Hello everyone,
Things are starting to pick up again. The goal with a
mission I'm finding is trying to keep your teaching pool up while still
teaching; I'm trying to get rid of the sine wave and make it an Every
Companionship Baptize Every Week line. Gotta study Find while you Teach and
Teach while you Find in PMG harder I guess.
Kinda cool experience
happened. Last week we got a media referral texted to us. These things are kinda
nifty - someone asks for the missionaries or an item through mormon.org and we
get a little text with their address and phone number to contact within 24
hours. Anyways, we got one and went to go check it out... turns out it was a
"ghost" referral to a member's home. She's a 14 y/o girl who is active and
didn't put in the referral, but while we were over there we talked to her friend
and her about inviting someone to take the lessons anyways. She actually went
and did it, and now we have a lesson on Thursday with one of her
friends.
I'm finding I love love love working with the youth programs,
especially those with strong quorums and groups. Some wards just have the most
awesome youth programs and it really is a pleasure to work with the kids there.
It also makes me realize the lack of a youth program in other wards... when you
see a name on an unbaptized list and then begin to think how hard it will be to
try and fellowship them in, you know you have a problem... but we try and work
through it anyways.
Thursday makes three months in the field. I can't
believe it. Seven more of those cycles is all that's left. Weird.
--Elder
Chandler
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Letter 9-18-2012
hellooo everyone
This last week was pretty awful so I'm not going to talk about it much. Injuries make missionary work hard when they mess with the time you get to sleep, and 6:30 always rolls around at the same time. Needless to say, numbers weren't that stellar. The highlight was a trip with the whole mission over to Ensign Peak and Heritage Park on Wednesday. The mission president's wife was the head of Heritage Park between missions so she pushed it and the prez caved. I think he feels bad for it now though because it "didn't contribute to key indicators". Oh well, it was really fun and gave me more energy.
This next week is looking to be a lot, lot, lot better. We had stake conference on Sunday. During the talks I was kind of mulling over my own questions (the topic for conference was "teachers" and was kind of ambiguous so the talks were all over the place). I came up with my spiritual thought for the week as well as pondering the direction that we, the missionaries, wanted to take the mission in this stake. It was a challenge the stake prez gave us. I thought of Alma establishing the church in Zarahemla in Alma 6, so I turned there.
It hit me really hard. The first thing he does is call a bunch of priests and elders to minister and teach to the people. What is the new mission doing, the main pilot? Putting a bunch of missionaries (elders) in a tiny area. The next thing they do is "month of perfection", which is the initiative here to update the church records (including blotting out the names of those who have no desire to attend church anymore) and keep a steady knowledge of every single household in each ward. The new mission has done both of those. So what's next? The people fasted and prayed for the welfare of the souls who had not yet heard the gospel.
I found a sheet lying in our dorm of a "21-day promise". Apparently about a year ago there was a statement made by general authorities promising that if members opened 21 days with a fast, prayed morning and night every day, read the scriptures every day, and were especially obedient, one of the people on a list of potentials would accept the invitation to take the missionary discussions. I've been trying to spearhead this with the wards and eventually the stake to actually get an initiative going on this one year later. It's the first time I think I've ever really got a "bee in my bonnet" (thanks mom?) to do anything. (Except maybe the app that Daniel Butler and I did at college... but that was a 6 hour project.) It's going to begin with a stake-wide fast which I've already set up with the stake. Super exciting stuff happening.
As far as us, we fasted on Monday. That day was the most productive day I think this area has had in months if not years. For all intents and purposes we got 5 new investigators and had 3 lessons. It didn't report like that - there's still some work to do to make them absolutely count - but I'm going to think of it that way. We're hoping to pick up most of them on baptism dates this coming week. Fasting works. I was bad at it at home but holy moley :) Now I know what it's like when Nephi says, while working on the boat, that he had no strength but the Spirit controlled his movements. So cool.
(Now please don't take me talking about this to mean to fast precisely. It's actually in the missionary handbook that missionaries can't ask people at home to fast for specific people in the mission. I'm just telling the success it has given hopefully to increase others testimonies on the subject.)
Anyways, I'll give things more specifically once things get rolling.
TTFN, Ta-ta for now,
- Elder Chandler
Spiritual thought for the week: reaction versus execution
This thought actually stems, from all things to stem from, competitive Pokemon battling. Now I know most of this next paragraph won't make sense but I'm going to type it out anyway for my personal blog. Feel free to try and follow along with one of the top Pokemon players in the world :) After that first paragraph it should be followable :P
In fourth gen UU, the mechanic of rain was obscenely overpowered. Many people (enough actually to keep it from getting banned) decided that it wasn't O(ver)P(owered) based on the grounds of "not being used enough to make a substantial hit in the metagame, its setup is too long". The requirements that it took to set up a rain team were too much for most people to see it as OP. As I started playing with rain though, I noticed a massive spike in wins. I wanted to refute the argument, but how? I thought about how, when I played with a rain team, I made the situation always include rain. Every single battle I was in, it was raining because my team that I used 100% of the time had rain. Not only did rain make the situation favorable for me every single time, but it made the other team play on its back foot and have to respond to the moves I made.
So what is the power in this idea that by creating a condition that, only for me, is favorable all the time as opposed to looking at general statistics where, percentage wise, the favorable condition I use isn't that common? I had no idea, but I felt that the idea was an interesting and strong one, so I applied it to my study on the Holy Ghost. As I studied the question harder, I realized the real question was one of keeping the other person on their back foot. It was a question of execution vs reaction. This brought me to a greater understanding of the power that the gift of the Holy Ghost really has.
When we are younger (or for anyone without the gift of the Holy Ghost), we have the light of Christ, we can feel the Holy Ghost from those that have the gift, but we don't have the gift. What does that mean we're doing? We are reacting to situations. We have the influence of something that is really good, really powerful, but it's only being used every once in a while. The light of Christ is reactive. When something happens, we can deem it bad or good, moral or immoral, in alignment with the will of God or not in alignment. It's after the fact. It's great, it helps us learn. I's been the staple of morality (and mortality) for every single person in existence up to the time of Jesus Christ, bar certain prophetical exceptions. It wasn't until after Christ's death even that he actually bestowed the gift of the Holy Ghost upon his disciples and gave them charge to give it to others (John 16, Acts something).
What makes the gift of the Holy Ghost so special then? Why do we need it, why is it such a cool (and I mean cool) blessing? It's because it gives us the power to execute. It gives us the power to have this (bear with me) massively overpowered menace to the great and abominable church metagame. And not just that, but to be able to use it all of the time. It's not something someone else brings upon us through reaction, it's something that we have the knowledge to be able to keep with us at all times. Possibly most important though: The gift of the Holy Ghost lets us be the will of God, and not just react to it.
How is that thought so cool? (I'm honestly kind of shaking, asdg holy moly) The gift of the Holy Ghost is the ability to be perfect. Literally perfect. If we were to follow the Holy Ghost in everything it told us to do, we would be perfect. If we can hone ourselves to the point where the Holy Ghost is our actions, we will be perfect.
"And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked... Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father... giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men"
Here's some scripture math for you, mom. Flesh (Jesus Christ) subjected to the Spirit. will of the Son swallowed up in the will of the Father. Will of the Father = Holy Ghost. Scripture math that into, "the will of the flesh being swallowed up in the Holy Ghost". The key link there is the gift of the Holy Ghost. As we strive to become perfect, "even as our Father in heaven is perfect", we need to have our will swallowed up in the Father's through the Holy Ghost. Because of Christ's "demigod" status, he was flesh and the Father. Through that connection he had power over life and death, and overcame the first part of the fall, spiritual death. The overcoming of the second death, that which is spiritual, though, comes from his perfectness in intent and the ability to have his will swallowed up in the father. Technically with this definition it would be possible for each of us to account for our own sins (not infinitely like the Savior) if we lived our lives directly in line with our wills swallowed up in the Father's. That would not be possible without the gift of the Holy Ghost; the ability to execute as a member of the Godhead as opposed to reacting with the light of Christ.
Hopefully I didn't take the implications too far. Take a ruler to my wrist if I'm teaching false doctrine. But this stuff rings true to me.
This last week was pretty awful so I'm not going to talk about it much. Injuries make missionary work hard when they mess with the time you get to sleep, and 6:30 always rolls around at the same time. Needless to say, numbers weren't that stellar. The highlight was a trip with the whole mission over to Ensign Peak and Heritage Park on Wednesday. The mission president's wife was the head of Heritage Park between missions so she pushed it and the prez caved. I think he feels bad for it now though because it "didn't contribute to key indicators". Oh well, it was really fun and gave me more energy.
This next week is looking to be a lot, lot, lot better. We had stake conference on Sunday. During the talks I was kind of mulling over my own questions (the topic for conference was "teachers" and was kind of ambiguous so the talks were all over the place). I came up with my spiritual thought for the week as well as pondering the direction that we, the missionaries, wanted to take the mission in this stake. It was a challenge the stake prez gave us. I thought of Alma establishing the church in Zarahemla in Alma 6, so I turned there.
It hit me really hard. The first thing he does is call a bunch of priests and elders to minister and teach to the people. What is the new mission doing, the main pilot? Putting a bunch of missionaries (elders) in a tiny area. The next thing they do is "month of perfection", which is the initiative here to update the church records (including blotting out the names of those who have no desire to attend church anymore) and keep a steady knowledge of every single household in each ward. The new mission has done both of those. So what's next? The people fasted and prayed for the welfare of the souls who had not yet heard the gospel.
I found a sheet lying in our dorm of a "21-day promise". Apparently about a year ago there was a statement made by general authorities promising that if members opened 21 days with a fast, prayed morning and night every day, read the scriptures every day, and were especially obedient, one of the people on a list of potentials would accept the invitation to take the missionary discussions. I've been trying to spearhead this with the wards and eventually the stake to actually get an initiative going on this one year later. It's the first time I think I've ever really got a "bee in my bonnet" (thanks mom?) to do anything. (Except maybe the app that Daniel Butler and I did at college... but that was a 6 hour project.) It's going to begin with a stake-wide fast which I've already set up with the stake. Super exciting stuff happening.
As far as us, we fasted on Monday. That day was the most productive day I think this area has had in months if not years. For all intents and purposes we got 5 new investigators and had 3 lessons. It didn't report like that - there's still some work to do to make them absolutely count - but I'm going to think of it that way. We're hoping to pick up most of them on baptism dates this coming week. Fasting works. I was bad at it at home but holy moley :) Now I know what it's like when Nephi says, while working on the boat, that he had no strength but the Spirit controlled his movements. So cool.
(Now please don't take me talking about this to mean to fast precisely. It's actually in the missionary handbook that missionaries can't ask people at home to fast for specific people in the mission. I'm just telling the success it has given hopefully to increase others testimonies on the subject.)
Anyways, I'll give things more specifically once things get rolling.
TTFN, Ta-ta for now,
- Elder Chandler
Spiritual thought for the week: reaction versus execution
This thought actually stems, from all things to stem from, competitive Pokemon battling. Now I know most of this next paragraph won't make sense but I'm going to type it out anyway for my personal blog. Feel free to try and follow along with one of the top Pokemon players in the world :) After that first paragraph it should be followable :P
In fourth gen UU, the mechanic of rain was obscenely overpowered. Many people (enough actually to keep it from getting banned) decided that it wasn't O(ver)P(owered) based on the grounds of "not being used enough to make a substantial hit in the metagame, its setup is too long". The requirements that it took to set up a rain team were too much for most people to see it as OP. As I started playing with rain though, I noticed a massive spike in wins. I wanted to refute the argument, but how? I thought about how, when I played with a rain team, I made the situation always include rain. Every single battle I was in, it was raining because my team that I used 100% of the time had rain. Not only did rain make the situation favorable for me every single time, but it made the other team play on its back foot and have to respond to the moves I made.
