Transfers tomorrow.
On Wednesday our mission president called a "mission companionship study". I think this is the only mission in the world that could, the day before, call all the missionaries, tell them to bike to the mission office by 9:15 am, and have an hour and a half mission study. It was on obedience. Apparently some missionaries are having some pretty bad problems. While it might not have been directed at us, there were a couple things E Davidson and I found we could improve on.
And boy were we blessed for doing those things. We hit almost every single one of our goals this week. It was insane. Just one by one, accomplish, focus on the next, focus on next, boom boom boom. Goal setting is so important. When you prayerfully set feasible goals, the Lord will help you hit them. I know that now. Such a productive week.
but...
Things around here are CRAZY at transfer time. The amount of new missionaries coming in is absolutely enormous, so right now 70% of the mission is either training or being trained. It's a "mission president's nightmare". 14 more are coming in tomorrow. So what does that mean for me and my district?
We got a call Monday afternoon saying that Elder Davidson is going to be training again. Someone new. And he'll be district leader. He's staying here in this area, they're splitting the current area in half, and he'll be DL over his half as well as training a new guy. I'm getting sent over to Murray Parkway Stake with a guy named Elder Slade. Nobody knows who he is, not even the ZLs in my area, and they've been out a while. I'm a little scared. Either he's really "shady" or he's really run-of-the-mill. Doesn't really matter though - hopefully I'll be able to have more chances to talk with this new companion...
It's still super sad to lose the area. Such a great place with so many nice people. We'll see how it works out. I'm sure it will. Still doesn't keep me from wondering though.
One of the elders in my district was talking to a member family, and they told him the sky is blue because JC is a BYU fan. He promptly informed them that, while that might be true, he did bleed red... the nature of the holy war, I guess.
--Elder Chandler
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Thought: Importance of missionary work
The active members need a pep talk here. Tracting is SO unproductive around here. I mean I know it's never a good way percentage-wise, but running into less active members every other house is pretty dumb since lessons with them don't really count for much. It's lame.
This week I've been working on a PMG-style lesson on the importance of the commandment of missionary work. The basic outline is:
- Blessings from being a member of the church
- A life without those blessings
- The Restoration
- Blessings from accessing the Atonement
- A life without those blessings
- The Atonement
- The commandment of missionary work
- We have heavenly help
- goals and follow up
I then commit them to prayerfully consider one person they know that will benefit from hearing our message, prayerfully and actively strive to help this person come closer to Christ, and to set a goal on the date that person will be ready for the missionaries to stop by.
I shared this in a marginally-completed form with Elder Davidson and he decided we'd give it a try. The Comp study we started trying to get it down, the Zone Leaders decided to surprise us by stopping by! So we roleplayed the lesson to them. It's powerful. It works. They complemented the lesson plan, provided some great insights on how to make it better, and since then we've been using it with a goal of one active member family a day. That way it doesn't steal from our investigator's time, but we still can use it as a finding method.
My favorite part of the lesson is "A life without the blessings of the Atonement". What a dreary life that would be. The discreptency between a life with and without it is so stark in contrast that the imprint you can portray in member's minds is phenomenal. To think people go about without knowledge of the greatest blessing we have on this earth is unthinkable, and makes missionary work that much more important. (When I teach this to them, I can play it up a ton. Diamond on black velvet. The spirit testifies of the Atonement so strong.) And so I'd like to share what I have written as the main point in the lesson, Missionary Work is a Commandment.
Missionary Work is a Commandment
Missionary work is the most important calling that we have been given as members of the church. After converting our own selves to the gospel of Jesus Christ, it becomes natural to share that source of happiness with others. Heavenly Father, through His holy prophets in all dispensations, has commanded us to share His gospel to all the inhabitants of the world. As we share the gospel, we appreciate how precious and meaningful it is to us, and we feel a greater love for God and others.
It's very much patterned after PMG.
Missionary work is the most important calling that we have been given as members of the church.
"After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel"
(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 113)
After converting our own selves to the gospel of Jesus Christ, it becomes natural to share that source of happiness with others.
"We have a mission in the world: each man, each woman, each child who has grown to undersanding or to the years of accountability, ought... to be qualified to preach the truth, to bear testimony of the truth."
(Gospel Doctrine, 13th ed. [1968], 251-252)
Heavenly Father, through His holy prophets in all dispensations, has commanded us to share His gospel to all the inhabitants of the world.
Scripture Study
Mosiah 2:27, 30
John 21:15-17
Alma 5:60-62
Mosiah 28:3
As we share the gospel, we appreciate how precious and meaningful it is to us, and we feel a greater love for God and others.
"Member-missionary work is one of the great keys to the individual growth of our members. It is my conviction that member-missionary work will raise the spirituality in any ward where applied"
(Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 208-9)
So, basically this is super important stuff. Awesome. To sum it up I'll quote one more by Gordon B. Hinckley:
"We are here to assist our Father in His work and His glory, 'to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man' (Moses 1:39). Your obligation is as serious in your sphere of responsibility as is my obligation in my sphere"
(Gordon B. Hinckley in Conference Report, Apr. 1995, 94)
I hope my new companion will let us use this also. While everything must stay in balance, there's no reason members can't have a 20-25 minute lesson with the intent of finding solid people to teach that have been prepared through constant prayer and action by the members in the different wards. Project: Rocky Mountain Revival.
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