Doctrine of Preparation

30th June 2015

These last two weeks were one of the most spiritually and physically exhausting periods of my mission so far, but i am grateful for it.

This Last week has been Preparation for the Arrival of Elder Pearson. And Yesterday we were blessed to be able to hear from him. Of all the things he talked about I found that the subject of preparation was one that stood out to me the most, because i know that back at home I was never prepared fully for anything, and now because of that I am much more determined to be more prepared than ever before. I learned the steps of creating a Goal. You first start with;

1. Trust in the Lord. 

2. The Outcome - What you want to have happened and accomplished by the end. But most importantly is setting a date to achieve that Goal.

3. Challenges - Things that may stand in the way of achieving that goal

4. Resources - The skills and qualities that you have as well as other people that are around you

5.Detailed Plan - Using the resources that you have to overcome the challenges that you may face. Looking at it from different angles constantly trying to make improvements

6. Massive Action - Praying about the action to take and being determined to act on the answer you receive.

7.Leverage, or in other words a reason for doing it. And with most goals planned Love is the general motive.

Sorry for the no email last week but I was a bit under the weather.

This week was as I like to call the last three days an abundance of Two Dinners. Three or four times this last week we had members give us a dinner and then the next house we went to was dinner time as well. So I unfortunately may have to be rolled off my mission if this carries on.

Also another thing that happened this week, that seemed to have alerted almost all the "Older generation" in this ward was the announcement by the United States, and we attended a ward YSA gathering and this was brought up by the leaders. One thing that stood out to me was two different comments. The first being that as we get closer and closer to the second coming the more wicked and farther from God the world is getting. And the second was concerning equality. When these two things were said a scripture popped into my mind from Moses 7:18

This talks about How the Lord called his people Zion (In the Days of Noah) and they were of one heart and one mind. So as this scripture says, the closer we get to God the more Equality there will be. Henceforth if everyone knew and obeyed the Will of God then the World will be equal. Unfortunately that isn't going to happen until the millennium.

We also had a few run ins these last three weeks with religious debates of a sort. The first one was when we were on Trade Offs with the Zone Leaders. Mike is a Christian I wasnt too sure which denomination but me and Elder Goddard knocked on his door and he invited us in (Both of us at this time unaware that he just wanted to debate. We go in and a discussion starts. After a few slip ups on his part we dismissed ourselves with him having confessed that He believed that The Godhead was the true nature of God and then trying to cover himself multiple times.

He then called two days later and after a brief exchange of words both of us hung up.(havent heard from him since)

The second we have a return Appointment with. His pride and joy were the Pauline Epistles which he brought up frequently and then hastily dismissed when we brought up baptisms for the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29) the Three Kingdoms. (1 Corinthians 15:40-42). Hopefully we will be a little successful in bringing him about to a convincing of our words, which are the words of God. I liked this experience the most because it called for a time to be bold, and unwavering in the faith. During that time I can testify that I have never been more certain than any other time in my life.

Away from the encounters and on to the Investigators. Lennox is getting closer, she seems less nervous now which is always good. And she brought her cousin on Sunday, Jade who was a former investigator of ours. They were both asked a question concerning why they were there. Lennoxs answer didnt surprise me too much but Jade said that she felt drawn to it and she knew it was the right thing. Hopefully we can get her back on track as an investigator but if not we will leave it for others to reap the seeds we have sown.