So what is the power in this idea that by creating a condition that, only for me, is favorable all the time as opposed to looking at general statistics where, percentage wise, the favorable condition I use isn't that common? I had no idea, but I felt that the idea was an interesting and strong one, so I applied it to my study on the Holy Ghost. As I studied the question harder, I realized the real question was one of keeping the other person on their back foot. It was a question of execution vs reaction. This brought me to a greater understanding of the power that the gift of the Holy Ghost really has.
When we are younger (or for anyone without the gift of the Holy Ghost), we have the light of Christ, we can feel the Holy Ghost from those that have the gift, but we don't have the gift. What does that mean we're doing? We are reacting to situations. We have the influence of something that is really good, really powerful, but it's only being used every once in a while. The light of Christ is reactive. When something happens, we can deem it bad or good, moral or immoral, in alignment with the will of God or not in alignment. It's after the fact. It's great, it helps us learn. I's been the staple of morality (and mortality) for every single person in existence up to the time of Jesus Christ, bar certain prophetical exceptions. It wasn't until after Christ's death even that he actually bestowed the gift of the Holy Ghost upon his disciples and gave them charge to give it to others (John 16, Acts something).
What makes the gift of the Holy Ghost so special then? Why do we need it, why is it such a cool (and I mean cool) blessing? It's because it gives us the power to execute. It gives us the power to have this (bear with me) massively overpowered menace to the great and abominable church metagame. And not just that, but to be able to use it all of the time. It's not something someone else brings upon us through reaction, it's something that we have the knowledge to be able to keep with us at all times. Possibly most important though: The gift of the Holy Ghost lets us be the will of God, and not just react to it.
How is that thought so cool? (I'm honestly kind of shaking, asdg holy moly) The gift of the Holy Ghost is the ability to be perfect. Literally perfect. If we were to follow the Holy Ghost in everything it told us to do, we would be perfect. If we can hone ourselves to the point where the Holy Ghost is our actions, we will be perfect.
"And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked... Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father... giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men"
Here's some scripture math for you, mom. Flesh (Jesus Christ) subjected to the Spirit. will of the Son swallowed up in the will of the Father. Will of the Father = Holy Ghost. Scripture math that into, "the will of the flesh being swallowed up in the Holy Ghost". The key link there is the gift of the Holy Ghost. As we strive to become perfect, "even as our Father in heaven is perfect", we need to have our will swallowed up in the Father's through the Holy Ghost. Because of Christ's "demigod" status, he was flesh and the Father. Through that connection he had power over life and death, and overcame the first part of the fall, spiritual death. The overcoming of the second death, that which is spiritual, though, comes from his perfectness in intent and the ability to have his will swallowed up in the father. Technically with this definition it would be possible for each of us to account for our own sins (not infinitely like the Savior) if we lived our lives directly in line with our wills swallowed up in the Father's. That would not be possible without the gift of the Holy Ghost; the ability to execute as a member of the Godhead as opposed to reacting with the light of Christ.
Hopefully I didn't take the implications too far. Take a ruler to my wrist if I'm teaching false doctrine. But this stuff rings true to me.
Email from Brother Prestwich--
Parents,Just want to let you know how awesome your son is! I live in Murray Utah and have been working with a family (Chatwins)for 9 years. I am their home teacher. Their son Bryce, who is twelve this year has finally decided he wants to take the discussions. Your son has really connected with Bryce and was very instrumental in his baptism, he has been just the spark needed for Bryce and his [mother] who happened to be attending the baptism. Her mother (gma) is dying from cancer and when your son shared his powerful testimony during the baptism, prompted by the spirit, we all knew that we could live together forever with our parents and grandparents.
Who knew that this kid who looks like he’s 16yrs old could carry the spirit so strong? He is well read and surprises me at some of his study topics, for example, tomorrow he is going to dive into the difference of “the Light of Christ” and the “Holy Ghost” I love your son and his ease of speech and his discipline. His spontaneous personality makes him fun to be around and easy to talk to. We baptized Bryce two weeks ago, I am glad Elder Chandler was able to have such a profound effect in his and my life. Bryce will forever be linked to Elder Chandler. No doubt, he was called to labor in Utah for this reason and many other that the Lord knows he will positively influence. Kudos to you both for raising a God fearing, humble, strong and faithful son.
Sincerely, John Prestwich
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Letter 9-11-2012
What a big day. The 11th anniversary of 9/11. I still remember seeing those clips in the cafeteria at Rogers Elementary. Came home to more clips. Hopefully the ripples are still felt today a bit as we help people to understand that we, as a human family, can all come together through the one thing we all have in common - that we are sons and daughters of a loving heavenly father.This last week was............ hm. How to put it.
I know I'm not supposed to worry everyone back home, but hey, it's not that bad. On Tuesday after emails last week, we were playing frisbee in the parking lot as a zone. I jumped for a frisbee, got up, knocked it, and came down pretty hard on the side of my foot (I probably shouldn't be wearing size 12s or whatever the size of those Nikes are :) ). I was out for the rest of that day, but I've been working on it since then. The bruising from the sprain (not broken, just a sprain) is really pretty right now. I'll probably be 100% again by a week from today. So we were out of business Tuesday, and had to take sporadic breaks throughout the week until Sunday when I felt all the way up to it again.
Then, on Sunday, Elder Slade was coming down a hill and had his weight shifted weird on his bike, hit a slick patch, and turfed it. Because of his positioning he nailed his wrist pretty hard and we were out for the rest of Sunday. We're quite the sad and sorry pair this week! What's been cool, though, is that the Lord's work goes on even when things don't look too great. We had both our baptisms happen without a flaw this Saturday. Bryce seriously had the greatest showing from the ward at his baptism. They had people standing in the back of the Relief Society Room. If we got the help from the ward that we got with Bryce all the time, we will be able to hit mission standards, if not exceed them, every week. The problem is getting the wards to realize that it can happen...
I gave my first talk in sacrament meeting today on my mission. My farewell talk was 5-7 minutes long. I think my talk here was 20 minutes easy. It was more or less the member lesson we deliver. I talked about the new mission and the excitement it should bring to them. I also talked about the tree of life. The tree is the love of God, or more specifically stated in relation with John 3:16 is Jesus Christ. The fruits that we partake are the blessings we receive from obeying the gospel of Jesus Christ. I emphasized the need of understanding the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives before thinking about the blessings. Too much people focus on the path and the Iron Rod when in reality you need to first realize why in the world you're even on the path. Its for the blessings of the priesthood, the Book of Mormon, prophets, the ability to correctly access the Atonement through baptism and the sacrament, the keys of the dispensation of the fulness of times (all the keys are restored for the first time ever!) through Elijah, Elias, and Moses. I then segwayed using the keys Moses gave (the gathering of Israel) to showing how we are called and commanded to do missionary work. It comes naturally when you understand the blessings the gospel gives you (See Lehi after partaking of the fruit in 1 Ne 8, see Peter after showing his love for God in John 21). And to sum it up I quoted Alma the Younger, "I speak by way of command unto you that belong to the church; and unto those who do not belong to the church I speak by way of invitation, saying: Come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life." I think it's because of the nametag. It has special powers or something.
This has become an even larger problem at this point because, with those two baptisms, our teaching pool is now completely dry. Zero people on-date. Zero progressing investigators. Zero INVESTIGATORS. Which should never happen. So we're working on finding finding finding. There are a couple names in particular I'm looking forward to (praying to be) working with very shortly. One of them is a 13 year old boy named Skylar. His mom is a single mother that's LA, and he's never been baptized. From what I've gotten from him he's a great kid and should be a pleasure to work with him, if we can get in his home.
I finished Jesus the Christ this week. I wonder if any missionary has ever finished JtC and the BoM in their first two transfers. I'm pretty well on my way to doing that. Four weeks to get through the war chapters and the rest of the BoM. Is it possible? We'll see :) I'm not going to rush read at the expense of losing doctrinal learning.
Hope all is well--
Elder Chandler
Spiritual thought: The universality and sameness of (the) God(head) over time
We were challenged in a zone conference that occurred this last Thursday to re-read the Book of Mormon, and underline every time Jesus Christ is mentioned. To me it seems super cliche, so I decided to not only underline all mentions of Jesus Christ, but also highlight each of the principles of His gospel to better understand everything he teaches. Green for faith (seed), red for repentence (blood), blue for commandments (baptism), yellow for the Holy Ghost (spirit/light), and purple for endure to the end (receive royalty in heaven). We're to do it as a mission, so I'm on 1 Ne 12 with this challenge. As I was re-reading 1 Ne 10, I came across, again, those last 5 or 6 verses where he speaks preliminarily about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and goes more in depth in 2 Ne 31. What I came across was an epiphany about how the Godhead interacts with mankind.
The main question that is trying to be answered here is: Why, if God is the same at all times, do His directions for the children of men sometimes change? aka: blacks and priesthood, polygamy.
We know that God interacts with us the same yesterday, today, and forever, as it states multiple times in the scriptures, more specifically though in 1 Ne 10:18. But then I read this part without the verse markings again. Check it out.
"I, Nephi, was desirous also that I might see, and hear, and know of these things, by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him, as well in times of old as in the time that he should manifest himself unto the children of men. For he is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and the way is prepared for all men from the foundation of the world, if it so be that they repent and come unto him."
Perhaps a clearer statement comes in 1 Ne 12:18:
"A great and terrible gulf devideth them [those in the great and spacious building and those at the tree of life], yea even the word of the justice of the Eternal God, and the Messiah who is the Lamb of God, of whom the Holy Ghost beareth record, from the beginning of the world until this time, and from this time henceforth and forever."
Clear statement of the purposes of each of the member of the Godhead as they relate to us. Justice, mercy, and bearing record. The Holy Ghost bears record henceforth and forever. It is the same way God speaks to us yesterday, today, and forever. Not that His word is always the same, but that His Word is always the same. His Word testifies of truth, whatever that may be at that time. "Truth" is arbitrary based on the world that is created around it. Does truth change? Yes. Does the "getter" method we use to receive truth change? No. Do we always know how the "getter" method gets its values? No, it's a programming concept called encapsulation, and it's a common, smart, and good practice.
A lot goes on in the program called earth, but the Lord has given us the method we need to divine what His will is for us at this time. We have no need to access all the methods that lead up to the final declaration of true or false - all that matters is what we get from the method that we've been given.
PS: McKay, have you learned any of this in your programming class yet? Encapsulation, "getter" and "setter" methods? It's got universal application :)
And so, from there can we understand that the doctrines do not conflict. They support one another and give us greater understanding of how the Godhead words. And with that, adios, amigos.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Letter 9-04-2012
So...
This last week was pretty insane. (Maybe every week in SLC is insane?) Transfers are crazy around here, and I'm not sure when they'll settle down. There are so many new missionaries coming in that there's really no way for the mission president to keep people with the same companion for any substantial amount of time. Almost everyone got swapped around. My new companion is... dun dun dun dun, Elder Slade.
He's from Mesa. He's 21 years old. He's been out for NINE WEEKS. So basically we're just two greenies running around trying to do the best we can. To make things just a bit harder, his trainer was a trunky 22-monther so he kinda didn't learn much. The good thing that I realized, though, is how much I really did learn from Elder Davidson. Teaching isn't something that I really have much of a problem with, so my prep from the MTC in that department was pretty much enough. Learning to work with the Ward Mission Leaders, the Bishops, the members of the wards, though, all came from E Davidson. What I've applied so far (the member lesson, a member worksheet, updating records in the area book) I feel has vastly improved the relationships we have and the confidence levels of the leadership in the area. Hopefully this will lead to trust in us as missionaries to hand out the referrals they've been waiting to hand out.
