my missionary journal

Missionary Journal – June 8, 1989

Day 9 of my full-time mission
Area: Missionary Training Center, Provo, Utah

It’s 4:05 p.m. Elder Pitcher and I decided not to go to the gym today.

I wanted to record a neat experience that happened today in class. Sis. Bradley taught about the “invite” principle of the commitment pattern this morning. After she taught it, she said, “Okay, now you can all ask me to do something for you, and as long as I think it’s fair and you follow the correct invite method, I’ll do it.”

I thought, great! So I said, “Sis. Bradley, will you go to the BYU Bookstore and buy me a journal like my other one if I give you the money?” She said, “Yes.”

This was really neat so I said, “Okay, here’s another one: Sis. Bradley, will you write to my family and tell them how important it is for a missionary to receive a weekly letter from home?” She said, “Yes.”

Well, we all asked her to do a few things for each of us, including baking us some cookies and delivering them to the district in a large package so we can show it off!

Then she said, “Okay, it’s my turn.” Oh boy. I wasn’t expecting that. She thought a minute and then started with me, “Elder Codella. Will you memorize one scripture from the Book of Mormon each day of your mission starting today?”

Holy cow! I was surprised. Everyone went, “Whoa!” They all go, “Man, that’s hard; impossible!” The whole time she was staring right at me intently. I thought about it for a minute and said, “Yes!” Can you believe it?! Now I’m committed!

She was really inspired by the spirit because she said she listened and then asked us the thing she thought would help us, as individuals, the most.

I had set the goal to memorize all the scripture mastery scriptures a while ago, and I failed. But, I guess now I’ll have an opportunity to go ahead and memorize scriptures, over 700 of them!

She asked the other guys, and they committed, to do things like always bear testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, to always pray for guidance in leading others, to be exactly obedient, to read, study and ponder the Book of Mormon daily, and to follow with exactness everything his leaders, and especially his mission presidents, say. Those are serious promises! I hope the Lord will bless us all as we strive to keep them!

I just have to say that I love my district, and the Renton district (they’re in our branch). We played football yesterday with quite a few other people and it was a blast. These groups are just the greatest.

Hey, I was standing in the hall after lunch and heard, “Pete!” It was Johnny! I said, “Hey, Johnny! How are ya? I’ve been lookin’ for ya!” I went over and shook his hand. He’s so great! I love him. When we finally say goodbye he’s gonna get a great big hug!

Anyway, I love being full of the spirit and striving for righteous, perfect (yeah, right?) behavior!

This place is wonderful.

Tonight we had a district meeting and it was just awesome. I spoke on the Kingdom of God — Zion in the latter-days, and Elder Goodman spoke on the atonement. I could feel the spirit through the whole meeting and I feel we learned a lot.

We do, as a district, need to work on brotherly love though. We tease a lot and it gets a little bad at times.

John just came by. He’s awesome. We talked for about 20 min. He and his companion seem really excited about being here. I am too!

My scripture for today: 1 Nephi 3:7 — I’ll do what the Lord commands

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