Lord, How Is It Done?

We have had missionaries staying in our home for about 15 months now.  I find it very interesting to get to know the different personalities.  We have had elders who are a bit less motivated and are quite content to go to their appointments and meetings and not much more.  We have had some elders who are so driven that they get frustrated with themselves for not working hard enough even though every minute of their day is involved in missionary work.  I think I want to talk about the second type this week.

It is amazing to see how serious some elders are, even to the point of using their p-day to study the gospel and do missionary work, and then they get down on themselves for not doing enough.  They want perfection for themselves.  I admire their motivation, but it kind of makes me question their testimony.  I don’t mean this in a bad way, but do they really understand what they are teaching?  You can’t do it on your own!  Second Nephi chapter 31 verses 20-21 teaches that there is no other way except through Jesus Christ that we can be saved – you can’t save yourself.

I recently read in Enos of his “wrestle” with the spirit and how he cried in mighty prayer for his own soul.  The Lord forgave him of his sins and Enos’ guilt was swept away.  Enos was amazed and asked “Lord how is it Done?” -Enos1:7  The answer came that it was because of his faith in Christ.  Maybe this type of missionary needs to put a little more trust in the Lord and not put it all on themselves.

Wow, that was kind of heavy stuff…

Here’s what’s happening with our current elders.  It looks like there will soon be a baptism in our stake, a young person from a “counterculture” group in the area has accepted the challenge to be baptized, that is a happy event, and they will invite their whole family to the baptism so there will be lots of missionary opportunities there. 

The Elders have a new person whom they have been teaching the past two nights and all seems to be going well with that too. 

It looks like the hard work is paying its dividends and the drought of missionary opportunities is easing up a bit.

Sorry for missing last week, I was on vacation and had nothing to report.  Slightly amusing story for this week:  While I was on vacation, I asked the elders to feed the birds and fish.  All went well except that this time of year seems to be a great time for moss to build up in the pond, so the pump was draining small amounts of water over the edge and so I got a text asking what they should do.  I just asked them to keep refilling the pond.  I think they felt like it was their fault that the moss built up, but that’s not the case. 

Thank you for reading my blog.  Be awesome this week and share your faith with others.  As always pray for your missionary.