We have two baptisms set up this coming Saturday. Alyssa Miller is a nine year old who, at eight, wasn't baptized because the water was too cold and she didn't want to go under. Her eight year old sister will be baptized first so hopefully this time it'll work out! The other one is Bryce. He's in seventh grade and is super cool. His mom was super less active so he never got baptized, but now he's set and his mom is looking better too. I could probably talk to Bryce for hours just because our interests line up so nicely :) In any case, it's exciting. At the end of this Saturday I'll have been in the field for seven weeks, and I'll have had six baptisms. If we can line up one extra some week, I'll have kept mission standard from day one. That's my eventual goal - which would put me at 101 baptisms over my mission! I think it's a worthy goal.
Working hard at making things work--
Elder Chandler
Doctrinal Study: The Will and Word of God
I think I've stated a billion times already what qualifies us, justifies us, brings us to the celestial kingdom. Faith, and submitting our will to God. The first part is pretty clear cut - you have it, or you don't. I guess you could talk about "do I have sufficient faith?" but I really don't find that very interesting (which is part of why I don't get people's absolute obsession over Alma 32? Great, it sets forth solid doctrine that gives no room for further discussion!). The part that I feel really needs a solid definition is the second one - defining the will of God.
I've already defined it from a justification standpoint through the Doctrine of Christ. The acts of repenting and keeping the commandments allow us to feel the justification power of the Holy Ghost. I'm going to try defining it from a different standpoint now, based off of Mosiah 15 and the seed of Christ.
This week I went back and read the vision of the tree of life. Aside from a few personal things that it set me straight on (mostly the pattern shown on how to receive revelation as shown by Nephi following Lehi's account of the vision), I found great insights into the will of God. I'm sure we're all familiar with the tree representing Jesus Christ, the center of the vision. The fruit represents the Atonement, and the partaking of it is in similitude of us accessing the Atonement. The part here that hit me is the duality of the word "seed", as used in a plant and as a term meaning future generations. Jesus is our Father, the Tree. We can become the "fruit of his loins" by accessing the Atonement. Get it? ha. It's more of a play on the english language than anything else, but it still works as a clear analogy to combine the two principles, to clarify the extended metaphor with the set-forth doctrine. (Also, the "seed" of the tree of each of our lives is faith, and the "fruit" that faith brings forth is repentance and keeping the commandments).
Next, you have the Iron Rod and the strait and narrow path. "The Iron Rod is the word of God". Now in 2 Ne 32:3 it talks about the word of God. If you read versus 3 and 5 carefully I think it's pretty apparent that the word of God is the Holy Ghost; it will tell you all things you should do. So the Iron Rod is the Holy Ghost. The path which we must stay on is the will of God as it pertains to us. This is why it's hard to define the will of God. It's different for everyone.
Example: Brigham Young said, of the young men who helped the Martin and Willy pioneers across the last river and later died from the exposure, that that one act alone gave them sure entrance into the Celestial Kingdom. Don't misinterpret this to say that through our own arbitrary works we are qualified for the CK. That's false doctrine. What is does show, though, is that those young men were so in-tune with the will of God that they fulfilled what God wanted of them to the T, and therefore inherited the CK. Same story with JC - if he hadn't fulfilled the Atonement, he wouldn't have followed the will of God for himself. Of course, being perfectly One with the will of God, he did fulfill every last morsel of what Heavenly Father wanted him to do and thereby granted himself entrance into the CK, as well as qualifying himself to make the eternal and infinite sacrifice that is the Atonement.
So what tools then do we have to discern the will of God as it applies to us personally? There's a direct and personal way, and that's through our patriarchal blessings. God's will is stated there, right in front of us, as clear as day. The blessings stated therein are not guaranteed, but are a direct manifestation of God's will to you through your patriarch. You might as well call your patriarchal blessing your ticket into the celestial kingdom. By not fulfilling anything shown in the blessing, you are showing direct disobedience to the will of God in your life. (Not to say there can't be some things done after death and such, I don't mean to condemn anyone...)
(I thought God was the same yesterday, today, and forever though? How can His will be different for every person ever? You have to understand the perspective God has. He knows everything. He knows every single factor that leads into decisions, and through pattern recognition and such there is no question as to what will happen. What would the word "change" mean to God, then? Did he "change" His position on polygamy, on blacks having the priesthood? Absolutely not. His will has already been set. This is kind of a confusing concept to put on paper. Maybe I'll try again another next week with the same thought stated more clearly.)
So we have now two manifestations of God's will - patriarchal blessings and the Holy Ghost. These kind of mesh though into one thing (as do most things in the gospel...), and as stated by Christ is the rock on which the church is founded on. This rock is revelation. Through prophets. Personal revelation. Direct manifestation of will of God.
Anyways, food for thought. If anyone has a good, clarifying insight here I'd appreciate it.
(I should probably do pre-writes before I start writing some of these. They go all over the place. It's kind of the nature of gospel doctrine to go deep, then simplify itself back to the DoC, and again, and again, and again. It's pretty disorienting. I mean it's cool and all but sometimes when you're trying to dig deep, you'll make a connection back up top with Christ and it throws you off of the topic you're really trying to get at. Not like science where there's not Doctrine of Christ to always refer back to. You don't make new connections about base-level postulations because of new material unless they flat-out contradict the base, which then would shake all of science so it's kind of a no-no, whereas the DoC is already perfect and so everything ties back to it.)
This last week was pretty insane. (Maybe every week in SLC is insane?) Transfers are crazy around here, and I'm not sure when they'll settle down. There are so many new missionaries coming in that there's really no way for the mission president to keep people with the same companion for any substantial amount of time. Almost everyone got swapped around. My new companion is... dun dun dun dun, Elder Slade.
He's from Mesa. He's 21 years old. He's been out for NINE WEEKS. So basically we're just two greenies running around trying to do the best we can. To make things just a bit harder, his trainer was a trunky 22-monther so he kinda didn't learn much. The good thing that I realized, though, is how much I really did learn from Elder Davidson. Teaching isn't something that I really have much of a problem with, so my prep from the MTC in that department was pretty much enough. Learning to work with the Ward Mission Leaders, the Bishops, the members of the wards, though, all came from E Davidson. What I've applied so far (the member lesson, a member worksheet, updating records in the area book) I feel has vastly improved the relationships we have and the confidence levels of the leadership in the area. Hopefully this will lead to trust in us as missionaries to hand out the referrals they've been waiting to hand out.
We have two baptisms set up this coming Saturday. Alyssa Miller is a nine year old who, at eight, wasn't baptized because the water was too cold and she didn't want to go under. Her eight year old sister will be baptized first so hopefully this time it'll work out! The other one is Bryce. He's in seventh grade and is super cool. His mom was super less active so he never got baptized, but now he's set and his mom is looking better too. I could probably talk to Bryce for hours just because our interests line up so nicely :) In any case, it's exciting. At the end of this Saturday I'll have been in the field for seven weeks, and I'll have had six baptisms. If we can line up one extra some week, I'll have kept mission standard from day one. That's my eventual goal - which would put me at 101 baptisms over my mission! I think it's a worthy goal.Working hard at making things work--
Elder Chandler
Doctrinal Study: The Will and Word of God
I think I've stated a billion times already what qualifies us, justifies us, brings us to the celestial kingdom. Faith, and submitting our will to God. The first part is pretty clear cut - you have it, or you don't. I guess you could talk about "do I have sufficient faith?" but I really don't find that very interesting (which is part of why I don't get people's absolute obsession over Alma 32? Great, it sets forth solid doctrine that gives no room for further discussion!). The part that I feel really needs a solid definition is the second one - defining the will of God.
I've already defined it from a justification standpoint through the Doctrine of Christ. The acts of repenting and keeping the commandments allow us to feel the justification power of the Holy Ghost. I'm going to try defining it from a different standpoint now, based off of Mosiah 15 and the seed of Christ.
This week I went back and read the vision of the tree of life. Aside from a few personal things that it set me straight on (mostly the pattern shown on how to receive revelation as shown by Nephi following Lehi's account of the vision), I found great insights into the will of God. I'm sure we're all familiar with the tree representing Jesus Christ, the center of the vision. The fruit represents the Atonement, and the partaking of it is in similitude of us accessing the Atonement. The part here that hit me is the duality of the word "seed", as used in a plant and as a term meaning future generations. Jesus is our Father, the Tree. We can become the "fruit of his loins" by accessing the Atonement. Get it? ha. It's more of a play on the english language than anything else, but it still works as a clear analogy to combine the two principles, to clarify the extended metaphor with the set-forth doctrine. (Also, the "seed" of the tree of each of our lives is faith, and the "fruit" that faith brings forth is repentance and keeping the commandments).
Next, you have the Iron Rod and the strait and narrow path. "The Iron Rod is the word of God". Now in 2 Ne 32:3 it talks about the word of God. If you read versus 3 and 5 carefully I think it's pretty apparent that the word of God is the Holy Ghost; it will tell you all things you should do. So the Iron Rod is the Holy Ghost. The path which we must stay on is the will of God as it pertains to us. This is why it's hard to define the will of God. It's different for everyone.
Example: Brigham Young said, of the young men who helped the Martin and Willy pioneers across the last river and later died from the exposure, that that one act alone gave them sure entrance into the Celestial Kingdom. Don't misinterpret this to say that through our own arbitrary works we are qualified for the CK. That's false doctrine. What is does show, though, is that those young men were so in-tune with the will of God that they fulfilled what God wanted of them to the T, and therefore inherited the CK. Same story with JC - if he hadn't fulfilled the Atonement, he wouldn't have followed the will of God for himself. Of course, being perfectly One with the will of God, he did fulfill every last morsel of what Heavenly Father wanted him to do and thereby granted himself entrance into the CK, as well as qualifying himself to make the eternal and infinite sacrifice that is the Atonement.
So what tools then do we have to discern the will of God as it applies to us personally? There's a direct and personal way, and that's through our patriarchal blessings. God's will is stated there, right in front of us, as clear as day. The blessings stated therein are not guaranteed, but are a direct manifestation of God's will to you through your patriarch. You might as well call your patriarchal blessing your ticket into the celestial kingdom. By not fulfilling anything shown in the blessing, you are showing direct disobedience to the will of God in your life. (Not to say there can't be some things done after death and such, I don't mean to condemn anyone...)
(I thought God was the same yesterday, today, and forever though? How can His will be different for every person ever? You have to understand the perspective God has. He knows everything. He knows every single factor that leads into decisions, and through pattern recognition and such there is no question as to what will happen. What would the word "change" mean to God, then? Did he "change" His position on polygamy, on blacks having the priesthood? Absolutely not. His will has already been set. This is kind of a confusing concept to put on paper. Maybe I'll try again another next week with the same thought stated more clearly.)
So we have now two manifestations of God's will - patriarchal blessings and the Holy Ghost. These kind of mesh though into one thing (as do most things in the gospel...), and as stated by Christ is the rock on which the church is founded on. This rock is revelation. Through prophets. Personal revelation. Direct manifestation of will of God.
Anyways, food for thought. If anyone has a good, clarifying insight here I'd appreciate it.
(I should probably do pre-writes before I start writing some of these. They go all over the place. It's kind of the nature of gospel doctrine to go deep, then simplify itself back to the DoC, and again, and again, and again. It's pretty disorienting. I mean it's cool and all but sometimes when you're trying to dig deep, you'll make a connection back up top with Christ and it throws you off of the topic you're really trying to get at. Not like science where there's not Doctrine of Christ to always refer back to. You don't make new connections about base-level postulations because of new material unless they flat-out contradict the base, which then would shake all of science so it's kind of a no-no, whereas the DoC is already perfect and so everything ties back to it.)
