Everett Welling Descript Video

[00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the Can You Feel So Now podcast. I am Justin Barton and the host and I'm really grateful to be able to sit down in these cool situations with people that I just have never met before and have conversations about things that are super powerful and super meaningful. And today is another one of those cases.

I'm sitting down. Over the magic of technology on zoom with Everett Welling, and I'm just excited to learn a little bit more about his experiences from his mission. So Everett, why don't you take just a minute, introduce yourself, tell us where you're from a little bit about your family and some hobbies that you enjoy doing.

Oh, perfect. So I'm Everett Welling. I'm from Tri Cities, Washington here in Richland. And I've got a twin brother, two sisters, and one younger brother. My parents, we've been here in Tri Cities for about, 15 years now. And yeah, . I love playing soccer, played soccer my whole life, basketball, being [00:01:00] outside, swimming, hiking, just anything where I can go out and do things.

Awesome. Thank you for introducing yourself. So , Everett, tell me a little bit about where were you assigned to serve your mission and what were the approximate dates that you served?

So I was assigned to serve my mission in the Bogota North Columbia mission. I started at home MTC on August 29th.

And I had two days of at home MTC. And then that Wednesday I was able to fly to the MTC down in Bogota. I was there for six weeks. During my time there, I got reassigned to the Salt Lake City, Utah mission, and I was in Salt Lake City for five months.

Finally, by the end of March, I was able to go to my original assignment in Bogota, and I was there for the remainder of my mission. I finished August 13th. 2024 and finished my [00:02:00] mission.

That's quite the journey you took there on your mission. Tell me a little bit about the reassignment that happened there and what, the purpose of that reassignment was.

It

was pretty interesting. When I went to the Bogota Columbia MTC, we were told about my fourth week there, , that they were going to close it down mostly because we have a lot more MTCs that can be filled up and there were about 50 people in this one, very small, it's about the size of a normal stake center.

And in that same process, about a couple of days later, we were told they were redoing the visa process to get into the country of Columbia, be a proselyting missionary. So they had to restart our entire visa and nobody knew how long it was going to take. We had to get reassigned because we couldn't stay in the country for, and be missionaries.

And in that process, we all got reassigned that exact same day, opened up new mission calls to [00:03:00] These temporary assignments.

Yeah, it sounds, cool. Looking back at it. What were your thoughts at the time? When they said, Oh, we're reassigning you and you're going to get a new call here because of this whole new process, were you tempted to jump into a victim thinking or what the heck is going on here?

Who's in charge? Any, anything like that?

You definitely see a lot of sides to it because I think there were, about 30 other missionaries with me getting reassigned. And a lot of people had very mixed feelings. Some people, they were very set on I was called to serve in a certain place, like what is happening?

I'm not getting called to serve in Bogota. Is this really like what I was supposed to be doing? But , I was in a state of mind in the MTC where it doesn't matter where I go, I'm here to serve. So opening my call, especially to salt Lake you hear lots of jokes of getting called to a Utah mission and just hearing, like I was going to salt Lake city, [00:04:00] there's a lot of emotions, but more than anything, , I was excited.

Just to go out there and serve.

Yeah. So with that reassignment, I'm assuming when you were called to Bogota, that the language they said that you would be preaching the gospel in was Spanish. When you got reassigned to salt Lake, was that still the same or was it you're going to an English speaking assignment?

Actually, I got my trainer and my first question was, so do we speak Spanish? And he said, no, and I was the English speaking missionary for about two transfers, three months. And then my next two transfers, I was a Spanish speaking missionary. So I got to do a little bit of both, but it was cool to get those two different perspectives of one being in the States and speaking English and the other speaking Spanish

I got to see a lot from it.

With the changes and being reassigned to Salt Lake and then back to Bogota again, talk to me about the importance of flexibility or the importance of willingness to go with the flow that you [00:05:00] learned and maybe struggled with and had to adapt to.

I'd say it definitely can be a challenge. I think change is very uncomfortable and your mission is a lot of like feeling uncomfortable, but the idea of change going to a whole different place, a whole new area, having to do things you've never done before.

It's really not fun. You can approach it in a fun way, but I think at its heart for me, especially, , it's hard and going to the States was hard. And then , after adapting to being an English missionary, getting transferred to a new area, having to relearn Spanish after I forgot most of the things, the MTC, it's hard.

