There was a sign on a church here in Utah called the Rock Church. (Can you guess what they do there? Yep you guessed it. They listen to rock music about Christ). It said "Do you want to worship God without Religion?" It does not make sense, but I understand why we need to have a structure of Christ's church. We need to be shown what to do. We need to be kept in unity by being lead by a prophet.
Funny story that happened this week. So I went on exchanges with another Elder and I went to his area and we knocked this door of this 17 year old who said he is going to be a pastor, but we started talking about how we have a living day prophet today and then he said, "So do we, we have the Pope and others who believe in Christ and are prophets." But the funny part is how he then decided that we were prophets and started calling us prophets instead of missionaries.
He does not go to any set church, so I don't know how he is going to be a pastor if he does not even go to church. I guess that he has it all figured out though.
Have you ever heard of SMA (standard Mormon answer) like the Atonement, church, or pray? There are some other ones, but I don't think we realize that if we would just follow what we say is the standard Mormon answer then we would be able to return to God. That is why it is a common answer. God repeats things a lot in the scriptures, but he said it in different ways.
I had a general authority come up to me once and tell me what his mission president told him once. he said " If you read your Book of Mormon every day you will go to the Celestial Kingdom!" When he said that at first I was confused. It tells us we need to have a lot more in our life then just reading the Book of Mormon, so how can I go to the Celestial Kingdom by just reading the scriptures? Well if I am reading the scriptures I will start to do the other things I need to. Like go to church take the Sacrament, share the gospel and all of the other things it tells us we need to do in the scriptures.
Another thing I learned from a general authority.
He asked all the stake presidents in our mission some questions. Do you have a planner? They all said yes and raised their phones. Then he asked how many of you set goals every day? 2 stake presidents raised there hands.
He then goes on to tell us how he chastised them for not setting daily goals to have something to accomplish every day.
He then proceeds to tell us after this story that we need to always set goals every day and the things in your day should be focused towards those goals. Especially after our missions.
It talks about how to set goals in chapter 8 of PMG. Elder Clark, the general authority, told us that if we master chapter 8 we will triple our income in our life. It was written by experts that train CEOs and then the general authorities added the spiritual side to it. I thought that was so cool.
We had a baptism this week his name is Lamas, Fabio Alexandre Oliveira. He is a good kid. Age 17 and is actually from London and going back there on the 30th of Aug. He wants to serve a mission. That is so cool to see him change. He was baptized within 2 weeks of us meeting him. People are being prepared.
So this week we have lost several of the investigators we were teaching. 2 of them are moving out of our ward, and 3 others have gone back to Michigan to check on family or something. (Don't know the full reason why.) So we have more time to find new investigators now. If anyone wants to know what missionary life is it is all about ups and downs in the work. You can have 10 investigators in one day and the next only 4, but that is ok because we were able to help them feel the spirit and they will all get baptized, it is just a matter of when and where.
At the beginning of my mission, I used to have "My Baptisms", but I realize that I was just a very little part in their conversion, I brought the Spirit which did the converting and brought the feeling to their heart, I also am not the main reason that they started to investigate the church. That is because of the example that other members of our church gave, so realistically I have such a small part to play in their conversion and my job was easy compared to all the rest of it. we are just the harvesters. I now realized that these people that I help are God's investigators and God's Baptisms. So when I try my hardest and I know that I did and things don't go the way I expect them to that is because this is not my work, it is God's. He understands where they are going and what is happening to all of them. It makes discouragement gone. Plus it also helps in Pride. haha We can remember that for anything. This is God's world so the earthquake that happened in CA is not our fault, but God's and He knew that was going to happen and who was going to die and who was going to lose their home. Everything is God's plan. It is all apart of it, so of what do we have to fear? Jesus said "Fear not, believe only" (Luke 8:50).
We must fear not, that does not help us but belief does beyond what we can imagine, this is how we come close to God. Only believe and miracles will happen.
Transfers are this week on Wednesday. They come once again. haha.
I have learned that transfers is a very God driven thing. You are put with another missionary from revelation from God, or kept where you are. The people that are there in your area where you are assigned need to feel of your spirit and your testimony that are in that area where you serve.
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