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Letter 8-28-2012
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
--------------------------------------------
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.
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
--------------------------------------------
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.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Letter 8-21-2012
hi.
We've been so busy this week. While we didn't have many lessons set up, we were able to walk into lessons a ton. We ended up with a total of 8 lessons to investigators this week, picked up 4 new investigators, had 5 investigators at church, and have someone being baptized this coming Sunday. Even yesterday, where we had no lessons planned, we ended up teaching 2 strong less-active lessons and a lesson to an investigator. We're picking up speed. 32 strong potential investigators that we have contact with, with 7 progressing. Hopefully I'll fix my numbers so by next month I'll have baptized weekly!
A ton of things happen while on the mission, but I guess one that stands out this week was when we were visiting with an investigator. She knows her bible really well and has the strongest faith in Christ. She isn't able to move very well though because of her weight and missing cartilage in her knees. She's in the bottom of an apartment, about 5 steps down a stairwell. We were talking in the stairwell, letting her get some fresh air, when she told us those 5 stairs look like the mountains to her (with the mountains in the background). I found myself thinking of Joshua and the advice the Lord gave him to be of strong and good courage in Joshua 1:9. I read the scripture, and we spotted her as she, step by step with just a walker (usually she's confined to an automatic wheelchair) climbed those 5 steps. It was pretty remarkable. After sitting a while at the top of the flight, she made the journey down. It was pretty remarkable - she hasn't climbed those steps in months and months. Hopefully this is one of the first steps to getting her to church, and eventually to make the commitment to baptism.
I fixed my bike. I like fixing bikes. I thought you knew I was an engineer mind? :) It's really quite fun to mess around with it. I picked it up pretty fast and now can do a slew of things that will help me out. I filleted my old, full of holes innertubes and lined my tires with them. I then picked up some special "green slime" innertubes and put them in my bike. I'd like to see a thorn get through them now. Needless to say I haven't had any problems this week with flats, and probably won't for at least a year.
Have a good week,
--E Chandler
Topic this week: Christ's seed
I finished King Benjamin's speech and had great insights on it about penitence, giving to the poor, the call for all to do missionary work (Mosiah 2:27: commanded to speak unto YOU), but what really it me hardest was Abinadi's talk, specifically in Mosiah 12-16.
It starts off with a funny verse stating he "came among them in disguise, that they knew him not". He began to prophesy, and the first thing he says is his name. I just picture him pulling a Perry and, after saying his name, "...oops."
It's all about condemning the wicked priests of King Noah for hypocritically teaching - but not living - the law of Moses. He goes on to speak about how the law is a type of Christ, how the strict laws were to "keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him", and how all prophets prophesied of Christ (even if they're speakings were taken out of the Bible). Some phrases he (and Isaiah) used that I like a lot, but don't really warrent discussion:
"he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
"he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep befor her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth."
Mosiah 14:10-11 are really, really interesting to me though. After Isaiah has prophesied of Christ, he uses the phrase "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him [Satan]; he hath put him to grief". That phrase "bruised him" reminded me of Genesis 3, where it is said that though the serpent may bruise man's heal, it is through the woman that the serpent's head will be crushed. "It shall bruise they head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (It wasn't until after that I saw Genesis 3:15 as a footnote as well). Though Satan bruised our heel when he tempted Eve and Adam to partake of the fruit, Christ will be there to fully heal that bruise on the heel then, in the millenium, stomp him out once and for all. It then goes on to state how, after Christ made his soul an offering for sin, he would see 5 things:
1) "see his seed"
2) "prolong his days"
3) "pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hands"
4) "see the travail of his seed"
5) "shall be satisfied"
( 6) by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he will bear their iniquities)
What does it mean though for Christ to "see his seed"? Of course it can't mean that he had children. Luckily, Abinadi takes the next chapter to explain Isaiah clearly to those priests, and to hold them accountable for the sins they were permitting and taking advantage of.
First, he explains the nature of the Godhead, which is super important and I learned a lot about it here, but the main point is that their purpose is one. Their will is one. The spirit connects it all. The coolest verse I think I've ever read about the atonement then comes in the form of Mosiah 15:9:
"Having ascended into heaven, having the bowles of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice."
Cool. "And who shall be his seed?"
Abinadi states that those who belived that the Lord would redeem them and looked forward to a remission of their sins are the heirs of the kingdom of God. This is a pattern I keep picking up on. The plan of salvation is always boiled down to two key elements. (1) Know that only through Christ are you saved, and (2) through this humility approach life, and always act like (1) is true. It appears everywhere. It's the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its simplist form. And so it is them who will be Christ's seed. But still, why is the word seed used? And it is in verse 12 that one of the coolest word plays I've seen in the scriptures is used:
"For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now are they not his seed?"
Remember, this is an oral speech. The use of the word borne is, wow, wow, wow. Jesus Christ literally bore our sins in the garden. Every one of them. He has borne every single one of them from each of us. And through his sacrifice can we be "born again" into the kingdom of God. We can be his seed. And it is only by being as children, as children of Christ, that we can be saved.
So yeah, that was cool to me. Have a good day.
We've been so busy this week. While we didn't have many lessons set up, we were able to walk into lessons a ton. We ended up with a total of 8 lessons to investigators this week, picked up 4 new investigators, had 5 investigators at church, and have someone being baptized this coming Sunday. Even yesterday, where we had no lessons planned, we ended up teaching 2 strong less-active lessons and a lesson to an investigator. We're picking up speed. 32 strong potential investigators that we have contact with, with 7 progressing. Hopefully I'll fix my numbers so by next month I'll have baptized weekly!
A ton of things happen while on the mission, but I guess one that stands out this week was when we were visiting with an investigator. She knows her bible really well and has the strongest faith in Christ. She isn't able to move very well though because of her weight and missing cartilage in her knees. She's in the bottom of an apartment, about 5 steps down a stairwell. We were talking in the stairwell, letting her get some fresh air, when she told us those 5 stairs look like the mountains to her (with the mountains in the background). I found myself thinking of Joshua and the advice the Lord gave him to be of strong and good courage in Joshua 1:9. I read the scripture, and we spotted her as she, step by step with just a walker (usually she's confined to an automatic wheelchair) climbed those 5 steps. It was pretty remarkable. After sitting a while at the top of the flight, she made the journey down. It was pretty remarkable - she hasn't climbed those steps in months and months. Hopefully this is one of the first steps to getting her to church, and eventually to make the commitment to baptism.
I fixed my bike. I like fixing bikes. I thought you knew I was an engineer mind? :) It's really quite fun to mess around with it. I picked it up pretty fast and now can do a slew of things that will help me out. I filleted my old, full of holes innertubes and lined my tires with them. I then picked up some special "green slime" innertubes and put them in my bike. I'd like to see a thorn get through them now. Needless to say I haven't had any problems this week with flats, and probably won't for at least a year.
Have a good week,
--E Chandler
Topic this week: Christ's seed
I finished King Benjamin's speech and had great insights on it about penitence, giving to the poor, the call for all to do missionary work (Mosiah 2:27: commanded to speak unto YOU), but what really it me hardest was Abinadi's talk, specifically in Mosiah 12-16.
It starts off with a funny verse stating he "came among them in disguise, that they knew him not". He began to prophesy, and the first thing he says is his name. I just picture him pulling a Perry and, after saying his name, "...oops."
It's all about condemning the wicked priests of King Noah for hypocritically teaching - but not living - the law of Moses. He goes on to speak about how the law is a type of Christ, how the strict laws were to "keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him", and how all prophets prophesied of Christ (even if they're speakings were taken out of the Bible). Some phrases he (and Isaiah) used that I like a lot, but don't really warrent discussion:
"he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
"he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep befor her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth."
Mosiah 14:10-11 are really, really interesting to me though. After Isaiah has prophesied of Christ, he uses the phrase "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him [Satan]; he hath put him to grief". That phrase "bruised him" reminded me of Genesis 3, where it is said that though the serpent may bruise man's heal, it is through the woman that the serpent's head will be crushed. "It shall bruise they head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (It wasn't until after that I saw Genesis 3:15 as a footnote as well). Though Satan bruised our heel when he tempted Eve and Adam to partake of the fruit, Christ will be there to fully heal that bruise on the heel then, in the millenium, stomp him out once and for all. It then goes on to state how, after Christ made his soul an offering for sin, he would see 5 things:
1) "see his seed"
2) "prolong his days"
3) "pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hands"
4) "see the travail of his seed"
5) "shall be satisfied"
( 6) by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he will bear their iniquities)
What does it mean though for Christ to "see his seed"? Of course it can't mean that he had children. Luckily, Abinadi takes the next chapter to explain Isaiah clearly to those priests, and to hold them accountable for the sins they were permitting and taking advantage of.
First, he explains the nature of the Godhead, which is super important and I learned a lot about it here, but the main point is that their purpose is one. Their will is one. The spirit connects it all. The coolest verse I think I've ever read about the atonement then comes in the form of Mosiah 15:9:
"Having ascended into heaven, having the bowles of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice."
Cool. "And who shall be his seed?"
Abinadi states that those who belived that the Lord would redeem them and looked forward to a remission of their sins are the heirs of the kingdom of God. This is a pattern I keep picking up on. The plan of salvation is always boiled down to two key elements. (1) Know that only through Christ are you saved, and (2) through this humility approach life, and always act like (1) is true. It appears everywhere. It's the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its simplist form. And so it is them who will be Christ's seed. But still, why is the word seed used? And it is in verse 12 that one of the coolest word plays I've seen in the scriptures is used:
"For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now are they not his seed?"
Remember, this is an oral speech. The use of the word borne is, wow, wow, wow. Jesus Christ literally bore our sins in the garden. Every one of them. He has borne every single one of them from each of us. And through his sacrifice can we be "born again" into the kingdom of God. We can be his seed. And it is only by being as children, as children of Christ, that we can be saved.
So yeah, that was cool to me. Have a good day.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Letter 8-14-2012
Hiya,
This week has been an adventure. We've worked really hard to get into the houses of those potentials that we really believe will be able to accept the invitation to be baptized. Sadly though, we've still had quite a bit of trouble getting inside the homes. All of these potentials are new move-ins. They need time to get settled. I understand that feeling, but the first thing that we always did after moving in was to go to church that first Sunday. Getting to know the ward is invaluable in getting accustomed to a move. If only they could understand just how important that is we would have 5 baptisms this month. Instead we have one scheduled for the 31st.
That one baptism is really great though. So much of what we do is completing families. This specific case, a single mother moved in with her two children, a boy age 13 and a girl age 11. The boy has been baptized, but the girl hasn't. The family was active in their ward before they moved. We met them when, as going through their apartment complex, the boy came up to us and said, "my sister needs to be baptized". He's awesome, super knowledgeable as a 13 year old and really seems to have stepped up to the plate as the only priesthood holder in his house. The mom works a ton though and the place she works is understaffed, but she has committed firmly to us she will be at church this next Sunday with her family to prepare for her daughter's baptism on that Friday the 31st. Other than that we're just going to keep working on getting into homes and finding people that actually will let us in their home.
The "month of perfection" stats are rolling in. Some wards did a lot better than the others. The 6th ward especially made a google doc that's really nicely organized. They have a whopping 26 names of part member families for us to work with. I feel so at home pouring over these sheets and finding out what they say. The wards that did this well are so awesome. The work to do it was insane. But these excel/google docs are invaluable, I think more to me than others. Yum, charts. So we should have a lot of work to do the next couple months.
