Elder Kevin S. Hamilton of the Quorum of the Seventy came to our Mission Conference and talked to us about how when we picture the people we are teaching, we need to picture them in white not just once, but twice. He talked about how our ultimate goal needs to be to help the people we're teaching to make it to the temple, not just to be baptized. He drew a diagram and talked about how baptism and confirmation is just the gate on the straight and narrow path to eternal life. We also talked about how doctrine unique to our church is the restored truth that we can become as God is, and that Heavenly Father's purpose is to help us become like Him. We also talked about the difference between immortality and eternal life, and that we are all saved, or given the gift of immortality freely, because Christ overcame death for us. However, eternal life means living together with Heavenly Father forever and being able to continually progress. He emphasized that it is important we teach those principles clearly and that the changes to the Plan of Salvation lesson in Preach My Gospel were divinely inspired to help us teach more clearly and simply.
Elder Hamilton also trained us on how to help members feel more comfortable about sharing the gospel with friends, family, and strangers, too! Sharing what we love should be so easy, we just complicate it way too much. We came up with a list of things we can all do to share the gospel and invite in normal and natural ways:
-invite friends to come listen to talks/musical numbers at church
-offer a Come Follow Me manual (especially because we are studying the New Testament!!)
-invite to FHE activities
-share thoughts, videos, quotes, and invites for church activities on social media
-don't hesitate to bring up something you loved learning about at church when friends as you about your weekend
-invite to mutual, priesthood, Relief Society, and ward activities
-invite to baptisms, homecoming/farewell talks, and baby blessings
-share the Family Tree app/ invite to learn more about our family history resources
-invite friends to do service with you
-And many more!!
There are so many ways to share the gospel in loving, normal, and natural ways. We don't have to feel bad if someone doesn't accept an invitation, our role as members is only to invite others, and then they have their agency to accept or not. Heavenly Father is in control, so we don't need to be afraid of sharing His gospel! The gathering of Israel is His work, and we have the amazing opportunity to be tools in His hands. Heavenly Father knows who is prepared to hear His message, and He will no doubt lead us to those who we can touch and invite to learn more.
Anyways, now that I got that all out, we saw some awesome things happen this week! It's almost like this is the Lord's work and He's pushing it forward...weird huh? ;)
This week we really wanted to continue to find more people to teach! The people we are teaching right now have been pretty hit or miss when it comes to answering our calls and text messages or even answering the door. We really just wanted to have some solid lessons and find people who were committed to make and keep commitments to follow Christ. We've been trying to work with a family that the elders had been teaching before the ward split. They have a crazy busy schedule and we weren't sure when we'd ever be able to have a lesson with them. Finally we were able to set up a lesson to sit down with the parents and get to know them. They are amazing! They are friends with a family in the ward who had invited them to a few ward activities which they came to, and then they just asked if they'd be interested in taking the missionary discussions. The parents have been listening to the Book of Mormon on their drives to work and while they do chores, and they came to church for the past 2 weeks! We were able to talk about how they feel about baptism when we met with them, and they told us they just needed to be sure this is the true church before they commit themselves to something like that. We helped them to understand that if they keep reading the Book of Mormon, earnestly praying to know if it's true, and coming to church, they will be able to know for themselves the truth. They told us they want to work towards baptism and that they'll do everything they can to know if the church is true! They're so awesome! They have 5 kids and they are also so excited to be going to church and learning about Jesus. We were so blessed to finally be able to meet with them and find out what we can do to help them!!
We also had another awesome experience last night as we were tracting down a street. Both Sister Blaser and I felt like we needed to go down this particular street, and the woman who opened the first door we knocked on invited us in! She and her husband said they both have always wondered why there are so many different churches with different doctrines and beliefs. We talked about how Joseph Smith had that same question and how because he prayed to find an answer Christ's true church was able to be restored through him with the power of God. They were really interested and asked a ton of good questions. We even had to cut them off because we had to be home on time, but they asked US if we could come back and share more with them.
The Lord truly knows who is prepared for this Gospel, and if we just listen to the Spirit we'll know what we can do and say to help them to find what they might not even know they're searching for! The Lord does the work, so we have to need to fear!!
I love all of you and hope you have a wonderful week!
Love, Sister Priest
The STL's drove us part way to mission Conference
Sister Blaser and Sister Priest
Sister Yates at Zone Conference!! She only
has one transfer after this one before she goes home. :(
has one transfer after this one before she goes home. :(
Termite wall in our apartment
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