January 7, 2009

(answers to questions)

The meeting was only with the missionary ward leader and the ward missionaries, as of yet we have never met with the bishop, but I plan and hope we will be changing that soon. He has been out of town for a couple weeks but will be returning before this Sunday (I think. The ward missionary leader has chosen to focus on retaining the new converts that are still active and those we are baptizing each week rather than reactivation. We have our second meeting tonight, as of yet I haven't seen a whole lot happening, but as its been only a week and we'll be giving our first report to them tonight. It's not that surprising. We'll also be doing a couple training sessions with them to help them prepare to teach the lessons to those recently baptized. As for the home and visiting teaching, not sure how those are working out at this point, plan to talk to the relief society pres. tonight at the meeting and also hope to see that begin with the male end of things, though at this point we are lacking an elders quorum president/quorum, and as this is under the responsibility of the bishop, we'll have to talk to him but I trust the Lord will prompt him how to figure that out as we don't have to keys to revelation on that end.

Thankfully I have been blessed to have been prepared relatively well on the topics of the missionary lessons and have been able to dig a little more into the Atonement of Christ, and also His attributes. More recently I've been studying humility, chapter 1 in Preach My Gospel and am working on a plan to have consistent well rounded growth in knowledge. I have been somewhat categorizing it into a couple diff. categories:

Things I need, to know to be a better missionary (teaching techs doctrine etc.) Things I need, to have greater testimony and be a greater tool in the hands of God, Atonement, Christlike Attributes, praying and listening to and recognizing the Spirit etc. and also just a greater grasp and familiarity with the scriptures, knowing of various stories that could be used in teaching, scriptures to memorize etc.

Recently I've begun reading the Book of Mormon marking examples of different Christlike attributes in specific colors, and also taking note of Christ's names, and the prophecies of Him. It's been interesting to note just how many there are, but I thought today to look into when certain names are used and perhaps the significance behind why they were used in certain points of time. I've gained a greater appreciation for the Plan of Salvation in my life as well, and in teaching it especially. In fact, in the teaching of all these aspects of the gospel points I hadn't thought about before have been brought to my attention, and just in speaking of them many times a day helps to learn more about them as well, and develop more questions as well to direct study to learn more about them.

Well, the work continues on here in Itapetinga. I'll be staying here this transfer. It's been a little interesting teaching recently as we've been out of materials, (haven't had any Books of Mormon) for maybe two or three weeks, pamphlets for Restoration or Gospel of Christ as well) but we've invited people to pray, and as promised by the prophets of old and in our days, the Spirit will and has testified. That's something I've come to think a bit about recently, having the Spirit with us in the lessons and living so that we can be guided by it throughout the day. Something I used to do, and have been doing at times here on the mission was worrying so much about checking the state of my worthiness, that I divided against myself. I kept myself from doing the things I could and was supposed to be doing because I was so often looking inwards. The way we come to have have the spirit with us as our constant companion is by righteous living, actions, doing our best each day to do as the Lord has clearly commanded us, and trusting that as we do our best, the Lord will "go before us".

Jacob