--Elder Chandler
Thought of the week: justification
After thinking about grace a lot last week and deciding it is the most foundational doctrine out of any of them, I have decided that my study of the BoM is going to focus on the atoning power of Christ. I'm reading it through from the beginning (I'm on Mosiah 2 and stuck there, not because I'm discouraged but because I've now spent two days in it cross referencing. No doubt Mosiah 2-4 are my favorite chapters in the BoM) and as I go through I'm really looking for grace things. I have plenty of time to think about "deeper" things later on in my mission and my life, but I feel it's important to make that foundation first, for, as it says in Jacob 4:12, "why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?". So from there will I start.
Even so, I still get led to different paths from personal revelation.
To be justified is directly related to being saved by grace. True, it is through grace we are saved. But we do have work to do, and that is, said simply, to "reconcile our will to God". (2 Ne 10:24) The judgement is central to being saved. We are brought to the judgement bar because of Christ. That is manifested because little children "by nature, they fall, even so the blood of Christ atoneth for their sins." (Mosiah 3:16) What's the difference between children and adults as far as the judgement goes? Accountability for things that we know are true.
So by two things are we justified before Christ at the judgement bar:
1) Christ's Atonement and the mediation that occurred there
2) Submitting our will to the father, and through the Doctrine of Christ, making up for when we don't follow our fathers will. (PMG lesson 3, AoF 4)
Small refresher; the Doctrine of Christ consists of faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, and enduring to the end (which is really just a conglomeration of the other four)
Here's a nice little scripture chain for all of you:
Romans 3:28
Romans 5:9
Romans 2:13
Moses 6:60 (I think this is my favorite scripture on my mission as of now)
Romans is an amazing chapter on how we will be justified to enter the Celestial Kingdom at the judgement bar. Paul says in 3:28 that by faith we would be justified, except that because all of us transgress the law more is required. 5:9 states that, because of such, we are justified by the blood of Christ. Taking advantage of this is the process of repenting. So we would be justified by faith, but because we sin we must also be justified by repentance.
The bar is higher than that though. 2:13 says that doers of the law are justified, not the hearers of the word. Doing means keeping the commandments as well as remembering to do the first two steps in submitting our will to God. Baptism is a commandment we all must do, as stated in the first part of Moses 6:60. The second part is that we are justified by the holy ghost. I believe the use of the word here is a bit different though, and I find this very insightful.
Before, the use of justified is to, in God's sight, be justified to enter into the CK. The Spirit, though, can justify to us whether we are worth to enter into the kingdom. It is why the wicked will feel they aren't worthy. It's why the righteous will know that the savior has come again. For, "having a perfect knowledge... we shall have a perfect knowledge of our guilt... and a perfect knowledge of [our] enjoyment". (2 Ne 9:13-14) The judgement comes before the judgement based on the perfect knowledge the Spirit gives us, the truth it testifies of. True or false. That's the only answer it can give. In programming we call this a "boolean" value. False, true. 0, 1. Simple. "For the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls." (Jacob 4:13) We are truly justified by the Spirit. (I have a lot more to say on the spirit and more scriptures and stuff about God being a master programmer but this is all that really matters as far as the justification discussion. Maybe another day.)
By following the DoC we will endure to the end - having faith that Jesus is there, repenting to take advantage of the atonement, following the Lord's commandments including baptism, receiving and heeding the spirit and the direction it takes us (always aligned with the will of God, for it IS the will of God) - and stand justified before Christ at the judgement bar. What a great feeling that will be to know that we, in the premortal existence, fought with Michael against the dragon, emerged victorious, and sustained Christ as our Savior. What a great feeling it will be to know "as much then as a do now" that Christ really did infinitely atone for all of our sins, that we not only knew that, but we took advantage of it through the Doctrine of Christ. What a great feeling it will be to stand at the judgement bar with Nephi, Jacob, and Moroni (2 Ne 33:11, Jacob 6:13, Moroni 10:34) and have the Spirit testify to them, to God, to you, that your life on earth returned "True".
This week has been an adventure. We've worked really hard to get into the houses of those potentials that we really believe will be able to accept the invitation to be baptized. Sadly though, we've still had quite a bit of trouble getting inside the homes. All of these potentials are new move-ins. They need time to get settled. I understand that feeling, but the first thing that we always did after moving in was to go to church that first Sunday. Getting to know the ward is invaluable in getting accustomed to a move. If only they could understand just how important that is we would have 5 baptisms this month. Instead we have one scheduled for the 31st.
That one baptism is really great though. So much of what we do is completing families. This specific case, a single mother moved in with her two children, a boy age 13 and a girl age 11. The boy has been baptized, but the girl hasn't. The family was active in their ward before they moved. We met them when, as going through their apartment complex, the boy came up to us and said, "my sister needs to be baptized". He's awesome, super knowledgeable as a 13 year old and really seems to have stepped up to the plate as the only priesthood holder in his house. The mom works a ton though and the place she works is understaffed, but she has committed firmly to us she will be at church this next Sunday with her family to prepare for her daughter's baptism on that Friday the 31st. Other than that we're just going to keep working on getting into homes and finding people that actually will let us in their home.
The "month of perfection" stats are rolling in. Some wards did a lot better than the others. The 6th ward especially made a google doc that's really nicely organized. They have a whopping 26 names of part member families for us to work with. I feel so at home pouring over these sheets and finding out what they say. The wards that did this well are so awesome. The work to do it was insane. But these excel/google docs are invaluable, I think more to me than others. Yum, charts. So we should have a lot of work to do the next couple months.
--Elder Chandler
Thought of the week: justification
After thinking about grace a lot last week and deciding it is the most foundational doctrine out of any of them, I have decided that my study of the BoM is going to focus on the atoning power of Christ. I'm reading it through from the beginning (I'm on Mosiah 2 and stuck there, not because I'm discouraged but because I've now spent two days in it cross referencing. No doubt Mosiah 2-4 are my favorite chapters in the BoM) and as I go through I'm really looking for grace things. I have plenty of time to think about "deeper" things later on in my mission and my life, but I feel it's important to make that foundation first, for, as it says in Jacob 4:12, "why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?". So from there will I start.
Even so, I still get led to different paths from personal revelation.
To be justified is directly related to being saved by grace. True, it is through grace we are saved. But we do have work to do, and that is, said simply, to "reconcile our will to God". (2 Ne 10:24) The judgement is central to being saved. We are brought to the judgement bar because of Christ. That is manifested because little children "by nature, they fall, even so the blood of Christ atoneth for their sins." (Mosiah 3:16) What's the difference between children and adults as far as the judgement goes? Accountability for things that we know are true.
So by two things are we justified before Christ at the judgement bar:
1) Christ's Atonement and the mediation that occurred there
2) Submitting our will to the father, and through the Doctrine of Christ, making up for when we don't follow our fathers will. (PMG lesson 3, AoF 4)
Small refresher; the Doctrine of Christ consists of faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, and enduring to the end (which is really just a conglomeration of the other four)
Here's a nice little scripture chain for all of you:
Romans 3:28
Romans 5:9
Romans 2:13
Moses 6:60 (I think this is my favorite scripture on my mission as of now)
Romans is an amazing chapter on how we will be justified to enter the Celestial Kingdom at the judgement bar. Paul says in 3:28 that by faith we would be justified, except that because all of us transgress the law more is required. 5:9 states that, because of such, we are justified by the blood of Christ. Taking advantage of this is the process of repenting. So we would be justified by faith, but because we sin we must also be justified by repentance.
The bar is higher than that though. 2:13 says that doers of the law are justified, not the hearers of the word. Doing means keeping the commandments as well as remembering to do the first two steps in submitting our will to God. Baptism is a commandment we all must do, as stated in the first part of Moses 6:60. The second part is that we are justified by the holy ghost. I believe the use of the word here is a bit different though, and I find this very insightful.
Before, the use of justified is to, in God's sight, be justified to enter into the CK. The Spirit, though, can justify to us whether we are worth to enter into the kingdom. It is why the wicked will feel they aren't worthy. It's why the righteous will know that the savior has come again. For, "having a perfect knowledge... we shall have a perfect knowledge of our guilt... and a perfect knowledge of [our] enjoyment". (2 Ne 9:13-14) The judgement comes before the judgement based on the perfect knowledge the Spirit gives us, the truth it testifies of. True or false. That's the only answer it can give. In programming we call this a "boolean" value. False, true. 0, 1. Simple. "For the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls." (Jacob 4:13) We are truly justified by the Spirit. (I have a lot more to say on the spirit and more scriptures and stuff about God being a master programmer but this is all that really matters as far as the justification discussion. Maybe another day.)
By following the DoC we will endure to the end - having faith that Jesus is there, repenting to take advantage of the atonement, following the Lord's commandments including baptism, receiving and heeding the spirit and the direction it takes us (always aligned with the will of God, for it IS the will of God) - and stand justified before Christ at the judgement bar. What a great feeling that will be to know that we, in the premortal existence, fought with Michael against the dragon, emerged victorious, and sustained Christ as our Savior. What a great feeling it will be to know "as much then as a do now" that Christ really did infinitely atone for all of our sins, that we not only knew that, but we took advantage of it through the Doctrine of Christ. What a great feeling it will be to stand at the judgement bar with Nephi, Jacob, and Moroni (2 Ne 33:11, Jacob 6:13, Moroni 10:34) and have the Spirit testify to them, to God, to you, that your life on earth returned "True".
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Letter 8-7-2012
Hello all,
It's been a slightly frustrating week. After the hustle and bustle of last week, we've been so quiet this week. We have two people on date for baptism right now - one for this month and one for next month. We have another six, yes six, people that we could put on date IF ONLY WE COULD GET IN THEIR HOUSE.
It's not their fault. There's a nasty sore-throat, runny nose, cough going around lately that's shut down a lot of our investigators and, lo and behold, even ourselves. E Davidson came down with it on Wednesday and he's been feeling awful even up to today. I got it a little bit but I guess I've been taught well. I drank a ton, ton, ton of water and I really only felt a little weak on fast Sunday. I think my headache was more dehydration than sickness that day. It's worth it if we can get in those six houses and put them all on date, though.
This last week we had two birthdays in our zone on Friday and Saturday. On Friday we went to Joe Morley's with the district and the zone leaders for the zone leader, Elder Wild's, birthday. Then on Saturday we went to Buco di Beppo for Sister Hermanson's. I think we've been there before? Confirmation? It's fun to get to know the district better like that. Elder Whipple from my MTC district is in my district here. He's awesome but has come down with a migraine ever since he got out in the field. Elder Livingston is a poly from Hawaii that's really fun to be around and shares my enthusiasm for how personable the scriptures are, so it's super fun to discuss those things with him.
The "month of perfection" ended. It's going to be fun to see the results pour in. I can't wait to dive into the charts they'll give us from the contact information to find people that are searching for a way to get a hold of the missionaries.
Have a swell week,
--Elder Chandler
Spiritual thought for this week - and it's an important one - is grace. Right before I left the MTC, one of my teachers told us we could ask her any question and she'd answer it. When we didn't have anything she taught the LDS doctrine of being saved by grace. She said it was the most misunderstood doctrine in the church. We believe that we are saved by grace alone, she said, and explained it. In my head I disagreed, wasn't really listening, and thought of what was the difference of getting to the celestial and terrestrial kingdoms - the covenants WE make. So that means we do have a part, right?
I kind of left that at the wayside until I ran across 2 Ne 25:23 and 2 Ne 10:24. One says we are saved by grace "after all we can do", while the other says, after our will becomes aligned with God, we are saved "only by the grace of God". I decided I needed to find out exactly how this doctrine works. The way to do this was to define "all we can do" specifically. 2 Ne 10:24 tells us that "all we can do" is to keep the commandments God gives us by reconciling our will to God's. In the MTC was caught in a trap of thinking that keeping the commandments counted as a "good point" and that we did something to get to highest glory. In Mosiah 2, King Benjamin rebukes this way of thinking. He says that when we follow the commandments, we're blessed so in the end that's a moot point. We are and always will be unprofitable servants. In essence with that statement he says we are saved by grace alone.
