The week of January 15, 2024 will be one of the most memorable weeks of our mission because of the powerful life lessons that we saw Heavenly Father teach these remarkable missionaries.
Our new missionaries arrived on January 11th, and the worst snow storm in Tennessee since 1993 hit us on Monday, January 15th. That night, we had 9 inches of snow at the mission home and temperatures were below zero.
That doesn’t sound like anything too bad to our friends from Utah, but Tennessee isn’t set up to handle this kind of snow or cold temperatures. Samantha’s school was cancelled for two weeks. The entire city of Knoxville – and much of East Tennessee – was completely shut down. Missionaries had to turn on all faucets at a light stream to keep pipes from freezing. Water was turned off that week at all of our chapels for that same reason. Frost bite is a real concern at temperatures this low. There isn’t the infrastructure to clear the roads, so roads were packed and icy all week long. Needless to say, there were a lot of obstacles to getting any missionary work done.
However…ask we’ve reported here before…this mission is GRITTY!!! We will fear no man! And we will not be stopped by the worst snow storm in 30 years!
We called the Mission Leadership Council together to talk about how we could help all missionaries be successful despite the obstacles. Our design challenge? “How can we make this one of the most memorable weeks of our mission?”
To help missionaries focus on what they could do, the MLC came up with a great idea to create a bingo card that the missionaries would work on during the week. The Bingo card included things like deliver cookies to a neighbor, shovel a driveway, ask to scrape someone’s car, heart attack someone, teach a lesson over the phone, call all uncontacted referrals, and make brief daily contact with all your friends you are teaching.
Every missionary focused on getting a “Black Out” on the bingo card…and great things happened as these wonderful missionaries kept working. And what did our MLC decide to name it?! “GRITTY WINTER BINGO!”
We are so proud of these missionaries! With all of the focus, effort, and diligence from these Elders and Sisters, we ended up having a better week despite all of the challenges.
During the week, we ask missionaries to share “Tender Mercy Videos” on how they’ve seen God work in their life. Sometimes these are small…and other times they are miraculous. By looking for His hand in our lives, we see Him everywhere. That was especially the case this week. Here is an example of the many Tender Mercies experienced in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission during the week of the worst snow storm in 30 years!
Here are a few important lessons we learned this week:
- “The Lord loves effort, because effort brings rewards that can’t come without it.” – President Russell M. Nelson
- Faith is a principle of action and power. Faith will always lead us to act…even when you don’t feel like it.
- We can do hard things!
- Agency is really powerful. We are “free to choose” and can “act for [ourselves] and not be acted upon.” Don’t let challenges stop you. You can still act to overcome any challenge.
- Focus on the things you can control (“What can we do today?”) and not the things that are out of your control (10 inches of snow).
- Choosing to be diligent even in difficult circumstances is a statement of faith and an expression of our love for Heavenly Father.
- Missionaries are happy when they are acting in any way that fulfills their missionary purpose.
- “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. When the focus of our lives in on Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening – or not happening – in our lives.” – President Russell M. Nelson
- Missionaries in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission are GRITTY!!!!
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