And then finally feeling like I picked up my area. Getting told you're going actually now to Colombia. And then having to adapt to a new mission, a whole different set of people, different mission, I guess culture, [00:06:00] and then having to be immersed in a place that doesn't speak your native language.

There's just so many changes going on. But I never felt like I was alone in the process. I never felt like I was being singled out or picked on, or this is too hard for me. It always felt like it was in the measures of what I could do. And I think that goes a lot into the Lord being there for us.

Every step of the way, I would say I had eight areas in my mission. So three in the States, five in Columbia. So I had a lot of areas where I was maybe there six weeks or 12 weeks and then pick up and go to the next place. And sometimes I don't feel like I had a lot of time to just sit down and unpack and be in a place for a long time, but just make my mark and leave and just coming to [00:07:00] terms with that change of I'm not here for a long time, but I'm going to make my impact.

That really became something I learned to do. And I really love to do because it makes you think about that time as. I might not be here a very long time, so I better do as much as I can.

Oh that's, some really cool perspectives on that. Thank you. I appreciate that. Everett, talk to me a little bit about the, you mentioned culture changes, culture of the mission changes and everything like that.

Tell me about the things that you learned. Or really appreciate it about the culture of the Salt Lake City mission. Maybe the things that the mission president put into place there.

I feel like in that mission I felt a lot of I think that comes from the people in Utah are very loving.

My mission president also was a huge example for me there. He just, he had so much love for the missionaries and what we were [00:08:00] doing. And the Salt Lake City mission is a very unique mission because it has 88 stakes. And there's just a lot to do. You would think like going to Utah, there's not a lot, it's just all members.

And there is probably more members than you'd find anywhere else, but at the same time, there's so much to do. And just the culture of having those members around being good examples for us missionaries and also just the people around them plays a huge role in the missionary work getting done there.

And so just always having that, support of the community and everybody around us was such a big strength it, felt very uplifting to be there.

Was there a verse of scripture or a phrase that was maybe used very often in that mission to help reinforce that theme?

I wouldn't say there was one in particular, but I would say [00:09:00] my mission president would talk a lot about when Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Because that's what really, when it came down to the mission standards, that's what we lived by in that mission.

It wasn't, you need to keep the rules because of this, or this. It really came down to Jesus said it like this. . If you love me, you will keep my commandments. You'll do what I want you to do. And it really made, especially I think in the, rule keeping aspect of being a missionary, it made it more personal.

It wasn't, you were doing this and this because of so person I guess your mission president or your companion, you were doing it because you loved God. You loved your savior. Really just made it a more personal thing.

So with that you had that set in the first six months of your after [00:10:00] the six weeks in the MTC of your mission, the first five months, sorry.

And then you get transferred a big transfer, like more than a continent away to Columbia and you come into , a new mission culture, a new. national culture. Tell me a little bit about the changes in that culture. Let's go with the national culture first and what kind of , transition you had to do with that.

I think anytime, especially when you leave the country, there's a big change of culture, I think, especially when you leave the United States and going to Columbia was definitely like a big culture shock for me. I knew I was going to get into South America. It was going to be different, but I think I probably thought it would be worse.

Like I was going to live in the jungle and sleep in a hut. And then I arrived at Bogota, which is this mega city with as many people as New York city. And it's There's a lot of changes, but I think just lots [00:11:00] of people in condensed areas, very different because I come from a fairly small city, not like a ton of people, and then just the culture of having just these different values that people have.

Everybody knows who God is. Everybody has a religion. Everybody has beliefs. It made talking to people easier, but they see things very differently than you do being from the United States. Everybody is just like a lot of picking up on different points of views and values that people have.

What were some of those points of views and values that you found different, but that you came to embrace and find valuable for yourself?

I think one thing that just, stuck with me is their love for God. Everybody there is so religious, whether they'll tell everybody they know that they are, or they don't I would meet kids that just looked like they were on the [00:12:00] wrong path of life, but you'd start talking to them and be like, Oh, yeah, my mom's Catholic, we go to church and everybody just has this foundation and belief in God, which is really interesting.

