I can understand the parable of the lost sheep a little bit deeper now

So this week I got Elder Vaiouga who just got done serving in Narre Warren, which is like the mission's land of milk and honey, and then the poor guy gets deported here to outer darkness. But we were stoked-as to serve together for another transfer, especially since we felt cheated that we only spent one transfer in Moe. He's still the man that I remember, obedient and hard working as heck and REALLY easy to get along with. Love this guy, so it's going to be a great transfer with him.

So this week, again, has been a bit lackluster with the work all over again. Not too many "things" that happened other than tons of rain cloudy weather, and we dropped Arthur and Jacinda. We needed to be REALLY blunt with them that we were dropping them and why we were dropping them, but they still didn't really understand that we weren't going to come back. Oh well, we gave the message as straightforward as we could. We have been teaching them so much for so long without any progression and we're told that if they aren't progressing, drop them when we feel appropriate. Satan will put people in our paths to suck up our precious time. There's no point in trying to pluck an unripe fruit

Tracting has been fun but not a lot of successes there to be shard, and majority of the branch still has fun in avoiding us missionaries. I've shared this multiple times, but it’s hard to find anyone when we're stressed to work with the members, and then the members just have an attitude of "I don't want to 'push' religion on my friends" (the term 'push' can mean even simply bringing up the word 'church' or 'Mormon' in a conversation, so many people here are afraid to even do that). SOOO we have to do a lot of finding on our own.

This guy, Josh Schache, just got drafted to play with

the AFL on the Lions team. and we tracted into him

But as far as what I learned this week, there was quite a bit, some in General Conference (which was SO dang good) and some outside. There isn't enough time to talk about what I learned in General Conference, but it sufficeth me to say that I learned tons, and this has probably been the best General Conference I have even witnesses. When the Priesthood sang at the Priesthood session, I couldn't help but feel that I wanted to join them in singing praises to my Heavenly Father, and I was FIXATED on them and soaked in the spirit so strongly when they sang. And it wasn't even the Mormon Tabernacle Choir that sang either: it was normal Melchizedek priesthood holders from surrounding Utah stakes, most of them being much older men. But the Spirit was so strong, I couldn't but help have a serious longing to join that heavenly throng. I felt like what Alma described in Alma 36:22.

But Thursday we went to go help Brother and Sister Thomson out on their farm again, and as always we had a blast doing that. We got to help round up and herd about 250 of their sheep without any sheep dogs, so that was pretty dang fun in and of itself. But then came the time to put the rubber bands around the newborns' tails and nuts! I won't go into it, but that was pretty fun too. Not something I ever expected to be doing on my mission, but hey, whatever! But!!! Here comes the learning!!! Sheep tend to be pretty stupid sometimes, and VERY easily spooked. While we were herding one of the younger lambs escaped out of the fenced area. Wasn't a big deal because there were other barricades it had to get through in order to completely escape, so we kinda meagerly chased it around. Once it got through the second fence, we took a lot more notice and kicked it into gear to chase it. Once it got past the third fence though, we were on red alert: if it were to pass through another fence, it would be long gone and would probably get killed by predators once night came, and with free range past the fences, there'd be no way to retrieve it. The area it had escaped to was MASSIVE; like ACRES big, covered in groves of trees and grassy plains. Before giving chase to it we knew we needed the Lord's help in this effort, so we said a quick prayer that we would be able to catch it. Long story short we lost it, saw it again on a hilltop about half a mile away, went to go surround it and chase it (Bro. Thomson had to wait behind because we were maddog bookin' it with speed), lost it again, and then found it in our sights once more. We strategized. We contemplated. We chased. We put our FULL effort into making sure this lamb didn't escape. After about an hour of running, chasing, cornering, slipping on wet ground, and watching it ram itself into the fence trying to get out even further, we finally caught it. All three of us, Vaiouga, me and the lamb, were all panting hard from running around so much, but we had a good hold on it to make sure it didn't escape. It had a gash on its front leg from being in such a panicked frenzy from trying to escape. But I realized, like what Elder Gary E. Stevenson said last year during his "Where Are the Keys?" talk, I thought to myself "There just might be a lesson here". Let me explain.....This lamb escaped multiple attempts to keep it within the flock, and in doing so it injured itself badly. Vaiouga and I put our fullest efforts and focus onto catching it, and it was definitely a team effort because we had to corner it. Eventually, after about an hour of searching and looking and climbing up hills, we found it. And upon finding it, we had to exert our fullest efforts into actually carrying it back to the fold. All this for one lamb. In the Lords parable of the lost sheep, not much detail was given in how hard it actually was to obtain the sheep and bring it back. This sheep was injured, confused, tired, and thought it was going in the right direction, but it was only hurting itself and turning away from the shepherd (us). In my mind I compared this with working with the "lost sheep" within our own folds. There are many less-active and inactive members in our wards and branches, and even though we know they're there, we think they just aren't worth the effort because it'll take too much of our time to get them back. But in my experience with the lost sheep, it wasn't as easy as going to find it, picking it up like a lost item, and easily carrying it back on strengthened shoulders: it was some seriously strenuous work! FINDING it was the easy part, but actually getting it to a point where it would comply was another thing. We were tired, muddy, wet, exhausted, sweaty, and even covered in a bit of blood, but after all of our exertions we found it and brought it back to the fold. I honestly feel like I can understand the parable of the lost sheep a little bit deeper now.

Castrating and herding all the sheepies

That's my week and it was great, and I hope yours was as well. Love you all tons, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.
-Elder Landon Cook
Ponderize: Alma 36:22