cheese for a long time now, we still have 2 bricks left, which should easily hold us out until August. Thanks for the great food, I can finish my mission with a little taste of home :)

Also, thanks for the 'Hymns that sound like movies' CD. I've only listened to about half of it so far, but it turns out to be mainly my favorite hymns from some of the other CDs. So now I have another CD just full of my favorites. Thanks so much. Also I love my 3 presents that Ill be getting in August.

(Gracias por el queso.)

Thank you for helping me through every part of my mission, and getting everything set up to be the smoothest transition possible. (Although I think that simply no matter what I do It's going to be a bit of a rough transition :). I will have to take up the offer of falling asleep for a few hours once I get home. Really the only thing at this point that is difficult is simply being very tired all the time. It's not hard to wake up on time, it's simply hard to survive all the way until 10:30 without getting exhausted.

So looking back, the things that generally all missionaries want most is:

1. The progress and happiness of those that they work with,

2. Letters and pictures.

3. Sleep.

I've never been so tired in my whole life, nor do I think I ever will be, until I have a baby :) But this is a time in my life where I have grown the most ever. It really scares me to think about what kind of person I would have been (or rather what kind of person I would not have been), if I had not gone on a mission. As President Albrecht says, this mission is like a mini^life. A head start for the rest of our lives. It essentially gives us a dedicated chunk of time where we will inherently change ourselves and develop valuable attributes through the work that we are doing. It is a time without distractions, (or at least without 99% of the normal distractions in life), where we can completely focus on other people, and by doing so learn so much about how to become not just productive, but tremendously influential in building the Kingdom of God. Our efforts here, though few and seemingly inconsequential, will have ripple effects through the coming generations. I think back and I realize just how many people we have taught, how many we have helped, and just how many we have given a good image to. And I have no idea where that will go, but when my time runs out here, I can know that my efforts will have been effective in progressing god's Kingdom. And even more than that, I can do so much more each successive 2 years after this.

There was a wonderful quote shared by President Hill. It was my first day ever in Tokyo, and we were in the mission car, President Hill was driving all of us to the Hombu. He turned around in his seat and said to us, "Elders... this will not be the best 2 years of your whole life --- because living with another man 24/7 is a completely unnatural state." :) Basically, As incredible and unique as this mission is (and we will never have an experience like it again), I don't think God wants us to go back to obscurity. He doesnt want us to lose the ability to feel the spirit that we gained on our missions. We should be able to use what we learned here to infinitely multiply that potential back in our own country.

Elder Nielson (the one who gave mne the bear), once said along the lines of;

'One reason why we are so limited with rules here on our missions, may be to build our potential future - When we have a problem as a missionary, maybe a problem with our companion, a habit or something that is bothering us... we can't do much about it. Our options are very limited. As a normal person with an unpleasant roomate, we can simply walk out of the room. We can plug in our earphones and crank up our favorite muscic, and our problems dissapear. But as missionaries we must either RESOLVE the problem, or go crazy. One reason why our rescources are so limited, may be that it forces us to rely on the rescources that we Do have (The spirit, the scriptures, personal revelation, prayer), which end up being the most important rescources anyways.'

'When we are confused or dont know something about what to do or how to live, as normal people we turn to the internet, or magazines or something for help or guidance. Anything we want to know is generally an instant away. As missionaries our method of finding answers is slow, unless we turn to God. When we have a problem, we really have no real other optiuons than to pray about it and seek an answer. That way we learn how to use our most basic, and really, our most important resources.'

'Then when we return home, we are reintroduced to the OCEAN of resources. And how much more do you think we can accomplish in a wide space now that we have learned to acomplish so much in a limited one? Our potential has just been expanded'.

So I'm excited to come back, not because I want my mission to end, but because I am excited to unlock the great potential that is waiting. The keys to which I gained here, and never would have had them (or at least it would have taken much longer to find them) had I not come. Ill always be greateful for my mission. Now ther are only 4 weeks left for me to see what I can do. Im going to do everything I can , and hope that a few people might gain something from it.

Current Investigators:

1. Shinobu - still cant meet, but I think he still is seeking for an answer. We'll share those scriptures with him as soon as we can.

2. Yoshida - doing great, called us with some questions about the atomnement the other day. He is reading/praying.

3. Taiun - finally managed to communicate to him though chinese scriptures and the chinese pamphlets about Jesus Christ and the Atomenent. Kind of difficult, but I think he has a little more of a solid understanding. He loves coming to church, but the hard part is that he doenst really understnad Japanerse, or English for tha tmatter, and it is hard for him to get much out of it. But he will keep coming, mostly because all the people there are so nice to him.

4. Wakizaka - Great guy, is a little confused about life right now, and his family situation is not so good. He wants to listen to us because he feels that there will be something that we say that he might be able to apply in his life. I think so. If you could pray for him to get the answer in life that he is loking for.

I might interject here with a warning note - my spelling is terrible, because of 2 reasons

1. I havent spelled a lot in english in a while

2. This computer has lag spikes ever 60 seconds or so,k which means that when I am typing it will just stop working for a few moments, then just slpurt all of the tesxt out in an instant, sometimes a little bit switched up. Elder Merrell is having to grapple with the same thing right now and I think it frustrates him a bit :)

By the way, I really haven't mentioned much about Elder Merrell since the first week, he is a really great guy!

He has a great vision for the future, and it might be possible for both of us to go into the industry of games together. We've been talking a bit about our goals and how we might be able to help each other later.