And it's something that made me realize it's, not like whenever I go talk to a random person, I talk about my like belief in God or something, but these people will always bring it up. And maybe that's because I was a missionary and that's what they expected to talk to us about. But it seemed like it was more just Of course we believe in God he's our savior and he created this world for us and all this stuff and they just really hold him at a higher place than I feel like normally us in the United States we typically do.

Like we think of religion as more of a secondary thing that we do, whereas for them it's like their primary. Functions sometimes.

And I think I find that very interesting that and I'm going to speak stereotypically here. You spent five months in Salt Lake City, which [00:13:00] many people would look at and say, that's the Mecca of religiosity, the Mecca of God .

And then you go to Bogota and you're surprised at how. God centered people are. , talk to me about why you think that was such a, powerful impression that you received.

I think it was really deep for me because just the way I viewed religion was it was something just we did , at that point. And coming to Utah was something I expected to see more of in the yeah, we're in Utah of course, everybody here is LDS. And yeah, but nobody would really talk about it.

You'd go to a grocery store and people would pass you by. You're obviously the elders walking around and they probably know who you are, but I feel like I'd go to a grocery store in Columbia. And if I met a member, they'd come up to me and be like, Oh my gosh, elders, you're the best. We love you. I'd meet people from other religions being like, you guys teach about [00:14:00] God.

And we'd be like, yeah, we do want to just strike up a conversation or invite us over to do stuff. And just like really realizing that. It's a common ground for a lot of people. Everybody has a belief in something, and it's not something we have to always shy away from. We can have spiritual conversations with people, , but in common situations.

It's not a foreign concept, really.

So now let's jump over to the mission culture. You go from mission to mission, president to mission president, and culture really changes in that. What was the mission president and the missions culture like in Bogota North mission?

He was a great mission president. I loved him. , before he was my mission president, he was an area 70. The South America, Northern West area, [00:15:00] and so he was very by the book, he was very driven by expectations for us, which , it wasn't really a foreign concept.

I knew expectations were supposed to be high and we were supposed to do a lot, but it was definitely a very big shift for me. We talked a lot about high love and high expectations in that mission and just that we need to have a lot of high Love for each other for our friends for everybody out here in this country, but we also need to hold them to a high expectation.

And the same was for us. He had a lot of love for us, but he also held us to a very high bar of what needs to get done and what we should be doing from our day to day.

So with a high expectations and high love, , is that something that motivates you? Or is that something that may bring resentment at times in your life?

. When it comes to expectations I guess I come from a background where I [00:16:00] follow the expectation. Like my dad is very this is the way things will be done. And I'm very much okay that's what I'll do. Then you want my room clean every day?

Like I'll do it. And if I don't, he'll get on me. And it's totally a valid point. Cause I know the expectation. And so when it came to that for me, he would say stuff like my mission president, you're here to do missionary work. And if you don't want to do missionary work, come talk to me because that's the expectation to me.

It was very much okay, like we're going out, we're doing missionary work today. That's what needs to be done.

Are you at now able to see like motivation by love as much as motivation by duty and expectation?

I think there's needs to be a good mix because we can hold all this expectation, like where we need to hold ourselves to be or where we're supposed to be at. But [00:17:00] if we fall under that expectation we can become very comfortably just not doing what we're supposed to be doing.

And I think that's where the factor of love comes in. If missionaries are going out and they're breaking the rules and it just becomes a common occurrence There's really gonna be no change because they're just doing what they want the reason we get back on the path is out of love and I think that's where that really came in to effect for me because I could have gotten my whole mission just doing things because I was supposed to be doing them, but that's not as good as doing things because we love God.

So having that good mix, because some days we get up and we don't want to do what we're supposed to do, but we do it out of expectation. Some days we don't want to do something even though we're expected to, but we do it out of love. And I think knowing ourselves and having a mix between them [00:18:00] makes, it go by a little easier.

Makes those, what we're supposed to do more rewarding.

Let's talk about maybe a day that you got up and you're like, I am not feeling this today. I'm not happy. Things just aren't going well. Maybe I don't feel physically or emotionally well. But that duty kicked in and, you went forward and did it anyways.

Oh, yeah, so there's this time I got emergency transferred to an area. I got a call one night and the assistants of the president's called me and they said, Hey, we need you to go this area. It was like the middle of the transfer, you're getting on a bus, like in two days, and you're going to be there with so and so for this long.