That turned my thinking upside-down. Keeping the commandments is the expectation, and not keeping them is a sin. Once we know of a commandment, we are then required to live it or suffer the punishment of sin. When we make sacred covenants, we add to that burden and have more required of us. It's the expectation, though, to make those covenants. The only thing we can do is repent. In the bible dictionary the definition of repentance conveniently fits my phraseology used; in the act of repentance we "align our will with God's". How is repentance made possible? Only through the infinite and eternal sacrifice that was the Atonement.
Because of the grace of God, everyone comes into life with 100%. We are to inherit the celestial kingdom. We don't, through our actions, qualify ourselves for the celestial kingdom. We disqualify ourselves from it. It is by accessing the infinite power of the Atonement we can overcome the fall and return to our Father in Heaven. Getting baptized doesn't qualify us for the Celestial kingdom - not getting baptized disqualifies us from it. As missionaries, our purpose is to extend the invitation to be baptized and let others use their agency to either meet their eternal expectations or to find that a "change of heart" to reconcile their will with God's is in order. Benjamin implores us to follow this mindset in Mosiah 2. All in all, neither is wrong. It's valid to say we are saved by grace along, for it is grace which allows us to do "all we can do". But, it is our job to reconcile our will to God through the process of continual repentance, which is truly and action that we must do.
This is the theory that explains it all. The base of everything is the Atonement as far as we are concerned on this Earth. I picture a massive (infinite) bubble on the top of a bubble chart that is the Atonement and Christ's sacrifice. It is from this every other doctrine stems. Every prophet without exception teaches the doctrine of repentence, of reconciling our will to God's, of the only thing we can do on this life that really pertains to our eternal salvation personally. It's from this standpoint I think that everything else will become more clear.
I'll save more that I've thought of for next week, but there is more :)
Just as an add-on to what I said and more about the spirit:
Because of the grace of God, everyone comes into life with 100%. We are to inherit the celestial kingdom. We don't, through our actions, qualify ourselves for the celestial kingdom. We disqualify ourselves from it. It is by accessing the infinite power of the Atonement we can overcome the fall and return to our Father in Heaven. Getting baptized doesn't qualify us for the Celestial kingdom - not getting baptized disqualifies us from it. As missionaries, our purpose is to extend the invitation to be baptized and let others use their agency to either meet their eternal expectations or to find that a "change of heart" to reconcile their will with God's is in order. Benjamin implores us to follow this mindset in Mosiah 2. All in all, neither is wrong. It's valid to say we are saved by grace along, for it is grace which allows us to do "all we can do". But, it is our job to reconcile our will to God through the process of continual repentance, which is truly and action that we must do. Agency is an eternal principle, not to choose ice cream flavors, but to either reconcile to God or the Devil. The Spirit can lead us in these important decisions of seeing God vs Satan, telling us truly "all things we should do" that pertain to these important decision.
It's been a slightly frustrating week. After the hustle and bustle of last week, we've been so quiet this week. We have two people on date for baptism right now - one for this month and one for next month. We have another six, yes six, people that we could put on date IF ONLY WE COULD GET IN THEIR HOUSE.
It's not their fault. There's a nasty sore-throat, runny nose, cough going around lately that's shut down a lot of our investigators and, lo and behold, even ourselves. E Davidson came down with it on Wednesday and he's been feeling awful even up to today. I got it a little bit but I guess I've been taught well. I drank a ton, ton, ton of water and I really only felt a little weak on fast Sunday. I think my headache was more dehydration than sickness that day. It's worth it if we can get in those six houses and put them all on date, though.
This last week we had two birthdays in our zone on Friday and Saturday. On Friday we went to Joe Morley's with the district and the zone leaders for the zone leader, Elder Wild's, birthday. Then on Saturday we went to Buco di Beppo for Sister Hermanson's. I think we've been there before? Confirmation? It's fun to get to know the district better like that. Elder Whipple from my MTC district is in my district here. He's awesome but has come down with a migraine ever since he got out in the field. Elder Livingston is a poly from Hawaii that's really fun to be around and shares my enthusiasm for how personable the scriptures are, so it's super fun to discuss those things with him.
The "month of perfection" ended. It's going to be fun to see the results pour in. I can't wait to dive into the charts they'll give us from the contact information to find people that are searching for a way to get a hold of the missionaries.
Have a swell week,
--Elder Chandler
Spiritual thought for this week - and it's an important one - is grace. Right before I left the MTC, one of my teachers told us we could ask her any question and she'd answer it. When we didn't have anything she taught the LDS doctrine of being saved by grace. She said it was the most misunderstood doctrine in the church. We believe that we are saved by grace alone, she said, and explained it. In my head I disagreed, wasn't really listening, and thought of what was the difference of getting to the celestial and terrestrial kingdoms - the covenants WE make. So that means we do have a part, right?
I kind of left that at the wayside until I ran across 2 Ne 25:23 and 2 Ne 10:24. One says we are saved by grace "after all we can do", while the other says, after our will becomes aligned with God, we are saved "only by the grace of God". I decided I needed to find out exactly how this doctrine works. The way to do this was to define "all we can do" specifically. 2 Ne 10:24 tells us that "all we can do" is to keep the commandments God gives us by reconciling our will to God's. In the MTC was caught in a trap of thinking that keeping the commandments counted as a "good point" and that we did something to get to highest glory. In Mosiah 2, King Benjamin rebukes this way of thinking. He says that when we follow the commandments, we're blessed so in the end that's a moot point. We are and always will be unprofitable servants. In essence with that statement he says we are saved by grace alone.
That turned my thinking upside-down. Keeping the commandments is the expectation, and not keeping them is a sin. Once we know of a commandment, we are then required to live it or suffer the punishment of sin. When we make sacred covenants, we add to that burden and have more required of us. It's the expectation, though, to make those covenants. The only thing we can do is repent. In the bible dictionary the definition of repentance conveniently fits my phraseology used; in the act of repentance we "align our will with God's". How is repentance made possible? Only through the infinite and eternal sacrifice that was the Atonement.
Because of the grace of God, everyone comes into life with 100%. We are to inherit the celestial kingdom. We don't, through our actions, qualify ourselves for the celestial kingdom. We disqualify ourselves from it. It is by accessing the infinite power of the Atonement we can overcome the fall and return to our Father in Heaven. Getting baptized doesn't qualify us for the Celestial kingdom - not getting baptized disqualifies us from it. As missionaries, our purpose is to extend the invitation to be baptized and let others use their agency to either meet their eternal expectations or to find that a "change of heart" to reconcile their will with God's is in order. Benjamin implores us to follow this mindset in Mosiah 2. All in all, neither is wrong. It's valid to say we are saved by grace along, for it is grace which allows us to do "all we can do". But, it is our job to reconcile our will to God through the process of continual repentance, which is truly and action that we must do.
This is the theory that explains it all. The base of everything is the Atonement as far as we are concerned on this Earth. I picture a massive (infinite) bubble on the top of a bubble chart that is the Atonement and Christ's sacrifice. It is from this every other doctrine stems. Every prophet without exception teaches the doctrine of repentence, of reconciling our will to God's, of the only thing we can do on this life that really pertains to our eternal salvation personally. It's from this standpoint I think that everything else will become more clear.
I'll save more that I've thought of for next week, but there is more :)
Just as an add-on to what I said and more about the spirit:
Because of the grace of God, everyone comes into life with 100%. We are to inherit the celestial kingdom. We don't, through our actions, qualify ourselves for the celestial kingdom. We disqualify ourselves from it. It is by accessing the infinite power of the Atonement we can overcome the fall and return to our Father in Heaven. Getting baptized doesn't qualify us for the Celestial kingdom - not getting baptized disqualifies us from it. As missionaries, our purpose is to extend the invitation to be baptized and let others use their agency to either meet their eternal expectations or to find that a "change of heart" to reconcile their will with God's is in order. Benjamin implores us to follow this mindset in Mosiah 2. All in all, neither is wrong. It's valid to say we are saved by grace along, for it is grace which allows us to do "all we can do". But, it is our job to reconcile our will to God through the process of continual repentance, which is truly and action that we must do. Agency is an eternal principle, not to choose ice cream flavors, but to either reconcile to God or the Devil. The Spirit can lead us in these important decisions of seeing God vs Satan, telling us truly "all things we should do" that pertain to these important decision.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Letter 7-31-2012
:)
It was SUCH a busy week. So many things have to be done in preparation for baptism. Finish hanging lessons, go over baptisimal interview questions, get the DL to do the interview, orchestrate weddings between unmarried couples (I got an awesome blue/grey tie for the marriage though so it was worth it totally), get the clothes ready, prepare two talks on baptism, get the program set up... phew. But it happened. All three of our investigators on date showed up to their baptism and sacrament meetings for their confirmations. Both of their wards were at the same time so we went on splits. Quite the experience. It was nice to get to know these "golden investigators".
While Sonya and Dominic were having their baptisimal interview, their three children under the age of 5 were content just to massacre me. I decided it was better just to keep them off the others so I layed on the ground and let them crawl on me. My shirt had a lot of chocolate milk marks and such. At some point I just stopped feeling I guess, so I had a pretty good "nap" while they ran an electric foam fan they found in E Davidson's backpack over my nose, "pumped me up" with a small bicycle pump, and drew pictures of the current events. Kids are fun.
We had Zone Conference on Thursday. It clarified a lot of the confusion the missionaries were having as the mediators between the bishops/ward mission leaders and the mission president. He made it very clear what we were to be doing. The last thing Nephi in 3 Ne 7 talks about is baptism. Jesus Christ while in the "cloud" in 3 Ne 9 talked about baptism. In 3 Ne 11 the first thing Christ addresses is - baptism.
I did some of my own research and found out something very interesting to me. In every single account that we have of Christ physically coming down and ministering on the earth - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and 3 Nephi - Christ begins AND ends his ministry with discussion of baptism. What's the first part of all the gospels? John the Baptist and the importance of Christ "fulfill[ing] all righteousness". (See 2 Ne 31 on definition of fulfill all righteousness). Each ends with Christ leaving the apostles with a challenge to "feed my sheep", to "follow thou me", to preach "repentance and remission of sins", and, to show what all those equate to in Matthew, to "teach all nations, baptizing them". The BoM account starts with Christ instituting baptism in 3 Ne 11 and again finishes with Christ teaching His doctrine of faith, repentance, baptism, the holy ghost, and enduring to the end.
Personal study is what keeps me sane. That time is sacred. This week I finished 2 Ne and decided it'd be nice to have the knowledge of Jesus the Christ. I feel a kinship to Talmage since I took a ton of classes in the building named after him at BYU :) There's so much to learn in there. I remember trying to read it during college and quickly losing interest as I felt everything was going over my head. Just since then though, I now find myself reading it just like I would Harry Potter. My gospel understanding is growing so fast. I hope to finish Jesus the Christ by the end of this month while still spending time in Preach my Gospel and the BoM each day.
Oops, I was talking about zone conference. Baptism. Afterwards he unveiled our standards of excellence - a baptism a week. Intense. He also showed us a new plan to keep people on date. We're to make little calendars for potential investigators that we want to put on date. It's fun to schedule lessons and such in pencil, ready to change but giving them a part in their baptisimal process. It also makes the stress on us that I was talking about earlier much smaller, which is nice. My favorite part is giving them scripture chunks to study each week. Yay scriptures.
We're really going to work on finding new investigators to put on date this week. Losing three means we have to pick up two more to meet our goal of four for next month. (we already have two on date for August). I think I can, I think I can...
