Entry Forty Two: Foreshadowing

November 05, 2025

Entry Forty Two: Foreshadowing

Good morning everybody! Yes I am in fact alive, how about yourself? A funny set of circumstances took place this past week. So remember how I was talking about the temple and how badly I wanted to go? Well apparently my prayers worked and my district gets to go to the temple today! My area is so far from the center of my mission we are the only ones able to travel outside our mission to go to the temple (as the new rule by the area seventy directs).

Since temples are closed on Mondays, we had to move P-Day to today on Wednesday. It felt weird doing missionary work on Monday, but was lowkey kinda nice! Not sure I rock with the Wednesday P-Day though, since I feel like all the momentum we’ve built for this week is about to tank 🙃

Alas, I’ll have faith we’ll pull through.

Last week wasn’t half bad, and it wasn’t really half good either. We did find our new best friend, Jessica, though! She is actually like the most elect person I’ve ever talked with. She is pining so much to be able to read the Book of Mormon. We just need to have an follow up lesson in-person rather than over the phone like we’ve been doing (she works a lot).

I had an exchange with a new missionary, Elder Harvey last week. He's an absolute big dawg (literally, he's 6’ 7”). Also he taught me how to actually season food, so I am no longer bland like the British.

In fact we loved it so much that yesterday we got to go on another exchange! Although this one was a three-way between the whole district. Definitely approved. Mmmhmm. Yup.

I had a spiritual experience with prayer this week I'd like to share. In short, I was down in the dumps and we had received a request from an Egyptian man about prayer. My companion wanted me to roleplay teaching prayer beforehand, since I was feeling inadequate in my teaching ability.

The four steps we teach about prayer prayer are:

1: Addressing God as our Father

2: Sharing our feelings and desires, primarily with gratitude

3: Asking for blessings

4: Ending in the name of Christ

I decided to ponder on this simple recipe after roleplaying it. I had been so worried about trying to have complicated and elaborate prayers that I had stopped praying at all. Prayer is simple, and with that simplicity comes power. When I refocused my efforts and gave a simple prayer to my loving Father in Heaven, all the feelings of shame went away.

I am not saying that prayer will always immediately fix our problems. I am saying that prayer really can change the night to day, even if it's as gradual as the sunrise. Mosiah 24 is one of my favorite stories on the power of prayer, and I'd love to invite you to read it when you can. I testify that God lives! He gave his Son for us and He lives as well! How grateful we should be for these truths. I say these things in the name of Christ, amen.

Oh, how praying rests the weary! Prayer will change the night to day. So, when life gets dark and dreary, don’t forget to pray.

Have a wonderful day :)

-Elder Clayton

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