And I said, Okay. The other kid got transferred because he got this disease called dengue, which is yeah, Get it from mosquitoes. . It takes a huge toll on your body. I got to the area and I got sick with dengue [00:19:00] like the other kid, but I didn't get the really bad type of dengue.

I got a pretty mild one, but still just my body aching. You just have this raging headache all day. It's just hard to function. And there was about a solid week where I would wake up and the day was just so hard. And all I wanted to do was sleep. And my companion was super diligent and I loved him for that.

And we'd get out of lunch and I'd be like, I just want to take a nap. I'm so tired. I can't function. And he'd be like, but we got this lesson, man. And I would, I'd muster up the willpower. I'd just all I wanted to do was sleep. Cause I was so sick. But we busted up the willpower and this area was built like an actual, like it was two hills right next to each other.

And the only way you could walk was uphill and it's a city that's about 90 degrees every day. So it's just this [00:20:00] raging headache, the beating sun and walking uphill. And we get to this lesson and I remember I couldn't even function mostly through this lesson, my companions, mostly teaching, I'm like super sick.

I wasn't super good with the language yet. And we get done with the lesson and we go to another one and we go to another one. And I just remember at the moment it was really hard, but by the end of the day, I didn't feel as sick somehow. Like I felt better. And I just remember knowing after that, if I could do that, we could get through anything and maybe I got better.

I wasn't as sick the next day, but we just kept pushing. And I definitely felt like, there was someone pushing me from the rear, helping me through this challenge, because if we just go out there and we put forth our best effort, in the end, it will be [00:21:00] okay. We'll make it through it.

And we'll, feel like we came out on the other side, stronger.

That's really cool. Now let's look at a love motivated day. As you look back at things, , can you think of a day where you just got up and you're like, man, I love the people. I love the work. I love this. And I am just rolling through it.

And what do you learn from those types of situations?

Honestly, those are the best times. You wake up and you have all these friends you're teaching. You can't wait to go out and teach them. That's it. Always make the days go by fast. You wake up and you're so excited to study because what you study is what you're going to teach your friends and you go out and you meet with them.

And you can see almost the gospel of Jesus Christ in action. And you can see what charity really looks like. And when you're driven by that charity of Jesus Christ, what he really stands for, who he is. That's what charity truly is. [00:22:00] It's Jesus Christ in people's lives. It's that effect that his example has.

That's what drives most people. I think that's what gets missionaries through the hard times is when they actually see progress and they see people's lives really change. that has such a huge impact on a lot of people.

Sounds really cool. I love those days when it's just yeah, bring it. I'm excited about whatever comes and, we're just going to roll through it.

Let's, go back to the scriptures a little bit here. Was there a verse or passage of scripture, maybe even starting before your mission that became an overarching strength to you on, your mission. I remember

for me, I'd say my favorite scripture of my mission was probably Alma 26: 27.

I remember one time my, I was in the MTC [00:23:00] and I wouldn't say the MTC was like easy for me. It was definitely , a struggle to get through day by day, just because it's so like just the same thing over and over again. It's very necessary, but you're so fresh from being home, living your life. And then you come out here and it's just so drastic, the change.

And I remember just coming across this verse, my MTC teacher telling us to go read it. And Alma 26: 27, it says, Now when our hearts were depressed and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us and said, Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give you success.

And just the promise of wanting to give up, I feel like every missionary goes through a point where they're just done, they're like, don't want to do it anymore, then everybody goes through that situation very differently. But I just remember this, scripture always coming to me every [00:24:00] time I would maybe have a thought like that or , so one of our friends that was progressing would just stop talking to us or we'd have so many people tell us they're going to come to church and we go to church and nobody came and you just think what are we going to do?

Is this even working? And just the scripture of go amongst thy brother in the Lamanites and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success. Just the fact that it's not our own time, but the Lord's, that we'll make it through it, and that it's all in his hands and his plan. We just need to be the tools.

To go out there and

make it come to pass. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that verse. The phrase that really hits me from our conversation. And we were about to turn back. Whether it's dang gay, whether it's whatever it is that you're just like, man, another change, another jump to Many thousand miles away or an emergency transfer.