Thanks for all the support everyone is giving to me. It's really nice!
(trudge, trudge,) Trudging along through mortality--
Elder Chandler
___
uhh, spiritual thought for the week. I gave the baptism one so uhh... more cool phraseology. Getting through the Isaiah chapters wasn't too bad - though none of it really applies directly to missionary work so it's not very colorful (at least compared to 2 Ne 29-32...). The phrases Isaiah uses though are awesome. "The cry of the blood of the saints shall asend up to God from the ground against them". "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb... and a little child shall lead them". "ensign to the nations". "For all his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still".
I guess I have another one. After the Isaiah chapters, Nephi gives some specific ways we can come to understand the writings of Isaiah. I think what he says also applies to any other book of scripture. 2 Ne 25.
1) "they know not the manner of the prophesying among the Jews" - Nephi describes how, because he came from Jerusalem and knew the Jews, he understands the words of Isaiah more than his children born in the promised land. This is what makes modern-day revelation so important. It really is easier to understand. It's of us. Sadly it keeps the scriptures foreign, so as far as that goes this is kinda moot.
2) "they are plain unto all those that are filled with the spirit of prophesy." - Nephi goes on to say that we can get the spirit of prophesy "according to the spirit which is in [us]". Invite the spirit before studying scriptures. It will intensify and clarify what they are saying.
3) "my soul delighteth in plainness." - Nephi really tried to keep things simple so we could understand.
4) "in the days that the prophecies of Isaiah shall be fulfulled men shall know of a surety" - Being here during the time that things from Isaiah are being fulfilled is a massive blessing to know what the scriptures are talking about. "For I know that [my words] shall be of great worth unto them in the last days; for in that day shall they understand them; wherefore, for their good I have written them." Isn't that a great promise? The words are for us. We can understand them because they're about us. Cool beans.
I'm buying a bike today, just so you know. I don't know how expensive it will be but I want it to last through college so it might cost quite a bit... Tell the Ericksons thank you for me, they gave me a nice gift card to Five Guys in the area. Also tell them I'm steering clear of the funeral potatoes.
It was SUCH a busy week. So many things have to be done in preparation for baptism. Finish hanging lessons, go over baptisimal interview questions, get the DL to do the interview, orchestrate weddings between unmarried couples (I got an awesome blue/grey tie for the marriage though so it was worth it totally), get the clothes ready, prepare two talks on baptism, get the program set up... phew. But it happened. All three of our investigators on date showed up to their baptism and sacrament meetings for their confirmations. Both of their wards were at the same time so we went on splits. Quite the experience. It was nice to get to know these "golden investigators".
While Sonya and Dominic were having their baptisimal interview, their three children under the age of 5 were content just to massacre me. I decided it was better just to keep them off the others so I layed on the ground and let them crawl on me. My shirt had a lot of chocolate milk marks and such. At some point I just stopped feeling I guess, so I had a pretty good "nap" while they ran an electric foam fan they found in E Davidson's backpack over my nose, "pumped me up" with a small bicycle pump, and drew pictures of the current events. Kids are fun.
We had Zone Conference on Thursday. It clarified a lot of the confusion the missionaries were having as the mediators between the bishops/ward mission leaders and the mission president. He made it very clear what we were to be doing. The last thing Nephi in 3 Ne 7 talks about is baptism. Jesus Christ while in the "cloud" in 3 Ne 9 talked about baptism. In 3 Ne 11 the first thing Christ addresses is - baptism.
I did some of my own research and found out something very interesting to me. In every single account that we have of Christ physically coming down and ministering on the earth - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and 3 Nephi - Christ begins AND ends his ministry with discussion of baptism. What's the first part of all the gospels? John the Baptist and the importance of Christ "fulfill[ing] all righteousness". (See 2 Ne 31 on definition of fulfill all righteousness). Each ends with Christ leaving the apostles with a challenge to "feed my sheep", to "follow thou me", to preach "repentance and remission of sins", and, to show what all those equate to in Matthew, to "teach all nations, baptizing them". The BoM account starts with Christ instituting baptism in 3 Ne 11 and again finishes with Christ teaching His doctrine of faith, repentance, baptism, the holy ghost, and enduring to the end.
Personal study is what keeps me sane. That time is sacred. This week I finished 2 Ne and decided it'd be nice to have the knowledge of Jesus the Christ. I feel a kinship to Talmage since I took a ton of classes in the building named after him at BYU :) There's so much to learn in there. I remember trying to read it during college and quickly losing interest as I felt everything was going over my head. Just since then though, I now find myself reading it just like I would Harry Potter. My gospel understanding is growing so fast. I hope to finish Jesus the Christ by the end of this month while still spending time in Preach my Gospel and the BoM each day.
Oops, I was talking about zone conference. Baptism. Afterwards he unveiled our standards of excellence - a baptism a week. Intense. He also showed us a new plan to keep people on date. We're to make little calendars for potential investigators that we want to put on date. It's fun to schedule lessons and such in pencil, ready to change but giving them a part in their baptisimal process. It also makes the stress on us that I was talking about earlier much smaller, which is nice. My favorite part is giving them scripture chunks to study each week. Yay scriptures.
We're really going to work on finding new investigators to put on date this week. Losing three means we have to pick up two more to meet our goal of four for next month. (we already have two on date for August). I think I can, I think I can...
Thanks for all the support everyone is giving to me. It's really nice!
(trudge, trudge,) Trudging along through mortality--
Elder Chandler
___
uhh, spiritual thought for the week. I gave the baptism one so uhh... more cool phraseology. Getting through the Isaiah chapters wasn't too bad - though none of it really applies directly to missionary work so it's not very colorful (at least compared to 2 Ne 29-32...). The phrases Isaiah uses though are awesome. "The cry of the blood of the saints shall asend up to God from the ground against them". "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb... and a little child shall lead them". "ensign to the nations". "For all his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still".
I guess I have another one. After the Isaiah chapters, Nephi gives some specific ways we can come to understand the writings of Isaiah. I think what he says also applies to any other book of scripture. 2 Ne 25.
1) "they know not the manner of the prophesying among the Jews" - Nephi describes how, because he came from Jerusalem and knew the Jews, he understands the words of Isaiah more than his children born in the promised land. This is what makes modern-day revelation so important. It really is easier to understand. It's of us. Sadly it keeps the scriptures foreign, so as far as that goes this is kinda moot.
2) "they are plain unto all those that are filled with the spirit of prophesy." - Nephi goes on to say that we can get the spirit of prophesy "according to the spirit which is in [us]". Invite the spirit before studying scriptures. It will intensify and clarify what they are saying.
3) "my soul delighteth in plainness." - Nephi really tried to keep things simple so we could understand.
4) "in the days that the prophecies of Isaiah shall be fulfulled men shall know of a surety" - Being here during the time that things from Isaiah are being fulfilled is a massive blessing to know what the scriptures are talking about. "For I know that [my words] shall be of great worth unto them in the last days; for in that day shall they understand them; wherefore, for their good I have written them." Isn't that a great promise? The words are for us. We can understand them because they're about us. Cool beans.
I'm buying a bike today, just so you know. I don't know how expensive it will be but I want it to last through college so it might cost quite a bit... Tell the Ericksons thank you for me, they gave me a nice gift card to Five Guys in the area. Also tell them I'm steering clear of the funeral potatoes.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Letter 7-24-2012
Turns out my P-Days are Tuesdays in the field, so sorry for the forever-long wait. It means there's a ton of stuff I have to go over though, so sorry for the length. I'm sure it'll be shorter next week. :)My new address is:
6748 Hollowdale Dr.
Cottonwood Heights, UT 84121
The last week (Fri-Wed) in the MTC was a blast. We'd already gone through pretty much all the fundamentals in PMG, so we really dove into ones that we felt less comfortable with. It was really great to be able to get more practice in teaching boldly. That was my district's main trouble. We really tried to keep off people's toes, but when you're teaching truth I guess there's no reason not to be strong about it. Really working on taking "maybe" out of my vocabulary. (bold but not overbearing) The MTC was amazing. The growth I feel like I had there is incredible.
The last pep-talk by my DL in the MTC, Elder Crane, was kinda funny. He went around and said something he was grateful for with each person in the district. Mine was how enthusiastic I was about the scriptures. I seriously don't think it's possible for all you to realize how much more I appreciate the scriptures now. Nephi is hilarious. Re-read the chapter on the trip across the ocean and tell me if you don't laugh at least once at him "complaining" about his swollen hands or his unnecessary "poetry" about his parents feeling like they're about to drown. His (I don't know if this is a word but if it isn't I coined it) phraseology is some of the best ever. I just finished 2 Ne 29 today for personal study. My scriptures are very colorful now :) (thanks for those pencils mom)
I took a fair amount of pictures at the MTC, so those should be coming in soon. Saw a ton of people I know, but only had the chance to take pictures with a few.
On Wednesday I left the MTC at 6:00 am. We actually took a bus all the way up to the airport, dropped off a group going to San Antonio there (including Elder Ahlstrom from my ward at BYU!) then drove BACKWARDS to the mission "home", which is really just a regular stake center that's the mission office. The true mission home is actually out of the mission though. (That means all letters get to be sent directly to the homes we're staying in though!) Met the mission president a bit during an interview. Most of it was spent on him talking to me about staying away from family which was very frustrating since I feel like we had better things to talk about than him admonishing me over and over about staying away from trying to get in "unintentional" meetups... sigh. Whatever.
My trainer is named Elder Davidson. He talks a LOT, which is okay since I want to spend a while just listening anyways. Sit is frustrating to try and take over a part of a lesson and practice, but he barrels through and sometimes goes on tangents. He keeps us busy though and our schedule full. Spent a fair amount of time meeting the ward leaders around here. Since you'll all have my address anyways, I might as well asy I'm serving in the Union Fort Stake. The stake is my area. It's a weird finger on the east edge of the mission that juts out into the south mission. It's about a mile and a half long and a half mile tall. E. Davidson has been in it for his whole mission so far as part of the South Mission before the split (he's only been out 5 months or so). We stay in a member's house that has a basement. They're usually out of town.
Mission dynamics are really interesting. Mom, you gave me a ton of great information so I actually started out with quite a bit of knowledge about the "rescue" effort happening in the area. There's a really strong push from the general authorities right now for what they call the perfect month. Each ward is trying to document every member in the area including less actives. They're finding records are very sorely outdated in many cases. My area has a ton of transient housing so it's a mess. Some wards are doing better than others. The problem comes with a bit of miscommunication - the mission pres seemed to give direction to the bishops in a conference they had that the missionaries in the area would put just as much emphasis on temple recommends as baptisms. At the latest mission conference however, there seemed to be a clear message to all the missionaries to still keep with the purpose as in PMG and baptize. I personally am siding more with the bishops here.
Just in this first week I'm realizing how great and at the same time how stagnant the work is around here. We have 3 baptisms scheduled for this Saturday, so we're almost baptizing weekly already! But the larger problem is that most of these come from people that have recently moved in. The non-transients all are very much on one side or the other. 40-50% of the people here are baptized in the church. Activity rates in wards are in the 30-40% range. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure Bentonville is substantially higher than that? In any case that is not nearly enough people at church. The less actives are the ones that know people that have no connections to the church. If we can skyrocket activity, we'll have a ton more real, useful referrals. This area sorely needs a booster. As we go around to appointments and potentials, we'll get the same referrals that we've had already. Since I've gotten in we haven't had one new investigator which scares me about the next few months. First loyalty to the mission president nonetheless, so baptizing we shall do until further notice.
---------------------------------------------
OKAY now that I'm done with background I can share some cool experiences!
