Passing the Baton

As I've said before, Ethan was a teacher at the MTC for 3 years. His last day, July 15, which was 5 years to the day that he was set apart as a missionary. 2 years as a missionary and 3 years teaching at the MTC followed. That's a lot of service to gathering Israel! He gave some of his lessons to our kids when he was home visiting. He has a natural gift to be a teacher, he's very engaging, much like Corey is when he shares stories. Good job Ethan. Since he stopped teaching in July, he's been working on finishing a book of all the things he learned as a missionary and as a MTC teacher. The book is now finished! He emailed it to me on August 19. He's titled it THE BATON: ULTIMATE MISSIONARY ADVICE BASED UPON EXPERIENCES FROM THE MISSION OF ELDER WRIDE. On his last day at the MTC, he went around to any rooms and districts where he could get in, and said if any missionaries wanted a link to it, when he was finished with it, to write down their email address. He got an email recently of one of the missionaries that he didn't teach, but who just wrote down their address, telling him thank you for his words of advice. Below: 

Hello, I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I was in hermana Hacock’s class and you stopped in. I am so glad I wrote my email on that board. I am living with Elder Millard and I was like you guys need to read this! And Elder Millard got all excited and said that’s my MTC teacher!! It was such a cool connection. Anyways it has been a little tough at the beginning of the mission. You said the best, there are times where it feels like it will never end. I am settled in and liking it now.

  I just wanted to thank you for this. It is absolutely amazing. I have read it three times already and it has changed my mission already. It is so comforting and just gives me so many ideas! Seriously thank you. 

  This was an answer to my prayers! 

  God bless!

  Elder Bell

He gets emails like that now and then and he's grateful for them. I've sent a link to it to the missionaries serving from our ward. Here again is a link to The Baton. Ethan sent it out with this note:

Missionaries - 
  When I click "send" on this email, I will officially have passed the baton off to you guys.
  I'm sorry it's taken so long to send this out. I've been working hard to make sure it has everything I can think of that will help you.
  Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. I'm sure I'll revise it later on and will take any feedback.
  I'm attaching a PDF and the direct link to the document. Use whichever is easier to read.
  Good luck. I'm very sad that my part of the race has ended. I'm genuinely jealous of you all. Don't waste this sacred time.
- Hermano Wride

Ethan's hopes in compiling all these thoughts, scriptures, stories, and experiences that helped him on his mission was in hopes that missionaries starting their missions wouldn't starting from square one. They don't need to invent the wheel, but they can take what other missionaries have learned and run with it. Build upon their shoulders. Ethan asked us for feedback and if we had anything to contribute. I don't remember if I sent anything. One quote that helped me on my mission though, was a Winston Churchill quote. The lady in our ward who made a monthly newsletter, sent one to each of the missionaries from our ward. On a hard day, when a lady we were teaching left her Book of Mormon in a bag on her door handle with a note to not come back, there was a quote in that newsletter that helped me. "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Yes, I was sad. Yes, it was natural to be discouraged, but I would fight that feeling and would try to continue on with no loss of my enthusiasm for Christ, for His Church, or for His gospel. It is true, so what else matters? Oh, I just looked up the quote, google shows it a little different than I remember. 

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill

So, good job Ethan. That is a treasure to be sure. Good job being a historian and documenter of things like your mom! You will be remembered. (that's another quote...)

"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

― Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack May 1738

Ok! Well that took me a while to write. We had two butterflies emerge today. 

Lily wearing them as earrings -

September starts tomorrow! I can't believe it's almost autumn.