I'm about to turn back and [00:25:00] yet pressing forward. You are seeing the fruits of that. As you look back at your mission, what were the most impactful lesson you learned that you can carry forward into your life? Now,

I think a huge thing I learned was. A quote by, by Neal A Maxwell, he has a talk on BYU speeches about patience.

And he says this, he has this phrase, he says, , patience is accepting the will of God. And I think for me, my whole mission or especially starting my mission now is definitely Oh man, like when I get done. I'm gonna do this, or this, or when so and so happens I'm gonna do this, and just realizing, I thought at the time, patience was waiting.

For something to happen waiting for my two years to be up or waiting to leave this area . But I think [00:26:00] one of those really big things I learned was patience is accepting God's will and being willing to go about it and taking things as they are, not for granted.

Oh I have this companion. We don't really get along. So I guess I'm just going to wait through the transfer. No, like patience is in this circumstance, figuring out what me and this companion need to do to make this the best companionship we've ever had, become best friends. Or just make this relationship as good as we can make it.

God doesn't do anything on accident. He gives us every opportunity to grow and patience is accepting those opportunities and growing from them.

Is that a painful lesson you learned or have you always been a fairly patient person?

I wouldn't say I've always been a patient person, but it's [00:27:00] definitely something I came to terms with more on my mission.

It's not something I think I'll ever really perfect, but. It's something I've definitely, gotten better at since the

time I left, so as you take that definition of patience patience is accepting the will of God. How does that change your current perspective of things aren't going the way you want them, the speed you want them to go at?

If you can step back and say, hey, this is God's will, how can you then? Be patient in that situation while still taking action to move forward.

I think there's, a lot of humility and grace that goes into it. Because when you have to really humbly submit yourself and say I really don't know what's going on here. I don't know why I'm [00:28:00] here. That kind of is a huge factor in the patience finding out aspect of why things are happening.

And then just giving yourself grace, like I'm not going to know today, I might not even know tomorrow or next week, but that doesn't mean it's going bad, just means I need to be patient with myself, be forgiving of myself and just take it day by day. If I don't know why this is happening today, I guess I'm just going to take it the best I can keep working.

And do the best things I can do today to go on

What role did and does personal revelation play in your missionary work and in your daily life? I think personal revelation is

so interesting because [00:29:00] it's so different for everybody. But I really feel as if God speaks to me with inspired thoughts.

Because as those who know me know, , if I'm saying something like very intelligent, it's probably not coming from me, especially when it came to my missionary work and that played a huge aspect in what was going on. I remember this one time I was, this is probably one of my favorite stories of my mission, but I was training this new missionary.

And I'd been in this area for six months now, like longest I'd ever been in an area. I still had about a month and a half left in this area. And I was training this missionary and , it was one of those days where I'm just so tired. I feel like I've knocked every door I've been everywhere. I've talked to so many people.

So I asked my greeny, I'm like, where do you want to go today? This is going to be your area in about a month. Like what are we doing? And he told me, let's go up this Hill. And it's this huge [00:30:00] hill, there's one road on it, and there's a couple houses here and there. And to me it just sounded let's go on a hike straight up this hill where nobody lives.

And I was like, are you sure, man? That sounds like it's gonna be a long walk, like uphill, it's already super hot. And I asked him again, he's no, yeah, we really need to go there. So we leave the house, we're like on our way there. And I'm like, you sure, man? Is this going to be it? Yes, let's do it.

We go up there, , we find this house. And so because it was his idea, I was like, you go knock the door. But my greenie was still scared of talking to people. So I had to go knock the door. We started talking to these people, long story short, they were super awesome people. , this lady we're teaching, she's eight months pregnant.

She comes to church, even though she lives up this hill, it's a huge walk. She brings her mom and they both ended up getting baptized. It was an awesome experience, but it really went to show [00:31:00] me that nobody knows better than the Lord. I probably don't know. Somebody knows better than me. He inspires our thoughts and , we just need to be humble.

Say he knows better than I, and I'm just going to sit back and let him take the reins.

And how do you continue to practice that now that you're not wearing the name badge and knocking doors every day? How do you continue to practice listening and receiving that personal relief revelation?

I think there's really good principle to live by.

I can't remember where it comes from. I'm pretty sure it's the end of Book of Mormon , but It's just everything that's good comes of God, and everything that's bad doesn't come of God. So anytime I feel inspired to maybe do something, even if it's weird, I think is this gonna be a bad thing?

