May 31, 2010

Dear Home,

One of the problems I face as a person is that I'm rather forgetful, which frequently extends it's negative effects to those around me. Case in point, I remembered that today is P-Day, but I forgot to bring paper for writing letters, and I forgot to bring the wires I need to Email pictures. Both of those things negatively affect most of you. I also forgot to bring the planner that has all of the notes of things that I wanted to write home about, so I'll have to limit myself to what I can remember. And, as already noted, I have a rather poor memory. =/

But there are two things that I do remember. The first thing is an event that I call the Cream of Mushroom Miracle, which I partly remember because of the name, and partly because of how dramatically it changed my day. The other thing I remember is the Canada-Wide Multi-Stake Conference we recently enjoyed, partly because it was so much like a session of General Conference (I'm glad I had paper then!) and partly because we have a recording of it which I was able to watch durring the time when I would've been writing letters.

First, Cream of Mushroom. To set the stage a little, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. I was uncharacteristically grumpy and iritable. The rain that day didn't help much either. We knocked on a couple of doors that morning, but we didn't find anyone who wanted to talk to us (which was probably a good thing, because sharing the gospel wasn't really at the front of my mind right then). After a few hours of not much happening, we went in for lunch. Elder Jons, a skilled cook, made some soup-ish stuff out of rice, green beans and a can of Cream of Mushroom soup. It's good stuff, but it needs a little salt, so when we eat it, we usually have it with Saltine Crackers. Those who are familliar with the kind of saltine crackers I was raised on, the kind which Elder Jons and I eat now, know that those crackers come in plastic bags which are dificult to open. Much like most chip bags, you can pull pretty hard and not have the bag open at all, but when you pull a little harder, the bag seems to explode, sending chips everywhere.

Guess what happened.

Fortunately, when I tore the bag open, all of the crackers stayed on the table. But unfortunately, when the bag exploded, my elbow hit my bowl of soup, which splattered onto my shirt, tie, pants, raincoat, and the carpetted floor of the church (where we eat most of our meals).

So how is this a miracle? First of all, nothing got stained. Second of all, the situation was so unlikely and unfortunate that I couldn't help laughing at my own bad fortune. Just a minute or two after the explosion occured, I started thinking of how that spill couldn't have been any more perfect, and how Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles advised us to learn to laugh at times like that. I think that God wanted that to happen. He knew that I needed a good laugh to cheer me up at that time. I'm glad that God is wise enough and loving enough to give us what we need, even if it's not what we want.

I'm out of time, but really quickly-

Stake Conference was great. All 47 Stakes and 5 Districts across Canada were included in the broadcast, in which Elder Glen L. Pace of the 70 and President Uchtdorf, the Second Counsellor in the First Presidency gave inspiring messages which seemed to include some personal guidance from my Heavenly Father to me. I got lots of motivation and direction for what I am to do. I've got a long way to go before I get where I want to be, but I know that with God's help, especially through direction from His Apostles, I can do anything He needs me to do.
Thanks for reading. I'll write more again next week, as usual.

Love, your frequently-blessed missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts