Week 72 in the Field - Trio No. 5, El Oreganal, Elefants, and TruthFood

Weekly Letter March 7th 2016

Hey guys, I hope everyone had a great week. Just a heads up - this letter might be somewhat brief.

This week I was in a trio with Elder Hernandez. He is from Mexico City, Mexico and came with Elder Garcia and me because his companion was sent home for mental health issues. Elder Hernandez is super cool and while he's been on the mission his family moved to Idaho so we can probably meet again after the mission. He wants to go to BYU.

Went on divisions with the assistants this week, went well, learned a lot.

Had our first sacrament meeting in El Oreganal and had 5 investigators present. Everything went well, first time conducting a sacrament meeting.

My spiritual thought this week comes from a story told by Elder Uchtdorf in a CES devotional. The fictional story goes that there were once 6 scientists, all of them highly intelligent and very educated; however each is also blind. Despite this limitation, the scientists want to go study what an elephant is and so they go as a group to study one in a zoo.  Each scientist grabs a different part of the elephant and explains what he feels. One who is grabbing a leg says "an elephant is like a tree, thick and rough"; another, with the tail in his hand says "No, the elephant is like a rope". A third, grabbing the trunk, says "No an elephant is like a very thick snake." Each is certain about his conclusion because they have a part of the truth, and yet the real truth about what an elephant actually is remain a hidden.

Absolute truth actually exists, but human beings often try to come to conclusions about truth based on extrapolating incomplete data. Moral relativism is spreading contagiously and their are many voices, each of which seems so sure to know the truth. However, many are more concerned about feeling certain than actually being right.

The elephant exists and is an elephant, no matter how long we spend trying to argue that it's a tree or a rope or a snake. Righteousness is righteousness no matter how many times it gets called wickedness. Wickedness is wickedness no matter how many times it gets called righteousness. God exists whether we want him to or not.

Let us all build our lives upon the rock of absolute truth and help others not to build theirs on sand. When the rains come down and the floods come up, those built on sand will always, always wash away; but the house on the rock stays still.

Love,

Elder Dawson

Food

To Mom:

Thanks for the package mom! I got the one with the Star Wars stuff, the socks, and the toffee. We have a guy in our branch who is crazy about Star Wars and we are going to use some of the stuff to bribe him to go with us to visit people. Ha ha, thanks mom, love you lots!