3rd Week in Newark

So not to freak you guys out but this week has totally been crazy haha! Like I've been saying for the past couple weeks New Jersey is well.. Different. One of our appointments ended up being a guy who was pretty tipsy and a little too into my "pretty eyes" and then yesterday we got off the bus to see a guy casually strutting, very much naked, down the street! Anyways I guess if I were to put in words my experience of this week it would be that overused phrase in the MTC, " There is no growth in the comfort zone." Well it's very much true and often times it also means that there is no growth in knowing where you are going to end up.

      I really burnt myself out this week. I think that God gives us talents not only to help in His work but to also humble us in knowing that those tools are a gift. Being doubled into an area that just opened has really been difficult and it's taken all of our effort to utilize our skills and get this area up and running (For those of you who don't know mission terms we pretty much started from scratch in finding people to teach each day). My lesson from all the work we've been doing lately is that you can get burnt out. As members, missionaries or even just people we follow a monotonous cycle of being humbled to the point where we learn to use our tools and talents, and then working ourselves to death because we start depending on one way of using our tool.
    

  Hopefully some of this makes sense but the main message I'm trying to get across right now is that in order to break the cycle we must always turn to Lord. I personally know that such a commitment is unrealistic but it should be our end game. It should be on our minds. I have never regretted a moment in peace to gather my thoughts our seek for promptings. The world trains us to live that monotonous cycle, to be effective and efficient machines. Sad things is that we'll probably never be "efficient" but we can be "enough". I'm not quite sure what I'm getting to and I'm sure you want to get down to the fun stuff right below this but as a representative of Jesus Christ I am beginning to figure out what He wants from me. And if I can worthily and rightfully declare His word without ever fully understanding it then don't we all need a break? Take a step back an meditate for awhile, see if He has an extra tricks for using your tools in a way that only an old timer could.

-Elder Lucas Johnson

                                 We are Officially biking Misisonaries, at least for a short time.

                                   This is the Willy Wonka door...my companion, "The Giant"