And if my answer is no, then I'm like then I better probably do it. On the off chance that something [00:32:00] good comes from it. And I think just going and acting on spiritual promptings is huge. Even if they're weird, like text this random person or leave that door open or something. I don't know, just

Do it.

It can't hurt you. All right. So I'm going to sit here for just a minute. What is a, a prompting that you've been receiving lately that you're like I don't think I want to do that. Or that's really strange. I don't know that's any good, but you've been avoiding it, but it keeps coming back.

That's, a good one. It's going to sound weird, but I've lately, I've been thinking about if I need to get like a job and work full time, or if I need to just continue with what I'm doing. And I every once in a while I feel like I need to just go get a job and every time I feel like I'm sticking with what I'm doing, and I'm still pondering it out, but like that one to me right now is really strange.

Another one is I have these [00:33:00] friends. And just inviting them to go do stuff with. Me and my other friends and I've been better at doing that one. Just feeling like maybe nothing will come from this, but them just being around my friends that are members will be good for them in the long run.

Just trying to get people around experiences like that. . Maybe the other one was more personal for me about what I should be doing or not, but maybe just the people you hang out with, the people that you're around, putting them in situations to be good examples.

I think that one for me has been sticking out a lot.

No, that's good. That's good. So I'm still going to dive in here. Maybe a little uncomfortable, but that's okay. That's what this is about. You said, Hey one of those things that you've been maybe avoiding is, should , get going, working full time or continue what I'm doing?

What are you doing right now that you're so comfortable in that you don't want to [00:34:00] make a change from?

It's, funny. I have two jobs. I teach swim lessons and I work at a Jamba Juice right now, and I do my college online. So, I'm gonna be like graduating, hopefully, by May, but my dad also got this new job, and he usually sticks around the house here with me, so I'm gonna be in this weird situation where I'm like, I'll either be working or I'll just be sitting here at the house.

And part of me thinks I need to work more. The other part of me thinks, oh, but I need to have all this time to do my school. And there's just like a weird balance of me trying to figure out how to spend my time the most effectively. If that means working more, if that means taking time to. Get school done.

And there's a weird balance of what really needs to happen but I'm not too sure yet.

Alright, now let's swap the [00:35:00] seats here just a little bit. Let's go back into your mission. Let's say you meet with somebody, a friend, who is having the same quandary.

What do I do? What would you teach that person to do? What would you invite that person to do?

Invite them to go pray about it. Seek personal revelation.

Love it. So are you doing that yourself?

Oh, I've been in the process. I'm still going. But just as patience works, we're trying to see what the result is.

All right, Everett. You said that you're about ready to graduate in May, from College of Things. Do you have a firm image in your mind, what you want to do when you grow up?

And is that something that has changed from before your mission till now? Or is it a fairly constant thing?

No, I was one of those people who left on my mission going I don't know what I want to do when I get home, but I'm pretty sure I'll figure it out on my mission. Cause that's what everybody does.

Fun facts. It's not how that works. [00:36:00] I'd say most of the time. I came home and I was just as what do I do now? And when things got down to, I'd been home for like maybe two months and I came across this and like I already had my associates degree and I found I could finish my school about In six months.

So I just have jumped on the thing doing it, but still in the process of even figuring out what to do career wise with my life. I know what direction I want to head. I just need to find the, means to fulfill the goals. Right? Right. So what direction do you want

to head?

Living the gospel having a family and Doing what I can to Have those things.

All right, good. So everett before we start wrapping this up. Are there any Questions or anything that's been sitting on your [00:37:00] heart as we've been talking that you're like I hope I have the opportunity to share this .

Is there anything like that?

I would say

Missions are the best thing that could happen to you They're not easy at all, but they are moments that God gives us to teach. And they're very personal and they're very specific to everybody, but they're just a big teaching experience.

Yeah, thank you for that. So I've got a few questions to wrap this up with. The first is this, project is called Can You Feel So Now? It's based on Alma chapter 5, verse 26, which reads, And now behold, I say unto you, if you have experienced a change of heart, and if you have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask.

Can you feel so now? So there's a few different phrases in that. Have you experienced a change of heart and what does that look like in your life I

believe so that I have [00:38:00] really come to that change of heart. To me, I guess a change of heart would be just it's a deep inside expression of what we do.

