Entry Two: Tis the Last Season Pre-Mission

December 27, 2024

Entry Two: Tis the Last Season Pre-Mission

12/27/24

Hello everybody! I hope everyone’s had a Merry Christmas wherever you are in the world, and are bracing yourselves for 2025! My, what a year it has been, and I’m so grateful for each and everyone of you who’s been a light in my life this year! And for the rest of you who weren’t, you don’t exist! But seriously, I love all of you, and I hope you all get to celebrate the new year and celebrate the new opportunities it will bring.

This new year’s, I’ve been thinking about resolutions. I’m sure you all know the classic, “I’m going to work out this year,” cliche, which starts strong and then fizzles out by the end of February. I want to focus on a different resolution though, one that’s not tied down to one part of the year, and one that’s infinitely better: The Atonement of Christ. I’m going to be blunt when I say that I’ve messed up countless times. I know that you guys have messed up at times. But it’s all ok. Because of the fall of Adam and Eve we are all destined to fail at least once, but with failure always comes more opportunity, and we have our friend Jesus to thank. The whole reason we celebrate Christ’s birth is because of the sacrifice he took upon himself for us. For me. For you. For you, he suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane. For you he was crucified. For you he was resurrected. Now, you and I have the ability to move past our mistakes and to try again over and over until we get it right. I was reading in 3 Nephi 27 yesterday, and this stuck out to me in verse 16: “And it shall come to pass, that whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled;”

Imagine yourself as a sentient rock. As you traverse the wilderness you may make some bad choices that result in the erosion of yourself, it could be falling from a height and shattering a little, or it could be staying in water too long and having little specks washed away over time. Now imagine you have a friend rock. He sees you, all battered and cracked from your journey. He sees that you might be too eroded to go on further, so, he gives up himself. He fills your cracks. He adds on to your mass. Now, you are healed. You have the strength to go onward, even if it means messing up again. Every time you are made eroded again, there is still more of your friend rock that he’s willing to give up for you to keep going.

Now this might be a bit of a crazy analogy, but this is how I imagine the Atonement. We’d be doomed and unable to journey further without the healing, repenting, and enabling power of Christ. It is a gift we can accept to help us move forward. And the best part of it is it isn’t a change you can only implement yearly like New Year’s resolutions. It is eternal. It is everlasting. Every hour, every minute. I testify of this incredible gift bestowed to us, and the power it has had in my life. If you feel stuck, I want you to know that it can and will change if you have faith in Christ and his atonement. I end this in his name, Jesus Christ, amen.

Ok, I’m not sure if I like putting the spiritual thought first, I just didn’t have a lot of note to share about mission prep and really wanted to spread this message to everyone. Some small things really fast:

⚫ I finished my first semester of college with a 4.0 (already going better than High school!)

⚫ MTC Mentoring is going very good. If you’re curious about what it’s like, it’s entirely up to the missionary and the mentor on what to discuss, so we’ve been going over the Plan of Salvation. I’m getting some good practice on teaching, as well as improving my comprehension on topics so I can teach them better.

⚫ I haven’t been doing as much missionary shopping as I should be this close to my MTC report date. At least I made a list of specific items I need to get!

⚫ I got to see the Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas Concert! It was one of the best things I’ve seen, and I cannot wait for the recordings to be released next year (Good reminder that last year’s concert recordings have been out for a couple weeks now. They’re very good, you should give them a listen)

That’s all for this month. I love you guys, and I’m looking forward each day to being out in the field and to share my experiences with you! Have a happy new year!

When you’re in the moment growth feels slow, but from an outside perspective, it couldn’t be any faster.

Sincerely,

Zach Clayton

Random photos that barely have any correlation to what I shared™:

The fog was insane the first week of December