The couple getting baptized on Saturday has a really cool story. They are a couple in government housing with 4 kids aged 11, 5, 4, and 3. The 11 y/o was staying at her grandmothers and was baptized while she was there. When she came home her dad decided to start taking the discussions and immediately knew it was the path he needed to take. His wife didn't have the same sentiments though. Dominic (the dad) was so frustrated that he left the house and nobody knew where he was. The missionaries at the time, E Davidson and Wilson, stopped by to teach Dominic and instead met with Sonya. After a lesson she knew she also needed to be baptized and they started a fast for Dominic to come back. That night Dominic called, then as they broke the fast Dominic showed back up. Truly a miracle. Their kids are a blast. They really have a strong testimony in the church and know they need to do all they can to bring their family to be sealed in the temple.
Our other baptism is another fun story. His wife and family live next to one of the churches in our area. After two years, the wife called the church and said she wanted to be baptized. No one had contacted her before. She was baptized before I got in the area, but because of health complications her husband wasn't able to be until now. He's got a very strong testimony of the BoM.
One of the biggest privledges we have is to be able to take our investigators to Temple Square. We set up an appointment with the sisters, hitch a ride with some members (they're just as hospitable as you would think. I think we've already gotten 3 $20 bills and they won't let us refuse. Good thing there's a Chipotle and Cafe Rio in the area :D :D :D ). The sisters give a 30-45 minute tour through some of the N/S visitors centers and then we head back home. The spirit is awesome there. I really love the Cristus statue and the murals around it. So cool.
The work is strong in SLC--
Elder Chandler
2 Nephi 10:24-25. I think they might be my new favorite scriptures. Grace is so strong. The Atonement is awesome. Also, if you have a Preach My Gospel laying around, turn to page 101 and read over it. It should settle your discussion as we left. Also there's a really good talk from Pres Bednar he gave at the MTC a while back about recognizing the Spirit. "Don't worry about it. Be a good boy, be a good girl. Honor your covenants and keep the commandments, and the spirit will lead you." He repeated that so many times I have it memorized now :) You're the best.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Welcome to the SLCC MIssion, Elder Chandler--
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Letter 7-12-2012
Hi everyone-It's been a pretty good week. Gone a bit faster than last week, thank goodness. The language is going well at least - coming way faster than I thought it would. My district is really great and has a really good mix of people and personalities. There's not one Utah elder... the odds are so small for that to happen, it's kinda weird. Half of them are going to Las Vegas and the others are following me to SLCC. There's eight of us elders and no sisters, so there's a kind of "scout camp" mentality to the whole thing which makes it pretty entertaining. My teachers, Sister McGill and Brother Gates, are both great teachers with very different styles of teaching. It keeps me on my toes I guess.
Random interesting thing of the week: Our branch presidency was talking about the KC temple and its olive branch motif. One of them went there for the open house and two of the elders in my district went there for their endowments. Anyways, we ended up on how it's built really close to Jackson County. I was just thinking about how close Bentonville is to that area, and if we really were to ever all physically gather there, Bentonville would definitely be in conceivable range of zion. Who knows, maybe you will get a temple soon? :)
On Tuesday my roommates, Elder McPhearson and Elder Bills left after their three week stay to Maryland. They're great examples and should destroy the mission field. Pretty much everything I know about the MTC I know through them. Maybe we'll be a good example for the new Romanian-speaking elders that just moved in my room to take their spots?
On Wednesday I had the opportunity with my district to host the new elders coming in. It's a pretty fun job and got us out of an hour of each of our classes. It's also really cool to be able to see the new missionaries coming in this week and realizing just how much I've grown. It feels like I've been here for a month or two, but really it's only been two weeks. It's really making me realize that anything is possible when you put enough time into it, especially when the Spirit is with you the whole way.
I've been looking really closely for Nick Segard, Nathan Ricks, and Kenric Gordon but I've only seen a glimpse of Kenric... I guess I need to look closer.
-Elder Chandler
Last thing before time runs out: 2 Ne 32:3. Angels speak by the power of the holy ghost, wherefore they speak the words of Christ. In that scripture, substitute words of Christ for "holy ghost". It changes the meaning completely and better explains the later verses.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Letter 7-5-2012
Hello all,
It took forever for P-day to come, but it did finally get here... got in Wednesday and my P-days are Thursdays. They don't let you have that first one.
It's been a great experience here at the MTC so far. It's probably the only campus where you're on a first-name basis with everyone from day one. It's a dedicated place and the spirit is really strong. We've gone in-depth to the first and second lessons already - I've never had so much study time in my life where there's literally nothing to do but study study study. So I guess I'm learning a bit. I do get very sleepy though, especially between 1 and 3... I'll need some atomic fireballs or something to keep me awake!
I've seen quite a few elders I know just wandering around. I've seen Elder Chandler twice, I think I've seen Elder Bell from a distance (is he still here? Maybe I'm just seeing things.) Elder Monson, Elder Sederholm, and Elder Dunn from AR are around. Elder O'Reilly from AF is here also, as well as Elder Plowman from Frisco. From my BYU ward I've seen Elders Stephenson, Lucas, Tasso, Ahlstrom, Witt, Bradley, and probably a few others I've forgotten. It's definitely the place to be for people my age. When you hit 19, there's no other better place to be.
There was a couple really good firesides on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday, a guy named Ted Gibbons came and did an incredible forensics (acting) act of Willard Richards. It really personalized the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and taught me a lot about how it worked. On Wednesday, it was the fourth of course, and we actually deviated from schedule a bit. A special fireside by a former MTC branch president who served as a district court judge gave a nice talk about independance day and a couple musical acts spiced it up. The fireside didn't end until (gasp, we're supposed to be in the dorms!) 9:30, and then they let us watch the fireworks from stadium of fire inside MTC premises. The views were all awful since the missionary field was flooded with people and was blocked off for the elders (maybe some of you were out there?) but I sat on the fence as close to the field as possible and the view was pretty okay. The show lasted until 10:30 (lights out??!?) and we didn't end up being in bed until 11:30. 11:30. Probably the latest I'll ever be able to be up on my mission ever, woo.
One week down, 103 more to go,
Elder Chandler
Friday, June 29, 2012
Elder Sighting 06-29-2012--
----Original Message-----
From: Shawn Sederholm
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 3:37 PM To: Greg Chandler
Subject: Ryan
Bishop and Valerie,
We were having lunch today in the MTC and Ryan and his companion from Kansas City came up and spoke with us. Ryan looks great. He is excited and will be a great representative of the Lord. His Pday is Thursday , so it may be awhile before you hear from him. He will be a great missionary for his companion. We leave tomorrow and can't wait to begin doing the Lord's work in Denmark. See you in three years.
From: Shawn Sederholm
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 3:37 PM To: Greg Chandler
Subject: Ryan
Bishop and Valerie,
We were having lunch today in the MTC and Ryan and his companion from Kansas City came up and spoke with us. Ryan looks great. He is excited and will be a great representative of the Lord. His Pday is Thursday , so it may be awhile before you hear from him. He will be a great missionary for his companion. We leave tomorrow and can't wait to begin doing the Lord's work in Denmark. See you in three years.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Hoorah for Israel!
He was in a hurry to get going!Other families were hugging and kissing and photo-ing on the beautiful Provo Temple grounds and in the mature pines of 9th East. A sweet older "Elder" had welcomed us to the parking lot across from the MTC to do that, too. I had it in my mind that I wanted a photo of each of the six younger boys (mine plus two cousins) with this handsome, faithful missionary. But, Ryan was ready to go. He denied being nervous, but he was quiet and had seemed tense all morning. He told me "no more pictures, not even one more and requested that we drive straight into the drop-off line. It seemed really quickly final, but I know this kid-- goodbyes are tough, he speaks love differently than touch and sentimental moments, and when he is facing something new it makes him nervous. He was trying to dive in, this was his process, and I felt to respect that.
As we drove down the welcome at the MTC, the most handsome, happy string of young adult men in ties waited to latch onto one of these new missionaries. Ryan giggled. Seeing them pleased him. I choked in my throat as said outloud, "This is soooo cool." He giggled more. I pulled over at number 29, Ryan jumped out and this burly, strong, athletic Elder with a great, big smile yelled out, "Hello, Elder!" and ran to Ryan's assistance. "No, let me take that." "Take your time." "Oh, I got it." And he strapped Ryan's backpack to his pack and rolled away both suitcases. Ryan, with stick, straight, soldier form, patted me on the back once, told the boys "bye", and was off. For a second, I wondered if there ought to be more, but then...... It seemed to me that I saw all of the nervousness fade-- walking next to this "host" Elder, Ryan straightened up with confidence, he smiled, and knew his destiny.
I couldn't resist yelling back, "Ryan, turn around and wave!" I snapped this picture, and he was off through the sea of dark suits and ties. I am unbelievably proud of this kid. So proud.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
Set Apart as an Elder--
Saturday, June 23rd, Ryan was set apart as a missionary in advance of our driving trip to Utah. This was done in a meeting with our family and President Stout. Ryan conducted the meeting, we sang "Called to Serve", Jamison prayed, and then President Stout spoke. He talked about there being three reasons to serve a mission-- 1) Telestial- "what I will become", "What growth will I receive". 2) Terrestrial- "I want to help others". 3) Celestial- "I want to bring glory to God". He also told the story of the Brother of Jared-- how be moltened rock into something like glass. He taught that the Brother of Jared was a witness of Christ because he saw Him. He gave Ryan a clear stone to carry with him on his mission to remind him that he was a witness of Christ and would be able to see the Lord's finger in the events of the mission.Ryan bore his testimony and spoke of a testimony being cumulative. He also told the brothers that he thought they all ought to plan towards missions, too.
The setting apart focused on a couple of things: Charity and discernment.
Call to the Salt Lake Central Mission--
Ryan got his mission call yesterday-- Salt Lake City Central Mission. He leaves on June 27th. We are so proud of him.The Central Mission is a brand new mission come July 1st of this year. It is tiny. My brother, who was able to study the map, said that if it was square it would be 60 City blocks north to south and about 6 miles wide. It includes the Salt Lake suburbs of Taylorsville and Midvale, plus parts of West Jordan, Sandy and Murray.
On the mission map posted here I have placed a star where I grew up in Taylorsville. A week ago I told Ryan that I was voting for his call to be somewhere that we had family heritage. I was thinking England, Wales, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, etc. But, as Ryan pointed out, Taylorsville is full of family history-- very recent Lewis family history.
Cousin Alyssa drove to Provo in the 15 seater van and picked up Ryan and some friends from BYU. Then, Ryan opened his call at Uncle Matthew's home surrounded by famly and friends. Present were Andrew Soderquist, Grandma and Grandpa Lewis, Aunt Kimberly and Uncle Matthew and their six kids, and six or eight BYU friends. The family skyped from Arkansas and watched the call open via the Internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SjrpzCHj3k
Ryan giggled and put his head in his hands in unbelief. It seemed to be unbelievable in a happy way.
Ryan knows this area well. For twelve years he climbed the apricot tree and played in the tree house in my parents' backyard. We have walked the Jordan River parkway, played at parks, gone to the library, visited the Jordan River Temple, min-golfed, and driven those roads and neighborhoods. He was even baptized in the Taylorsville Central Stake Center 11 years ago. Even though my parents no longer live there, the boys and I always make an annual trip to Leatherby's Ice Cream Shop on Redwood Road for the delicious homemade caramel.
We think that Greg's brother, Gary, and his family live inside the mission. Greg's brother, Lynnae's family and Greg's brother, Alan's family are just two to four blocks outside the mission boundaries. Mike's family is close by, too. My Dad's wife, Wendy, knows the mission president, Richard Moffat, from the Salt Lake Foothill Stake.
One thing about serving in Utah, I feel confident that he will be cared for my members and will never want for dinner appointments. :)
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