I'd say before my mission, I went to seminary, I'd go to church, but other than that, I would just do my own thing. But I always knew I had to go on a mission because for me, things come out of duty. Like it's a responsibility. I wasn't doing anything contrary to the gospel that would prohibit me from doing it.

And as. The prophet said this is happening. He said that after I submitted my papers, but he said every able and worthy young man should go out and serve a mission. And to me, that was just like I guess my papers are already in, but what more can I say? The prophet has spoken, right?

But when I came out on my mission, I really realized [00:39:00] that there's more to it than just a duty. The gospel is true. Like we have a responsibility as members of the church to help other people, make those covenants, get on the covenant path, keep them and. I think for me, I felt a greater responsibility to be an example of what that looks like.

Go out and help other people find that path for themselves. And coming home from your mission is a very hard thing where you leave on your mission and. You think there's no way this thing could ever end. And then you get home and you're like, wow, did I even leave? It's a weird concept. And almost everybody will tell you it.

Cause it's so strange, but you get home and , you wonder if these things are going to stick. And like it, it is truly an effort you have [00:40:00] to make. Every single day, a change of heart can happen, but , I think there's a common misunderstanding. If you hear this change of heart in the scriptures that Alma had, and you think now after that Alma was this great teacher.

He never. Did anything super wrong. He just became the most awesome missionary or prophet. And you have this like common misconception, I think, but our change of heart really is just a change of perspective in a way that deep down is a desire for you to change. And I think I'm never going to be perfect at living the gospel, but my change of heart for me was really understanding what the gospel is.

And what living that really is going to mean to me in the future. And I guess even right now,

Yeah. Love you walking through that. [00:41:00] Cause that mighty change of heart that we think, Oh, Alma the younger, he was he was struck down by an angel. He was in the depths of hell for a few days and all of a sudden he came out.

And, as far as we know, everything changed and there was no, Going back from that day forward, but I think for people like me there needs to be a daily change of heart a daily Renewing of that change or I'm gonna forget it. How about you? What are your thoughts on that?

Our ability to forget is a very earthly thing and we are people of this earth and if we don't exercise our daily agency to go out Abound in good things like we're going to forget and it really is making that effort every day that daily change of heart or we're going to fall back to old habits or [00:42:00] old ways or forgetting how things used to be.

And I think especially when it comes to your mission, thinking about your mission every single day is huge because , it was such a huge testimony builder for me. And just a huge learning experience that the more I think about it, the more I realize I can do hard things. But I realized also that the Lord is with me every step of the way.

And so I think there's a ton of things in the church that are like that. Come follow me is one thing. We read the standard works, but every four years we repeat them. Or we're told to read the book of Mormon all the time, read it every year. And every time we find something new.

Because that daily change of heart is going to teach us something new every day. I

love that. All right, so let's jump to the last phrase in this verse. I would ask, can you feel so now? So what I like to do here is jump in a time machine. Go ahead, 5, years, whatever it may be.

And you and I show up at wherever [00:43:00] you are. 30 years from now, with, heck, you probably have grandkids by then, and you are sitting at your kitchen table, head in hand, going, I am not feeling it. It's gone. What has changed? Now I want you to sit across the table from yourself and say, Hey, Everett.

Invite yourself to look back and remember and feel that change of heart again.

I guess I'd really just turn to,

like Alma 26, 27 says, go amongst the Lamanites and show them love. I'd go tell myself to find a way to serve other people and look for the joy in it. I think when it really comes down to What the gospel is it's a gospel of joy that comes from blessing other people. So if you're looking to feel the Savior's love or feel the love this gospel has, [00:44:00] look to the joy it brings people.

Look around at your situation, your family, your friends or just Jesus and his gospel and find the joy in it. Find that gratitude because there's so much that he has and so much. He's willing to give for everybody.

Thank you Everett I really appreciate this conversation. I appreciate that invitation you issued there and I invite anybody out there who As he was sharing that saw themselves in that place in that seat of man I'm not feeling it take that invitation go with it and see where love where the Lord Where the Savior leads you.

Thanks again. This was a super meaningful conversation. I hope it was for you too, Everett.

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to let me be here.