Monday, February 27, 2017

When life gives you lemons, eat them with salt - McMinnville, Tennessee

Hello everyone,

I want to apologize that for he past few weeks I have been very bad at replying to anyone's emails or sending anything in general. I promise it is nothing personal, just life happened. This has been a very
interesting few weeks, but hopefully things will be changing soon.  Elder Sanders is leaving. I will be getting Elder Carlson here in McMinnville for the next few weeks till transfers. We aren't sure what
will happen then. It will be fun being with an old companion again. I trained Elder Carlson in Clarksville with Elder weight and now Elder weight is our district leader. It is a little companionship reunion.

Anyway, here are some pictures of happy things that happened two weeks ago. Gary got baptized and I got to go down to Shelbyville to be part of it. 




Anyway I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Elder Basham 

Monday, February 13, 2017

- McMinnville, Tennessee

Hello everyone!

I think president Uchtdorf has vary accurately found the theme in my life this past week and taught me exactly how to fix it. My favorite General conference is April 2015; in priesthood session he gave a talk titled "on being genuine." It is just fantastic but one story in particular came to my mind last night. He talks about a stake president who set lots of lofty goals and programs to "improve" the stake. However, he later was troubled as he started thinking about the individuals and their needs. He realized that while the goals seemed impressive and meaningful, they weren't really focusing on the members. He realized that what you can count, doesn't count very much, but the things you cannot count usually count the most.

I have definitely fallen victim to that. Over the last week I saw the mistakes I had made and the weaknesses I have and was annoyed by them. I began to set big life altering goals to completely annihilat these tendencies in myself and force myself in a way to be better. Even worse, I began looking down on others because they had not set goals as big as mine and so therefore their vision or testimony must not be as big as mine. As you can tell, all of those ideas are rooted in enmity and come from the wrong voices. It got to the point that I was so busy trying to plan out my perfect little life that would be free of all the things that "other people" do that I could not focus at all on the investigators and their needs to teach a lesson.

I am very grateful now that Heavenly Father has brought me back to humility and helped me to see the true worth in myself and all of his children. This worth is not dependent at all upon our own self improvement. It comes because we are His and He loves us. I am grateful to realize my reliance on him. I am reminded of another talk by president uchtdorf called "it works wonderfully." The gospel is supposed to bring us joy and love. Sometimes I over complicate the gospel with layers of man made programs and ideas. It doesn't bring me joy at all. But I am happy to say now that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect and it works wonderfully. I will be happy to go out and share it with others. 

I want to give a shoutout to my dad. He has taught me over and over again throughout my life by his example that people are always the most important. No matter what the situation - at work with patients, with friends, or most of all with family - he thinks of the individuals. I know that neither time, distance, money, profit, nor any material thing stops him from trying to do the best for people, especially my sisters and me. 
  


Also a shoutout toPresident Stone for being the nicest mission president ever! Elder Sanders and I had an absolute blast this week.



I love you all! Enjoy your Monday. 

Elder Basham

Monday, February 6, 2017

McMinnville - Tennessee

Hello everyone

This was a very exciting week. Elder sanders and I got whitewashed into this area. In other words, there were no Elders here for a few months until we came. We had the fun task of opening the area back up and trying to find where they left off last year. The Spanish sisters had the job of taking care of our apartment in the meantime so it would be clean and not burn to the ground. However, they had way too much fun with that job. Posted here is a video of the result. It was probably the greatest thing ever.


I was so sad to leave my old area, but this here made me super happy. I just know this is going to be a great place. We are trying hard not to clean the rest of it up.

We had a very interesting first day trying to survive off of what we found in the shelves. Here are some pictures

Meal of champions.

Service Project

The first thing we did was go to a service project where we put two tarps on the roof for this lady. She had hammers and screws. After much decision we came to the conclusion that cinder blocks would be easier. We are officially in the south. 

The ward is super excited to have Elders back. They have been missing the help. I am grateful to be part of this opportunity and to get the missionary work started in this wonderful town again. I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Basham