Entry Twenty Five: Jailbreak

July 07, 2025

Entry Twenty Five: Jailbreak

7/7/25

Hello all you wonderful and beautiful people! How’s it going? Happy Monday! This has honestly been one of the best weeks of my mission yet! Being a missionary has brought me so much joy, and I’d highly recommend it for anyone who’s able to. Even just 4 months has taught me so much, and I’m very excited to see what happens next. Transfer calls are tomorrow night, and there’s a good chance I’m gonna embark on a new chapter in a new area. So, stay tuned.

To begin, I got to go on an exchange with the one and only Elder Fritze! It’s crazy that I’m now at the point where I can go out with missionaries who are more fresh off the plane than I am. Elder Fritze’s in his first transfer, but he’s doing a fantastic job so far. We had a really good time, and I definitely learned more from him than he did from me haha.

Independence Day here was really cool! There were plenty of public events in our area, which meant a lot of public contacting. 😈

There were also fireworks being shot off in our neighborhood, so we basically got front row seats from our driveway. I must say, it was a pretty chill day, and there wasn’t anything too crazy (I bet some more populated areas in our mission saw some crazier things) except we met a crusty old man who was wearing nothing but a soggy adult diaper 💀💀💀

Yeah… I need to bleach my eyes after that.

Now for the fun story: So we’ve been teaching this guy named Jeff, and he lives in a group home. For context, since I didn’t know this before coming out here, group homes are basically assisted living but for people with mental problems of any sort. Really unfortunate to see so many around here, but they are all children of God, and all worth so much in God’s eyes. Anyways, so our friend Jeff came to church last week, and wanted to come again, which was really exciting! We got him a ride and everything, and then he started talking about having to go to Morganton (like an hour outside our mission) because of a court date? It was very strange, and we definitely couldn’t help out, so we brushed it off. However, he kept bringing it up at church and was trying to get a ride, and one of our members (bless their hearts) actually decided to take him. He also had his bags with him, so honestly it was a bit of a red flag from the start.

It gets crazier from here. We get a call from the group home asking where he is, and we tell them he was going up to Morganton. They freak out a little and tell us to get him back ASAP. We try to get in contact with the members, and at that point they had almost made it, so they decided to drop him off and trust that he’d get a ride back into Forest City. We then get a call from Jeff’s guardian, who filled us in with some context; Jeff has dementia and does not like living by the rules. So, in some master scheme, Jeff managed to use us to escape the group home and is now actively on the run… 🏃‍♂️

We jailbroke him without even realizing it. 💀

So, please pray for Jeff that the police can find him and get him back to safety. Also pray for his guardian, Stephanie, that she can get it all sorted out.

(Ok, this is gonna be a terrible transition into a spiritual thought but I’ll go for it) Life can throw us some curveballs if I’m being honest. Living in a fallen world subjects us to many trials, hardships, and woes. People can lie to us, break our hearts, or in some very unfortunate cases, abuse us. Strangely enough, before this life, we knew of all of this. And yet we still chose to came down here. Why?

Allow me to introduce you to probably my favorite scripture ever:

2 Nephi 2:25 - Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

I love how the prophet Alma describes it as well:

Alma 36:23 - Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.

The purpose of this life is to experience it all! But it is especially so that we can experience joy and have meaningful memories and relationships. The most important eternal truth that we know of is that God is our Heavenly Father, and he is ready to bless us. He loves us so much that he sent his only Begotten, Jesus Christ, to give us infrastructure to return to him and receive these blessings along the way.

There’s a phrase in the scriptures called “a fulness of joy,” and that is exactly what God ultimately wants to bless us with. One final scripture for y’all:

3 Nephi 28:9-10 - for ye have desired that ye might bring the souls of men unto me, while the world shall stand. And for this cause ye shall have fulness of joy; and ye shall sit down in the kingdom of my Father; yea, your joy shall be full, even as the Father hath given me fulness of joy;

Moral of the story? We can only find true happiness by serving one another. It takes faith to serve and share the gospel, but I know firsthand how great your joy will be if you undertake the challenge. This gospel is not a selfish gospel! It’s the gift that keeps on giving, until we all have the opportunity to hop on the joy train and ride off into the “and they lived happily ever after.” It won’t be easy, but it is so incredibly worth it. I yet again declare my testimony that Christ lives! His way is the way to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come! In his holy name, amen.

Anywho, love you all! Sorry if I’m a yapper 🗣

But I do love you all and am praying for you! Hope this week is the best ever! I’ll see y’all later!

O Lord, who gave Thy life for me, I come now in humility and here my sacrifice impart: a contrite soul, a broken heart.

Possibly moving this week,

Elder Clayton

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