Hosanna! Blessed be the name of the Most High! How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that taketh baths! Or something like that... Sounds like your week has been hectic! Luckyyyy! I haven't had an opportunity to go hunting like yous. Oh well, maybe next year!
My job is to deliver light
We had heaps of meetings this week. As you know, we had zone conference and MLC (Mission Leadership Council). Both were great! Some of the highlights: As missionaries, our job is to deliver light. The greater Spirituality that we have (conversion, and obedience) the better opportunity that people have to receive light from us. Likewise, the more Spirituality that we deny, eventually the light will be buried in the ground. For example, the Book of Mormon. That was buried in the ground, until the world was prepared to receive that light. And now we have it, and what a light it is! We were also trained about how to plan more effectively. Sister Back gave a training where she talked about all the planning that went into getting the Brass Plates from Laban, as well as the story when Moroni takes back the Nephite prisoners from the Lamanite armies. She is so funny! When she paraphrased the stories, she went Elder Holland style. It was solid! Very spiritually enlightening.
M_, our Less-Active member, came to church for the first time in years yesterday. That was awesome. Some of his comments were that "It feels incredible to be back", and that he "won't miss it for anything anymore". How exciting!
Right now, I need a haircut. My last haircut actually came from Elder Tito. He has gotten better since the last time that he cut my hair in Dapto :D. To answer your question, I haven't eaten anything too strange lately. My companion loves to cook though, so I do get spoiled quite often. Just last week, he made sweet rice enough for an army!! It is delicious, so no complaints there. Today, after emails we are going to go to the RSL (a buffet in Bankstown). It is Elder Tito's greenie missionary's birthday, Elder Togia. He is from Samoa, so Elder Tito (his trainer) wanted to make sure that his day is special, because it will be much different than on the island. Next week, I will probably send pics.
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| Clever.... Very Clever.... this was in Mortdale. |
Our 3 pm appointment last Monday was awesome! So, it was a lesson with a 19 year old guy named J_, who we contacted just a few weeks ago. He mentioned that he is friends with one of the young men in our ward, named D_. In fact, they used to be in a two-man band together! Both are incredibly musical and whatnot, and we were able to get J_'s number off him. We finally set up an appointment with him for Monday, and luckily D_ was available!
So D_ got here first, and then just to make sure that J_ would come, we asked D_ to call him (instead of us) bwahahaha! It would be one thing to ditch if it is just the Elders, quite another if you used to be best friends, no chance! Mwahaha.... So we were able to sit down, teach the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, commit J_ to read the BoM and pray to know if it is true, and to be baptized all in one go. He is super keen to build his relationship with God again, which he mentioned that he has lost. And he understood and is willing to try what we shared with him. What a keen little green bean! Hopefully all goes well. It was a huge testimony of how important members are to missionary work.
Life is pretty difficult in Papua New Guinea
We also had a great appointment with Y_, our investigator from Papua New Guinea. He is the man! Shoot, he called us up on Thursday, just as an appointment fell through, and asked if we were available. So we went and met up at a park, and got to know him a bit better. Sounds like life is pretty difficult in Papua New Guinea. He doesn't have a whole lot of friends over here (which I don't understand, because he is the man!) Oh well! We will just have to introduce him to more church members.... :)
It was a cool lesson too. We used scriptures from the Book of Mormon to help us to talk about the Purpose of Life, as well as how the Book of Mormon fills in gaps that the Bible has left. Alma 34:32 really hit him. "[T]he purpose of life is for men to prepare to meet God" is what really stuck out to him. We had previously talked about our purpose, and his own thoughts were that we are put on earth to develop talents and use those talents to help other people. When the light and truth of the Book of Mormon added to his knowledge, you could just see it in his eyes how much it meant to him. He also a keen little green bean to learn more. We tried to contact him Saturday and Sunday via phone call, to no avail, and as a result we thought he was dodging us. Then 10 min. later on Sunday, he rang us up, and said "HELLO! Elders!! (imagine it in a voice where you can hear the smile on their face) How are you?!" He isn't dodging us. :) Good stuff!
You guys must be praying hard or something!
We taught more lessons this week than I have taught since I have been in Bankstown. We have found more and more people who are ready to receive the Gospel. You guys must be praying hard or something! This week we have ZTM (Zone Training Meeting). And we have some good plans to help our zone members out. We will hopefully be starting something new this week in the zone; it's called the 10-10-10. The way it works is in the first 10 min. of proselyting time every day, you have faith and talk to everyone till you have one contact (contact being teaching principle, and inviting someone to do something). We are also supposed to be diligent and have 10 contacts every day (OYM's, or Open Your Mouth experiences, you could call them, which are contacts other then tracting and drop in's on potential investigators; normally street contacts). And the last "10" is 10 investigator lessons a week. We firmly believe that with these focuses, we will be able to achieve our standards of excellence. We have been working on this ourselves, and it is proving to be very fruitful. It requires quite a bit of faith and diligence. It has gotten me motivated to work harder and harder. We also want to implement something else. We want to help our zone members to use their time more wisely and have more appointments throughout the week.
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| Look what my comp found in our massive dictionary?? |
Something that I wrote up (see attached file) has helped soooo much! It has been the major reason why we have had so many opportunities to teach. "And now...let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation" - Moroni 9:6. This scripture has motivated me quite a bit this week. It has helped me to remember my duties. Another scripture that has stuck out to me this week was Mormon 9:11: "But behold, I will show unto you a God of miracles, even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and it is that same God who created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are". The Lord has shown forth His hand to us this week. I know that to be true. And as we continue to exercise faith, and as members and missionaries unite, we will continue to see how the Lord can reach out to his children and bless them with the Gospel of Healing.
Just Got in Car? Have 5 minutes?
Have you…
1. Confirmed today’s appointments?
2. Set up fellowship for today?
3. Finished today’s To-Do List?
4. Set up/Confirmed tomorrow’s appointments?
5. Set up member teaching appointments for the week?
6. Invited members (missionaries) to pray for you?
7. Contacted your WML?
8. Made miracle calls/sent inspirational texts to members or investigators (or missionaries)?
Then Do it! :)
What missionary experiences have you been having? Which friends have been invited to activities (kids)?
Love y'all heaps! Hope that you all have a great week!
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Elder Larsen
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