Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called your name. You're mine. - Isiah 43:1b The Message

Before moving out to the state of Washington, Curtis wrote me one more time. Before he left, he was asking people that were going out of the country how to say 'I love you' in various languages. He got Tagalog, Spanish, Cebuano, German, Latin, Slovakian, Danish, Malay, and Hawaiian.

One thing that someone spoke in one of his meetings was this: " It will be hard, but God will walk with us every step of the way, and those you left behind will be blessed for your service too." Everyday, I'm sure that he is thinking about everyone and misses them but at the same time, we all benefit from him going on his mission. I didn't realize it until now that in a way this is almost like when I went off to church trips in the summer for a week in middle school and high school. I loved going to those because when you are surrounded by people that just want to worship God through word, song, dance, and etc., it moves you. At the end of the week of these things, I always wanted to stay there because I felt such a close connection to God. For Curtis to be doing this for two years, he's creating an everlasting bond with God. One thing I always disliked was coming back to the "real world" because I fell back into my old ways of worshiping God instead of growing and keeping what I had learned from The Great Escape and Montreat. After realizing that this past week, I'm actually jealous in a way. Then I got to thinking even more (scary I know lol), maybe there's another reason why he has been called to do this, maybe God is trying to bring me back to him more by Curtis sharing his experience with me and helping me to finish my "new years resolution" of reading the whole bible and going to church more while I'm at school. One thing that I have always remembered from both The Great Escape and Montreat is that a theme one year was "called by name." We aren't just called upon by God, but God calls us by name to do his work. He has picked us specifically, individually, and by our name. Another thing is (oops, yea there's two things instead of one that I have remembered) what this one musician at The Great Escape said to us. He said basically that we aren't just children of God, we are princes and princesses. Each and everyone of us. I am God's princess and Curtis is God's prince.

Sorry for the tangent there but here's more about what Curtis wrote to me. Curtis is so excited to go to Washington but anxious about doing well. He also said the he might actually miss MTC (I know he will). He has learned so much from just being at the MTC like how to be bold but not overbearing, how to show people you really sincerely care about them, and examples of faith and God loves everyone.

Curtis found out that he his the 7th generation to be a missionary in his family and finds it cool to be able to do for someone else what someone did for my family way back in the day. He made it to Washington safely =). First day there, he was able to go to the bishop's house to meet him and see how the ward is up there. They grilled burgers for the missionaries and he met some of the young men getting ready to go on their missions, including the bishop's youngest son. Curtis's companion is straight out of high school so he said that this will be interesting lol.

As you can read, he is very excited to be in Washington and we all can only pray for wonderful things to happen.

2 comments:

  1. God does know each one of us by name. I'm glad you've been able to relate Curtis' mission to experiences in your own life that are similar.

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  2. What a wonderful insight, Ashton. Thanks for sharing it.

    Mama always says that one of the greatest blessings of my mission was realizing that I was going to grow while I was serving, so she better grow, as well. I really liked that perspective, and I'm glad you learned it on your own - that God told you that personally.

    I think one of the things that will challenge "Curtis" (*grin*) initially will be the fact that his "senior companions" will be younger than he is - and probably less mature. It will be a wonderful lesson in humility, if he lets it be. (Feel free to share that with him. If he gets it from both of us, he just might take it to heart. *GRIN*)

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