Make friends wherever you can !
Even if you just meet them on the street !
Even if you just meet them on the street !
I often send quotes that I come across to Elder Teal. Last week I sent this snippet from Elder Holland, addressed to new Mission presidents originally ..
"Presidents, you'll have occasion to ask, and your missionaries will have many occasions to ask, why is this so hard? Why doesn't this go better? Why can't our success be more rapid? Why aren't there more people joining the church? It is the truth! We believe in angels! We trust in miracles! Why don't people just walk to the font? Why isn't the only risk in the mission field that of pneumonia? Just being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font! Why isn't it easier president? Why do the people not understand president? Why do they reject us president? Can't they see this? These are things that a 19, and a 20, and a 21, and a 22¬year¬old will ask. They are things that I've asked! I thought about it a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. It's not church doctrine, per se, it's just my feeling, to you as you prepare to go into the mission field. I am convinced that Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience! Salvation was never easy! We are the church of Jesus Christ! This is the truth! He is our great eternal head! Why would we believe, why would we think that it would be easy for us, when it was never easy for him?"
His response.
"That's a nice quote, thanks for sending it! I think one of the biggest recurring problems with people is that they feel entitled to an easy life if there really is a God, and don't understand exactly that which Elder Holland talks about here. I've also thought a lot recently about how important it is for us to have trials so that we can learn and grow, and that the Atonement doesn't take those trials away from us but rather makes them mean something. If God were to simply take every difficult thing out of lives, there would be no point in living, as there would be no growth."
"You should read an article called "The Efficacy of Prayer" by C.S. Lewis. President Heder used extracts from it in a recent training and it was really interesting."
So I did read it and I recommend it to everyone ... You can find it HERE
"It's been a good week, and really hot over here too! We got up over 35 degrees on Thursday!
Getting in the car when it's been out in the sun is a killer, and we're glad we have air con!"
"I feel like the start of my mission was so long ago, and I definitely have a different feeling about my mission now than I did then. But I don't want to call it tiredness yet. I feel like I'm just coming round onto the home straight, and I want to hit the finish line so worn out that I can barely stand!
And don't worry about me, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
I'll still have plenty of energy when I get home!"
