I am not sure what to write about today, so here comes a flow of thought, and the thoughts that proceed thereof I am not sure as to what they will relay.
We had that lesson on Monday with Brother and Sister Loftus at the mission home with President and Sister Eaton. It was very wonderful! We focused on the Gospel of Jesus Christ which was really wonderful and we really focused on faith on acting and reading The Book of Mormon. I love as well how just natural things are for President Eaton just in talking about baptism and what it does. One thing I always love during a lesson is pointing out and identifying the spirit. It is always so important to do that because it is by the spirit that the Loftus', Elder Sumsion, President Eaton, or anyone else that people are taught the things which Heavenly Father would have them know. We need to help others identify the spirit because it is not a thing that they are used to or know what to call it.
If there is anything that I have grown in on my mission is on identifying the spirit and how it speaks to me. By serving, praying, and looking for constantly I am recognizing so much more of Gods tender mercies in my life. I know He loves me and I only forget it when I cease to recognize His hands in all things.
Some very special tender mercies for me which I couldn't help thanking Him for was companionship inventory and exchanges for the Zone Leaders. Companionship inventory was so swell because it was a time where we were open and honest with each other which helped me understand a lot more where Elder Meads is at and help Elder Meads recognize where I am at and why I do the things that I do. Things are going so great! It can be very discouraging if you focus on all the little or bad things, but when I take a moment to count my MANY blessings and its almost natural to smile and be happy. I am in nowise perfect at counting my blessings and smiling all the time, but I know that when I do I am literally more happy than I would be otherwise and I know the same is true for you as well. How can you be discontented with all that you don't have when you count what you do have?
( If you cant tell, I am a huge fan of optimism. And so is Elder Holland
“I’m eternally optimistic. For me the glass isn’t just half full, it’s flowing over the top. A Scout is cheerful. These are sobering moments, but we’ll work our way through whatever difficulties come. Good will prevail; truth will triumph and bless the lives of young men in generations to come.”
:D )
For exchanges I organized this one because I am the District Leader and throughout the process of deciding when and what the focus will be I definitely felt the spirit and was guided by the spirit in it. The focus was on contacting and boy did it do good! We did a lot of hard work, but it really helped me. I will give two analogy's to explain how it helped me contact.
1) For those of you who have played the Portal 2 campaign there is a time where you are trying to put the faulty turret in the master turret spot so all of the faulty robots are saved and all of the functioning ones are thrown away. I would say over time, my master copy of contacting and what a good one is has gone faulty, so all of my actual contacting was faulty as well. Exchanges helped me take out that faulty copy and put in a brand new functioning and beautiful turret. If that didn't make sense to most of you, that is okay. (P.S. The creator of the story of Portal lives in my area and members are working on inviting him to meet with the missionaries :D)
2) If you watch someone who has bad technique in basketball, that's all you will ever know and aspire to be. You wont shoot as strong, or wait just one more moment, or think ahead, etc. You will develop the bad habits and things that the person you watched did. On the other hand, if you see someone who is a professional who does all the right things, you will come to fill their shoes one day and be just like them. In contacting, Elder Willardsen was a great and wonderful example of how to contact and I learned so many things from him.
Simplified, I learned a lot on exchanges about to become a better missionary (especially in contacting) and how to be more like Christ. I loved it and it was definitely something I needed.
Hope all that I said today made sense. It is all going super wonderful and I hope you have a wonderful, fantastic, positive, half-full, sunshiny week!
Elder Sumsion
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