Note from Mom- This is an interesting letter to read. If you know Eric, you know that he is a perfectionist and takes everything hard and expects that he needs to do it all. We will caution him to take it down a few notches and realize that this is normal for missionaries to be overwhelmed when they are suddenly responsible for more things and that he doesn't have to do everything perfectly. I expect in time, he will learn to balance things more, as all of us have as we have gotten older and gotten more complex things to deal with. It didn't help that he, being an anxious person, had to go through the experience of someone accidentally taking his backpack and not finding it for a week.
January 5th, 2011
Dear Family and Friends,
This has been such a humbling week for me. It was one of the hardest I have ever had. It was hard in a different way than the last trouble I had. I realize how much I relied on Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson. I let them take the front wheel in many areas. Now I am the one with the most experience in my area. I know how to get to several places from memory, but that was just because I remembered which places to turn at from a certain starting point. I found out that from other starting places, I was just as lost as Elder Rybin. I also realized that I relied on the GPS so much that I just forgot certain places we went to if we didn't go to it to many times. I also realized how many members of the ward that I knew. I didn't go up and talk to any ward members to get to know them. I just listened to the conversations that Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson had with ward members they already knew. I am only familiar with the ones we use a lot, and I don't know where several of those people's houses are. I realize now that I need to get to know everyone, memorize the area and create a complete map of the main roads in my head. I worked hard on trying to learn the Gospel and I focused on the investigators a lot, but I let Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson do many of the planning details. I would make suggestions of people who I thought we should see, but I wasn't thinking about how many miles it would take for all of the appointments during the day or if we would have enough time to get between two appointments. Wow, I have made so many mistakes in this regard. If I could take back the last four months, I would have done those so differently. It has been so hard. I have been so discouraged.
Elder Rybin is such a good teacher! He is really good at teaching "people and not lessons." He really asks people thought-provoking questions and searches and gets to know who they are. He tries really hard to remember all of the details about them. He is a very good missionary. He is very good at balancing all of the important aspects of missionary work. He has a very bright future ahead of him.
There are many things that I neglect just because I am not good at keeping everything in focus. I realize now that I need to put myself out and just press forward. I have felt so low and inadequate these past few days. This is the biggest stretch of my skills and abilities that I have ever had. I really need to grow up and start doing things for myself. I took many things for granted. I just knew that certain things worked out without me putting effort into it and I went on. I need to focus on every aspect of missionary work, including the logistical things like planning out where I am going and plan out when I am going to take the mission car in to be fixed.
Elder Rybin didn't voice it out loud, but there were several things that he was surprised that we didn't do. For example, the car we had had never been taken in to be checked, nor had we done a super deep cleaning of the apartment. Many times we just left certain things the way they are. I just did what Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson told me too. It is not totally their fault. I should have thought about certain details more. I know one of the reasons I am here in Coconut Creek and why I have Elder Rybin as my companion. He has taught me so much this week! I had to be in the same area so that I couldn't rely on someone else leading me around. I needed to step from behind the backs of the people who have been leading me and taking care of me for so long and face the problems and challenges of life with my talents and abilities. I am having to grow up a lot. I think this transfer will change my entire life. I have had to face up to many things which I didn’t fully need to before. I had many skills before which would help me have success, but I wasn't fully ready to live completely on my own with no one managing any part of my living conditions. Mom, even in college I had you to help me with signing up for classes and housing. Now I have the Mission office to take care of many of those negotiations. I am having to learn to deal with things on my own. Well, I am never truly dealing with things on my own, because God is with me, but I am having to learn to use the talents that he gave to me to deal with those challenges. I am having to grow into a big boy. I thought I already was to a certain extent, but I now know that I have a several things to learn before that happens.
I get super nervous when I wake up at 5:45 and realize that in 45 minutes, we will be starting the new day. It just gives me a lot of anxiety. I don't feel on top of everything right now. I feel like there is so much for me to handle. I don't feel l like I am being a very good missionary right now. It has been a rough week.
After the transfers meeting, we had a small luncheon and we got to socialize with the other missionaries. I put my backpack in the back of the cultural hall. Afterwards, I couldn't find it in the place where I had put it. I looked everywhere in the cultural hall and in the chapel, in case I had left it there somehow. We went to the mission office and sent out a mass text to the whole mission about it. I told President and Sister Hale and the assistants about the bag. I haven't had the bag for a whole week. That has also been adding to my anxiety and discouragement. Sister Hale spent an hour and a half at the Plantation church building where the event took place and looked in every area of the church with her kids and a family friend. She got the keys from the bishop so that she could check in his office too, just in case. She found nothing. She says she has been praying about my bag a lot because it has a lot of important items in it. They then sent out another mass text about it again. Then a missionary called our cellphone and said that he had accidentally picked up that bag, thinking that it was his companions, which was the same type of backpack (I think his companion had his bag, so the other one was left unnoticed somewhere.) The senior couples go down south a lot, so they are going to go to the Miami lakes south apartment to get the bag. That was a great thing for me! I am so grateful to Sister Hale for her efforts.
Sorry, but I have to go.
Keep on praying for me.
Bye!
Love,
Elder Seamons
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